Pilot Archive

I have been flying the ARC-170 for a few days now and as you may know the ARC has one of the widest firing patterns around. For a while I have been wondering how the firing pattern works. Can ships like A-Wings and TIE Advanced squeeze between the shots? Sometimes I felt like they could, other times I felt like they could not. So finally I decided to test it.

I disabled an A-Wing in space and got behind it. I rotated so that the A-Wing was on its side compared to me so that it had the best chance possible to fit between my blasts. I aimed directly at it and fired a shot. What do you think happened? The blaster bolts seemed to fly right past the A-Wing but it still registered as a hit. That leads me to believe that firing patterns might be more myth than truth. For the rest of the night I ignored the fact that my blasts were coming from the wingtips and played like I was flying a chin-mounted TIE fighter or an ear-mounted Scyk and my accuracy went up by a lot. Seems to me that the hit registers from the center of the pattern. If I focus on getting the blaster bolt itself to hit the target my accuracy is way down.

Now I haven't tried this with off-center guns on ships like the KSE Firespray, only ships with centered guns like the Scyk and the ARC-170. Has anyone else done any testing?

I'm not sure about the ARC-170. But I've had plenty of instances when NPC fighters have flown between the lasers on my B-Wing, X-Wing (without the 3rd gun), and Z-95.

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Coran_Sienar wrote:
I'm not sure about the ARC-170. But I've had plenty of instances when NPC fighters have flown between the lasers on my B-Wing, X-Wing (without the 3rd gun), and Z-95.

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i haven't tested the x-wing or b-wing enough to make a decision yet, however i am 100% certain that the z-95 is a centerfire ship. a ship CANNOT slip in between both bolts. the bolts are merely a graphic representation created to throw off your eye, it's possible due to lag or something else in flight while fighting that it looked like a ship slipped in between the bolts, but i am 100% certain that the z-95 causes damage from the center in between both bolts, as opposed to each individual bolt. i would not be surprised if all ships were centerfire, but again, i am only sure about the z-95

wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if ships like the interceptor are also centerfire, flying in the face of conventional wisdom on the boards that suggest it's easier to hit with the way the bolts are spread out. i'd really like someone to test an x-wing/b-wing etc to see if the same is true for them. it' easily tested. grab a friend with an IGI or JSF. have them park. duel them and see if it's really the case that you can fire around them. doublecheck by using different distances.

incidentally, even if it is found that there is more than one point for doing damage on multi gun ships, i bet that it's never a case where each individual bolt counts as a score, but rather some kind of invisible points inbetween all the bolts determining the pattern.

Message Edited by quadpers0n on 09-15-2005 10:02 AM

When you're fighting NPCs...yep, happens sometimes.

However, PvP wise, it is less likely.
When you're in a tight furball with someone, most of the time you'll be regarding their starship from all three profiles. That is to say, part of their top, front and side will be showing due to them turning and rolling, thus inflating the total area your guns will be hitting. An Actis or RG TIE 'might' be exempt, but an A-wing in a turn, is hittable by a Z-95 and z-95s have notoriously horrible weapon spread.(if the A-wing pilot is just dumb and keeps turning in a uniform fashion).

So to summarise, if you're getting off shots from sheer perspectives, such as right from behind as you do mainly with NPCs, then yeh fire is likely to fly past them if you're an Arc. In turning PvP situations...it is possible but not as likely.

The thing I do with my A-wing vs. Npcs is to decelerate while firing at them. I know lasers don't converge in this game, but lining up a shot with a further away target which perspective wise fits into your cross hairs seems to mean more landed hits in my experience.

The heavy z-95 has a single gun, but split fire with a wide pattern.

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LeaphChausew wrote:

When you're fighting NPCs...yep, happens sometimes.

However, PvP wise, it is less likely.
When you're in a tight furball with someone, most of the time you'll be regarding their starship from all three profiles. That is to say, part of their top, front and side will be showing due to them turning and rolling, thus inflating the total area your guns will be hitting. An Actis or RG TIE 'might' be exempt, but an A-wing in a turn, is hittable by a Z-95 and z-95s have notoriously horrible weapon spread. (if the A-wing pilot is just dumb and keeps turning in a uniform fashion).

