From: markiel@sherman.pas.rochester.edu (Andrew Markiel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: sunscreamer's How to be a Scoutbomber, part 2
Date: 7 Nov 92 23:46:48 GMT
Reply-To: markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu
Organization: University of Rochester

In article <61790@mimsy.umd.edu> sjsmith@cs.umd.edu (Stephen Joseph Smith) writes:
>bagel@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Prime Wordsmith for Hell's Bagels) writes:
>>FillInTheBlank	O,D,F+,L,A	don't give away kills
>
>I don't know how FillInTheBlank got an F+, "fights very well," on this
>list.  Which is not to say I don't know *why* FITB got an F+, because he
>*does* fight very well.  But how can he possibly do it with the infamous
>lag which he experiences?  He literally has to react to your moves *before*
>you make them.  I just think Jim is psychic.
>
>- Gamera

After a while, you just get used to it. When I was at CMU, I used to get
flustered whenever I got any lag at all: I never played at sequent because it
was just too annoying for me. When I came to Rochester, the lag seemed really
bad at first, but I quickly got used to it.

About 3 months ago, some router near Cornell started tossing random packets
into the wall. First it was 3%, then 5%, then 7, then 10. About a month ago,
things really fell apart, and almost every game I've played in the last month
has been at 10-20% packet loss (the INL game against xgolems was at 16%). It's
reached the point where anything less than 10% seems really good; it's been
so long, I don't really remember what it's like to play with no packet loss.

Basically, local players play by reacting to what they see: you see some torps
fired at you, and you dodge. With bad lag, you can't do that; you'll never get
a good look at the torps coming at you, and if you wait until you see them to
dodge, all you're going to see is some nice explosions (unless your net drops
those too). To play with lag, you have to get used to the fact that there's a
lot happening that you just can't see.

Some of the ways you can counter this are:

1) *always* be dodging. Spin left, swerve right, change speeds a lot. That way,
even if you never see the enemy fire, he'll still have a hard time hitting a
target moving in a random pattern. Unpredictability is often mistaken for
good dodging.

2) Try to sucker your opponent into doing something, so you can counter before
actually seeing anything. A classic one is to fly directly at an enemy, then at
a distance of 2 inches or so (which is really about 1 1/2 inches with the lag
factor) turn 90 degrees, tractor, and fire 10 torps about 1/2 inch in front of
him (10, because 2 will get lost in the network). If you time it right, he'll
pound 8 torps into the spot you just turned away from, and your torps will
catch him right in the face. Of course, if he doesn't fall for it, you just
wasted about 200 fuel...but it is often quite effective. The key is, you know
what he is going to do, and so you can prepare for it.

3) Remember that you can't really see what your opponent is doing, so think of
*everything* that he might do, and use what you can see as clues to what he
might be doing, or about to do. If you see a 2 kill cruiser turn his nose
toward you, turn sideways, hit warp 7, and fire a phaser in front of him. If
you get lucky, you'll catch the plasma in his face; but, you can't afford to
wait till you see it, because all you're going to see is the explosion, or the
plasma flying behind you. Similarly, use what players do to find out about the
galaxy: if you see an enemy scout speeding to one of your planets that seems
to have 4 armies on it, odds are good he's really trying to bomb the armies
you can't see..so cut him off, and reach for that full update key.

4) Be prepared to react to some fraction of your commands get delayed or lost.
You have to be ready to send a new cloak or shields request if the last one
didn't seems to work, and count on the apropriate fraction of your weapons
misfiring. Usually, this means giving yourself extra time to react since things
don't always work the first time.

5) have an easy to reach update all key. You'll be using it a lot.


I can also see why FITB gets angry a lot...I find playing with lots of lag very
stressful. The problem is, if you want to avoid exploding all the time, you
have to spend every second playing What If...what if he just fired at me? what
if my shields don't go up? what if there are armies on that planet I can't see?
It takes a tremendous amount of concentration to try to Fill In The Blanks :-)
Then, you go to og some carrier who's all alone, and you blow it because your
phaser and half your torps get sent to the great bit-bucket in the sky, and
then he has the nerve to send you "haha, you suck", when a trained chimpanzee
on a real network could have killed him...oooh, it just makes you want to put
a dent in your table.....


But things are looking up...I just pinged CMU, and only got 6% packet loss.
Maybe my network connection might get fixed after all.

-Grey Elf

P.S. Yeah, right.