I’m trying to explain to a group playing table top space combat how something moving fast at close range could be harder to hit than something slower at long range.
No one believes me. Everyone thinks you should automatically be more accurate at close range.
Seriously?
Ok, assuming they’re not totally stupid, tell them to look at a plane in the ■■■■■■■ sky. Doesn’t it seem pretty ■■■■■■■ slow? I mean, you can point your finger at it and keep following the damn thing as it moves.
Now tell them to stay right next to the runaway as an airplane lands. Assuming they don’t die from the experience, ask them how much of the ■■■■■■■ airplane they could see in the instant it passed them by. 
And take note a plane landing, flaps on and all, is flying MUCH slower - in fact as slow as safely possible - during landing.
Imagine being right next to it as it flies by at cruise speed. This is why you can follow jets with your dirty fingers as they cross the sky. The perceived momentum is much greater as it gets nearer.
Which is easier to hit with a gun? A bird lazily circling the sky, or a fly buzzing around your face?
I wish you were my science teacher in grade 5…learning is way more interesting when life and limb is on the line…
This hopefully will work, but I keep getting told that the relative size is bigger when closer so larger movements are needed to throw off a shot while at long range small movements moves the target exponentially more.
I just can’t figure out what I’m not saying.
I tried highlighting a clock at 12-3 and asked if I move through this vector at the outside edge or the inside edge you see how much longer I’m in your vector at the outside?
I tried asking them to imagine how narrow their 45* fire arc is at the base of their ship verse way out at long range and asked them to imagine which would present more time to aim and fire as a target moves through.
I asked if they would rather take a shot at a 100mph car at 1 meter or 100 and they chose 1 meter.
They’re stupid. Sorry, mate.
At this point, just do your best Joaquin Phoenix impression and tell them “You wouldn’t get it”…
The sad part is, this is multiple people telling me I’m wrong and I don’t get it bc every shooter wants to be closer to their target.
Every shooter wants to be at their optimal range…not simply closer. Think rifles and ask them that question again.
Does the group have access to a PC each? If so learning through doing is much more fun, get them signed up and in-game, everyone loves a ‘tech demo’ right 
Regards,
Cypr3ss.
@QuakeGod Sorry, I didn’t mean replying to you.
Maybe the problem is they’re thinking that the car is approaching them head on?
These guys are idiots.
Ask them why they’re thinking they’re going to react quickly enough,
when the car passes them by at 100 miles per hour.
Without proper training they’re never going to hit that car.
Seriously though, if you know these guys in real life you can just physically play it out …
… and when they still don’t get it, then find friends who aren’t idiots.
Try this;
Tell them to think about about the Turbolasers on the Death Star Trench Run. They’re designed for shooting at big battleships and can’t turn quick enough to hit the fighters. The pilots are literally outrunning the machinery of the guns.
I think the problem with any comparison to human shooting is that human reflexes are pretty quick, you could probably turn 180* (1.0 radians) per second, whereas the guns in eve are doing like 0.1 rads/sec. It’s completely different trying to aim a mortar or cannon, than trying to aim a pistol or a sword or a human weapon. And yeah, we’re talking massive scale. A Rupture cruiser mounts guns bigger than the 16" cannons on the USS Iowa, and those are autocannons, not even howitzers or the guns on the Machariel. Runa got it right when she said it’s like trying to aim a rifle, it’s just too slow to snap onto target, except it’s 100 times slower than that.
They are not entirely wrong. If it is about humans and not computer tracking, you got to factor in alot more than range, angle, velocity and pure math. It is actually logical to hit closer targets easier than those further away. And there are thresolds for each human, you cannot say “here ill flash this thing in your face at 10m/s and then 10m away from your eyeball, which is easier to hit?” There are thresholds for each human eye, minimum and maximum distances at which their eye lense is optimized for tracking moving things.
Now if you are talking about computer tracking in eve, that is entirely dependant on how they.ve set it up, which is different than real world physics. The code for tracking follows certain rules for each type of gun and ammo and thats it.
I see in eve the gun will always aim and shoot at the last registered vector of your ship, rules kick in and apply damage based on the differential between factors such as gun/ammo specs then sig radius, falloff and speed, ship specs and there is the server tick mechanic differential, the latencyto factor in aswell, who clicks faster and has better internet might get away from a clean shot anyway. If there were modules for tracking set to update their aiming in real time with an AI capable of predicting your position 2 sec later rather than trying to mimic realtime tracking, then a very slow turret could analyze first the movement behaviour of an enemy ship and shoot ahead of its position to apply full damage anyway, negating the speed tanking mechanic as long as both youand the target maintain an easely predictable trajectory for more than a few seconds.
Tank vs Motorcycle
Pick a RL ranged weapon (1 shot, 1 round) and make the argument for it why very close range (ie 1m) is easier to hit rather that at the weapon’s optimal range. Target is the same for both as is the vector and velocity.
. Optimal weapon range is a different case than “closer is easier/harder to hit than further away”.
Are you trying to teachsome guys about weapon mechanics in eve or in real life or some other games?
Srry I see ur not the OP lmao.
Real life, oh man, in real life wind is actually a heavy factor, take snipers for instance. A slow breeze might make the bullet miss at 2km away just 2 inchess off target whilst it would not affect the bullet at all at 100m away. It is much easier for a sniper to hit targets below the weapons optimal with a naked eye than tracking a relatively slow moving target at a few km away and having to account for weather such as wind or rain.
I meant optimal range as in the normal range for the weapon you selected. So if you picked a rifle, that would be different than a hand gun or a bow.
No, as you said “They are not entirely wrong” and I just want to here where you think they are right using a real world weapon as an example.
No wind, elevation or other factors…just distance, speed and the weapon type.