Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Questions and comments on tactics and playstyles
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llllloooooo
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Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by llllloooooo »

Hi everyone,

I play at Badgerking sometimes and I always find that the range of my machine gun fire is *significantly* less than some other players.

Can anyone explain why that would be and what might cause this?

Thanks!
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joevano
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Post by joevano »

Your tank speed affects the distance (actually the speed). Just try it. Go backwards and fire, paying attention to the distance you are getting) and then try doing it while going forwards. Your tank velocity affects the bullet velocity (they may be added together, though I am not sure on that one), and faster bullets will go farther in the same amount of time as slower ones.
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Post by The Red Baron »

You need the additional flag.

Bz Viagra for you machine gun to have increased range :D
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Post by BinarySpike »

donny_baker wrote:Your tank speed affects the distance (actually the speed). Just try it. Go backwards and fire, paying attention to the distance you are getting) and then try doing it while going forwards. Your tank velocity affects the bullet velocity (they may be added together, though I am not sure on that one), and faster bullets will go farther in the same amount of time as slower ones.
Yes.

If you are moving forward at 100 units, and bullet speed is 100 units, then the final bullet speed will be 200 units.

If you are moving backwards at 100 units, and the bullet speed is 100 units then the final bullet speed will be 0.

(those units are just examples, not the real thing)

Turning also effects the bullet, and on some servers jumping/falling effects it as well.
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Post by Skeeve »

Especially on badgerking there is a small bug in bzflag which let the bullets travel very far even if you don't move.

But as I also play on badgerking I definitly won't tell ;-)
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Post by RatOmeter »

Eh? I don't think there's any bug (that I've noticed anyway).

The trick for MG distance at Badgerking is to *not* hold down the fire button, just tap it once. I think the problem, or trick is that bzflag allows only so many bullets in flight at once (server/map settings). With MG, once the Nth bullet fires, the oldest bullet disappears. So how far the "oldest" bullet gets depends on its speed, shot time and how many bullets you fired. Max distance is achieved by driving forward and firing only briefly.
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Post by QuantumBeep »

Not quite.

Standard BZFlag server configuration is that one MG bullet has exactly 1/5 the range of a normal bullet, all else being equal.

If you want to see what MG is like with a long range, visit the PieInTheSky server at bettagirl. Good server.
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Post by Joe-Schmoe »

BinarySpike wrote:If you are moving forward at 100 units, and bullet speed is 100 units, then the final bullet speed will be 200 units.

If you are moving backwards at 100 units, and the bullet speed is 100 units then the final bullet speed will be 0.

(those units are just examples, not the real thing)

Turning also effects the bullet, and on some servers jumping/falling effects it as well.
Be careful with GMs though, on some servers if you are moving really fast due to a "railway" or "conveyor" then you hit your own GM and blow up. :!: Is this because the physics of a GM is different from a normal bullet?

How does turning affect the bullet? On the same server, there was something really interesting with lasers. I was moving on the railway again, going backwards. I fired, but the laser shot out sideways! I couldn't get it to go straight. Was I simply turning too much?
RatOmeter wrote:The trick for MG distance at Badgerking is to *not* hold down the fire button, just tap it once. I think the problem, or trick is that bzflag allows only so many bullets in flight at once (server/map settings). With MG, once the Nth bullet fires, the oldest bullet disappears. So how far the "oldest" bullet gets depends on its speed, shot time and how many bullets you fired. Max distance is achieved by driving forward and firing only briefly.
The other advantage this gives you is that people don't see it coming as easily...when I hear the "BANGBANGBANG" and see a steady stream of dots on the radar I tend to get our of there pretty quickly :)
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Re: Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by severs »

I hesitate to bump this old thread, but I had this same issue on BadgerKing last night. I had MG and another player did also, and was rico shooting at me from the opposite side of the building in the NW corner. I shot back, but my MG would barely make it to the corner of the building, while his went all the way around two corners to me. His MG must have been 3-4 times longer, in fact it might have been as long as a regular shot. After finding this thread, I have tried to duplicate that in both Linux and Windows clients with no luck... is there an exploit on this map or something? The other player was named lyt, I believe, and I think was registered. Just curious, because I have seen some blatant cheating here and there, but not from registered users.
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Re: Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by QuantumBeep »

This here be full-on thread necromancy, folks.

