Scheulagh Santorine
The Math Department
31
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Posted - 2016.06.10 19:18:49 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Sledgehammer wrote:Tactical Overlay Iterations:We have added the following to the Tactical Overlay:
- Cyno portal range has been added as a translucent red sphere, indicating the radius at which the cyno portal will spawn from your ship.
- Action lines (such as for fighters) are now tied to the presence of the overlay.
- Module hover indication time has been increased.
- Ship and fighter orbits are now represented (WIP)**.
- Velocity/Chance-to-hit information for locked targets (WIP)**.
- Click command confirmations**.
... CCP Sledgehammer.
CCP Sledgehammah,
It is exciting to hear that you are considering changes to the UI that will give pilots more information about combat. I had some thoughts and questions on this because it is a subject I've thought about in the past.
First, when you are considering adding 'Chance to Hit' information, not all of the information a pilot would need to determine that probability is available in the interface right now. While distance, transverse velocity, signature resolution of your turrets, falloff, are all available to you as a pilot, the signature radius of the target, however, is not dynamically available in the interface. If the target is pulsing a MWD or they are fit with shield mods, you can't know their sig radius. You can try to infer it from velocity but it is not, as far as I know, communicated with other clients on-grid. In this way, determining the hit chance and presenting this information to players will now provide us with information that was previously unknowable in the interface. This is an interesting development that I think would take some of the mystery out of combat for new players, as well as eliminate the need to explain log arithmetic when describing tracking mechanics. So, this could be positive for new players.
Second, from the discussion on reddit, as well as in this thread, it is not clear whether there will be improved support for control of automatic orbit plane? I.e. will we be able to control the plane of orbit that we establish when using the orbit command? This should be a straightforward addition because the existing orbit algorithm pilots towards a point that is a set distance away from the target. What about using the camera vector as the way to specify the orbit plane with both of those common points (I can post a full explanation in my blog next week if you are interested). This would give new pilots the opportunity to command orbits that avoided immovable objects such as 'roids and stations, which would normally require manual piloting.
Finally, Would you also be interested in considering changes that help player visualize the transverse velocity vector? I have some ideas on how this could be done. I haven't written them up in the past because I don't want to be perceived to be lobbying for changes to the game based on my writing. Maybe I'll add my notes on this when I get a chance. Glad to see you are considering giving players more geometric tools for combat.
Regards,
S. Santorine
============================== I used to shoot things. Now I do math.
S. Santorine
Writings on some formal methods in EvE-Online: EVE Math & Physics Blog
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