9 replies to this topic

[Cyttorak]

None of the previous games have been able to implement the TT concept of using trees for cover...at least not without it affecting your fire as well. How about it, devs?

[Semyon Drakon]

It shouldn't be hard to do, obviously different structures will provide different levels of protection. Simply have trees block line of sight dependant on height and give them a rating for how much damage they can absorb. Obviously a medium laser or larger will blast most trees apart (save really big ones) but firing missiles through them, or possibly small autocannons should be quite hard.

That said it should also be harder to manouvre through them. Even in the canon it was made clear that really big trees could stop even an assault mech or damage it if you ran into it full tilt.

The same should also be true of weather conditions like rain, snow, fog, night time (yes for military purposes Night counts as a weather state). visibility, tracking and even movement should be impaired.

Semyon.

[CeeKay Boques]

Beyond that, i'd like to shoot a tree at the bottom, have it topple on you and do damage.

Also, forest fires.

[Agasutin]

Would have to be some big-@** trees to provide a decent amount of cover and/or damage mitigation.

[KitLightning]

Cyttorak, on 05 December 2011 - 03:24 PM, said:

None of the previous games have been able to implement the TT concept of using trees for cover...at least not without it affecting your fire as well. How about it, devs?

MechWarrior:Living Legends have implemented trees for exactly this purpose as well as cosmetic reasons. They can be used as cover, though only for a short time until they are destroyed. Though implementing trees along with their folio will take down performance if it is not done correctly.

Technoviking, on 05 December 2011 - 03:54 PM, said:

Beyond that, i'd like to shoot a tree at the bottom, have it topple on you and do damage.

Also, forest fires.

Trees in MWLL also deal damage upon collision with any asset, which adds a layer of realism. This I'd see as a must for MWO too.

As for having the client able to ignite a forest fire, I'd recommend voiding that in any bigger scale, fire effects does take a serious amount of performance on both client and server. All you will get from this is a nice slideshow, while being unable to interact at any level online, with a good possibility of either crashing the servers or the clients, whichever comes first.

[VYCanis]

There has got to be some way of making trees interactive on the cheap.

hmmm

maybe avoiding physics interaction whenever possible? Like you ram or shoot at a tree trunk, you get slowed a little but you shatter it. No falling over, it just kablooeys into shards.

you move through branches you just get some of the crysis style foliage bending but no actual broken branches.

Flamers and other assorted incendiaries have a 100 % chance of lighting em up (for mechcommander style forest fires), everything else, a lower chance of fire with a higher chance of just turning them into exploded mulch.

Maybe treating multiple trees as 1 object (not to the same extent as MW4 though)

I dunno, i finally just want to cruise through a thick foliage environment with my mech, whatever means allows that i'll be cool with it.

Edited by VYCanis, 06 December 2011 - 09:23 AM.

[CoffiNail]

Kit you are a beat me to the MWLL reference.

[KitLightning]

VYCanis, on 06 December 2011 - 09:23 AM, said:

There has got to be some way of making trees interactive on the cheap.

hmmm

maybe avoiding physics interaction whenever possible? Like you ram or shoot at a tree trunk, you get slowed a little but you shatter it. No falling over, it just kablooeys into shards.

you move through branches you just get some of the crysis style foliage bending but no actual broken branches.

Flamers and other assorted incendiaries have a 100 % chance of lighting em up (for mechcommander style forest fires), everything else, a lower chance of fire with a higher chance of just turning them into exploded mulch.

Maybe treating multiple trees as 1 object (not to the same extent as MW4 though)

I dunno, i finally just want to cruise through a thick foliage environment with my mech, whatever means allows that i'll be cool with it.

Having hundreds of breakable object scattered around will cause a lowered performance on both client and server. There is no way to not cause it to lower performance afaik. The trees/folio needs to be phyisicalized, else the folio will not interact with the client, the wind or other environmental effects, and the tree will be passable by the client.

The Crysis folio takes resources too though not enough to call it a major performance dropping factor on any standard gaming system. It is the fire effects along with water effects, reflections and refractions comes to mind, in the engine takes resources to compile for the client. And that is where the issue lays. iirc the fire effect (flames, small fire, explosions, etc.) in Crysis is made up of multiple rotated decals/images to create a 3D feel, having tens or even in the hundreds of those will impact on performance, it really doesn't matter how few decals or low res that the effect is made up from, since you will have any other environmental effect (within the clients view) having their say in the resources too. I'd suggest trying out MWLL on UltraHigh CCC++ to see how well the OS copes with it, then lowering the settings to see the difference. Disclaimer: This is done on your own responsibility, it should only be done if you have an OS that you know will not burn out doing so.

Having clusters of trees act as a single entity would result in the same.

CoffiNail, on 06 December 2011 - 09:25 AM, said:

Kit you are a beat me to the MWLL reference.

And I'm a slow poster

I think you can add something to the above somewhere

[Cyttorak]

One thing I didn't like about MW4 was that a substantial number of trees could be cleared with even a medium laser.
While I know this isn't the TT, forest in the TT is much harder to clear than that...precisely, 10 medium laser hits worth of damage to clear light woods and 18 to clear heavy woods (8 hits turns the heavy woods into light woods).
Also, in the TT walking through woods will not clear them, unlike MW4.
I'm not sure how you can get cover for firing without the trees impacting your own fire. One idea is to have cone of fire/reticle effects on anyone targeting a mech in "forest" terrain. This would be regardless of whether the trees actually covered a large portion of the mech model.

[Cyote13]

Remember that there is a difference between cover (stops incoming fire) and concealment (obscures line of sight.) While a bush won't stop an AC\20 in any way, it will probably stop the first shot of any single shot beam weapon. If trees as cover comes at the cost of severe systems requirements, then I will be fine with them being used as concealment only, especially when I get to Blast a house with my PPC because a Stinger is trying to hide from me