Inso «Ð*§*§» "My 2 Cents"

I want to start off by saying thank you for your hard work and dedication to a game that gets no support from its creators. You ARE the man!

I hate to do this but I am going to have to agree with :ar15: WetDog's comment :stupid: . Although the current scoring system is weak at best, I don't think changing it to 1d=-1 will be any better for regular game play. Don't like the idea of possibly having a negative score:shocked2:lol . I wouldn't mind the 2d = -1 in match and private server play.

We should have a few servers with the different options running, for a week or so, and then come back and do a poll. I think people will get a better feel and have a little time to get used to a different scoring option.

:mad: we will program a competition between squads and not participants of squads
hydras category, I think it would be good pilot for each show his ability and to be known as better of the world at the moment..
:ar15:

:baddevil:

Star_Fox:.

[Edited on 9-29-2002 by Star_Fox]

First off, good work on solving some of the major problems about C4 gameplay. If there were any justice in the world you'd probably be developing Novalogic's games (that, if they weren't f***ing a**holes who don't care about the bugs in the game...)

About the scoring (hot issue nowadays) I think 1k -1d is probaly the best. People who complain about the negative scoring should be more worried about increasing deaths (sorry if I'm hurting anybody's ego here, but that's the way I see it). I'm not a great player, I'll probably end up in the negatives often, but hey, it's just a question of scale! If you're getting -1, -2, etc, just make sure the others are getting -10, -20, and so on!!!

About the no score, I have to confess I haven't thought about it very much but the 'flare concussion' theory sounds reasonable enough.

As for the EFAMS, there's something that troubles me. I don't know much about the bugs in the system. I mean, I know that they exist, I know that some people use them, but frankly, I don't know how to put them to work. And the reason I don't know these things, it's because I never though of a use for them! I'd like to leave it perfectly clear that as far as I know I've always played 3H and never used the EFAMS bug.

Now for the 8H bug I know you have to play a game in coop or something and then you leave the game, or it's stilll running and you do something in the console... I really wouldn't be able to help anyone who want's to go 8H. But my understanding is that it's activatable, not a bug per se, it isn't random. For the EFAMS bug i don't know. And this doubt comes from one time being accused of using the EFAMS bug just because I was server! I don't believe I was, but to this day I don't know! (and everyone who played with me long enough knows I like a fair game)
This is all just to say that, this being a game that keeps attracting new people everyday, and if this bug happens without need of activation, the AE (no doubt an excellent tool) could be penalizing players unnaware of the problem.
I think you've gone WAY out of your way in helping the C4 community, and I honestly appreciate it, but would like to ask you just for one more thing:
this is just in the case that the EFAMS bug is random and IF people could be having it without knowing (because, if not I really enjoy the idea of cheaters firing duds, hehe!), couldn't the AE, instead of creating duds eliminate the missiles altogether?

Thanks for your time (man!! this got almost as lenghty as Inso's letter!!! Geez!! Sorry ppl, I promise not to write anymore... not! ok, i'll write less next time...)

Cya all later
Storm II <SAI>

Two quick notes,
1) To the best of knowledge there is no possiable way to accidently use the efam bug! If someone knows different please chime in. It requires a deliberate combination of movments/keyboard. As the pilots that have been helping me will all tell you, it requires practice to master the use of it.
2) The 8h issue (really beating a dead horse at this point) on the other hand is a little different. Yes it could be an inadvertant mistake on the part of a pilot. In the begining I think that for the most part it was. A few pilots picked up on its effects and it was exploited from there. (this is gonna hurt some of you Im sure) My standing on the 3h 8h issue is still the same as it was the first day I found out about. I stand firm in my opinion that I really don't care if it's 3h or 8h, so long as it is all the same. Accident or intent, if you can only fly it one way there's nothing left to discuss!

Please take a look at how Comanche Gold calculated the scoring. Thanks Viper :-)http://comanchegold.50megs.com/gamesplayed.html


[Edited on 9-21-2002 by Inso «Ð*§*§»]

Just a thought... Comanche Gold will post the true kills vs deaths. It is the order in which the way they are posted that determines the winner, 2nd, 3rd etc. Not sure if it can be done, but if the calculations can be done in the back ground.. ie 2x kills - deaths = where you are the list. Dont post the actual 2x kills minus death score.

