Chaining Mechanics Question

[DarkCurrent]

Does anyone know how chaining powers worked?  From what I can tell after a primary target was hit a pseudo-pet was spawned that could then jump to another target.

a) how many jumps could occur?  In other words, was there a target cap / range / time limit for jumps?  If I'm reading City of Data correctly Chain Induction from electrical control, as an example, has only 4 jumps possible, so 5 total hits.

b) was an accuracy roll attempted each time?  Again, if I'm reading CoD correctly, it seems that the pets had their own acc, but it was 2.00 for the first jump, then dropped to 1.50, 1.25 and 1.00 for the last two jumps.  (Meanwhile, Trick Shot's jumps were 2.00, 2.00, 1.50 and 1.50.)  So I'm guessing your accuracy enhancements didn't affect that, but I'm not sure why the acc would decrease.  However, I'm thinking that enemy AoE to hit debuffs would affect them, and the same with team AoE to hit buffs.

c) how were pets' targets selected?  Nearest to the primary or random within the range?  Also, could a jump hit an already struck target?  Or were struck targets flagged somehow?  According to CoD, only the PC was flagged untargetable.

Thanks for any insights.

[blacksly]

[quote author=DarkCurrent link=topic=10131.msg152908#msg152908 date=14066628
a) how many jumps could occur?  In other words, was there a target cap / range / time limit for jumps?  If I'm reading City of Data correctly Chain Induction from electrical control, as an example, has only 4 jumps possible, so 5 total hits.[/quote]

Target cap is generally 1 per jump unless the jump creates an AoE power. I do not believe any of the chain powers did that.
Time limit: it's not exactly a time limit, but each created power generally said "after X seconds", usually about 0.5.
The number of jumps is dependent on the power, and each power might have different numbers of jumps. Chain Induction is a MELEE attack power, that hits one target on each jump, and makes 4 jumps (plus the original target gives it a maximum number of 5 targets).
Now, Jolting Chain and Synaptic Overload work a little bit differently... each one fires TWICE per jump level. So the first hit is 1 target, that splits into 2 jumps. Each of those then splits into another 2 jumps, giving you 4 at this level. Those 4 targets then each jump 2 times, for 8 targets on the last jump. 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 15 maximum targets (conveniently, the usual maximum for a large-scale AoE power).
Yes, each jump has a range (radius). I think 15 is usual.

b) was an accuracy roll attempted each time?  Again, if I'm reading CoD correctly, it seems that the pets had their own acc, but it was 2.00 for the first jump, then dropped to 1.50, 1.25 and 1.00 for the last two jumps.  (Meanwhile, Trick Shot's jumps were 2.00, 2.00, 1.50 and 1.50.)  So I'm guessing your accuracy enhancements didn't affect that, but I'm not sure why the acc would decrease.  However, I'm thinking that enemy AoE to hit debuffs would affect them, and the same with team AoE to hit buffs.

The power's Accuracy (and duration, for the confuse, and Damage, etc) enhancements SHOULD be passed along to the subpowers, just as a pet's powers are made more accurate by slotting Accuracy in the pet summon power. I do not know specifically why the decreasing base accuracy, but it's a good guess that they wanted to make sure that it was less likely to miss early in the chain, since an early miss would actually break the chain and in effect, miss multiple times.

An accuracy roll IS made each time, but remember the streak-breaker... with good Accuracy, it is very unlikely (or impossible) to miss more than twice in a 15-target spawn... you just hope it doesn't miss on the original hit because that prevents the chaining from occurring.

c) how were pets' targets selected?  Nearest to the primary or random within the range?  Also, could a jump hit an already struck target?  Or were struck targets flagged somehow?  According to CoD, only the PC was flagged untargetable.

Struck targets are flagged so that they cannot be re-struck. It is a general AoE power, so it works as usual for AoE target selection, I believe it's in order of closest to the originating source of that particular jump (but bypassing targets already flagged). It also looks better than having it jump randomly to anyone in range.

[Codewalker]

Target cap is generally 1 per jump unless the jump creates an AoE power. I do not believe any of the chain powers did that.

Ion Judgement. The Tier 1 uses a 3-2-2 pattern. The tier 4 uses a 3-3-1-2 pattern in order to hit more targets.

They're all technically AoE powers, they just have a small target cap.

Time limit: it's not exactly a time limit, but each created power generally said "after X seconds", usually about 0.5.

They delays are necessary for the psueopet hack to work. The "already hit" modes aren't actually applied until the combat tick finishes, so they can't be used to make targets ineligible for targeting until the next tick at the earliest.

Accuracy is interesting for chain powers due to the mechanics of target caps. A spherical AoE power, like all chain power jumps, starts at the origin point and searches for the closest target. It performs a hit roll against that target. If it hits, it counts against the target cap, and for a power with a target cap of 1, stops there.

However, it misses, it does NOT add to the target cap, and continues spiraling outward, performing hit rolls on every eligible target in range, until it either hits one, or runs out of possible targets.

That's why the "first jump" powers for chains are the most vulnerable to missing (and why Ion is autohit for the initial target). It IS possible for a chain jump to miss, but quite unlikely if there are a lot of eligible targets, and also means that a later one might jump BACK to the missed target and hit it anyway.