Intentional "Warping" in Multiplayer

[ericinexile]

A couple of questions but first the scenario: Yesterday I was a blue Su33 on RAF. While heading towards the action on the Red side of the Crimea a F15 joined on my wing. Ahead of us were a couple of bandits and I asked which he wished to engage. As it turned out, one of us was confused (namely me) and we both engaged the same bandit. I locked initially with radar and saw a very stable "blip" as indicated by the little "aspect" arrow on the bottom left of the hud. However, as soon as I launched the arrow "flipped" 90 degrees left, right, up, down, constantly. My spaced r27er's missed. My "wing's" 120(s) missed. I switched to EOS and launched two ETs and they both missed. I'm sure the F15 was throwing more metal at the guy also but I don't know that. We both gave up (I was winchester). But then the F15 accused the bandit of hitting "print scrn" several times to avoid getting hit. Thus my questions...

 

1) Can a pilot really spoof a missile by asinine techniques like this?, and

2) If so, is there anything that can be done to stop it?, and

3) If a server admin is given a track file indicating a possibility of this behavior, is there a way to tell whether the warping is a network issue or really an intentional act on the part of the pilot and can the pilot be kicked?

 

In other words, Is this worth fighting or am I just being an asshole and stop judging other people's "techniques"? Sorry for all the questions :)

 

Smokin' Hole

[Frostie]

Im not sure as to whether 'print screen' actually works but I do know I suffer a lot of lag on occasions in the RAF server more than any other, probably more to do with my system rather than the server though.

It is reasonable to suggest he was barrel rolling and spoofing so many missiles might seem impossible but with med missile setting im sure is capable, though I reckon only a luckyasso would survive that volley:D

[GGTharos]

1) Can a pilot really spoof a missile by asinine techniques like this?, and

 

Yes, but most people don't do this.

 

2) If so, is there anything that can be done to stop it?, and

 

Buy'em a top of the line computer :D

 

3) If a server admin is given a track file indicating a possibility of this behavior, is there a way to tell whether the warping is a network issue or really an intentional act on the part of the pilot and can the pilot be kicked?

 

No, there is not, unfortuanately. People on 56k for exmaple and poor lines may warp when a missile is launched at them as this requires some extra bandwidth on their end which may put them over the limit.

 

In other words, Is this worth fighting or am I just being an asshole and stop judging other people's "techniques"? Sorry for all the questions :)

 

Smokin' Hole

 

 

Not worth fighting but you're not an ass either :)

[hitman]

Well...I keep hearing things about this. It does lag the individual...everyone complains about it. Until ED takes care of that little problem...its do and get caught= be banned.

[Pilotasso]

Intentional warping hapens but its not as frequent as you might think. This is because many servers try to host more people than they can handle. If they run for too long its worse. RAF missions are very intensive. After 2 sorties there are so many debris scatered arround FPS drops to a crawl, and when your system is clogged like that its easier to miss data or suffer pauses wich are going to cause indetermined object position data because the others are waiting for 1 system still "thinking" about it.

[gundelgauk]

I have seen this warping on multiple occasions but I cannot recall if it was mostly on the =RAF= server. Actually I doubt it because these days I play mostly on the =RAF= server and I haven't seen that warping for at least two weeks IIRC.

 

The first few times I saw that behavior, I tried to shoot despite the changing aspect, speed and altitude data and missed every time. Soon I began to just run away when I saw it because I figured that there's no point in wasting missiles.

 

I had read about the supposed PrintScreen cheat as well but I never tried if it worked and so I refrained from accusing people of cheating. You can never know if it's not actually their network connection (or your own!) which is causing the trouble.

 

Still it would be nice to hear from someone who knows the network subsystem of LOMAC comment on this issue.

 

 

EDIT:

GGTharos and Pilotasso confirmed that this was possible while I was typing out my post. But I still think that accusing people of cheating solely because they are warping is wrong because without knowledge of how LOMAC's network stack works, and taking the semi-reliable internet into account, one can never be sure if it's not just an unfortunate network issue.

[Pilotasso]

RAF server is also populated by many people in russia who have bad internet services. Unfortunatly no ones to blaim directly for it. It just hapens.

