Railgun differences...

[Arm0r]

I am an avid q3 instagib player, with the Q3 railgun I can keep a solid 50% sometimes, even higher possibly...with the Q2 railgun, I do 20-25% at best...my question is, what makes aiming with these 2 railguns so different?  I have the sens/fov set the same with Q3 and Q2, but with the Q3 railgun I seem to be many times more accurate...any imput?

 

[[BTF]Jehar]

I believe that Quake III is a little more lenient with rail hit detection than Quake II is. I could be wrong, but I recall the hitboxes in q3 being a bit larger. So your target really is bigger in q3, and it will flub detection a bit more. Have you ever played in any lagless rail servers?

Other than that, it may simply be a psychological thing, the way the sound plays, the timing of the shots, the model's recoil, etc.

[Whirlingdervish]

I think the major difference would be the netcode of q3 vs that of q2.

you don't get the same delay before the slug flies in q3 that you do in q2.
at least thats how it "feels"..

[Arm0r]

I also notice in Q3 I tend to make crazy flick shots sometimes, and I aim the mouse more...when I say aim with the mouse, I mean put the mouse over the target and shoot--with Q2 it feels like im using strafe alot to aim the rail gun, and just set the railgun in the right spot.   I wish I could aim the same in q2 as I do in q3 

[vibes]

I ve found the Q3 rail more challenging.

Still gotta luv that Q3 rail.



Peace

[cykx]

Interesting, I'm better at Quake 3. The railgun is also friendlier imo. As its been said by Whirlingdervish..."feels" that way.  Even on PS2, Quake 3 Revolution's railgun felt good, and those sticks suck.

[X'tyfe]

the biggest difference?

quake3 sucks

[naymlis]

if you play on r1ch's test server with the new server side 20fps (like q3's) it'll feel more instant like quake3s.. but also q3s rail is 1 pixel so you can hit alot more angles than in q2s

[Daemia]

Interesting, I'm better at Quake 3.
Even on PS2, Quake 3 Revolution's railgun felt good, and those sticks suck.

I agree. I played many many hours on q3 ps2 and on the pc and both are 'easier feeling' to me than q2 railing.
maybe because its faster than q2? both the forward/sidespeed and the rail shots. 

I've been thinking of playing q3 again too. strangely, I miss it.   

[10zx]

add the rail to QW!

[naymlis]

there already is.. its called the RL

[cykx]

Interesting, I'm better at Quake 3.
Even on PS2, Quake 3 Revolution's railgun felt good, and those sticks suck.

I agree. I played many many hours on q3 ps2 and on the pc and both are 'easier feeling' to me than q2 railing.
maybe because its faster than q2? both the forward/sidespeed and the rail shots. 

I've been thinking of playing q3 again too. strangely, I miss it.   

Freeze Tag FTW 

[peewee_RotA]

The railgun in quake2 always tends to spike the netgraph when you fire it. Obviously it doesn't cause as much of a spike on todays systems, however on older machines running software mode, every single rail shot would create a single red spike. This would be extremely noticable on rail matches.

There are so many factors into the rail lag that not single factor could be pointed out. They are all, however, accented by the N64 version of Quake2 in which all guns experience a lag before firing.

I would say, however, that it is more server side than client side. Remember that railguns, along with BFG lasers, are the only instants that can fire through BSP's. This is not due to ignoring them in a single trace. If that were the case then it would hit nobody. What does in fact happen is that everytime a railgun is fired an infiniteloop is started. A trace is taken between start and a distance of over 6000 quake units and the end point becomes anything that interupts that path. If that is a BBOX the game will begin an additional trace after that point and so on. (notice that the BBOX does not have to be a takedamage.. which causes eastertanks and easter chicks to creat infinite loops when shoot with the railgun)

Also several sounds are playing. For example there is a railgun hum, similar to the BFG hum. Playing several sounds at once floods all the sound channels. (similar events can be reproduced using rockets at long ranges)

The standard railtrail effect displays about 1/3rd of the default pixel limit. (which is partly why BFG lasers do not cause the same lag).

The railgun is not a laggy gun, however the ammount of things it calculates inside of it's g_weapon function at the same time before returning control to the game is rather high. And it's not a display issue, it's the fact that they are all server side.

Quake 3 however just plain sucks and no further thought is needed lest you've just wasted brain power to a failed compitition of UT. And yes it's an insult to compare anything to UT.

[[BTF]Gator]

haha, 60% of this last post went over my head, but i i'd still list it as one of the best 50 posts ever uddered (yes, i said UDDER, MOO!) on this website to date.

[The Happy Friar]

And yes it's an insult to compare anything to UT.

assult in UT1 was worth the price imho.  That's about it. 

since you're a coder, is there any way to "fix" Q2's rail to be "faster" then Q3's with the GPL code now?  So it's more efficient?