The asteroid ping-pong is unreal - Fixed!

Araknis · Post by **Araknis** » Sat, 27. Feb 16, 02:15

The first time i went in Koroni, i had a Xenon I with me cause i was not sure what i ll face. Better safe than sorry.
The 2nd time, i went with a Taranis. I thought, faster, more agile, it wouldnt take forever to move like it did with the I.
I could never imagine the ping-pong championship i was about to witness, first row too, straight from the capital bridge.
I should probably make a video of the Taranis trying to boost through the asteroid field and bumping on everything, getting knocked back while boosting, changing direction and bumping on something else to get knocked back again and again and again .... and then fly straight into an asteroid the size of a small moon and surprise get knocked back again.
I checked the captain's skills and he is 4/4/5.

I think it took me twice the time to travel that field, than what it took me with the slow I that went through everything without problem.

ezra-r · Post by **ezra-r** » Sat, 27. Feb 16, 15:06

When I saw that yesterday I thought it was a bug and I was about to report it (will do), I see no mention on it in the changelog, or maybe I didn't check.

The thing is, when a cap ship boosts (or when it boosts and you are in it at least) it makes 0 sense that collition detection is ON since the capital ship will bump every single asteroid it find in its path, this kind of behaviour didn't happen before (in 3.x I warped in the bridge of a cap ship countless times and never happened).

So now I wonder, is this a bug that has slipped through by mistake? I hope this wasn't place intentionally, makes as little sense as shield damage for AI bumping we had a few patches ago, there is no way AI can avoid asteroids while boosting so enabling collision for a capital ship boosting is just wishing to give player frustration.

Post by **UniTrader** » Sat, 27. Feb 16, 15:25

well, for some reason they removed the "cheaty" function of clearing Asteroids in a Capships Path.. i am pretty sure this was also reported in the Beta Forumdring testing. Not sure if that is intentional (and thereby making the game more "real") or if this was removed accidently...

ezra-r · Post by **ezra-r** » Sat, 27. Feb 16, 15:31

UniTrader wrote:well, for some reason they removed the "cheaty" function of clearing Asteroids in a Capships Path.. i am pretty sure this was also reported in the Beta Forumdring testing. Not sure if that is intentional (and thereby making the game more "real") or if this was removed accidently...

Not cheaty, nor real, no way.

Real would be if cap ships would know how to choose a path and avoid asteroids in path to boost, but they do not, they go boost straight to asteroids or any other objects and bump and bump and keep bumping doing senseless manuvering noone would ever do in a "real" scenario, I would rather avoid this "real non-cheaty mess" at all costs.

So, unless AI ships can decide the path to boost through properly, collision on is just call for fustration.

Note that I am not sure if this affects cap ships boosting by theirselves, what I have seen is cap ships bumping everything like nuts when you are inside them.

Araknis · Post by **Araknis** » Sat, 27. Feb 16, 16:32

Actually why even go along the path of that field and not travel in a straight line through empty space?
First time i get, exploration etc.
2nd time when you want to get to the far zones of the sector, you have to go through everything before it, which is pointless i think.

Carl Sumner · Post by **Carl Sumner** » Sat, 27. Feb 16, 23:41

Maybe they are trying to put collisions back in, but it sounds like sort of a bug anyway.

The thing is, ships find their own path. It is not just a mechanical series of waypoints, they choose the path as they go.

In earlier games they had detailed collision damage that was very realistic. But you could accidentilly destroy your ship way too easily, and NPC capships got destroyed regularly by accidents.

It turns out that a real autopilot is -very- hard to design and requires a -lot- of CPU cycles. When it was simplified enough to work in the game in hundreds of ships at once, it was too stupid to live!

It was a standard joke in the older games, so much so that when someone misspelled the word "autopillok", that soon became the standard name on the forums!

Most of us thought that removing collision damage in the new game was a good idea, even if not realistic. At least until personal computers get another order of magnitude more powerful...

ezra-r · Post by **ezra-r** » Mon, 29. Feb 16, 19:54

someone posted a related bug in Beta forum, I also added a save in the middle of bumping in case anyone wants to contribute:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=387666

reanor · Post by **reanor** » Mon, 29. Feb 16, 22:16

It must be a 'bug' because ships still boost through station hulls with no problem, but asteroids bounce them back.

ezra-r · Post by **ezra-r** » Tue, 1. Mar 16, 11:05

Yes, then certainly does not sound like really inteded behaviour.

Hope we get a clarification

flyboychuckles · Post by **flyboychuckles** » Tue, 1. Mar 16, 15:28

I spent 30min trying to fly out of Toride on a cap ship before exiting the game. I tried to make a right angle approach by setting a way point way out to the left of the system where there are no zones. The cap ship still decided it had to boost down the asteroid lanes instead of leaving the rocky lane and going into empty space. It was even 100 degrees off course (going down and a bit to the right, down the asteroid lane instead of going direct into the blackness.

