Олег Поленин Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 The base list screen always seemed to be ordered by the current distance from player. After arrival in China I've began experiencing some problems with the order. At first, I've noticed US bases being displayed higher than EU, though the latter are closer (real distance, great arc). Also, the Hongkong base, being closest to the first built Chinese base, displayed behind few US bases. Other Chinese bases seemed to display properly until now that I'm traveling westward. They to have been interleaved by US bases. Is it some distortion due to connection problems, access to map API etc., problem with CN GPS coordinates perhaps, or some real bug? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. D Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 The bases are sorted by distance against your last known position (lat/lng), which may be affected by VPNs & wi-fi networks when the GPS signal is not available. I am assuming that something is interfering with your current position in China and your "blue dot" doesn't actually represent your current location, hence the sorting problems! Alternatively, if you are using a VPN your position may appear in a different country entirely. However, if this is the case you may run into difficulties with our anti-cheat quite soon, so I would advise against continuing to use the VPN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Олег Поленин Posted June 6, 2019 Author Share Posted June 6, 2019 My position is reported quite properly. I did once or twice see it jump back to Warsaw for whatever reason, but this had nothing to do with VPN servers location (Canada and Netherlands). I've never seen my location to jump into any place related to my VPN connection. Even as far as my knowledge goes, this should never interfere. The only real symptom of using VPN is that is somehow enables Google-supported quicker GPS sync, which also makes position more erratic - but in a way that is exactly like it always worked back home, without VPN. As soon as I disable VPN the GPS position becomes much more stable, to an extent I've never seen before. Anyways, there is simply no imaginable failed location that would give such results. Look for how the US and CN bases are interleaved. It's physically impossible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Олег Поленин Posted June 19, 2019 Author Share Posted June 19, 2019 Came back home and checked again to exclude any doubts of suggested VPN related GPS issues. My US bases are now mostly placed before my China bases, with maybe two China bases interleaving in the rear of US stack. This proves without doubt that the problem indeed exists, as even the furthest Chinese base (Hongkong, 8265 km) is nearer to my location (Warsaw) than the nearest US base (Page, AZ, 9078 km) - and these values are from the game (though also confirmed via Google). And this should also be quite obvious when looking at the global map. The latitudes are similar, thus the great circle distances are generally relatable to the horizontal distance on the map: Even if you were to use some simplified geometry/math here (like a pitagorean out of latitude and longitude degree deltas), this should still not yeld such erroneous results. Screens from the game. Chinese bases are pretty well distinguishable: If this doesn't convince you, try to impersonate me on some test game environment with the location set anywhere in Warsaw. And, I'd like to repeat, it looked much more insane when in China, as some US bases actually interleaved the Chinese when listed from Chinese coordinates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Олег Поленин Posted July 11, 2019 Author Share Posted July 11, 2019 @Mr. D I have further found an even more solid proof that the problem is real - as well as the possible solution. At some point, somewhere in the code that calculates the arc distances for bases, the value of the longitude (and perhaps also latitude) becomes unsigned, ie. the information on whether the coordinate is in the western (W) or eastern (E) hemisphere is being lost. Thus, all coordinates are being applied on a single hemisphere and it distorts the order of bases. I've confirmed this by collecting the map of all my bases, and then overlaying the western hemisphere on eastern hemisphere - mirrored over prime (0°) meridian. The image below shows the result. The red bases are the "mirrored" ones. It now clearly answers the problem of US bases being displayed higher on list than Chinese ones, with few Chinese bases ending up in between US bases. It also explains something I've noticed earlier, but didn't put much investigation into it - that the base in Sevilla (A) is being displayed higher in list than the base in Castillon/Valencia (B). Q.E.D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. D Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 Wow, that is one thorough investigation, @Олег Поленин! Thanks for all the information provided, it is an interesting find and also very helpful! I'll add this to my list of things to fix! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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