Faction Friendly Fire

[Biostrakk110]

Sorry if someone has already posted something about this. Anyways a problem with the game that I've had for a while is the Faction members can kill each other. If you have been a part of a mushroomfleet fleet event (Escorting missions for example), then you most likely know what I mean. While aiming at an enemy ship a friendly ship might accidentally fly in front of you and feel the wrath of your guns, thus demolishing or even killing them. I simply just want a system to be put in place to fix this problem, an anti-friendly fire system for members of the same faction. I hope that it is not difficult to do. Jump drives may cause more havoc without it IMP since if somebody jumps into a war zone to help a faction member, they might get caught in the crossfire when they arrive.

 

[NeonSturm]

Most important part is, that it is lag free for a hundred dozen bullets +and+ that cannons don't cease to function just because somebody _could_ fly in their path for no apparent reason to watching newbies.

Thinking about this it might be better to equip your faction ships with shield-hardware or shield-modulation against which you do not do as much damage with faction-weapons.

Or short: make it not damage friendly as much (only 10..50%) if shields are intact when admins choose to enable this option.​

But I'm happy somebody thought of this.


I would start by adding a vertical-angle value to horizontal angles of a turret.

If the turret is at horizontal angle ha it has to have at least the vertical angle va.

check-points for n. ha = va

1. 0 = 0
2. 45 = 20
3. 90 = 30
4. 135 = 20
5. 180 = 0
6. ...

If turret now has a ha of 14 it must have a va of

• va= (h - h1) / (h - h2) * (v2 - v1) + v1

Or in non-scientist-language:

• A there is a 2D waved circle around the turret which marks the minimum heigh above which it can aim.
• degrees define the shape of the waves

Which would be how you edit in in a guy (per dock) or how it is calculated (after adding blocks).​

 

[Biostrakk110]

Most important part is, that it is lag free for a hundred dozen bullets +and+ that cannons don't cease to function just because somebody _could_ fly in their path for no apparent reason to watching newbies.

Thinking about this it might be better to equip your faction ships with shield-hardware or shield-modulation against which you do not do as much damage with faction-weapons.

Or short: make it not damage friendly as much (only 10..50%) if shields are intact when admins choose to enable this option.​

But I'm happy somebody thought of this.


I would start by adding a vertical-angle value to horizontal angles of a turret.

If the turret is at horizontal angle ha it has to have at least the vertical angle va.

check-points for n. ha = va

1. 0 = 0
2. 45 = 20
3. 90 = 30
4. 135 = 20
5. 180 = 0
6. ...

If turret now has a ha of 14 it must have a va of

• va= (h - h1) / (h - h2) * (v2 - v1) + v1

Or in non-scientist-language:

• A there is a circle around the turret which marks the minimum heigh above which it can aim.

Which would be how you edit in in a guy (per dock) or how it is calculated (after adding blocks).​

"Thinking about this it might be better to equip your faction ships with shield-hardware or shield-modulation against which you do not do as much damage with faction-weapons.

Or short: make it not damage friendly as much (only 10..50%) if shields are intact when admins choose to enable this option."

This is like what I was thinking of when I had this idea. Also nice ideas yourself.​

 

[Ithirahad]

Yeah, some kind of "shield modulation module" that scales down friendly fire would be nice, as long as it doesn't eat more space than necessary.

(Also, hey, another BIONICLE fan?)

 

[Biostrakk110]

Yeah, some kind of "shield modulation module" that scales down friendly fire would be nice, as long as it doesn't eat more space than necessary.

(Also, hey, another BIONICLE fan?)

You are the first person to ask that. I have had this username since 2009 and nobody has asked me that. And Yes I am. Have you heard the rumors of it returning next year?

 

[Ithirahad]

You are the first person to ask that. I have had this username since 2009 and nobody has asked me that. And Yes I am. Have you heard the rumors of it returning next year?

I think every BIONICLE fan has, at this point... I just hope it doesn't end up watered down or immature, like Lego's Legends of Chima is... It's okay for something to have an appeal to younger kids more than BIONICLE did, but that shouldn't mean dropping Mahi dung all over the very serious fanbase that the franchise has retained.

 

[Lenier]

It would be interesting if your ships weapons knew if they were aimed at an ally ship, or on a collision course with an allied ship, (based on the faction module or something) and would actually stop firing. Missiles/lasers already deployed would still damage allied ships but there would be no "human delay time" to stop firing, it would recalculate every weapon fire. Would that be too CPU intensive :P

Maybe you could turn it on/off from the faction module to allow fighters to attack enemies next to allied freighters without the weapons computers automatically stopping the weapons from shooting!


Another option that dovetails with urs @NeonSturm, what if you had the option of setting a "tuning value" from a "shields computer" between 0 and 99 (wrapping from 0 to 99) and maybe the same from weapons computers. Similar tuning values would screen each other out better, while different ones would allow more flak in. If you are allied you set the tuning values to the same as your allies. If you are enemies, you can try to figure out what their values are and tune your weapons/shields appropriately. Maybe even connect them all to a "tuning computer" which is seeded by a number that scrambles your tuning values so your opponent has less chance of guessing them.

