(MAJOR Tweak/Sugges.)Reason why vehicles feel more sluggish.

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

After extensive testing, except the areas of 'side thrusting' and ' flying' the vehicle properties for hovering units is exceedingly similar to what they were in 1.2, but why this constant mentioning of them feeling slower and sluggish?

Well, i think its because now the vehicles hover a couple of extra meters above the ground, and thus give a feeling of going slower even though your going at an identical speed, given that the ground is further way, so does not seem to be going past you as quickly given your perspective relative to the terrain.

Why was this done? I do not recall reading it in the change log, and should it be changed back to give people the feeling that they are indeed piloting high-manuvabilty ships.

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Ken did several things to both the overall physics and the object boundries that could account for vehicles hovering higher.  (This would be a good example of unintended effects of global changes, btw.)

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[CmptrWz]

This may be the change that did that, not sure though. Build 50b of the private beta.

- Improved hover physics height calculation to take the vehicle's
entire bounding box into consideration, and not just its bottom height.
This greatly reduces the amount of "bottoming out" while performing
extreme maneuvers. [Ken]

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

Well it seems to be the cause of the problem with reguards to people thinking things are more sluggish.

Now obviously we want to keep what GSH did, it soundslike he had a good reason for doing this so we want to keep the consequences of his changes in.

However, we also want the extra height not be there. Sounds like mabey its time for some ODF tweaking.

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Minor correction there JWK, Ken did that...  not GSH.

I remember the point of that, it was to keep you from nosing into the ground when climbing a hill.  The entire bounding box is used rather than a bubble around the ship, keeping your extremities above ground...  If it has raised the ships it'll be varied by how well the bounding box fits the individual vehicle.  That means checking it for each and every ship...  

Sticking your nose into terrain is a time honored BZ happening and it's always bugged me.  Ground (and buildings) should be solid but aren't in the BZ universe.  

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[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

That means checking it for each and every ship...

Then thats what we do. If this is the cause of ships feeling 'sluggish' then we 'have' to solve it and cease the feeling.

And as reguards to 'ken' doing instead of GSH. I consider them to be one body, given that Ken only did it as a favour to GSH and only visited he fourms like 10 times. Or so i have heard.

btw, that last scentance is OFF TOPIC so dont talk about it, i really dont care who did it. Right now i want the ships to 'feel' like they used to. Which for the enjoyment and playabiltiy of a game, is a 'MAJOR' issue.

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And as reguards to 'ken' doing instead of GSH. I consider them to be one body, given that Ken only did it as a favour to GSH and only visited he fourms like 10 times. Or so i have heard.

btw, that last scentance is OFF TOPIC so dont talk about it, i really dont care who did it. Right now i want the ships to 'feel' like they used to. Which for the enjoyment and playabiltiy of a game, is a 'MAJOR' issue.

I regaurds to any discussion of changes and WHY they occurred it's important to identify WHO did it.  Ken and Nathan are very definately not 'one body' and have very different views as to the type of changes to make, and their relative importance.

In dealing with a Kencodeâ,,¢ item simply state that it's not right and give general points to resolution.  Expect further enhancements rather than just a reversal, and plan on further testing.

In dealing with GSH sponsored issues document fully the negative aspects, list specific changes needed to resolve, show full Community support for those changes, and give examples of both the negative function and it's resolution if possible.

So, not really Off Topic at all if you want a decent resolution of the issue.  

Really, this is the main reason people are frustrated with GSH and changes he makes, they don't treat him like the methodical, logical coder he is.  Same thing for Ken, they don't understand he's the creative, expressive artist that he is.

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[DarkFox]

Iz GSH a zyborg?

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

That makes sense, no excuse for being rude though.

Anyway. Vehicles!

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Iz GSH a zyborg?

Um, no, but anyone who treads too far down the dark path of programming eventually adopts thinking patterns more attuned to the code than the code users.  I've been that way many times, when I'm deep into a project. Beer usually brings me back...

You know, I noticed from the beginning that the BZ2 ships seemed to sit much higher than the BZ1 ships.  BZ1 ships seemed to have their nose in the ground all the time, making the terrain rush by in a blast of speed.  The BZ2 ships were more like luxury cars, you couldn't feel the terrain but you could grab great air...

My main worry would be that lowering them would lead to more ground bumping complaints....


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[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

Then get it balenced so that you get the great BZI feeling of rushing past the ground, and a ride that is not 'too' rough.

I was playing one of the 4 way maps the other day, the green one. And i noticed how your ship now really clinged against the bumpy ground and it was an auesom feeling.