Talk:Damage Calculator/@comment-211.224.53.80-20130822044346/@comment-11753608-20130824013905

Then that has no bearing on my last comment. Latency is your connection to a host. If you are host, latency is not a factor and the damage is divided by 6 and does 33/34 by default. But if you are not the host and you start shooting inbetween a packet, the game has to interpolate what you just did by checking the packet data.

Since I don't know how much you know about this stuff, I will explain it another way. Let's start with your comment about short bursts. If the default division is 6 or 1/6 of a second, in other words, if you shoot for less than 1/6 of a second the game will only show the damage amount for that lenth of time. So, if I click real quick on the mouse, and it is held down for 1/10 of a second, I see 20 instead of 34. Or if I click for 1/20 of a second, 10 and so on.

Now, when you are host, the game simply starts this count with your game clock exactly when click the button and the tick starts there. No worries and it will always divide the ticks by 1/6 of a second.

Now if you are not the host, the issue is, the host computer is doing the damage calcs but it has latency which basically determines how much time passes between each packet of information it recieves from your computer. So, lets say the host is only recieving a packet from your comp every 1/6 of a second and that packet basically tells the host what you did in that last 1/6 of a second. And now that I am describing this, I realize it really isn't interpolating the damage but it is similar. Anyway, say for a moment that you pressed down your button halfway in the middle of a packet interval. That would mean the host would take that interval and say "oh he just did a 1/12 of a second of flux damage and that is 16//17 damage" What you see pop on your screen is 16/17, not 33/34. And what's more is that it seems the host will continue to tick at that rate until you stop firing because then it takes the remainer of that 1/6 tick and puts it on the first 1/12 of the next packet, and so on. So, instead of 33/34, you see a whole crap load of 16/17s at twice the rate because of the tick-packet mismatch. And this number will vary every single time you fire because you will always click at some different relationship to the packet transfer.

I tested this again tonight and I misspoke regarding it ticking the same despite whatever number it was on. If you are not hosting, the numbers might seem quite random but I am certain that whatever is popping is adding up to the 33/34 combos for the 1/6 second divisions.