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The creative Descent Multiplayer Tactics Site |
Tips for pros |
Well, I am not a profesional Descent pilot. Forgive me if I tell what I know about them
Get one of these old Keyboards that are not built around plastic but work with real small click switches. Open it up and insert a real switch that constantly activates your Energy to shield converter (for those who steer with keyboard only this may be a disadvantage). There aren´t too many levels in which you could need this feature but this definitely is an advantage for those who have it.
There is no problem in combining to axis to fly faster? Right add the third axe and you will fly about 1,7 compared to the speed of one axe (1). Move forward, left and up at the same time. You will have to bank and turn the whole time to keep the direction but I know some guys who still can aim. This makes you very hard to hit because even in modem games the lag is big enough to make your enemies shoot beside or behind you (well thats not really correct but close enough I think)
This is quite a complicated thing to discuss but I will do my very best:
While using the Internet as a LAN simulation the informations of the things that happen within a game are send from each one to each other ("direct" route, the KALI server has nothing to do about it). These informations are broken into small packets that make their way through the net.
Most of the players are connected to the internet via modem. With a transfer rate of 28.8 or 33.6 it is possible to send and receive packets for 2 players. Playing with more pilots means that some of the informations get lost in the bottleneck of the modem bandwidth. This effect is called "Loss" and shows up several effects:
| Ping | Tactics |
|---|---|
| 100 | This is a LAN game or KALI with Direct Connect, ISDN, and good ISPs. You can dogfight and enjoy the whole game as "real time". Even in close combat situations things on the screen make sense. |
| 100-200 | This is low lag like in modem games (one on one) or WAN (Intenet via Kali, Kahn or the Zone) with ISDN and "good Internet weather". This is good playable and everyone should be satisfied with it. In close combat situations things tend do be a little weird |
| 200-400 | With Lag around 300ms you start to feel it. You see that shots have hit the opponent but you can´t hear the "Dengg". BTW, this acoustic feedback is the only way to find out wether you hit your enemy or not. Dogfights in large halls get worse and homing missile are the basis to get kills. |
| 400-600 | The game gets "lagged". Vulcan and Gauss don´t help anymore. Therefore the secondary weapons get more and more important. This is the time for the Earthshaker pilots... |
| 600+ | Things get out of control. You can collect some "cheap kills" with smart mines behind doors and in the energy centers. Normaly this is not the kind of game that is fun to join. |
As you now have one of these fantastic old Keyboards with switches in it,
open it again and connect your sliding keys with some lightswitches (well
not switches but these who just close the power circuit as long as you
push them). Fix the light "switches" on a wodden plate and use
them as foot pedals. They react faster than commercial analog foot pedals
and they cost nearly nothing. It takes about 1 week to get used to it and
you will slide without ever thinking about it because it works with real
human instincts.
Did you enjoy this web-site? Could you find some new tricks? Will your flight performance become better? If this is true I would like you to look for any Descent site you like and ask them to build a link to this site.
Thats it!