I think it shouldn't be enforced as rule that 096 MUST chase the closest, its just a nice QoL change.
Agree 100%, this under no circumstances should be enforced as a rule for 096.
Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
- Easier to figure out who the closest target is instead of based on perception
- Makes it more "realistic" to the wiki lore (chases closest target first)
[...]
I think overall, it simply provides an option to players who want to be 100% lore accurate to do so.
This can only reasonably do
physical worldspace distance between 096 and target (i.e. you take the world position of the target position, subtract 096's position, get the length of that vector and that's your distance). The biggest problem here is LCZ <-> HCZ.
The actual physical distance between both ends of Secondary elevator are longer than anyone intuitively thinks. Naturally you'd assume it'd be the same distance as the height of Primary elevator shaft, right? No.
Which means that, if you put 096 in LLCZ (Or as you yanks call it, """Delta wing""" (yuck)) near 457, one target in HCZ near Secondary elevator (In the fork that splits either left towards spiral or right towards bridge/E-11 bunks/939 courtyard) and the other target outside 012, in isolation, assuming the elevator is at the top of Secondary, which is the closer target?
The correct answer here when you logically think out the route from 096 to either target, is the target in HCZ near Secondary. However, because of the actual distance between both Secondary elevator ends, plugging the actual position vectors into the distance formula will almost always result in the target outside 012 being closer. It's a bit of an edge case example, but this sort of thing can and will curveball 096 breaches (even though it's not required, it will just mislead players that don't know the map into thinking the wrong thing and being RC'd normally than they normally would have, allowing F players to cheese 096 more and resulting in more unsatisfactory 096 breaches)
So right off the bat, this will never be accurate.
Let's talk about performance. Distance calculation is by no means an expensive calculation, but doing it in bulk I in a 20+ year old engine I can't imagine would be healthy. Do you know what is an expensive calculation is, though?
Sorting. I'll lay out the problem here for you in order:
I've been having an increasing amount of 096 breaches lately. Let's be conservative and pragmatic, take an example of an 096 pic spawn in CS or Medbay, where - Let's go with roughly 30 people see the pic while 096 is making its way out of HCZ, before it can be bucketed (reminder, bucketing removes the pic.) To implement this QoL feature, this distance & sorting calculation needs to be done roughly every update of 096's marks (which itself is already a little goofy and doesn't update fast enough even when you're close to give a reliable position), although we can be generous and say we do the distance calculation every other, every third, or even every fourth update, to try and make this as performant as possible.
In this fairly common example,
you would be asking for a list of 30 distances to then be sorted by shortest first, so that the shortest distance can be served to 096, fairly often. I can't imagine that this is a performant calculation. Optimisable, yes - But not enough to warrant implementation for as QoL feature that again, cannot be accurate. Bear in mind that I don't actually know anything about the implementation side other than the generic maths that goes into this - But my strong intuition here is that this would not be easily doable in a way that is performant and sufficiently accurate enough to satisfy the desire. Probably wrong, but
Currently it is very difficult to tell who is closest, and often times people will end up chasing a further target.
If you don't know the map and/or if you're new, yes. I agree. 096 has an interesting learning curve because you need to make use of map sense if you want to pursue which target is closest - Although the rule is that you must chase and kill all targets, so I doubt the strict order matters (Even though obviously going for the 1 person that went to Surface over the 30 people still on-site feels FailRP, it's also counter-intuitive to the idea of generic escape breach goal, as you would end up still inside the site after killing everyone, as opposed to on Surface - So in a sense, it solves itself and you can't really abuse it unless you try REALLY hard to?).
Oftentimes, people will try and curveball 096 by going straight to its CC after they've seen its face; However, in my case I often find that they end up doing so too quickly and end up becoming the closest target to 096 by sidestepping it via going down Primary faster than it can get to it - When even in that case, 99% of the time it's still logically closer to go to that target via Secondary as they will be closing the distance themselves anyway, than anyone in PW/LCZ (discounting LLCZ)
It sucks, but there's honestly no substitute for just learning the map.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
No clue
People have asked for various location-based aids to 096 targetfinding, but this is unique.
TL;DR -
As eloquently put as the suggestion is, it's unfortunately not feasible:
- Potentially large performance hit from constant sorting of distances
- Too inaccurate to be useful, will most likely end up just being ignored
- May end up misleading 096 players because of said inaccuracy
- Too much effort to implement to a satisfactory quality to warrant implementation
Major -Support
One personal thing I'd like for 096's target markers is to be able to distinguish between direct face sightings and pic sightings (i.e. "THEY SAW (PIC)" only for those that saw the pic). In my experience, people are often very confused about how they saw 096; Largely in part because they don't understand simple dot product and that looking down at the floor doesn't fucking work because the detection is not that discrete, you need to look AWAY - I don't think this is exact to how it works, but imagine a big cone with near-infinite height and at least a 90 degree angle, with the tip centred on both individual's bodily centres, on its side such that the circular end is projected away from the body, ignoring head tilt.
If you're looking down at the floor but your body is still facing 096, you're looking at 096. Dumb? Yes. Source limitations, please understand
But tangent aside, that confusion usually comes from an 096 pic sitting in plain sight and it coming into view without them noticing. CS spawn is a good example of this, as it can end up discreetly sitting on one of the settees there (near the tube). People will, with zero self-awareness, walk right past that picture having seen it without realising, during a known 096 breach, go get scrambles, then complain about being killed 096 because "they had scrambles and didn't see 096." If I could confidently and correctly tell them that they saw the pic, that would be good QoL in my eyes. But it could also be useful for moderation purposes too, if someone decides to take it to a sit for whatever reason.
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