The answer is that the client is responsible for ending shots, so that sort of cheat is trivial to do.
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Re: Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by blast »

QuantumBeep wrote:The answer is that the client is responsible for ending shots, so that sort of cheat is trivial to do.
That only applies to guided missiles. All other bullets have a "lifetime" specified from the server when someone shoots, and then your own client handles terminating the other players' bullets when the lifetime expires.
severs wrote:I hesitate to bump this old thread, but I had this same issue on BadgerKing last night. I had MG and another player did also, and was rico shooting at me from the opposite side of the building in the NW corner. I shot back, but my MG would barely make it to the corner of the building, while his went all the way around two corners to me. His MG must have been 3-4 times longer, in fact it might have been as long as a regular shot. After finding this thread, I have tried to duplicate that in both Linux and Windows clients with no luck... is there an exploit on this map or something? The other player was named lyt, I believe, and I think was registered. Just curious, because I have seen some blatant cheating here and there, but not from registered users.
Tank speed affects how far bullets go. It could be as simple as this. For instance, if he was moving towards you, but you were moving backwards away from him, his bullets would reach further than normal, and yours would reach less far than normal.

The other possibility is that he didn't have MG, and instead had his mouse wheel configured to fire bullets. Then the player could just spin the mouse wheel to fire off a quick succession of bullets. This could look similar to a quick burst of MG, and even closer to MG if he had the rapid fire flag.
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Re: Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by severs »

Well, I didn't want to be THAT GUY that posts a question and is berated for not using the search function, so I'll be THAT GUY that revives a 5 year old thread instead...

I'm pretty sure he had MG... it sounded like it and the shots were on me almost instantaneously. I don't think rapid fire can shoot that fast, but I'll play with that. I definitely can't make MG go anywhere near as far as his was, no matter how I'm moving.
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Re: Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by Avatar »

Were you spraying (turning to one side or another while firing) or holding to a straight line? Was your opponent spraying or holding to a straight line? For some reason, range and hit probability go down almost exponentially on BK's if you happen to be turning while firing MG.
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Re: Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by L4m3r »

Adjusting the Machine Gun variables well can be tricky, as poorly-tuned machine guns can cause some state inconsistencies. If the reload time (controlled by _mGunAdRate) is shorter than the lifetime of the shot (controlled by _mGunAdLife), the client doing the shooting will see their own shots explode as that "slot" is fired again. Other players, however, will see the shot fly its full lifetime as set by _mGunAdLife. The result is usually observed as stupidly-overpowered machine guns that send a whole lot of bullets bouncing about all over the map. If you find that you are killing players who appear to be out of your range, this glitch is probably the reason.

severs, there is a good chance that your opponent was thinking the same thing as you, wondering why his own shots weren't traveling far enough when those of his opponent seemed to go everywhere. :)

The theory about another flag is plausible too, Rapid Fire can be configured to behave similar to a machine gun in the hands of a player who can fire quickly enough.
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Re: Machine Gun Shooting Distance

Post by severs »

L4m3r wrote:Adjusting the Machine Gun variables well can be tricky, as poorly-tuned machine guns can cause some state inconsistencies. If the reload time (controlled by _mGunAdRate) is shorter than the lifetime of the shot (controlled by _mGunAdLife), the client doing the shooting will see their own shots explode as that "slot" is fired again. Other players, however, will see the shot fly its full lifetime as set by _mGunAdLife. The result is usually observed as stupidly-overpowered machine guns that send a whole lot of bullets bouncing about all over the map. If you find that you are killing players who appear to be out of your range, this glitch is probably the reason.

servers, there is a good chance that your opponent was thinking the same thing as you, wondering why his own shots weren't traveling far enough when those of his opponent seemed to go everywhere. :)

The theory about another flag is plausible too, Rapid Fire can be configured to behave similar to a machine gun in the hands of a player who can fire quickly enough.
I think this it it... it happened again tonight against a different player, and I noticed later when I had MG, I was killing tanks that appeared to be farther away than my shots were traveling on my radar and in the window. So I guess some combination of the MG server variables causes it... still, kind of hard to aim when you can't see where your rico goes... anyway, zombie thread, you can rest easy now...
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