The technique of rail 'sweeping'

[Mr._X]

I have know this tecnique to work for me many times... the best way to explain it is that you get someone in front of your cross hair, and quickly move the mouse arcross either from top right to bottom left in half the middle of the screen, you know what I mean. It's been briefly described as 'twicthing' http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=1611.msg25580#msg25580
It works best at medium and not close range. Do you know how to sweep a walkway? You move the broom back and forth, just emulate this with your mouse, you don't need to do the whole width of the screen it can just be like 1-2 horizontally laid players to each side of your target.

When I exploit this 'flaw' I can easily come out finishing first, if we're in a small map with lots of dudes running around I just hold down fire with the rail and jerk the mouse left and right over everyone and they fall like timber.

I want to have the experts possibly explain what type of 'flaw' this tecnique uses, or possibly exploits... I think because it sends alot of info to the server and it gets flooded, then it gets confused, possibly uses lots of cpu and to compensate for being slow just rounds all the waypoints off and then awards the player the kill... I've observed many other players do this regularly and it works quite well for them. BTW- I coined the term 'rail sweeping' so use this from now on.

[naymlis]

i never thought of this as a bug or flaw, i always thought of it as good reaction timing. many people in halo1 and 2 for xbox thought it was a flaw because of the autoaim halo uses, but i think it just helps the person so his reaction time doesn't have to be too good. in pc games like q2 if you flick or sweep ur crosshair across your enemy and you press fire at the right time it goes over the person itll hit, if u miss by a millisecond itll usually miss unless u get the corner of the hitbox.. in q2 theres a slight delay in the rail so u just get the feel of it after time and itll start feeling like its a bug or flaw sometimes and the shot shouldve missed.. in games like q3 and q4 its instant so itll have a different feel but basically the same thing. in halo it just has a magnetic auto aim that helps so you dont have to be exact. imo its not a flaw, but im not an expert. sry bout my writing, its late and ive been smokin/drinkin

[10zx]

Q2 slight delay, Q3, Q4 instant.. might explain a few things.. 

[[BTF] Reflex]

Heh,  that demo I posted I think demonstrates sweeping pretty well.

[console]

I want to have the experts possibly explain what type of 'flaw' this tecnique uses, or possibly exploits... I think because it sends alot of info to the server and it gets flooded, then it gets confused, possibly uses lots of cpu and to compensate for being slow just rounds all the waypoints off and then awards the player the kill...

Hi, just a technical note about some of the client->server communication details. . . .

It turns out the client doesn't send more or fewer packets to the server whether you have the mouse button down or not, or whether you are vigorously sweeping the mouse/view angles.(*1)

The client sends a movement/button delta packet to the server each time the client renders a new frame.(*2)  It doesn't matter how frantically one might try to click the mouse buttons, or sweep the mouselook view angles - the client only sends packets to the server at a fixed rate.

So whatever the explanation for the behavior characteristics you're experiencing, it shouldn't be connected with the client sending more data to the server, because clicking the buttons and dragging the mouse doesn't increase the packet rate, and shouldn't appreciably increase the data rate.

So whatever it is, I don't think it will turn out to be an issue of the server getting flooded.

Regards,




(*1)Although, in a given packet, it can omit data that was unchanged since last time.  But the packets are still sent at a constant rate.

(*2)In r1q2 clients, with cl_async 1, the packets per second sent by the client to the server is no longer tied to the video frame rate; but still, button presses and mouse view angle sweeps will have no effect on that packet rate.

[[BTF]ZeTHeR]

It probably has somehting to do with the area around the character that can be hit... The server CAN set this to "0" to eliminate this kind of non-sense.

[adrenal1ne]

u wanna see sweeping at its finest? go watch a demo of me 

[Remedy]

u wanna see sweeping at its finest? go watch a demo of me

[Lejionator]

I guess I do not quite understand this "twicthing" technique that Mr._X said.
I need to sweep my xhair from the top (of my right side) on my screen to the bottom (of my left)? A diagonal move?

"Do you know how to sweep a walkway?" My english is poor, someone could explain this for me, please?

Please could someone do a little demo file explaining these things to me? Would be grateful, because I really need to improve my rail shots!

It is true that the rail shots, even you playing with ping 5 (localhost), has a delay of 0.2 seconds?

Thanks in advance! 

[VaeVictis]

I guess I do not quite understand this "twicthing" technique that Mr._X said.
I need to sweep my xhair from the top (of my right side) on my screen to the bottom (of my left)? A diagonal move?

"Do you know how to sweep a walkway?" My english is poor, someone could explain this for me, please?

Please could someone do a little demo file explaining these things to me? Would be grateful, because I really need to improve my rail shots!

It is true that the rail shots, even you playing with ping 5 (localhost), has a delay of 0.2 seconds?

Thanks in advance! 

your rail delay is directly related to your ping... 60ms ping, youll have about 60ms delay, 200ms ping, about 200ms delay... its much more noticeable than you would think

and this "sweeping" garbage is just a bunch of nonsense imo... but meh, what do i know, i just walk over everyone on the railz server like it was nothing

the most youll benefit from your rail is to set your mouse settings correctly... a low sens is theoretically easier to aim with because you can make more precise movements on screen with less precise movements with your hand... also disabling acceleration will help, read up on it, acceleration will kill consistency with flick shots and such... and then of course, its much easier to line shots up than it is to actually pin point aim shots find out how people move, and learn how to line up most of your shots and your success rate with landing easy frags will sky rocket

and one last thing... wtf is up with the necro bump -.-

[fdrjk]

Mr._X
Guest

[|iR|Sk1llSh0t]

I always have wondered about this. I remember a year or two ago specing Meathook.Sodomy (I think that was the guy). He moved his mouse back and forth so fast you couldn't see anything.  In the spastic movements, he'd fire a shot and would hit with amazing acc. Maybe a bot...? Maybe a flaw in the game that he was exploiting to the extreme...? I've seen others with similiar firing habits  and I always wonder how they hit as it almost doesn't really look like the mouse was even on the player. Not accusing anyone of anything. Has always been a question in the back of my mind.

[Pr0c3550r]

I call that style of play a flick shot, works great !

[fdrjk]

Skillshot, meathook.sodomy does NOT hack.


Regards,

 

[|iR|Sk1llSh0t]

It may not have been him. It was the craziest thing i've ever seen. Couldn't tell what the guy was looking at as he was shooting or moving around the map for that matter. There were many specing and would agree with me  including nincumpoop (I remember him being there but not the guy doing it. haha).

And processor adds a good point, what would be the difference between this and a flick shot. I'm assuming flick shot you are stopping right on the target where sweeping shot you are moving through the area where you target is...?