Messages

1

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 14, 2013, 09:17:40 am »

I think adding "mechanical" help is not cheating ... right up until the point where you're replacing player input with mechanical assistance.

A weighted mouse is not cheating, because you still need a player who can aim that mouse and pull the trigger (press the mouse button) at the correct time. An aimbot is cheating because you are no longer needing a player to aim the gun that shoots down the enemy ship.

I'm not much of a computer 'whiz,' but if the script the OP posted is designed to let you fire guns without having to actually press the fire button each time, then yes, it is cheating. Just as it would be cheating for me to employ a method to auto-spot an enemy ship whenever it moves into my line of sight. Technically, it's not doing anything that I couldn't do on my own, but it's removing the player element from the equation (i.e., I no longer have to actually aim my spyglass and spot the enemy) in a way that's patently over the line.

I don't blame people for looking for ways to improve their performance, but I think that running outside programs that remove player input doesn't quite fall under the spirit of competition.

For clairty: All the script does is change the motion from rapidly clicking to holding down the click button. You still need to time your shots and aim. It also puts the movement of clicking and holding to rebuild on par with rapidly clicking.

With a weighted mouse the physical vibration from clicking and hand movements are dulled, so it is replacing a percentage of user input.

My concerns are more to do with RSI (repetative strain injury) which can result in permanent damage caused by repetitive muscular movement. Especially after people have been expressing a burning sensation from rapidly (excessive) clicking.

I really wish all weapons fired "full-auto" when you hold down the button, much as how tools were changed to work.

That said, there really should be no difference between holding down the button and rapidly clicking, when it comes to tools.  And when I rapidly click with a weapon, occasionally I will get a "ghost fire" where it doesn't fire, but causes the weapon cooldown.

If there is a difference, it needs to be fixed in the game.

Agreed, this needs to be brought to Muses attention, the question is, is it a bug report or a suggestion?

2

Gameplay / Re: Trifecta fire

« on: September 13, 2013, 11:09:45 am »

Munkers are fun (not a typo).

Trifecta can be good, but what is important is the overall battle, how you are positioned, how the enemy is positioned and how this is going to play out. Therefore there are still certian tactical issues you need to consider for positioning three guns on a ship, such as the position of the other enemy ship and what they may exactly do to your ship.

Edit: added detail.

3

Gameplay / Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull

« on: September 13, 2013, 11:08:03 am »

Honestly the part that sucks the most about using spanner + wrench on a squid is if going against say a blender fish, because the balloon has such a huge 'health' bar compared to everything else.
Anyway on topic, I've found that sometimes buffing the hull can also be a saving grace. What I mean is not necessarily before but during battle when it is being pummelled, by being able to boost health at the right time.

4

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 13, 2013, 10:33:16 am »

If you claim razor mouses are a necessity (which I don't), then you may consider: Rapid Fire Macro - Razor

I would have to argue that a heavy flak or lumber puts a gunner through their paces more than a gat. However, that really wasn't what I was pointing out, nor what this discussion is about.

The main point that has been raised is that any modifications which reduce the level of 'skill' required to play is considered 'cheating', the question I was asking is then modifications like weighted mouses considered cheating as accuracy is a skill.

Edit: Added clarity.

5

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 12, 2013, 03:02:22 pm »

That link isn't dangerous, it's just the way the cloud redirects to a page before linking to the file.   

But here's a different link on Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1albvx9ebisqw74/GoI%20Autoclickies.mp4

Is this less suspicious?

The spanner has a 0.75 second pause between successive hits. There is no cooldown on the rebuilds or people themselves, just the tool.

Yeah, when I was testing this is pretty much what I found too, just haven't taken a video of it.

In regards to click & hold rebuilds not being as fast as rapid clicking rebuilds.
Should this be reported in bugs and game issues, or feedback and suggestions?

I'm pretty sure guns and tools have an internal 'fire rate'.
Sort of like how a semi-automatic gun has mechanical delays which control fire rate. Input devices are only polled so many times per second in most game engines.

So yeah, triple engie will be better most of the time. Unless it's easy enough to rebuild that two engies could do it in the same time frame.

For the record, I'm pretty sure any automation or 'turbo' functions could be considered a cheat. If you've got some medical condition, that's a different story. It's a question of advantage vs disadvantage while discarding skill and 'improvable' attributes. If you work out your clicking finger, well, you deserve to click faster than me.

Edit: Sunderland'd

I sort of understand where you are coming from, but with the logic of "advantage vs disadvantage while discarding skill and 'improvable' attributes". What do you say about people who use a weighted mouse? Are they cheating too.