Very frustrating

Araknis · Post by **Araknis** » Tue, 1. Mar 16, 20:01

if you put seta on and fly through empty space in a straight line to your destination with the skunk, any cap that follows you will fly through empty space as well (boosting when the shield recharges).
If you dock and ask for a ride, you ll go through the asteroid field.
I went there again, this time with a Fulmekron.
No bumping, which means that the biggest caps dont suffer from that behavior but in the case of the Fulmekron, smaller asteroids used to get stuck on the engines as i was passing through the field, then the stuck roid was getting tangled with the bigger ones and i ended up pulling along with me asteroids of various sizes.
The sad part is by traveling in there and messing things like that, i end up ruining the perfect rock formations and the whole feeling it gives away.

Post by **UniTrader** » Tue, 1. Mar 16, 20:13

Araknis wrote:The sad part is by traveling in there and messing things like that, i end up ruining the perfect rock formations and the whole feeling it gives away.

just fly away and get back.. the position of the rocks isnt saved permanently anyway - its (re)calculated based on given params whenever you enter the Area. Only the Density changes based on how much of the Field is mined, but because of the extremely high replenishment i doubt any Vanilla player has seen this so far..

Zaydin · Post by **Zaydin** » Tue, 1. Mar 16, 20:40

Araknis wrote:Actually why even go along the path of that field and not travel in a straight line through empty space?
First time i get, exploration etc.
2nd time when you want to get to the far zones of the sector, you have to go through everything before it, which is pointless i think.

Yeah, that's kind of grating to me. Cap ships will take a roundabout path in Toride and follow the asteroids rather than just flying in a straight line.

Virtualaughing · Post by **Virtualaughing** » Wed, 2. Mar 16, 01:01

XY Zone where the "Badlands (FL)" type of asteroids lurking around. Just for a target practice boarded an abandoned ship. Set to lead a small armada of mine. The whole purpose behind it to fill a missing order "attack nearest enemy". And when the fun begins.....

To avoid a certain type of hostile bases and forces just set the destination to avoid more and more ASSTEROIDS.
Half hour with SETA and this fancy balet gone forward 3 kilometer !
Lets try another way. OOS. Barely leaving the gate and a message appears.... BlaBla ship under attack... .... .... BOOM!

Yeah flying battleships are not fun. Lets watch them flying in a balet

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Wed, 2. Mar 16, 02:40

Heh, so I'm not the only one who recognises the "Badlands in Freelancer" (south of was it the Manhattan sector?) look of Toride

One of my favourite locations was there, Buffalo rogue base, because it sold the Dagger light fighter, best in its class. Also, the area had some decent salvage (patrol 50-something, IIRC)

Anyhow, on topic... Yes, I've also had similar hassles there with capital ships - in 4.00 they've finally taken away the magical "capital ships disintegrate asteroids they boost through" - but they forgot to tell the captains that those rocks are no longer made of smoke! Hopefully it gets fixed soon, as it's quite an interesting area, but quite impossible to navigate IZ on a capital ship (even one as small and nimble as a Lepton) - and I LIKE to travel in style, it's my preferred method (as another user likes to say, "boys pilot, men command"). Anyhow, there's a whole other thread going on about this issue (the thread's title has "ping pong" in it.)

Virtualaughing · Post by **Virtualaughing** » Wed, 2. Mar 16, 04:25

flyboychuckles wrote:I spent 30min trying to fly out of Toride on a cap ship before exiting the game. I tried to make a right angle approach by setting a way point way out to the left of the system where there are no zones. The cap ship still decided it had to boost down the asteroid lanes instead of leaving the rocky lane and going into empty space. It was even 100 degrees off course (going down and a bit to the right, down the asteroid lane instead of going direct into the blackness.

Very frustrating

THIS!

By collision my capship went "down" from the ecliptic of the zones. Then decided to turned "up" to the diredtion of the nearest zone. So back on track inside asteroid fields an turned to the required destination.

Virtualaughing · Post by **Virtualaughing** » Thu, 3. Mar 16, 02:32

I will continue there. Whoever can do it you can merge this with that topic

Thanks in advance !

reanor · Post by **reanor** » Thu, 3. Mar 16, 22:43

They need to merge and rename a topic to "PingPong Balet"

Post by **Nanook** » Thu, 3. Mar 16, 23:36

Virtualaughing wrote:I will continue there. Whoever can do it you can merge this with that topic
Thanks in advance !

As you wish.

laminblake · Post by **laminblake** » Fri, 4. Mar 16, 02:41

The ping pong is getting annoying in my game. I made the mistake of building up in devries so most of my capital ships are bouncing around like billiard balls. Maybe they are going to be releasing collision detection? Maybe not? But i do hope in the short term they get rid of asteroid collisions. Right now it's not even realistic, it's just stupid and annoying.

The asteroid ping-pong is unreal - Fixed!

The asteroid ping-pong is unreal - Fixed!

Capital Madness