[S77th-konkussion]

I wonder if the ping would spike some during this? I suppose it would during a legit lag surge too though...

[ericinexile]

Thanks for the replys, everyone. My suspicion began when I saw a stable plane do utterly impossible things once the missiles started flying. But I understand now that those very same flying missiles also load the network so the timing of the warp isn't really a certain indication of cheating. I feel better...but I'm still recording every fight (for educational purposes of course). Smokin' Hole

[ericinexile]

Oh and another thing. I've had some people complain about my pings (which I always shou below 400). What can I do to bring that value down?

[GGTharos]

Nothing, actually. Fly on a server with lower ping at best, nothing else - unless you're into tweaking the network stack and things there can go either way.

[gundelgauk]

Oh and another thing. I've had some people complain about my pings (which I always shou below 400). What can I do to bring that value down?

 

Not much, assuming you don't have any other programs like peer2peer running. Your ping depends mostly on how fast your internet connection is and on your distance to the server. While you can tweak some settings (MTU etc.) it will most likely not change the ping times significantly. Connect to servers that are physically close to you, shut down any programs that use internet bandwidth and if you can, get a good internet service provider.

[MiGMadness]

Hmmmmmm.......... Let me guess.................. a F-15 driver complaining about someone warping on purpose....... Was his callsign "Cool-(English beverage)" ;) :music_whistling:

 

Naw..... as GG and others state, its usually when 56K'ers are joined and the interwebbythingy gets clogged up. :D (yep real technical speek) :P Especally on the RAF server but happens on others also.

 

What also doesnt help is that this employee of "Boing"*.... lol ........ usually unloads his full loadout of AMRAAMS at one target before bugging out with his tail between his legs.

 

Nothing to worry about..... people usually have McCarthy type witchhunts about this sort of thing but they usually don't know anything. :P;)

 

 

Also any ping under 300-400 is ok. This aint BF2.... lol

 

 

 

 

* Regular members of the forum will get that..... lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Disclaimer: This post is in jest, Tounge-in-cheek-style and should not be taken serously, we all need to laugh sometimes.

[ericinexile]

Thanks again, all. I live on Guam so not much chance of finding a close server. I don't know what a ping is (and don't care to know). But I do know that mine always show higher than most others but not above 400. Funny, because my ISP is otherwise slow and temperamental.

 

GG-Tell your friends at ED to hurry up and set BS free. I don't care if it's broke and buggy--they can fix it later with the money I'm very willing to cough up for the upgrade. Seriously man! I no longer care if the rotors flap or if the shells ricochet. I want to hover under a bridge and kill some tanks...

 

Regards all,

Smokin' Hole

[nscode]

Nothing, actually. Fly on a server with lower ping at best, nothing else - unless you're into tweaking the network stack and things there can go either way.

 

it's not a stack ;)

 

sorry for ot... i'm learning me data structures for an exam.. :D

[GGTharos]

GG-Tell your friends at ED to hurry up and set BS free. I don't care if it's broke and buggy--they can fix it later with the money I'm very willing to cough up for the upgrade. Seriously man! I no longer care if the rotors flap or if the shells ricochet. I want to hover under a bridge and kill some tanks...

 

No, you don't want that. Releasing right now would be a mistake. There's a lot of stuff to finish up.

[bogusheadbox]

Not much, assuming you don't have any other programs like peer2peer running. Your ping depends mostly on how fast your internet connection is and on your distance to the server. While you can tweak some settings (MTU etc.) it will most likely not change the ping times significantly. Connect to servers that are physically close to you, shut down any programs that use internet bandwidth and if you can, get a good internet service provider.

 

 

Correct me if i am wrong. But regardless of the type of connection you have your ping will remain the same.

 

Ping = time to send a packet of information from your computer to the other computer.

 

However the size of your connection will determine the amount of packets you can send through at the same time.

 

Think of it like two pipes of exaclty the same length and slope, but have different diameters.

 

Water will still take the same time to flow through them.

But the one with the greatest diameter will have more water flow through it in the same amount of time.

[Pilotasso]

A special note to everybody:

 

According to some of my observations, bandwith of a given players connextion is more important than ping. I have against ADSL players with 400ms of ping, while others with 250ms ping on 56K will warp all over the place.

