descentchampions.org

A lot of people have told me something isn't right with the net code and that I need to look at it. I haven't had time to really take it apart (Too Busy Playing To Code), but I have been collecting reports.

I ran across a great example in one of my recent matches -- here: http://descentchampions.org/view_match.php?id=690 , demo link on the war journal page. One of my kills is clearly bogus, and I want to mention it publicly to demonstrate just what is (and isn't) happening, and show how far off things can get.

You can watch the demo (it's around 12%), but here's the frame-by-frame:



I've looked at the demo up that point and I'm reasonably sure Dravis has 100 shields or pretty close to it, so the only thing that can have gotten him (especially with no leadup clangs) is that smart missile. And he is never in its path.

Lag can't explain that. Nor is that his hit box being "behind him". He never gets close to where that missile goes. The only thing I can think is that it's been fired from a different position or orientation on his screen -- it'd be nice to know which. Sadly, I don't have the demo from his end, so I don't know.

Kinda sucks that things can be off that far, but for now, the game we have is the game we have. But at least now we know. And those of you who've said to me, "I pounded the living daylights out of him and he flew away like nothing happened"? It's not in your head. I missed Dravis by most of a shipwidth in both directions, and he died. Your shots can be off by THAT MUCH between the two screens -- and not in time (lag), but in space.

If you have this sort of thing on demo from both sides, please let me know. I'd really like to study what's happening.

(This was in retrohomers, so 57.3 -- but I've heard similar reports in 58.1. I don't know if the behavior is significantly different there. If you do know, tell me.)

I've occasionally had pilots who are hard to hit, and then I'll be shooting maybe 2 ship lengths over from where they are, and they're moving AWAY from my shots, and I get a ton of clangs. Clangs on a ship that isn't in the path of my shots, and wasn't recently in the path of my shots, and isn't moving into the path of my shots.

It's satisfying when it happens that way, and not so satisfying when it happens the other way -- when the ship is holding still right in the middle of several consecutive volleys of something, and the opponent just sits there not taking hits and not trying to move, as if he sees me pointed in a different direction. I remember it vividly once when I snuck up on LoNi early in our Vamped game and unloaded for 2-3 seconds, and then he casually turned around and shot me (I blamed the lag and started flying stupid, just trying to end the game at that point.) I had it happen against Ryguy once, where he was holed up in a corner and I was putting spreadfire all over his ship from maybe one cube away, and after a couple seconds he flew right toward me and killed me. I even think I've seen it happen against Drakona, and her computer is like 30 feet away from mine.

I don't know what's to blame. I'm pretty sure it's not intentional on anyone's part. It might be the netcode either sending the wrong ship direction, or interpreting it wrong, in certain circumstances. It may be worse in laggier conditions, but if it happens on LAN, it's probably not caused by high ping.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this sort of thing didn't happen on Kali. There was lag. And you lag led. And it worked.

Which implies it's solvable. We'll get to the bottom of it, given enough time and data.

I've been preaching that the netcode had issues. It's not lag...I'm intimately familiar as I was once called Jedilag.

I've got demos that show things that shouldn't have happened as well and lag doesn't explain them away.

I have seen this too. I probably have a demo somewhere, but I can't remember when I did it, so it would be a search. It happened a few times in that game too, and I was completely surprised when the person died. This might explain why I have some games where I know I should be hitting my opponent, and I'm not. There are games the other way too, where I have no idea what just hit me, or why, even though I'm looking toward the person shooting at me. It is usually a Jedi trick though...

LotharBot, If that was a DCL match, do you have a demo? I probably do. It would be interesting to compare.

It was a DCL match (in Nocturnal; you won 21-19; date was September 9) but I don't have a demo.

What I do remember is it was fairly late in the game, I think maybe tied at 18 or 19, and you came out of the bottom doorway and flew into the corner of that funny little ramp-thing. I spammed the crap out of the corner with spread, and then you flew at me and killed me, and I was very confused as to how you'd lived. But of course if you saw me aimed a different direction, you probably thought "that noob has terrible aim" and then you killed me

I have the demo for that one. If that is the case, it probably cost you the game. I'll take it though .



There is a time at about 97% that I fire a homing missile, I watch it hit the wall, and then you die. Far away. I didn't see the moment you were talking about though. You might have to watch it to point it out to me (I only watched from about 16 kills onward).

Can I just say I love the photoshop job in the OP, Drakona ;)

While we're looking into things, I personally believe that it is easier to intentionally stop a smart missile with your face, and have the plasma miss now.

Back in the day, I made a demo of this trick in Fuzed... and it took me a bunch of tries. Now, I feel like I can do it at will. If the smart missile is going to go past me and trap me, I can let it hit me head-on and fairly easily (at least, I think) have the plasma blobs miss.

This would also be something I'd like to try out with different versions, maybe it's only true in the homer mod version, or maybe it's true in both... which would be really interesting.

Anyway, maybe not the best idea at all times but I personally love this trick! I think it's too easy to do now, though... would be curious if others observe the same if we can do a demo test of it.

What would've been really interesting to see would be the smart missile from Dravis' perspective in the OP (although I know he didn't record a demo) as I assume it thought it hit him, the plasma blobs came out, and got him... would be interesting to see the next frame or two of Drakona's demo, too, to see if he just up and dies or if the plasma blobs are visible.

Good work, detectives!!