Chith
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Posted - 2005.11.29 16:05:00 -
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Edited by: Chith on 29/11/2005 16:24:43
It would be nice if scan probes actually "used" trig to locate points progressively closer and closer. Whatever system is in place now effectively makes them useless if you don't "surround" the target with probes. Even in those cases where you do surround the target, probes which are just barely in range (using > ~75% of their max range) often do not work. Beyond those two cases, there still others which often fails attempts at scanning. These inconsistancies seem to be much more prevalent with the larger range probes. Because of all this, many safespots continue to be very difficult to probe, as a factor of how much time it can take to grab them. It certainly often makes probes useless if used in combat situations due to time constraints even with covops and astro both at 5.
In my dream probe-scan-land, probes would actually "use" trig but respect the min and max scan deviations. Have the game check to see if the 3 probes selected are each:
- within their scan range to the target
- at least min_scan_deviation distance away from any other probe which is in use for that scan
The scanner would then return a random point in a cloud around the target of a radius that averages the max scan deviations of all probes.
I have a couple of theories for how the game is currently calculating probe points, but suffice to say it's borked. The above system uses very simple math due to the fact that the server already "knows" where the ship actually is. As far as I can tell, it shouldn't be all that daunting to implement.
If this post would be better served by being in the Ideas forum, please feel free to move it to that graveyard, mods. Otherwise I'll just crosspost some time in the future after more testing. I completely allow the possibility that I'm missing the enlightenment of some glaringly obvious truth in the way these things are truly operating.
Oh, and cut down the warp speed of covops ships to 3au/s while in turn reducing the overall scan time. Had to say it. If the above changes are enacted at the same time, it wouldn't even have to be a lot at all. The added functionality and consistancy would well be worth it.
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