Air exploiting the gimbal lock

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Vaphell, Sep 27, 2014.

  1. NoctD


    As much as you have a legit complain, you totally sold yourself and everyone else short because its obvious you and everyone else there was totally utterly clueless on how to play the game.

    That said, and that's just the plain rude truth people here are telling you - it wouldn't hurt to remove easy hover from all flight vehicles... ie. Liberators and Galaxies. Those Gals flying at flight ceiling to squad spawn drop constantly have it just as easy as hovering Libs do when people don't know how to counter them. Its just a bad and lazy mechanic. Air vehicles should require constant pilot inputs when airborne.
  2. Vaphell

    angle of fire was limited for infantry not because gameplay but because it causes nasty artifacts on the math side. People in reality can aim in ANY direction and don't have deadzones and there is no reason to put such limitation. Angle of a tank that is way smaller than 90 on the other hand is 100% for gameplay/balance reasons, if only to limit air sniping (no to mention ww2 tanks in ps2 would look incredibly stupid shooting 90deg up).
    I am arguing that lib not being affected by gimbal lock looking down is effectively exploiting engine (not gameplay) limitations of infantry based counters if it intentionally hovers above its target/threat. There is a LoS both ways, but only one side is able to attack the other side and that's on top of the inherent stat based advantage that is already there.
  3. The_Blazing

    Well, if he was hovering still, you could have spawned an ESF somewhere else and attacked him... ESFs have no "gimbal lock", they are fighter jets, they can aim anywhere. If he was still you could have possibly used lolpods or hornets for massive alpha damage, which usually warrants a destruction.

    I think that perhaps spawn rooms could get a special AA machine thing that when engaged by players (via the E key) will automatically open fire at twice the rate of AA turrets straight upwards, with a large spread to hit aicraft that are not perfectly above it.
  4. Govedo13

    I smell nubstorm in this topic.
    First infantry renders only up to 300 m so the OP claims about still hovering lib at 300 m smashing base by its own is not possible.At this range it dies in 30 sec by dumb fire rockets let alone Flak.
    If the lib was at more then 300 m then he would not be seeing the infantry therefore he won't be able to do anything to defenders that fight for the point. For new players reference MBT is smaller then Dalton crosshairs at 500 m with Max 2x zoom and infantry doesn't render( for 1000th time)
    Buster maxes and skyguards have around 900m effective range.It is funny enough-even if there was lib hovering at lets say 450 m he won't render the buster Max while the Max would render and kill the lib.

    So after sorting out the game facts and reality there are three options :
    1 The OP is trolling
    2 The OP is scrub and made a mistake.
    3 The Lib was hacking
    I also feel sad about the ther scrubs that posted here they consider their infantry fixed and cannot move a bit to get angle. In general good laugh in this topic.
  5. KnightCole

    Gimbal lock? And that is what? never heard it before lol.
  6. libbmaster


    Pull light assault with c4, grab ESF, get above him and go commando.

    I know how easy it is to get tunnel vision and forget that you can leave the base and take a different angle. Everyone here talks about "falling back/counter attacking" but it is shockingly easy to forget that when you have bad guys in your face/stomping on you.

    Remember: take a deep breath and think outside the box!
  7. libbmaster


    300 meters might be a mis-judgement. It is perfictly possible for a lib to be in infantry render range, but be high enough to induce gimbal lock.

    And while he is correct about infantry not being able to target straight up, you are correct about the need to move.
  8. Vaphell

    i can't say anything about the people i was with, i just freshly spawned there and was kind of surprised that the icon of a lib just stays in place. I pulled HA to lock on it, found out it's impossible so i just spent the rest of the countdown on testing how bad it is. I could easily see it being actively exploited by cheeky smartasses on industrial scale if they are not contested enough in the air. Fewer things to worry about = more time spent on farming. Usually libs do circles, but why do circles if you can do without?