I know it's not completely comparable because In theory a rapid fire click script is actually more universal due to ironahk being opensource and crossplatform, where as a precision weighted mouse really is a question of investment of the user.

6

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 11, 2013, 02:27:36 am »

In the past two Sunday rumbles I have been a main engineer for BFS and have used the click to hold technique that was added in a patch earlier this year.
Just to be clear I haven't used rapid clicking ever during competitions. I wanted to broach this topic on the forum and have some level of transparency before even considering it.

I hadn't considered if it was slower for rebuilding, I'll test this out in my own practice match.

• Should all weapons have an optional click and hold to fire mode?
• Is click and hold repairing at threshold of spam click?
• Does spamming clicks send extra packets?

I would also like to thank every one so far for contributing to what I find both an important and interesting discussion.

7

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 09, 2013, 07:58:13 am »

Yeah, personally I'm considering it from an RSI preventative point of view, it would be easy enough to measure one's own average click rate and then adjust the script to match, however that can't be easily policed or detected.

I could be wrong but I would assume that clicks are filtered both client and server side, networking is expensive, you don't want to send pointless packets. Would need a muse developer to comment to really know though.

Also for clarity, I didn't write or modify the script, I just found it on that forum.

Edit: spelling correction.

8

Gameplay / Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull

« on: September 08, 2013, 06:31:35 am »

spanner + wrench is good on squid. :p

9

Gameplay / Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 08, 2013, 05:40:01 am »

Hi,
So with a tiny bit of experimentation I found it was possible to have the carronade, mortor and traditionally click to fire weapons act like the gatling gun, flamer, etc which are click and hold to fire types of weapons.

The most universal way this can be done is through using software such as autohotkey which allows you to define your own global shortcuts.

For example this script enables the insert key to toggle rapid fire left click

Ins::Suspend
LButton::
Loop
{
SetMouseDelay 30
Click
If (GetKeyState("LButton","P")=0)
Break
}

Found at: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/39855-rapidfire-left-click-script/

Certain mouse drivers also support this type of integration.

10

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Quick Join Sabotage?

« on: May 14, 2013, 05:23:32 am »

http://i.imgur.com/BtSXm32.jpg

11

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: WTF 'Dust In The Wind'

« on: May 14, 2013, 05:17:02 am »

Whoever came up with this is a saddist : Extinguish fires on guns in CP.

Don't you DARE talk about that achievement. It took me two months. Seriously.

People don't play 3v3 often. And even when you do play 3v3, it's only CP half the time. And when you do play CP, hardly anybody has flamers. And when somebody brings flamers, they hardly ever use them on you. And when they do, they NEVER HIT THE GUNS. And when they do hit the guns, your teammates put the fires out first. Screw that achievement.

Can I trade a hat for that achievement please?

12

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Website/forum chat

« on: May 14, 2013, 05:14:50 am »

In regards to effort I was meaning have the game lobby chat hooked into an ajax web client.

13

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Thank you Muse and CA's

« on: May 14, 2013, 05:06:50 am »

Personally I believe all the CAs are worthy of a skywhale after last weekend.

14

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The 2 Engineer/1 Gunner Meta, and getting people to follow it

« on: May 14, 2013, 05:04:22 am »

Personally, I think the gunner class should be something you have to unlock in order to use it, it is not a newbie friendly class. I couldn't tell you the number of times I have had to direct gunners to either repair their own gun or the balloon. Or better yet, jump on the wrong gun.

Sadly 2x gunners, 1 engineer and pilot is not too uncommon either.

15

Gameplay / Re: GUNS Balance Questions and Concerns v1.2

« on: May 14, 2013, 04:31:26 am »

If carronade is to be primarily used for armor stripping then that just means it is another 'gat+flak' combo reducing the number of viable mechanics.

Even after the carronade angle nerf the weapon remains a viable galleon/spire killer. The balloons on those ships are so high above the main gun deck that a squid or goldfish can park in the pocket level to the balloon but above the fire arc of non lumberjack medium guns and go to town. It is extreamly difficult to get in position and stay there, but it is possible. I see the nerf as a piloting challenge. I don't particularly like it since in a game of Vets the carronade primary weapon is very rarely a viable strategy, but I can see how newbies would get sick of getting stuffed into the ground with no way of retaliating.

Actually if you have a gat on the top deck of the spire you can still hit whatever is hitting your balloon. I'll have to test out a blender fish on a galleon but I don't expect anything that great from it.