Collisions

[Randy1]

The guys with the big canons seem to like the HO since the canons can win often before a collision shows on their plane.

[Lusche]

To help visualising things, here an actual online collision (the one from the animation above) and how different the "two realites" really are:

Pony trying to ram a P-47. This is how the collision looked in the Pony player's world:




And this is exact the same moment of 'collision', as it happened in the Jug player's world:


(note the "Lusche has collided with you" system message.

As you can see, there never was a collision on the P-47's screen. So "damage both" would in fact mean you would take damage from collisions that never happened on your screen at all. Imagine sucessfully dodging a collision and still getting ther message...

[-error]

Guys, I've read all this and became terrified.
We have plenty of games out there in which hit detection is done on client side. And they are flooded with cheaters. See infamous battlefield 3.
I hope any encryption/verification/etc involved in game protocol. Is it?

[Karnak]

Foe me it's never been an exact distance.  Just a number most can visualize easily as being a noticeble distance away.

Wiley.

Of course it isn't.  The distance is based on the time it takes for data from one computer to reach the other, routing through Texas, and on the speed differential of the participants. Since those aren't constants the distance will also not be a constant.  That is why you can't reliably fly through somebody on the their computer by flying in front of them on yours.  You're probably more likely to fly right in front of their guns at a "can't miss" range than collide with them.

[Wiley]

Of course it isn't.  The distance is based on the time it takes for data from one computer to reach the other, routing through Texas, and on the speed differential of the participants. Since those aren't constants the distance will also not be a constant.  That is why you can't reliably fly through somebody on the their computer by flying in front of them on yours.  You're probably more likely to fly right in front of their guns at a "can't miss" range than collide with them.

Yep.  And that is why I don't worry much about intentional rammers.  I welcome you flying in front of my plane to try to get me to collide.

Wiley.

[RotBaron]

Been around and around on this topic.

Something that still bothers me about it is the situation where the guy flying the bombers gets the collision and takes the damage because that is what his client saw and the enemy plane did not take any damage because evidently it is not what was seen on his end. I just don't see a way for the bomber formation to do anything about it, and thus (sorry to differ Skuzzy) but I am not in complete control over whether I collide with the enemy plane. This happens both flying straight and level and almost always against a jug.

What is the bomber formation to do? Often happens when I'm short on ammo and with multiple attackers. My time lately has been limited, but this is also one reason I haven't flown bombers in weeks. It happens to me a lot.

 

[ImADot]

I think part of the equation is the smoothing code. The way I understand it, the code tries to anticipate the flight paths of other planes around you, so they don't jump all over the place. When the other players change course, the code makes adjustments accordingly. If a plane is going very fast (like in a dive on your bombers), and then pulls out in time (on his end), it takes the smoothing code some amount of time to adjust his path. Sometimes the resulting lag is great enough that the course change info doesn't get to you game engine in time and your games sees a collision that the other guy does not.

Perhaps what is needed is an adjustment in the smoothing code to tighten up the timings.

[coombz]

What is the bomber formation to do?

Be a man and fly a fighter plane 

[Karnak]

Been around and around on this topic.

Something that still bothers me about it is the situation where the guy flying the bombers gets the collision and takes the damage because that is what his client saw and the enemy plane did not take any damage because evidently it is not what was seen on his end. I just don't see a way for the bomber formation to do anything about it, and thus (sorry to differ Skuzzy) but I am not in complete control over whether I collide with the enemy plane. This happens both flying straight and level and almost always against a jug.

What is the bomber formation to do? Often happens when I'm short on ammo and with multiple attackers. My time lately has been limited, but this is also one reason I haven't flown bombers in weeks. It happens to me a lot.

 

It is a problem, but there isn't anything that can really be done about it.  All of the solutions to that problem introduce more severe problems elsewhere.

If both need computers need to detect the collision for the collision to count then collisions become very random feeling and you can usually just dive through your target blazing away from point blank.  This would be particularly hard on bombers.

If there aren't collisions then it becomes safe to fly through your target guns blazing from any angle.  Once again bombers suffer the worst consequences of this.

[RTHolmes]

... almost always against a jug.

This may be a result of the jug's fantastic dive, the higher speed differential means the displacement between the 2 FEs is larger for the same amount of lag.

[The Fugitive]

Been around and around on this topic.

Something that still bothers me about it is the situation where the guy flying the bombers gets the collision and takes the damage because that is what his client saw and the enemy plane did not take any damage because evidently it is not what was seen on his end. I just don't see a way for the bomber formation to do anything about it, and thus (sorry to differ Skuzzy) but I am not in complete control over whether I collide with the enemy plane. This happens both flying straight and level and almost always against a jug.

What is the bomber formation to do? Often happens when I'm short on ammo and with multiple attackers. My time lately has been limited, but this is also one reason I haven't flown bombers in weeks. It happens to me a lot.

 

I have a had time getting people attack my bombers where and how are you flying?

[rpm]

It can and it does. Always. Run into a large object, you will get damage.

What you are asking for is applying collision damage to you when you are NOT hit by an airplane at all.

No, what I am asking for is equal damage when the system records a collision because at some point the server sees two flight paths cross. If they cross, both get damaged. If they don't everybody flies away happy. If the system can track a bullet it can track an airplane. Saying it can't follow the same procedure as a bullet is just giving up on solving the problem because "it's too hard to fix".

[ImADot]

No, what I am asking for is equal damage when the system records a collision because at some point the server sees two flight paths cross. If they cross, both get damaged. If they don't everybody flies away happy. If the system can track a bullet it can track an airplane. Saying it can't follow the same procedure as a bullet is just giving up on solving the problem because "it's too hard to fix".

You clearly still do not understand.

The server sees nothing. Your computer's game engine sees something (whether it's a collsion or a bullet hit) and relays that info to the main server, which then trasmits that info to all other players in the area. The closer the players are to each other, the faster and more data is sent/recieved. Because of the nature of the Internet and laws of Physics, your game engine see a slightly different "reality" than the other players in the area.

[Lusche]

No, what I am asking for is equal damage when the system records a collision because at some point the server sees two flight paths cross. If they cross, both get damaged.

There are not two flight paths, there are four.

See my pictures above, these are the two realities AH has to cope with. They will always be disparate. And there is no additional "third one" on the server.

You will always have situations, in which there is a collision happening on one players front end while not on the other one's. And there are in theory three ways to handle it:

- Both get damaged  all the time. Which means you will get a lot of "collisions" when you have clearly avoided the enemy plane, sometimes even by hundred yards or more.
- No one gets damaged unless both FE's see a collision. That would introduce an almost random feature, with US players getting more likely to end up in a collision than more distant ones
- What you see is what you get. If there's a collision on your screen, you take damage. If there's a collision on your enemy's screen, he takes damage.

[deadstikmac]

Here is what everyone in this thread needed to read before replying....

http://netaces.org/lag/lag.htm



Well most of the ppl in this thread needed too read this........