Originally by: Mara Rinn

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Dear CCP: time for scanner probes to return a result: 5 seconds. Time between activations of system scanner: 2 seconds, not accounting for lag.

Lag is not predictable. If you miss the earliest possible time by half a second, you could potentially have missed the scanner probes that the cloaked enemy is using to track you down. The option is to wait for about 1.8 seconds from the previous scan result, then mash that "Scan" button like mad until the server decides that the appropriate amount of time has passed.

Two seconds server side is not the same thing as two seconds client side. Anyone who wishes to dispute that can please read up about latency and jitter, and explain how a human who does not have access to traffic records for optical fibre links across the Pacific Ocean is supposed to predict when the two second window has actually expired.

Remember, two second window means only two chances to see the probes that are scanning you down. If you miss one window because you counted to three seconds instead of two (one one hundred monkeys, two one hundred monkeys.. but actually take three seconds because you were really thinking about hot grits in Natalie Portman's pants), you end up dead (hello Arazu and Curse tag team).

Some ways of improving the player experience would be to provide a timer bar on the scanner window which shows recalibration time, allow the player to press the button before the recalibration time is up, and have this request queued at the server, and simply ignore repeated keypresses and button mashin.

Work with us here.

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