    I don't care what people are telling me, because i am arguing the principle itself. Like I said, if you try hard enough pretty much anything can be overcome with gameplay means. Sure, severity of this thing is low but nullifying infantry based AA in this manner rubs me the wrong way.
    Let's take bulldog skywhales touching down at mountaintops to spam bulldogs at spawns and repair as needed - annoying as **** but otherwise 100% legit and they could be retaliated against with what you have on hand. Focus fire that ***** with HAs/bursters was one of the most frequent suggestions. Heavy air hovering in the deadzone caused not by LoS limitations but by the coordinate system is kind of one step above that annoying scenario because focus fire is out of question.
    I agree about the easy hover, my very first thought was that the maintaining stationary position should be goddamn hard, that they should maintain some minimal speed to stay in the air or something.
  9. LodeTria

    I wouldn't mind removing the tops of the towers and make it a bubble shield up there with a 45-60 degree angle outwards, so you could view the air but not all of it. The top of the tower is mostly used to camp or camp people trying to destroy the spawn beacon you put there.
  10. Govedo13

    300 m is 100% correct. I tested it numerous times like the AV turret range is 450. For AV turret is bit easy to test - get on the hill above enemy tank column set position 420 m from them using your waypoint market and farm without them render you.
    Nullifying my **** ... busters shoot stuff from 2 hexes away.
    I farm air at biolab from vanu archives. 900 is 3 x infantry render at 300 m so actually it is the other way around since air got flak damage without being even able to render the Max let alone shoot back. Not only scrub but stubborn scrub going against the logic and facts even after he got explanation about how stuff works in reality.
    My suggestion- if it is so easy grab lib go hover record it and show it here- I give you 30 sec average lifespan if you hover still with lib over any 12+ fight.
    Nit gimbal but brain lock. ...
  11. DQCraze

    Or someone could of redeployed to the next nearest base pulled a sundy to the perimeter and given the defenders an optional spawn point...
  12. Vaphell

    you are 10th person that didn't bother to answer the main question: is it intended for heavy air to be immune to infantry based AA despite the LoS? Just do this or that is not a valid answer.

    Analogies:

    Is it intended for belly guns to tunnel through biolab dome inside? A feature or a bug?
    Just do this or that.

    Is it intended for shields to unrender at a certain distances? A feature or a bug?
    Just do this or that.

    The proper answer should be along the lines of it's a feature because <reasons here>/it's a bug because <reasons here>.
  13. repinSniper

    Someone found a place where he was invulnerable to all enemies in a certain spot due to them being unable to look directly up. Said people did nothing about moving to a location where they could actually hit him. Said pilot had no other enemies shoot at him, engage him, poke at him, do anything to him in all of the other hexes around him. Said pilot had what appears to be extended hover time over a base eliminating targets trying to leave the spawn room. Said defenders were apparently in an even fight, although they had everyone locked back to a spawn room with no defenses outside the spawn room capable of dealing with the air target.

    My question, how did the infantry get forced back to the spawn room and get stuck inside if it was an even fight? Do you mean that the base went from proper defensive positioning to stuck in spawn room in a matter of seconds? Or were you unprepared? Would it even matter if the enemy had to repair after taking a bit of damage from the resources pulled off of point pushing to shoo a liberator away for a few seconds, due to the fact you clearly were stuck in a spawn being outplayed and may have lacked the teamwork to counter the enemies teamwork right from the get-go?

    This clearly is not an exploit, due to the fact their are multiple instant killers or major harassment capabilities to hovering Liberators at 350 altitude who can't even utilize INVR to be highly effective with AI rounds to kill multiple MAXes and Heavies with Full Flak/Shields, running out back, shooting a few dumbfires/flak into them and running back into the spawn room. That altitude over an extended time is absolutely deadly, from either a full clip of ESF fire/Hornets/Rocket Pods, to a tankbuster hitting you, to a Galaxy ramming you, to an AP tank hitting you twice, to two skyguards pulling up, to getting two dumbfires hitting you at the same time, to five burster MAXes popping up right underneath you.

    If you do not have the ability to damage a target, and you ignore all other options in favor of removing a limitation preventing you from engaging said target due to it being "lame", "broken", "unfair", or even "#*&$", that's not a fault of the mechanic, but is your and your teammates issue.

    Also, was there a teleporter in the main base? I mean, most bases have these and are highly underutilized. A great counter for this circumstance.
  14. repinSniper


    This is not a feature, this is a limitation. Infantry Cannot Look Directly Up. Simple Answer.

    Pilots can fly directly above infantry. Therefore........... Infantry cannot look directly up....... therefore........ they cannot directly shoot them with direct LoS weapons fire. (also they don't have direct LoS although they can visually see them, kind of like we can't hit things with engineer/base turrets just because they are 1º outside of our maximum turning arc)

    It is intended for infantry not to look directly up. The side effects of this are not bugs or features, but are what the limitations of this intended behavior actually LIMIT infantry from doing.

