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.