ThisIsntMyMain
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Posted - 2011.04.23 09:52:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Abdiel Kavash
While I do like the novel approach to fighting lag, the idea of slowing down the very flow of time in one area just does not fit well with having one persistent universe. Especially when the slowdown can be quite easily created on demand and can spread even between systems.
Just a few examples of what I mean:
Your fleet is getting wiped out by the enemy fleet, but you have reinforcements coming from many jumps away. Normally they wouldn't get to you on time. But you deploy drones, start shooting each other, spamming random commands, etc. to lag out the node you are in, the fight slows down, and this gives your enemy much less effective time to finish you off before help arrives.
They're already doing this. Been doing it for years. Its called deliberately crashing the node. Its a consequence of this strange thing called Lag.
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The enemy is trying to repair their recently reinforced assets. You are gathering your forces, but you need, say, 30 minutes to form up. Normally, the repairs would be done in 20. So you get an army of alts in ibises to a system which shares the node with the one where the eneemy is, and start shooting each other. Time on the node slows down to 50%, giving you more than enough time to strike back.
From the Dev blog posted you're going to need a LOT of Ibisis (Ibi ?) to get 50% TD (or Gamma, I kinda like that). If you can get 500 Ibis, why cant you get 500 drakes ?
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Your enemy attacks you at two places at once. You have a fleet strong enough to deter either of the attacks, but not to split and defeat them both at once. Normally, you could go to one place, defend it, and still catch a titan bridge to the other place and save that as well. With TD, however, as soon as you engage one of the enemy fleets, time slows down, and a fight that would normally take 30 minutes of real time now takes 60. This gives the other enemy fleet enough time to destroy their target. Which basically means that although you have a force big enough to defend yourself, you lose one of the fights by default, as TD will not allow you to move efficiently.
Well, tough luck. Sorry. But its better than having your fleet logged onto a crashed node or staring at nothing and missing the second fight. At least you're actually getting to play the game.
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You could significantly slow down large fleet movements by just throwing a very small squad of expendable ships at them (Drakes anyone?) Even though normally it would just get wiped out, with TD getting in the way this will also delay warps, aligns, jumps, etc. for the large fleet.
You can already do the same. This is the same as your first point and has the same counter argument.
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I have already mentioned elsewhere problems with reinforcement timers being affected (or not being affected).
Read the Dev blog again. Reinforcement timers aren't affected. Basically anything that normally happens immediately - guns cycling, shooting, repping, dying etc all gets slowed. Things that happen slowly - eg PI, POS and Station Timers, Moon Mining etc still happen at "normal" time.
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I could go on for a bit more. Long story short: slowing down one part of the universe will have a significant impact on the rest of it as well.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. Nobody is saying that this is the perfect solution. But you have to admit that its going to be WAAAAYYYYYY better than staring at a black screen for an hour and then waking up in a station.
Right now, Lag in a heavily loaded system can be so crippling that the game is a total waste of time. Staring at a black screen is not fun. Paradoxically, the thing is that by slowing the clock rate by 50%, you will get a much more playable game than you get now. Things will be slow but your 4 hour lag fest will probably take LESS time.
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