Ceiu

The USBLib filter driver didn't feel the need to properly uninstall itself. So, when the driver file was removed, the references to it in the registry were causing all kinds of driver failures. Trust me on this, it was quite irritating trying to troubleshoot with no mouse, network or usb devices (and, at one point, no keyboard or Windows). The lesson to be learned here is: Be careful when removing drivers -- especially ones that attach themselves to other drivers.

illiterate

http://local.cericlabs.com/misc/driver!@#$%^&*.png Took me 7.5 hours to resolve. Ick.

Fields, however, don't mean instant-death if you're in one. In fact, more often than not, I can get through a field without much trouble at all. Usually the fields act as a "timeout", so to speak; both teams will just sit at one end and wait for it to expire. The only time people rush through them wildly is when the defending team is trying to win.

Plus you'd have to assume everyone has a decent low-latency connection, otherwise that person would not only cause issues for themselves, but for anyone else relying on them for data. That, and this adds more lag for players which may manifest in-game -- and we don't want that.

@Muskrat: You're !@#$%^&*uming that every client redraws at the same speed. Remember: Collision checks for bombs/walls are done on redraw, which means some people will see this bomb go through 1 wall, some may see it p!@#$%^&* none, and some may see it clear an entire base. Lag will also play a large roll here, as the more lag between the player using this weapon is and any player viewing it, the further into the base the bomb will appear.

With bullets? Either (a) they'd have to be moving really really fast (and thus, would cover most of the map), or ( would require a lot of custom packet generation server-side. Neither of which is a very good implementation. What he wants to do is not only impossible without some hack solution, but it would completely unbalance the game and require virtually every base to be remade.

would be extremely laggy, as it would require sending the entire arena-settings packet to multiple players based on the position of another player. What you could do, however, is implement field-type items that effect an entire base for x seconds.

Not possible.

I'm more a fan of the system employed by the game Escape Velocity. In HS, it could be applied as follows: -Each reactor provides x energy. -Every piece of equipment requires y energy to function. -Your ship's energy reserves are recharged at a rate of x - sum of all y. A similar system could be applied to thrust: -Each sublight provides x thrust. -Every piece of equipment adds y m!@#$%^&* to your ship. -Your ship's thrust is x - sum of all y. In both cases, your ship's top speed and maximum energy would remain constant; the only variation would be how quickly you reach those maximums. This would make a lot of people rethink how they equip their ships, as speedy players would opt for high-output systems with minimal equipment where the tanks would probably load up on armaments. The upside is we could get rid of a lot of artificial limitations on things like armor and remove redundant items (such as fins/slip and the new mobility utilities), as this would naturally balance out the durability vs mobility issue. The downside is it would require a massive overhaul of the system, so we wouldn't likely see it until next reset.

Making a lanc slower doesn't solve the problem. It's the fact their bursts can clear out entire regions of a base in short-order. Combine that with a setup that allows for 3 bursts, AD and ZPM and you've got a tank with a ton of energy designed for quick deployment of bursts before suiciding and restarting the process all over again. To make matters worse, teams can and have setup perpetual cycles of kamikaze lancs due to the fact they also function as anchor points. Solution: Nerf bursts on lanc, by either (a) limiting them to 1 per life, ( drastically reducing the speed of the burst shrapnel, © reducing the number of burst shrapnel or (d) all of the above. I understand that they need some form of close-quarters retaliation, but the current lifetime on bullets makes them capable of dealing boatloads of damage in very little time. Slightly off-topic FYI: When any weapon is repelled, it's alive-time is reset (Translation: a weapon can be kept alive indefinitely, so long as someone repels it before it expires). This is what makes repels so deadly when people panic and mash their repel key -- it just gives them that much more time to hit you (and, usually, double or triples it's velocity).

Speaking of the 10m items... Brain, I've heard rumors that the zone will be reset within days of someone purchasing one of the 10m items. Any truth to this?

Even without rockets, it's the bursts that do the damage. Case in point: GW was still using the lanc-rush technique about 3 hours after the nerf to rockets.

Why not make bricks work like AD, where you get 1 every x seconds or something.

... WHAT?

Not entirely. The real problem with lanc rushes is you need to take out the entire group to prevent them from invading. With a levi rush, one can get past you and not cause a great deal of problems as the entire team doesn't suddenly respawn behind you.

You could do that, but then you're leaving it entirely up to the players to do. In most cases this means only the most hard-core will do it since no one wants to pay for the server/service. With zone owners having the option, it eliminates another hurdle for the players.

I'm more worried about the server end than the client end. The client has the easy part.

heroin

And an insane use of bandwidth. If built into the client, you'd need to have the module get a second ip/port for the voice chat stuff so zones can choose to support it and isolate it from the game server. Secondly, you'd need to handle player validation. Though, if the client sends the same un/pw, then you could just have the biller validate them for the voice chat stuff. Then, on top of that, you have to deal with how to moderate it. You'd need to have a protocol from the game server to the voice chat server to let staff mute and ban people from that functionality. On the client end, you could assume that ?ignore handles both voice AND text (or simply add a ?mute command), but the server end is where your problems are going to be.

What the !@#$%^&* are you people even bickering about?

vacuum.

Well, lancs only can rush because they have rockets. Generally, they're too slow and lack firepower to maneuver around bases. Remove rockets, and cap bursts at 1 (and maybe reduce burst shrapnel) and I think you'll be set. Levi though... I'm not entirely sure if I'd rather have an army of leviathans doing the same thing a lanc does now. Granted, they can't attach to each other so it might be easier to hold them back but... meh, who knows. Would certainly make it more popular on basing-teams, that's for sure.

Ugh... except for distort's, all of these are unfunny, uninspired drivel. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Nah. If anything, I think the cobalt needs to be made more powerful -- if someone wants to spend 50k for a one-time-use weapon which may not even have any significant payoff, let them have their fun. Why? They're a !@#$%^&* to get to buy (unless you have ID, which costs a metric !@#$%^&*ton in itself), the launcher removes the possibility for AD, they're expensive if you use them en-mass and there's a strong possibility they won't have a significant effect on the game. Infact, the last three flag games I've participated in, I've dropped around 30k total for fields and didn't win a single game. Definately agree here, though. Item spaming is annoying and seems to be the key to basing. Why? Shredder bullets are easy to dodge and they use a ton of energy to fire; plus, there's two armors that pretty much negates the weapon entirely. HE, is nothing special and I don't even know why it bothers you. The only good thing about it is the blast radius since it's an L2. Aside from that, it does less damage than falcon and thanks to the new Shrap Booster weapon, most people are moving away from it anyway (If anything needs a nerf, it's that). Meh. With ZPM it has 4k energy, it's already slow as !@#$%^&* and you can buy armor. I think the problem is that it's a basing ship, which means you have to choose between coils or generally useful armor -- and since everyone spams bursts, it's a fairly easy decision. Maybe. I've only seen one person with an irritating levi setup. He's not hard to kill, it's just tedius since he has infusion AND AD. I agree here, as well. Though, with the falcon+shrap booster staple that everyone seems to be using now, it doesn't matter what reactor you have: warbird/jav will die to a single bomb regardless.