    You are trying to create a primary issue out of a secondary concern.

    Have you ever seen a Hornet user 90º Divebomb lone infantry? (SO NOT FAIR!)
  15. Zotamedu

    Yes the lock on looking straight up is extremely cheesy and annoying. Especially with Galaxies that can just hang at flight ceiling and rain down an infinite amount of people. Being completely stationary in plain view of an entire base really shouldn't be a viable and reasonably safe option. I wonder if it's an actual limitation in the engine or if they have made it on purpose for some silly reason. There was a discussion about it in another thread awhile back and people claimed that there should be no technical reason for it to be there unless they messed up the game engine.
    • Up x 1
  16. Vaphell

    rendering range is a limitation, is taking advantage of rendering range a feature, a bug or a limitation? AV mana turrets shooting from 800m? Didn't it aggravate many people? I recall tankers screaming bloody murder.

    that's not how you build cause/effect relations. These 2 things are 100% unrelated.

    turret arcs are 100% gameplay design, X degs to the sides, Y degs up/down. By LoS i mean unobstructed line of sight that is within the FoV, not where the crosshair points.

    Citation needed. Intended is a strong word, it suggests it's a result of a conscious design decision related to gameplay rules which it is not.

    I am trying to establish in which category it belongs if only because i like intellectual pursuits.

    diving ESF in game? You see, it's not 90 divebomb because... it's affected by the same limitation infantry experiences. If ESF can blast lone infantry looking down, lone infantry can blast ESF looking up. There is a full symmetry.
  17. repinSniper

    You just want to argue. You made a post, you know what the issue is, and you have classified it with a name, and have classified it as exploiting. No points needed to be made here by others, you have the only point that is needed to be proven on your agenda with the answers already figured out.

    It belongs in the "deal with it" category. It's not changing.

    You fail to realize that infantry are sticks that cannot vary their "Z"-axis unlike all other vehicles can, which allow vehicles to aim almost anywhere using terrain/space and bypass this issue that infantry have. NOT FULL SYMMETRY!

    Edit: Cut my sentences up, and use key parts while getting everything lost in translation, way to go OP.
    • Up x 1
  18. Vaphell

    Well, somebody could at least try to disprove the assertion for a change, instead of providing answers completely orthogonal to the stated question.
    I see similarities to situations caused by the engine that everybody thought was a problem to one degree or another and nobody yet has proven the similarity is not there.

    Point me where i explicitly demanded change.
    And tell me how exactly is that different from commenting on the AV mana rendering range exploits "deal with it, it's not changing".
    I know it's most likely not changing, but not because it's not a legitimate problem or anything like that, but because it's a total ***** to solve even if you were 100% committed to it.

    What Z axis got to do with anything? Btw, what about jumping? Gravlifts? Jetpacks? Climbing mountains?
    Infantry vs ESF is totally a symmetry. If infantry can shoot ESF, ESF can shoot infantry.
    ESF shoots with its body, infantry shoots with the camera. Both camera and ESF body are subjected to the same coordinate system which prevents them from being oriented vertically.

    The gun camera separate from the ship body is what breaks the symmetry in the case of skywhales and libs.
    Long story short infantry and ESF have 1 degree of freedom, lib nose gun is similarly 1 degree of freedom, but belly gun is 2 (lib orientation+gun orientation). All secondaries are.

    last time i checked everything is there, not a word is missing from your post. I allowed myself to do interjections.
  19. repinSniper

    WHAT?

    You can spin all X, Y, and Z FIXED axis of any vehicle, and orient them any way you want, Infantry can only spin the X and Y axis, and cannot do anything but rotate around the Z Fixed axis, its orientation is always the same, up and down... it's like comparing a 2D stick to a 3D object...

    You apparently are clueless about what ESFs do, I'm sorry... I am not going to even start here, I'm done.
    • Up x 1
  20. NightEngine

    Holy crap, reading this thread. Who sits still under a Liberator that this is a problem!? You deserve to die. Situational awareness is vital.

    And who even allows a Liberator to just hover in place and camp? They're dead meat if anyone even thinks about it for a few seconds. If they're camping the spawn - I'm not even sure how this was allowed to continue - then go to another base, pull an ESF, Skyguard, or Sunderer, and get to an angle you can attack the Liberator.