Preliminary Physics Tweaks Posted

[OvermindDL1]

I'm quite sure it is not set by dll whether something leaves scrap on death.  Probobly set in ODF.

[APCs r evil]

It's not. I checked all the DM ship ODFs. They all have positive scrapValue settings.

[BZZERKER]

RD, It sounds to me like your setting the physics up for a very small handful of ppl. What happens when the vets you have testing for you now go and tell the others that the physics are "good" or "livable" and the new testers start screaming "These suck...they're still too sluggish (or too fast or w/e)? You NEED a bigger group of testers...and let them beat on the physics for a full day or 2 before updating. It's fine to make changes before that but don't release them soon as your done. Use the extra time to make sure you don't have any dups or haven't forgotten anything.

I say go to all the clan sites and beat the drum. Tell them if they don't participate now that they should hold their tongues later.

[appel]

I disagree BZZERKER.

I want to have a working *1.2 patch* for 1.3 before we start advertising a uncomplete and still buggish physics. So when we're complete, we should release a working version, and ask people to play. Getting too many people involved will only slow this process, and we'll probably receive conflicting opinions.

And I believe that if I'm happy with the end result, then I'm pretty sure the majority will also be. 

[BZZERKER]

I disagree BZZERKER.

I want to have a working *1.2 patch* for 1.3 before we start advertising a uncomplete and still buggish physics. So when we're complete, we should release a working version, and ask people to play. Getting too many people involved will only slow this process, and we'll probably receive conflicting opinions.

And I believe that if I'm happy with the end result, then I'm pretty sure the majority will also be. 

Not to sound disrespectful.....BUT,

Maybe you should stop sniffing yourself. Anytime 1 person decides that they can speak for many without their permission, it's time to step back and re-evaluate.

[Lizard]

I disagree BZZERKER.

I want to have a working *1.2 patch* for 1.3 before we start advertising a uncomplete and still buggish physics. So when we're complete, we should release a working version, and ask people to play. Getting too many people involved will only slow this process, and we'll probably receive conflicting opinions.

And I believe that if I'm happy with the end result, then I'm pretty sure the majority will also be. 

I agree, you can often achieve more with a handful of people who know what they are doing rather than with a large amount of people who all want different things . The point is to remain focused and have a clear series of goals, having too many people involved  can often muddy the water so to speak. ZST would be a good example of how to make a mod like this, aslong as you have a good handle on what makes the game tick for the majority of players the quality of your work should speak for itself.

[appel]

I disagree BZZERKER.

I want to have a working *1.2 patch* for 1.3 before we start advertising a uncomplete and still buggish physics. So when we're complete, we should release a working version, and ask people to play. Getting too many people involved will only slow this process, and we'll probably receive conflicting opinions.

And I believe that if I'm happy with the end result, then I'm pretty sure the majority will also be. 

Not to sound disrespectful.....BUT,

Maybe you should stop sniffing yourself. Anytime 1 person decides that they can speak for many without their permission, it's time to step back and re-evaluate.

It's done all the time. And you wouldn't get anywhere without it. It's like making a new soda flavor, only a handful of people make a new flavor, and if they like it, they'll get a bigger test group, if they all like it, they'll try to market it in limited places, if it sells well, they'll market it big time.
Coming out with a flavor that's not ready, or not everybody like, will surely flop the marketing of it and not sell anything

Besides, I use a good aftershave, it smells very nice.

[BZ FeebleEffort]

"And I believe that if I'm happy with the end result, then I'm pretty sure the majority will also be."


Don't let  him get big headed...but  Appel is most likely right about this, the Bac guys are one of the longest playing clans of BZ 2 MP and Appel fights right in w/ that solid MP group,  get him genrerally happ and I'd say you have a very good working model. In the wlong run for more weapon and balance tweaking i agree that should be done w/ a bigger group...and I trust it will be....cause if Appel is happy w/ the physics, he goes along way to bringning in a substantial part of the MP strat players to fine tune balance.

[BZZERKER]

OK, points taken.

I would feel a lot better if PF and DF were in on the "taste testing" as well. It would give a bit more credit to the work as well I think.

"And I believe that if I'm happy with the end result, then I'm pretty sure the majority will also be."


