Just to clarify something that Theirillusion mentioned:
Your inputs/state as an attacker have no bearing on an enemy's invincibility period. If I double-switch with max ASI as a gunslinger (or just use a silversix and click fast enough), the consecutive shots will land during invincibility and deal no damage. It's completely timing/opponent-state based.
I also have no idea what invinciframes have to do with AT either.
@Krakob
I have a recording with the Recon Knight. Managed to get one in a run I did after posting here and recorded it. I'll upload it in a while (it might not be great, I think having Chrome open while recording made my laptop a bit too winded). From what I saw, though, AT did lock-on to the Recon Knight. I tried it with the Valiance and Acheron I was carrying. I think I botched it up with the gun, but when I use the sword you actually see me snapping to him for a split second before attacking where the cursor was pointing.
I'll upload the video in a while though, still have some stuff to do so I can't render it to a decent youtube size yet.
On another note, I also found a Mecha Knight Kit a while later and AT didn't lock on to it. It didn't even make the red cross thingy. I didn't record that one though, since it'd be impossible to tell if I actually had AT toggled or not... :s
EDIT: Here's the vidja. Clickety click You can actually see AT in action, snapping me to shoot my Valiance at the Recon and then making me freak out for a bit with the Acheron (I have no idea if the hit would be registered to where the swing was supposed to go or if it'd go on the Recon. Too bad we can't damage those guys, at least for the sake of testing this :P)
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a universe to explore!
Naturally, I got that.
Arilys, I'll refrain from linking to your video as I'd prefer to make it myself to keep the videos consistent and to have them very clear. Thanks, though! Now I know what to expect.
@Seiran
I guess I should have mentioned that by Recon Knights I meant the NPC guys from the new consumable items... sorry!
@Krakob
That's fine. For some reason my SK videos/screenshots get a yellow-ish hue. Dunno if it's because of the graphics card or something else, though, because the colours are fine when I'm playing.
Sorry, rambled a bit there. Like I said, don't worry about not putting my link in the starting post. I just wanted to back up my claim that AT still locks on to some NPCs :p
AT makes you lock on to targets and follow them if they are moving.
In a sense, doesn't it? If you turn on AT and attack, you turn to face the target. So if you theoretically kept doing that as a target moved, and the target was slow enough, and you were attacking fast enough, wouldn't you follow them?
Auto Target makes you do a complete 180 turn and kill your opponent.
This is not true, but AT helps you when you do this. If your opponent is directly behind you and you spin and do an attack, the attack has a higher chance of hitting the target with AT than without because you essentially get an extra 22.5-45º on your attack radius. So instead of having to spin around 180º with your brandish, you only have to spin 135º.
~~~~~~~~~~
New question: Does AT's effect take into account the radius of your sword swing or bullet? Ex: if I stand with an enemy 89º to my left with a toothpick, the toothpick will hit the enemy. If I turn on AT, is the AT effective to 45º from the center of the swing, or 45º from the edge?
Alright Krakob, I'll give you a serious one.
Perhaps the most contested one, for PvP at least.
There's a claim AT gives you extra 'range'.
reasoning: AT knows your ghost range better than you do, so that's one thing that gives you an edge.
For a flaw in the system itself I'm kind of looking to you..
I'm thinking it's pretty certain AT would target with the point of your arc swing where your reach is the widest.
If you swing isn't originating from the dead center of you character that means it would position you in a way to align with that max swing reach?
I'm presenting this one because in LD people like SnAArkey have a ridiculous reach, that to me can't be explained by only knowledge of ghost range and 0ping.
It's strange to me because I have a good connection on both servers and have played pretty much everyone. I know what's usual and what not.
Skilled people with knowledge of the range and 0ping can't do it to me. Only people with AT, range and 0ping can surprise me like that.
@Feyi-Feyi
I snuck into the Lionheart guildhall to test your claim against punching bags because it sounded just silly.
So I turned AT on, slowly inched my way backwards, and swung my sword per step until I found the maximum range. Then, I toggled AT off and swung again. For future reference, when using a Flourish, this distance is when your back foot is just slightly more than 2 tiles away from the target (assuming you're facing the target).
In short: No, there was no range difference.
HOWEVER there is a touch of truth to your statement. I pulled out a piece of graph paper (getting flashbacks of mapping dungeons in my old RPGs...) and roughly mapped the points you could aim at and hit the target: with AT and without. First of all, the in-game camera angle makes it look rather odd if you're standing to the side of a target. The following were all done with a flourish.
When at maximum range (back foot is slightly more than 2 tiles away), AT gives you about 1 more tile worth of area, in each direction, to aim in and still hit the target, compared to no AT. So for example, if K is the player, X is an empty tile, and T is the target, then someone with AT can hit the target by aiming at the Os, while someone without AT has to aim at the T.
O T O
X X X
X K X
(Sidenote, you can hit the target if you aim at the tile between you and the target, regardless of AT on or off)
If you move into point-blank range (as in "I'm sticking my face in your armpit" close), the area in which you aim in so that AT locks onto the target is actually smaller than the area you can actually aim in and still hit the target. In other words, AT actually makes it a bit harder to hit someone who's in your face. As stated before, K is the player, X is an empty tile, T is the target, O is where you need to aim for AT to kick in, and now Y is where you can aim and hit the target, without AT.
O O O O O
Y Y T Y Y
X X K X X
Appropriately, when your back foot is slightly more than 1 tile away, then AT is just about the same as having no AT. K is the player, X is an empty tile, T is the target, and O is where you can aim and hit the target, regardless of AT.
O O O O O
X O T O X
X X K X X
I can't record video so feel free to test this yourself.
@Seiran: I didn't write my whole bottom paragraph for nothing..
I know what latency and ghost range can do. I also know when something goes beyond that and that's just what I've found.