THE viPer®

Hello again,
A few points to ponder. I have reached the conclusion, that I personally like the cg scoring mentioned by Viper. I find it to be the most accurate and fair. Update on the "NC" theories. Following our match on Sunday, and the intense amount of lag and nc's throughout the match the desire to find a solution grew stronger. Myself and 3 other pilots agreed to fly stinger rounds using only the auto deploy for flares. Within the same map, switching back and forth between using the auto flares and using our JS config to manually deploy them, there was a drastic reduction in the amount of lag seen by all of us, when the auto only was used. This lag immediatly returned (as did the nc's) when we switched back to manual deploy. What does this mean? I dont know that we can do anything about this due to it's nature but thought I would pass along our findings. Try it for yourself!

The new version of AutoExplode is availabe on our site www.deepstrikesquadron.com 09/23/02

[Edited on 9-24-2002 by Inso «Ð*§*§»]

[Edited on 9-24-2002 by Inso «Ð*§*§»]

From the time of C4's inception into the multiplayer world, I contacted Novalogic on this issue. In the begininng the scoring was done as follows: Score = Kills. So the pilot that had the most kills, was listed first and so on. Deaths played no importance. So you would have a senerio like this:
Pilot A: 25 Kills and 35 Deaths
Pilot B: 24 Kills and 2 Deaths
Winner: Pilot A
This is not right! And I had noticed that if you crashed.. a death was not counted either. I let NL know about this and they did change it. Now you notice that the Score is Kills minus Crashes. But still they did not take into consideration the pilots skill of not getting killed. Now we have a pilot among us that has the programming skills to eliminate some of the problems that the NL team refused and still refuses to address. Inso«Ð*§*§» has created the Auto Explode program to get rid of the 3h-8h problem, the EFAMS problem, and now the scoring problem. And I hear that some pilots out there are upset with him for"sticking his nose into problems where it doesn't belong." All I have to say about that is "Honor". Where is your honor? I guess if you like the idea of being unfair, then you are really doing it to yourself. If you want to pat yourself on the back for being Pilot A and say that you won.. knowing in your heart that Pilot B deserved the honor. then you are cheating yourself.
The scoring system that Inso«Ð*§*§» has come up with is close to the same scoring system and NovaLogic developed for Comanche Gold. And that system is as follows: Kills times two minus deaths. Now the only scoring difference between Comanche Gold and Comanche 4 is that Comanche Gold does not show the score (it is figured in the background but not displayed), just kills and deaths and it ranks you at the end of thegame. But if Gold did show the score, you would see negative scoring. 2 Kills 25 Deaths would be -21. So what needs to happen here.. is to realize that the Score is nothing more that the mathamatical computation to rank the pilots 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. I am sure that if Inso«Ð*§*§» could figure a way for the score not to be displayed.. he would do it. So guys.. give him a break, embrace these changes.. NovaLogic should have been the ones to do it.. but they dropped the ball there!

Inso
Until I read this article, I did not even know who was responsible for all of this fine work. It is very discouraging to train for months in order to gain skill, just to have everybody accuse you of cheating. Elimination of the cheats will be the only thing that keeps me in this game. Thanks for making it fun again. Please keep up the good work.

Also, as far as scoring is concerned here is my two cents. If it is an official team death match, then I think that the scoring should be 1/1 (if you die, you lose a kill). Just make sure that they understand that latecomers will not be allowed to join. If you are not there for the start of the match, then you don't get in. I think that this is really the only way to demonstrate the true abilities and tactics of any given team. Thanks again for all of your work!

One last item. I usually end a game with about a two to one kill/death ratio. I am pretty good at surviving jousts and a lot of that has to do with how you move to avoid the stingers. I started out manually deploying flares during attacks, but stopped about two months ago. I found that it just didn't make any difference, and if anything the flares work better when deployed automatically. However, I still see times when I get killed but the other pilot gets no credit. Can't really say if you are on the right track or not, but any elimination of lag can only improve the accuracy of the game.

[Edited on 9-29-2002 by Col. Sparrow Chaos]

If I worried myself over the scoring, no better than I am, I'm afraid my old ticker would give out. Maybe those obsessed with 'keeping score' should decide the scoring system in their server. Kinda have to be in quiet's corner for that one, make it an option.

However, it would be an error to say that the playing field should not be as level as possible, and would like to offer Inso a thank you for helping to make this possible and a salute to his efforts at improving the chance of an honorable contest.