Physics, Ground Vehicles, and Mowing

[Malorn]

I drove a Vanguard from May 20th 2003 throughout my gaming career in Planetside. I saw a lot of changes to ground vehicles over that time, but generally I saw the gameplay degrade.

I liked Mowing in PS and other games. I think it's realistic and an important part of gameplay, particularly for tanks - people should gtfo of the way of tanks, and tanks should be used as line-crashers and a means of pushing forward. The Battlefield games also have the same mechanics. You can get run over by just about anything, but tanks are almost always instant-death. As a result you don't see infantry running in front of them and approaching one is usually cautious and attentive to the way it is facing. It also gives some fun to the driver of the tank (why should the gunner get all the glory, eh?)

I think Mowing in PS was gutted for engine-related issues that made for bad gameplay as opposed to the concept itself.

1) bad hitboxes + client side hit detection + lag = getting run over when you are behind a tree.
I can see why that was frustrating. THen again, I rarely had that problem as infantry and I always moved from cover-to-cover and didn't just run in the middle of a field with nothing around me.

2) Vehicles getting misused, mainly the AMS, for mowing effectiveness.
Again I think this is a problem with the game's physics not the mowing concept, but I can see why they changed it, much to the detriment of the game.

In the end it was pretty sad that infantry would intentionally throw themselves in front of a tank becuase most of the time it wouldn't kill them, but it would stop the tank so AV & aircraft could kill it. Really lame, and a far cry from how it should be.

That said, I expect that PS won't have such physics and hitbox issues that would have the same characteristics, right?

Things I would like to see from the new physics engine for ground vehicles.

• Mowing - I want to see infantry get squashed by tanks without a chance. I want to see infantry get seriously injured or killed by buggies and non-tanks. I want to see serious injury from all other vehicles. Stay out of the way of heavy multi-ton vehicles, ok?
  
• Vehicle Momentum - In the early days when physics was a little out-of-whack I recall pushing a lot of smaller vehicles with my vanguard. They just got shoved right out of the way. That made the tank a great breacher. That little ATV or lightning blocking the courtyard should not stand in the way of a tank at full speed. Charge! Break through! Great stuff with that.
  
• Crushing - This is my favorite thing I miss from the early days of PS. The physics used to allow a tank to smash or crush smaller vehicles. The resulting explosion would of course do damage to the tank, but crushing lightnings, buggies, and atvs was quite fun and goes back to the whole idea of this is a tank - if you see it charging at you gtf out of the way or suffer the obvious consequences.
  
• Terrain Traversal - We get into buggies and tanks for travel over rugged battered battlefields and terrain...tanks especially. I want to see tanks go over craters and little small rocks without much thought because there's no way a little rock is really going to stop a tank. Even small trees should suffer the wrath of the multitude of tonnage moving toward them with a bad attitude.

Thoughts? Am I a minority here who thinks tanks and ground vehicles should be threatening to pedestrians? I'm hoping the new physics engine will allow for great ground vehicle handling characteristics as well as aircraft.

[Bags]

I would love to see mowing return with improved hit detection.

[SKYeXile]

The hit detection is fine, lets not get all carried away now and change something that works.

[Bags]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

The hit detection is fine, lets not get all carried away now and change something that works.

You have a strange definition of works. Okay, well it works better than the alternative for you.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Bags

You have a strange definition of works. Okay, well it works better than the alternative for you.

it would work if markov was still up, emerald/gemini is a POS.

[Hamma]

The hit detection in PS was horrid and old, and needs to be much improved. I fully support this post great ideas as always. All of these things should definitely be allowed in the engine.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Bags

You have a strange definition of works.

He's a Vanu player, and defending the hit detection. This shouldn't surprise you. Hit detection works fine for anybody in the driver's seat of a thresher or magmower.

[Volw]

Originally Posted by kaffis

He's a Vanu player, and defending the hit detection. This shouldn't surprise you. Hit detection works fine for anybody in the driver's seat of a thresher or magmower.

Hah, about 2-3 weeks after planetside release, I've stolen Magmower (back when it was still possible to do it when the gunner was inside) and proceed to drive around the base in circles, mowing everyone in sight.

The amount of hate tells and Vanu planers claiming I'm cheating was astronomical

[razor851]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

The hit detection is fine, lets not get all carried away now and change something that works.

Haha.

[CutterJohn]

I don't care about mowing so much. I want less grief for running over friendlies. I would be quite happy if vehicles traveling less than 50% speed simply did no damage to anything.

[dsi]

I wish infantry had more of an incentive to not stand in the middle of high traffic pathways >:|

Also I want to be able to crush the enemy with my treads.

[Goku]

/sign

I just do not want tanks have problems getting up any terrain unless it is almost vertical. I can think of numerous places in PS that this was an issue.

[Goku]

Pretty sure SOE can alter the mowing damage on vehicles. From what I heard the Magrider was instant death if you got under it even if it was going 20 kmph. The Enforced goes faster then an AMS and do not see it killing infantry in one hit. Lets be honest though the AMS is does not have any guns on it, so its dead as soon as a bunch of infantry or one vehicle gets on it.

[Soothsayer]

I'd like to see some mowing in PS2.

Never anything to the extent of the magmower though.

Not too big on tanks crushing other vehicles, would have to try it to see if I like it. Without that experience, I prefer the idea of them knocking veh out of the way with coding done to determine inertia/momentum.

The point about strafing vehicles is important to consider, for ingame explanation purposes maybe the antigrav systems on hover vehicles would launch infantry into the air and away. They'd still get fall damage but not mowed.

[Infektion]

I can't wait to see how the physics really play out... but I have to admit... I will be slightly disappointed if I cannot run my ATV again my friends ATV at full speed and be launched across the whole map.