12.14.2011

Natural Cover (Early Access Note)

This is a quick note to tell you about something I've observed on the origin/capital worlds. Some "natural" cover points seem to think you're still moving when you drop into them (your charged abilities, like Snipe, will be spontaneously and mysteriously interrupted time and again, and your character may look like it's "twitching" in place). I'm not sure this is exactly what's happening, but it looks like a familiar issue I've seen in the past.

Temporary fix: Get out of the green cover point and hit "Shift-F" to take portable cover in place. You can set it up behind natural cover if you need to.

If you see your channeled "Snipe" getting interrupted, don't try to keep recasting. Just go straight to portable cover. It'll save some time.

Edit: Please note that this is affecting only a handful of specific natural cover points, not all natural cover points. If you find a "bugged" one just take a moment to Shift-F into portable cover in place (or crouch, if you haven't gotten your AC yet).

12 comments:

  1. I received my EGA email a couple hours ago and started to level up my IA. I've only noticed the cover glitch twice while questing, but that's a great suggestion, rather than trying to use the same cover over and over or worse, running to another spot to look for cover while the mobs are shooting you. And no, that's not necessarily what I did. *whistles innocently...*

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  2. Fentanyl, thanks for the information. Ya I experience that problem too.

    Btw I have question. In my lvl 4-6 and maybe even now at 12, sometimes when I press cover with my keybind mouse button followed with charged shot, it get cancelled halfway and I have to recast. Does it happen to you? Is it the lag?

    My latency is 250ms

    Thanks

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  3. I noticed this occasionally too, thanks. My IA is only just 10 so not tried out Portable Cover yet, is there an advantage to using natural cover? I'm wondering why one would use natural cover at all when you get the fancy looking shield.

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  4. Stephen: You may want to try setting that keybind back to default. Using CTRL-U to reset your UI and then rebinding the key. There's also a setting in preferences for "ability queue" that may help. I'm planning on having a post with more detail up a little later today if you don't find it right away.

    Embijai: If you're in natural cover, you'll have a chance to totally negate "regular" ranged attacks like blaster fire. This mostly happens while you're crouched behind the object in question (i.e. not attacking). That's natural cover's biggest selling point. The cool thing is that if you set up portable cover behind natural cover, you'll get the same chance to "block" as if you were in a green gumby point (if you'd like a bit more detail, check my other post on Cover).

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  5. Fentanyl: Thanks. I put the delay to 0 sec because of my 250ms latency. So far it's great :)

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  6. does portable cover and natural cover give same defense bonuses?

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  7. Easypil:

    It can, but you have to set up portable behind a solid object to get the "natural" bonus (i.e. the ability to negate basic ranged attacks like blaster fire).

    Otherwise, the ranged defense bonuses they provide are exactly the same.

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  8. Fentanyl: Could you help with the "Ability Action Queue Window" if I move it to larger and to smaller number?

    Any chance that we can see your engineering movie?
    Thanks

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  9. My normal setting for the "Ability Action Queue Window" is 0.0.

    I plan to test the other settings before I make a final recommendation. There was significant server-side lag on Naddist Rebels today that prevented me from doing any substantial testing and comparison. Expect a post about this setting shortly!

    On the engineering movie/video: which do you mean? There is some beta footage available on my Twitch.tv account in the highlights section (twitch.tv/fentanyl213), but I seem to remember it being mostly PvP.

    When I get to 50 I'll have more time to spend making demonstration/instructional-type things. The broken left hand is only making that plan more complicated, though! Heh. I'm thinking I'll go out and get myself a Razer mouse.

    Thanks for being patient in the meantime.

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  10. At lvl 27 now, can't tell you how many times natural cover has almost gotten me killed because I'm busy playing my rhythm while watching mobs & teammates and look center screen to see my sniper jittering in place with a string of text like "unknown result", "cover", etc

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Commenting? Thanks, I appreciate it! -Fen