Don't let  him get big headed...

Hence my comment. He seems awful high on himself.

[Spawn]

spAce and appel can easily most of the 1.2ers who whould give 1.3 a shot.  BBR can't play as much..I think and DF isn't a great representation of most of the vets, easily smarter than most hasn't played recently.

[Red Devil]

Good debate!  Sounds like we're on the right track then.  And yes, it would be good to have PF and DF participate.  Feels like I'm a mechanic on a race car team.

So here's the rough plan:

1. I'll strip out the units from the download that aren't being worked on/haven't been worked on in order to increase/maintain focus and give us a picture of our progress.

2. We get a good solid physics base by working on one pair at a time, starting our way up the hovercraft tech tree in pairs, then move up the tracked vehicles tech tree in pairs, then the walkers, and then the air vehicles (Bomber, APC, Archer).

3. Fine tune the physics once all units are close.

4. Repeat process with balancing.

5. Tweak other problems such as building clipping.


Be good to test the Thunderbolt/Drone on a slow server to see how much they warp.


Question: Will Mod physics and balance have to be adjusted once we finish with the stock physics/balance?

[Raven]

That depends on what is included in the pak, if your doing what i am, which is having nothing stock whatsoever, then there shouldnt be any problems as the stock ships and files will be sorted out when reinstalled not touching the mod

Any new gameprefs can go into the mods addon folder which is what i do but some ships odfs may need a small modification, but it shouldnt be anything hard. And the patch13.pak is added in mods (should be) so taht any changes will take effect in the mod. But thats the nutshell, im not even going to pretend i know about physics etc.

[Spawn]

If anyone just read what raven said, forget it.  If you haven't read it, then don't read it.  Isn't useful at all and not on topic.

As for non hover units their physics probablly won't need to be tweaked, maybe mass and sticking to the ground for treaded units.  Mass is utterly simple to set back to the exact 1.2 values, I can provide these if you want them red.  To reduce ground collision without increasing the hoveraltitude I found that:

Code Select Expand

[CraftClass]
GROUND_ELASTICITY = -0.5 // [0.03125]
Worked relatively well, with some oddities.  It removed the collision with buildings, and you couldn't hit something from straight on.  The variable adjusts how much energy from the collision with the ground is transfered back into the ship, one being 100% and so on.  Values near or above one make the ship fly into the air, high negative values having extremely odd effects and zero to low negative values reducing the collision the most.

Not too sure how it works for others, appel tried it and noticed no difference, but that scout was also lowered which could have an effect.

[Spawn]

Also, if you could put all the hud tweaks into a folder/subfolder I can easily delete it would be helpful.  Playing with them at min res means over half the screen is cluttered, real PITA to sort everything out and delete the shell tweaks.  Not saying they are bad, just that  they don't work at lower resolutions, as you should know.  You could try using the different resolution feature too, its in the code below.

Code Select Expand


- Made various cfg files more resolution-independent. Basically, for a
file like "bzshell.cfg", it'll look first for a file
"bzshell_640x480.cfg" first, and if that's present, use it. The 640,
480 are based on the current resolutions. As there's a lot of
resolutions, there'll be a lot of duplications. Sorry. The files
affected by this change are: "bzshell.cfg", "bzshell_editor.cfg",
"bzgame_base.cfg", "bzgame_command.cfg", "bzgame_factory.cfg",
"bzgame_group.cfg", "bzgame_moves.cfg", "bzgame_satellite.cfg",
"bzgame_scrap.cfg", "bzgame_weapon.cfg", "bzgame_team.cfg",
"bzgame_init.cfg", "bzgame_keys.cfg", "bzgame_stats.cfg" Mostly
untested, but should work. [NM]

[Red Devil]

They are already in a separate folder.  Just delete it. I just threw that in there to get some quick feedback on how people like it so far is all and so we could see the Ping/Lag values better for now.  I'll make ones for different resolutions when we get to item 5 unless you or someone else wants to do them now.

The bounce thing seems to be fixed to people's liking so far.  You used negative values?  Lol, you're an out-of-the-boxer like me.  Careful though. Remember how me using negative values triggered AV's on the tracked vehicles before GSH clamped them?