BARRAGES are NOT RANDOM | Helldivers 2

Gamedev here with some experience with Procedural Generation (specifically procedurally generating terrain/combat environments) . This is 100% caused by using a pseudo-random number generator (or PRNG) to apply offsets to a set of points. The reason why there are consistent patterns is because the instance of the PRNG being used for orbital strikes is always the same on the client for a given session. PRNG's have some interesting (and sometimes annoying) properties: They are deterministic: PRNG's ALWAYS return the same sequence of numbers if they are using the same seed. This is why a minecraft world (or helldivers map) will look the same with the same seed. Access Order Matters: Since the sequence of numbers is the same, if you change the order of requests the output will be different. This can be incredibly annoying with multiplayer synchronization and is probably why this is most likely handled server side (which is why the 'randomness' is the same for each player) This How I think that barrages are handled/how I would do it (this is slightly simplified/not going into technical implementations): - Each barrage is a file/asset that can be changed by designers that effectively defines a set of points that determine the 'perfect' impact offsets. This asset file would also contain the damage/explosion radius, visual effect settings, etc. But most importantly, it would include minimum and maximum spread values. - When a stratagem is triggered, the system would grab the location of the stratagem and then add that to each impact offset value. This creates a 'perfect' impact, from there randomness would be added to get the final impact points. - This is where the PRNG comes in! For each impact the system will query the PRNG and ask it to generate a number between the min and max spread values and add that to the 'perfect' impact point. From there, it's just spawning the effects + explosions in order. - For the walking barrage, this method needs a slight modification. In addition to adding the stratagem coordinates to the impact offsets, you would need to shift/rotate the coordinates. If the impact points are rotated BEFORE applying the randomness, the min/max values will end up having different effects depending on your angle with the highest differences around multiples of 45 degrees and little differences at multiples of 90 degrees. Note that these rotations are relative to the WORLD not the player, so 0/360 would be north. Using this or a similar method to generate impacts would explain the consistency for the shape of the first stratagem and explain why the patterns dramatically change based on order. Another fun fact that can be used to 'prove' this hypothesis: If you fire two barrages WITHOUT the extra salvo upgrade and then WITH the extra salvo upgrade, the first pattern will be identical until the extra shot, but the second pattern will be completely different when done with the salvo upgrade (because the order of access changed :D)! The reason why the order of applying randomness to the walking barrage matters is that if it's applied AFTER rotating, then the offsets are done relative to the compass direction instead of relative to the direction that the stratgem was facing.

Came for explosions and democracy, left with a PhD in explosive patternology.

Homeboy got a masters in urban planning and development to figure out why he got teamkilled

Me before watching this video: *throws barrage randomly in the nest Me after watching this video: *throws barrage randomly in the nest

As an engineer who uses GIS daily for basin planning...this may be the best use case for GIS software I've ever witnessed.

Someone get this Helldiver a medal and assign him to the Ministry of Science and Enginnering. This is an amazing feat

- So is it random? - Well yes but actually no

Anon: "the barrage is random" Bro: "And I took the personally."

I think a factor you forgot to include in your studies, is the fact that the distance you are from the center of the map (Where the Super Destroyer hovers over) can change the angle of Orbital Strategems and how they're casted across the land. This could explain why the walking barrage seemed to have a different pattern in each direction, simply because you were a certain distance from the Ship causing the shots to be angled weirdly. I've seen it happen with the Orbital Airburst strike, where being near the edges of a large map causes the shots to cascade over an area like a sunsetting shadow rather than straight down in a circle as they normally detonate.

"They're not random bro you just need to conduct a geostatistical study to find a way to make them usable"

Automaton 1: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge barrages? Automaton 2: No, I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.

I think this is the perfect video to realize that we are all just beings in the search of things interesting to us. No conflict, no argument, just analysis. Very nicely investigated!!!

YES! Former Maxar employee here. LOVE that you're using GIS in Helldivers 2.

You know what this sounds like to me: Seeded Psuedorandom distributions. Unfortunately, the conditions and information available to you where you'd want to rely on an orbital bombardment makes it unfeasible to rely on any more than select basic features like "Pattern x is safe in the middle"

"25 days of my life" as a person who brings 380 in ALL my runs. i thank you for your sacrifice.

Former Artillerymen. Props to arrowhead for the attention to detail. There are many different kinds of Fire missions. This one most resembles a sweep and zone fire mission. You take the deflection and the quadrant (angles of your cannon) and you adjust them a certain degree every time you fire. Its meant to cover a large area but still be controlled to minimize any collateral and fraticide. The paperwork was a nightmare but always fun and strenuous work

I used ArcGIS systems for a few years in college for satellite imagery and seeing GIS in a Helldivers 2 vid nearly gave me an aneurysm. I admire and fear your dedication in equal measure.

Being able to pack this much info into just 20 mins is almost more impressive than the shear amount of work that went into gathering and analyzing the data in the first place.

12:25 what Arrowhead seems to be trying to simulate here with the Walking Barrage is something called a "sheaf". In Field Artillery, we arrange the cannons in lines so we can use a single correct aiming solution for more then one piece. The rounds land along a generally parallel line at generally uniform distance from all the cannons. This is called a sheaf. If a target is left or right, the line remains parallel to the gun-line, which has not moved. Moving would throw off aim, so each gun will pivot in place. Until the gun-line is ordered to displace and emplace facing in another direction, in which case the new sheaf will be parallel to the new facing of the gun-line. It seems like Arrowhead tried to simulate changing the facing of the platform holding the turrets; potentially at a really tiny level cuz math is easier then moving a ship or multiple pieces/vehicles. Oh, this is different from the direction the target observer is facing. Either way, good use of GIS for impact site analysis (Google "changes in the sheaf caused by a change in the line of fire".)

"Somewhere between 38 distrubution patterns and hell" killed me