So to summarise, if you're getting off shots from sheer perspectives, such as right from behind as you do mainly with NPCs, then yeh fire is likely to fly past them if you're an Arc. In turning PvP situations...it is possible but not as likely.

The thing I do with my A-wing vs. Npcs is to decelerate while firing at them. I know lasers don't converge in this game, but lining up a shot with a further away target which perspective wise fits into your cross hairs seems to mean more landed hits in my experience.

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Leaph, in the test I did I found that even though the bolts APPEAR to go around an NPC they still register a hit. In effect, I found that my results mirror what meeuki is saying. At least on the ARC the bolt graphics are graphics only, and hits are instead registered from the dead-center of the crosshair.

Hmmm...very interesting. I'll have to look into this a bit. Though I tend only to use fighters with chin mounted guns anyway.

i would be really, really interested in finding out what the real pattern on multigun fighters like the b-wing, x-wing and krayt are like. maybe it's time to load up the 250dmg "practice guns" on a the bwing and get that IGI up there.

i tell ya, if anything else the IGI is good for finding out exactly where you are shooting....

I usually test my setups on the Tier 4 and 5 droid fighters in Endor space. I'm pretty sure that even when the shield flares, no damage occurs when shots are really bracketing the opponent. But I guess it could be lag. I've never had an issue downing the smaller fighters in PvP.

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Coran_Sienar wrote:
I usually test my setups on the Tier 4 and 5 droid fighters in Endor space. I'm pretty sure that even when the shield flares, no damage occurs when shots are really bracketing the opponent. But I guess it could be lag. I've never had an issue downing the smaller fighters in PvP.

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When you say that you see the shields flare, it is lag. It's when YOUR PC thinks you should be hitting it, but the server hasn't registered the hit yet. Happens to me all the time, I usually count my 1st-3rd shots warm ups nowadays. I did a test on my own when i still had my B-wing on the mercs in Kash, not the big ships but the tall skiny ones. The 2 wingtip guns would always go around the sides of the ship, but would register dmg to it. I'm pretty sure that the bolts are just a graphic representation of the actual shot, which is probly from the center of the ship. This leads me to my next point. With ships like the X-wing, and the TIE shipsi'm assuming, where one gun gets split betweentwo or morefiring points it makes sense that the actual fire comes from the center of the ship. If you split a gun then you would be doing 1/2 dmg per bolt, but if you hit with one it still does full dmg.If this doesn't make sense to anyone but me please pardon me, i just woke up.

Update:

Ok, I did some more testing and here is what I came up with. Please note all screenshots are at full size so you have been warned.


First I repeated my test. I disabled an A-Wing and lined it up dead center.
Lined up

Next I start to fire. You can see that the shots definitely straddle the A-Wing. Despite that hits are still being scored.
He shoots, he scores!

So that would seem to confirm it. At least in the case of the ARC the REAL shot comes from the crosshairs.



So now I had more questions. I can see that a shot at the crosshair will count, but does the wide spread of my gun give me an advantage? So I found another A-Wing and did almost the same thing except I leaned to the side so that my bolt hit the A-Wing directly.
He shoots....

Following the shot the shields flare up but NO damage is scored.
Its no good!

So in fact the "Firing Pattern" is 100% myth when it comes to the ARC and I suspect there are other ships that are the same way. What I find VERY interesting, however, is that when the bolt hits directly the shield DOES light up but that does not mean a hit was scored. THIS has been a source of frustration to me since day 1 of my pilot career. At least now I understand why. A "false" hit with the bolt will cause the shields to light up but only a true hit will score damage.

>>i bet that it's never a case where each individual bolt counts as a score, but rather some kind of invisible points inbetween all the bolts determining the pattern.
>>

Dunno if its related or not, but im reminded about how the lack of convergence works here.

IE, in xwing
1 gun = 2 bolts, 1 bolt hits, it does full damage for that gun.

1A-----2B
--3A--3B-
2A-----1B

T/I 1 gun = 4 bolts, 1 bolt hits it does full damage for that gun
1A-----1B
---------
1C-----1D