Fighting the Lag Monster

Everyone gets it. The evils of lockstep programming screw up the pings badly in this game. The way it goes is like this: room full of 7 DSL/Cable users. They play with no lag. 56k user enters room. What happens? In Half-Life, the 56ker would get such a bad ping he would be forced to leave or be killed by the LPBs. In Battlezone, he gets an advantage!! He lowers the overall ping of the server because the server must provide data to all the users and the 56k'er will put such a bump on things, the ping will rise about a hundred. This is an unavoidable problem in Battlezone and because of the program structure it cannot be fixed with the current support. The best way to deal with the lag is to live with it. There will be numerous situations of high lag or low lag but a commander has to be smart and know how the lag will affect his troops at all times.

1) Don't complain. Its just as bad for them. Whining and saying "This is terrible your connection sucks" is like saying "I have to blame something for the reason I am losing". The lag is just as - if not worse - for them as it is for you. The server has a slight advantage, but that doesnt mean its better. The server is still as succeptable to Access Violations and Stack Overflows as much as you are so stop your whining and leave or play.

2) Don't do immensely stupid things. For instance, you know its gonna get laggy when you've got a huge armada moving in on the enemy. Don't waltz into their gun towers with ten warriors, lose every single one, and scream "LAG" cause its your fault, you moron. Another stupid thing to do is use lag-intensive weapons. Static Charge, Comet Cruise, WASP, and Arc Stream are the most Lag-inducing weapons I can think of. Do not use them unless there is a relatively lag-free environment, or use them with caution. Using these weapons in the middle of an intense battle can either totally lag out/crash a poor computer, or screw up the network badly, like spamming would in Half-Life.

3) Customize with the lag. Believe it or not, warping (symptom #1 of a laggy game) is the one thing people complain about most. Commanders must notice that there is warping detected in a game and customize his vehicles so that they are more lag-friendly. The following is a list of weapons that should be used in Non-laggy environments and laggy environments (when dogfighting):

Lag-Free:  Blast Cannon, Laser, Gauss Gun, Arc Cannon, Hornet, Pummel, Ion Gun
Mid-Lag:  Plasma (ISDF & Scion), SP/AT Stabbers, Quill Cannon, Shadower, TAG, Mini/Chaingun
High-Lag: Sonic Blast, Stinger, FAF, MAG, Mortars(all types), Ion Gun II, Pulse Stabbers

Notice that weapons that do well in lag tend to be Fire and Forget, or slow-moving projectiles. Use this to your advantage! Usually you can smoke people in laggy dogfights simply because they cant hit you with their chain gun but your missiles go through the lag to smash them to pieces.

4) Remember to keep moving in unpredictable patterns! Moving in simple motions tends to defeat the lag because the lag tries to predict your movements (which show up on your enemy's screen) moving in unpredictable motions causes you to warp MORE than they will and albeit gets people angry, its how you win in laggy games.

5) Use wingmen. As Magicide stated, Wingmen are the lifeblood of laggy games. Simply locate the enemy and tell your AI units to fire on the enemy. More often than not, the enemy cannot fire on your AI tanks (which are warping) but AI units fire straight through lag and blast even the warpiest of targets.

6) Avoid turrets or heavy units. In heavy lag situations, targets that cannot move (turrets) do not warp and are the easiest to hit. Turrets, although they fire through lag, are still easy to kill in laggy situations. Heavy tanks should also not be pilotted due to their lack of unpredictable mobility. It is ok to use them as wingmen, but do not pilot one, under any circumstances in heavy lag situations. Any smart-ass scout can warp up to you and there will be nothing you can do about it.
-=<@

Return to Articles

Click the nuke to go home