[gundelgauk]

bogusheadbox and Pilotasso, basically you two are exactly right in stating that bandwidth is the primary factor that determines ping. However there are other factors that (can) affect it to some degree.

 

Curiously enough for example, ISDN connections which have much smaller bandwidth than your average ADSL connection will have generally better (shorter) ping times than the latter despite the smaller bandwidth. Unless the ADSL connection uses fastpath which switches off interleaving for error correction. This in turn can however lower the effective bandwidth because burst errors might occur.

 

Modem users usually have "very bad" pings because of the extremely low bandwidth and the analog nature of the connection.

 

There are network settings which you can tweak (particularly MTU) which may or may not improve your ping but in practice the result will most likely be measurable but not noticable in an online game.

 

Furthermore there are factors that affect your connection regardless of bandwidth. For example which internet backbone your internet service provider is connected to will affect how long the routes between you and the server are (As an example, my ISP has strong connections to the US and most of Europe but not to Asia, so I wouldn't want to join a server that's located in Asia). Also the length of the route is to a degree subject to coincidence because of how internet connections work: you don't have a direct point-to-point connection to the server but individual packets may travel completely different routes to the point where packets that got sent off later arrive earlier at the server than their predecessors (this is the reason why the "length of the pipe" analogy does not wholly apply). Then there are factors such as general internet congestion.

 

 

Unfortunately the factors in the last paragraph tend to cause the phenomenon we see as warping (lag/packet loss) in addition to increase ping times. But we have little to no control over these and that is the reason why I will refrain from accusing people of cheating until there is very, VERY solid evidence of it.

 

Sorry for the off topic rambling... :poster_oops:

[Floyd]

One should not forget to check the own network settings within Lomac. I'd once entered

a server and every other plane was warping, even on the ground. Not one missile ever

hit and i already thought the others found a new hack to spoof missiles. Well, by checking

the settings in config i found the drop down menu for network connection speed to be

empty ?! Reapplied latest patch and problem was fixed.

[tflash]

But anyway, you always need at least 4 amraams to have a hit in Lockon, no? At least, when I fly on the RAF server,

 

- I can only get LA well within visual range

- I think I never had a kill with less than 4 amraams

[GGTharos]

I found the average to 3 missiles for a kill.

[Gripes]

Hey ericinexile, at least your target showed some indication of manouvering - real or lag related.

My target (SU33 on TG server) was flying "on rails" - no jinking/f-polling

-nothing! He was at around 15k feet, I was at 46 - first slammer fired

in TWS at around 27nm (for good measure), another slammer at 18nm -

I was descending rapidly, throttle idle, popping flares (against these

magical ETs;) ) No radar lock from his side (possibly IRST)

My radar track was never broken (surprize!) - still switched to STT and...

Another slammer at 6, another at 4 Head on aspect all the way.

And... there it is - external view of Khersones:noexpression:

 

:doh: I never armed these darn missiles! yea, that`s what it was.:joystick:

PS, he got me with ETs - of course.

[GGTharos]

Yep, he was just leaving a chaff trail for your 120's ... your two solutions:

 

Get look-up, get into a dogfight.

 

In Black Shark, this kind of 'tactic' will get him killed though, so ... things are being worked on.

[ericinexile]

Hey ericinexile, at least your target showed some indication of manouvering - real or lag related.

My target (SU33 on TG server) was flying "on rails" - no jinking/f-polling

-nothing! He was at around 15k feet, I was at 46 - first slammer fired

in TWS at around 27nm (for good measure), another slammer at 18nm -

I was descending rapidly, throttle idle, popping flares (against these

magical ETs;) ) No radar lock from his side (possibly IRST)

My radar track was never broken (surprize!) - still switched to STT and...

Another slammer at 6, another at 4 Head on aspect all the way.

And... there it is - external view of Khersones:noexpression:

 

:doh: I never armed these darn missiles! yea, that`s what it was.:joystick:

PS, he got me with ETs - of course.

 

Well, I'm guilty of that one...particularly in the Su25. I know of know other way to survive more than a few minutes without the willingness to take it to the weeds. It's an outrageous technique that should make us all the more anxious to get Black Shark.