[Solved] Question on the mechanics of insta-locks and the game's 2-second slices

[Meyanni Travers]

I heard that the game runs on 2-second time slices. I was told that this means that for safe traveling, you should try to get below a 2 second align time because then you could not even get caught by an insta-locking ship.

Ignoring bubbles and such stuff for the moment.

I am trying to understand to what extent this is true, and what it means for how the game's time slices work.

My question is: Would a 1 sec align time give you a statistical benefit over a 1.9 sec align time?

My thoughts about the hypothetical statistical benefit are these:

I wonder if a 1 sec align duration would have a greater chance to still fit into the current 2-sec slice, as opposed to the 1.9 sec align. A 1.9 sec align could be started in the current 2-second slice and only finish in the next slice. That would mean that a 1.9 sec align will statistically almost reliably spill over into the next slice.

But if that were the case, I guess people would not claim that a 1.9 sec align time saves you from insta-locking. But you never know. "We proved that bumblebees cannot fly" and such stuff.

Or is the game implemented like this:
Any action within each 2-sec slice is assumed to have started at the beginning of the slice. Even if it actually was started a millisecond before the end of the 2-sec slice. As long as the action's duration is less than 2 seconds, it is considered as having finished before the end of the 2-sec slice.
In this case, once you achieve an alignment time of 1.99 seconds, you would be immune to be insta-locked, no matter the locking player's reaction time. This would also mean that going below a 1.99 sec align time would be pointless.

Any thoughts, ideas, or opinions would be welcome!

[Tomcat Evergreen]

I don't know where you got the 2 second tick (slice) from, but that bit is wrong, the game runs on 1 second ticks (slices). The reason why everyone is telling you to get your travelceptor/travelfrigate under 2 seconds is that you can't get it under 1. (There are a few ships that can do it, like T3ds with the mode switch trick, i think. And pods.)

Having an align time of less than 2 seconds was considered to be uncatchable, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. (See https://old.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/l ... edevil_an/ for details.) Getting under 2 seconds makes you almost uncatchable by insta lockers.

Also see https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Server_tick for details on the 1 tick.

[Meyanni Travers]

Thank you very much for the information and the links!