I don't claim to be able to explain it though, what I wrote down was a suggestion what it could be.
@trav: Call me Feyi :) Thanks for testing, couldn't log on myself.
The claim that AT gives extra range is not mine per se, it's just a rather persistent one and I'd like to see it settled.
as for my own experience with it I can only say what the bottom paragraph of my first post said.
@Arilys
Cheers! I already got the footage but I still lack it for Mecha Knights. I hope to have that sooner or later, no matter.
@Klipik
AT makes you lock on to targets and follow them if they are moving.
I don't mean in that way. You'll see once I get footage.
Auto Target makes you do a complete 180 turn and kill your opponent.
Not even gonna add that one because it's not directly caused by AT. It can be done with good aim as well.
New question: Does AT's effect take into account the radius of your sword swing or bullet?
It does not but I can go ahead and prove that with DVS and Suda.
Edit: I assume you meant the arc of the swords, not the radius because I guess that would actually be the range.
@Feyi
I know you know how this works and Seiran already explained it so I won't even comment. I've got a video up in a short bit.
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Edit: I've now added a paragraph about requesting help with recording various things. Please post if you wanna help me out.
About AT and range, its not that it supposedly increased range that is an annoyance (well for me anyway) its the being able to hit enemies from the peak range every time because it will line up your swing arc the be facing your enemy directly every time.
Added a small section about range varying between weapon to weapon. Also linked to a topic I made about it under Wiki editors. Look here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/94082
@Perlippel
I'm under the impression that swords most of the time simply have an arc, a partial circle as hitbox. Thus, aiming straight on would give no range advantage to being say, 15 degrees off. I have no proof of this, though I want to have a look at it sooner or later.
Auto target "lock" icon remained active (via using the keybound toggle, not default). Unfortunately, my client disconnected to the login screen before I was able to attack and see if snapping in the direction occurred.
There's a reason why people think AT affects cloaked recons, even if it doesn't. It's something else entirely.
People do cheat in Lockdown.
I can help record if you want. I can record at the highest settings at 60 fps in most circumstances (unless it gets really hectic on the screen).
@Skepticraven
Np, I can handle that. You just have to disable your network connoction and you can do it whenever you want to.
@Draycos
Footsteps, you mean? I wouldn't call it cheating, although really stupid.
@Proto Poteli
Sounds rad! I'm a bit busy with another project at the moment but I'll return to my AT studies once it's done. Maybe I'll be able to do some AT stuff when I can't work on the other project. Add me on Steam or mail me in game (IGN: Krakob) and I'll contact you when needed and I can.
Yes, and there are ways to make them much more visible. Which sucks.
I have no idea what you're talking about and yes indeed it sucks.
AT being disabled by toggling chat is being fixed in tee minus almost 90 minutes something.
Thanks for the thread; I really appreciate it! It makes me glad that there are still nice, reasonable knights on Cradle.
I want to tell you all that OOO has recently given me a helmet so I won't be knocked unconscious when you type in your chat box. I'm super pumped about this (since I don't get compensated for work related injuries) and I hope everyone will enjoy my uninterrupted service.
Patch is out; servers are down. Haven't tested yet.
I managed to run a server or client side test during the reboot but there's something I realised;
Despite seeing that AT had effect on the client side, that might just be there to make the game more responsive. If it happens only visually like this and then for real on the server, it would explain the following stuff.
@Auto Target
I love you! Can I have your autograph? I want to study your effect on handwriting.
AT aims ahead taking into account projectile speed.
Callahan misses about 50% of the time on gorgos. However, it only seems to miss when they change directions. Perhaps when someone takes a video we can determine if it does take this into account. I think this one happens to be true after observing attacks vs gorgos (on the prestige today).
Of course everyone is busy with winterfest. I'll just leave this here for later.
It's time to CE rev this topic. Theirillusion helped me with a few things so I've now got proof for most things here. However, I'm currently suffering from illness and I'm kinda too tired to work on any proper projects. Until then, there are a few new proofs available here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlx6evVdInbUKgyIjwUVmnpKQg1A82bml
I should also point out that I have footage of locking onto targets from both my and Illu's side. This means that we can find out if AT is server side or not but I'm too tired to edit the whole video and whatnot. Hopefully I'll have the energy to do so at the end of the week or so, though. Until then!
AT activates when a target is Death Marked.
Is this true? I find that often when I'm playing LD, and I death Mark my opponent, the large red targeting reticle will appear over the closest marked target. Whether this is simply the same visual effect of AT, or an activation remains to be seen.
I did notice that, too. I'll have a look (eventually). Thanks for the tip!
Udpated.
So we now know that AT is server side and it optimises your aim to indirectly increase range (at least vs single targets). This is kind of a big deal, I'd say.
Added "AT attacks ignore invinciframes." because there's probably someone who actually believes that out there.
@Misty Wellington, Arkate
Please refrain from going off topic. You're free to make a topic about discussing other aspects of AT but this one is intended purely for proving what's true about it and not.
@Seiran
Yes, mid-animation direction changing. It's wacky.
Adding the Recon thing and testing when I can.
@Tweeter
Fixed them, sorry.
@Theirillusion
I read your posts again but I don't see how it directly relates to AT. In fact, it will not matter at all with toothpicks and Sealed Swords. I'm not gonna add your theory unless you explain how it directly relates to AT.
I'm interested in testing what you say about single weapon switching but I'm not sure if my execution is good enough for that, could you test it yourself?
@Whimsicality
Yes. Yes, it does. I'll add it to the main post and make a video.
@Arilys
I already tried and recorded it with Rhendon in the Drakon mission and one of the captive knights in The Great Escape. I'll try with a Mecha Knight and a Recon Ranger before I post, though.