Interesting? Like?

 

[Ithirahad]

It would be interesting if your ships weapons knew if they were aimed at an ally ship, or on a collision course with an allied ship, (based on the faction module or something) and would actually stop firing. Missiles/lasers already deployed would still damage allied ships but there would be no "human delay time" to stop firing, it would recalculate every weapon fire. Would that be too CPU intensive :p

Maybe you could turn it on/off from the faction module to allow fighters to attack enemies next to allied freighters without the weapons computers automatically stopping the weapons from shooting!

Somehow, I don't like this. For turrets maybe, but not for player weapons.

Another option that dovetails with urs @NeonSturm, what if you had the option of setting a "tuning value" from a "shields computer" between 0 and 99 (wrapping from 0 to 99) and maybe the same from weapons computers. Similar tuning values would screen each other out better, while different ones would allow more flak in. If you are allied you set the tuning values to the same as your allies. If you are enemies, you can try to figure out what their values are and tune your weapons/shields appropriately. Maybe even connect them all to a "tuning computer" which is seeded by a number that scrambles your tuning values so your opponent has less chance of guessing them.

That sounds... weird. No thanks.

 

[Lenier]

Ha, your easy to please!
I think it would be more interesting then arbitrary anti-friendly-fire rules. Take it or leave it!

 

[NeonSturm]

Note: In previous posts, I suggested you should be able to set a min v angle for that h angle above which the turret fires to stop it from depleting your energy and looking weird.

It would be interesting if your ships weapons knew if they were aimed at an ally ship, or on a collision course with an allied ship, (based on the faction module or something) and would actually stop firing. Missiles/lasers already deployed would still damage allied ships but there would be no "human delay time" to stop firing, it would recalculate every weapon fire. Would that be too CPU intensive :p

Maybe you could turn it on/off from the faction module to allow fighters to attack enemies next to allied freighters without the weapons computers automatically stopping the weapons from shooting!

Collision-test with an imaginary projectile colliding with the predicted position of all allies would take too much time.

Required cpu time = box-scale * collision-test * all-allies + full-scale * maybe-hit-allies + position-prediction-of(all allies!)​

I don't like to bring arguments against this, but even less I would like notice-able lag included.

Maybe humans pilots should have this while having their weapons on friendly mode?
BTW: IRL all weapons have a safety mode, but we can have a 1 damage weapon next to a jamer and salvager starting a war.​

Another option that dovetails with urs @NeonSturm, what if you had the option of setting a "tuning value" from a "shields computer" between 0 and 99 (wrapping from 0 to 99) and maybe the same from weapons computers. Similar tuning values would screen each other out better, while different ones would allow more flak in. If you are allied you set the tuning values to the same as your allies. If you are enemies, you can try to figure out what their values are and tune your weapons/shields appropriately. Maybe even connect them all to a "tuning computer" which is seeded by a number that scrambles your tuning values so your opponent has less chance of guessing them.

Interesting? Like?

Yes for RP, no for PvP. Is it worth the time to implement this?

dunno - depends on how long it would take (which depends on how the code is linked to other calculations)​

It would be nice for RP servers, but an easy exploit if somebody has 50 drones with different values and watch their damage through a log-parser

(value-named ship did x damage to an enemy ship).
​

Also peoples can hack a client to get values stored locally.

If clients have to wait for a server-response whether enough damage to destroy these blocks is done, it would cause much lag.
​

Would like it, but again - you need something that does not produce lag and is equally easy to counter on all ship sizes with checker-board cannon-cannon s and a program parsing logged values​

 

[ltmauve]

I like the idea of the modulator, but having it be from 0 to 99 does mean there will be lots of intersection. If you expand the range to, say, the entire integer range (2^32) you greatly reduce the chance of someone else having the same modulator value as you. Even if they have multiple ships with different values.
Now, as for people hacking it using local values, the server determines if there are hits in the first place? Why should clients need to know that?

 

[jayman38]

Now, as for people hacking it using local values, the server determines if there are hits in the first place? Why should clients need to know that?

I think they are referring to client-based network prediction. However, I think that could be worked around with a roll-back process, where the attack against a friendly appears to do damage as normal, but the server "rolls" back the effect after determining a modulation match, so that the client updates, maybe showing a negative damage number, plus any destroyed blocks reappear. This might generate odd behavior if the weapon has a velocity effect (push/pull/stop), because if a velocity change is rolled back, the target vessel will not only go right back to the original velocity (plus thrust), but it will be placed into an entirely different location (where it was supposed to end up with its original velocity), jumping the ship into an location that is unexpected to the observing player and breaking their immersion. We kinda have that problem now in almost all multiplayer games when lag disrupts smooth movement, so I think people will be able to dismiss it as just another glitch in the StarMade Matrix. On the other hand, if both velocity effect and shield modulation are common, you'll have battles where a lot of ships appear to be jumping wildly all over the place.