[T:V] Floaty-fix mind idea/exercise

Note: I have not posted here in ages and I generally only follow the Dev Tracker, if this has been put up as an idea beforehand, please let me know.

As has been discussed, people seem to think that T:V is floaty in its current implementation, either from playing it (few), or watching it (many). It's been stated that gravity is higher in T:V than in T1, so that can't be the problem. People are saying it seems to be from not falling fast enough after you run out of jets, and it being more of a "gliding" sensation, than a "falling" one. I remember this surfacing right when T2 came out. I think it can likely be attributed to the fact that holding jet when you're out of jets causes too much slowing to the fall rate. In T2 if you held jets the on/off mechanism would trigger rapidly and you would almost diagonally fall to the ground, rather than a parabolic dropoff. T1 this issue wasn't there. In T:V, at low speeds the jets have more force, in order to give the players more experience of "umph", when they take off, but it likely also causes too much of a parachute effect when people are falling to the ground.

Now then, I propose the following "solution":

What if the power of the jets was determined by the amount of energy left in your energy bar? Takeoffs would still be fairly quick, but attempting to slow your descent when you're out of energy would not be nearly as noticeable as it is now. On the surface it appears to possibly address both problems.

I haven't had much time to think this through, so please let me know of any thoughts/ideas/problems you find/have on the subject. Also, feel free to call me a fudgeing retard.

T1 map values have a gravity of 20 m/s^2.

And T2 and T:V don't. I know experimental said that T1's gravity sucks on you less than T:V, but according to andrew, the T1 maps have Jovian gravity, and from the game feel, I have to agree.

Did not know that. Still, idea applies?

hi splat :wave:

why arent you in IRC

And Splat, I don't think that one should lower the acceleration based on available energy. With a good strong pull from gravity, the players are effectively dependent on lots of energy to halt their falling. If they don't have much energy, they won't resist gravity for very long. In other words, I feel they're already naturally punished by having less energy.

Someone explain to me what Jovian gravity is...

Jupiter is very large; hence, it has a shazbotload of gravity. Jovian gravity is used in a slang-like fashion to denote high gravity accelerations.

Or, to put it in other terms, Jovian is an adjective meaning, "of Jupiter" or "relating to Jupiter."

Okay that's what I thought and I'm too lazy to go to google.

Thanks for clearing it up.

And Splat, I don't think that one should lower the acceleration based on available energy. With a good strong pull from gravity, the players are effectively dependent on lots of energy to halt their falling. If they don't have much energy, they won't resist gravity for very long. In other words, I feel they're already naturally punished by having less energy.

Sure, but that assumes that if gravity was raised to T1 levels, the force of the jets wouldn't be. The T:V jets at low speeds are much stronger than the T1 jets are, so a sputtering of them does a lot more than a sputtering of T1 jets.

BTW Splat you don't idle in WA-Private anymore :(

I haven't idled much on dynamix irc for a while. Trying to get back to it though :-/

or they could just increase the acceleration of the jump. It'd make for better take offs and allow for weaker jets.

or they could just increase the acceleration of the jump. It'd make for better take offs and allow for weaker jets.

It would really only make your vertical takeoffs be faster, not your horizontal ones.

Do you even want the horizontal ones faster? I guess I havn't played T:V, but I'd assume for horizontal movement you'd want to be skiing. But that aside, didn't they increase the walking speed anyways?

I'm thinking more along the lines of "guy just did a backcap run on RC and I wanna start heading thataway asap" horizontal takeoff type thing (sans disc-jumping).

e-pack boot
grappler
speed pack
oob grid

It sounds like in T:V we'll have a bunch of tools at out disposal to be making directional changes or gain horizontal momentum. Kind of seems overkill to pound it in even more, but like I said, I havn't played the game so I wouldn't really know.

Like Writer said earlier, give the players more mass making giving them a "heavy" feeling, which in turn also makes inertia more pronounced... I think Experimental commented on it too.

Sounds good to me.

Also we can't forget that since the Jets are much more powerful in T:V that when you are in a descent that if you adjust your course using the jet key your going to decrease your velocity on the Z axis, effectivley slowing down *you* down by pushing you upwords and giving you that floaty feeling. Again since the lateral movement has been increased greatly in T:V giving you the ability to strafe in mid-air with out having to use your jets to compensate for mistakes you can correct your course and maintain your velocity on the z axis making you come out of the ski much faster (where you can apply your main jet thrusts and even the boost) and aquiring your desired high velocity action. ;)

Giving an object more mass won't make it fall any faster :P

You'd have to increase gravity. Well, that's with real life anyways, I don't know how they do it in crazy gameworld physics.

Giving an object more mass won't make it fall any faster :P

You'd have to increase gravity. Well, that's with real life anyways, I don't know how they do it in crazy gameworld physics.

You're right about this and I didn't say it would make it fall faster, however if you keep the thrusts the same and the object has more mass, then it needs MORE to move it in the desired direction and it DOES give it more inertia which from what I've read is lacking and is a fundamental part of Tribes.

Increase the mass, keep the vertical thrust the same and increase your lateral thrusters just a little bit. This way you get rid of the floatyness, add inertia, and still keep the lateral mobility while in the air. The extra mass also allows you to build momentum faster.

Of course this is all speculation but from what i've read today, and believe me i've read a lot, this seems to be a great solution.

Edit: As far as increasing gravity, this also may need to happen, the E3 build I believe had 14m/s^2 where T1 has 20m/s^2... I believe I remember KP stating they played with 20 m/s^2 and it felt really heavy, this is probably because of the different scales... so a compromise of maybe 17-18m/s^2 and a little extra mass would even this out. You 1. Fall faster 2. Have more mass therefore the ability to gain momentum faster and the feeling of inertia is greatly increased.

Edit2: Does any of that make sense? :ftard:

Increasing Mass has the same effect as decreasing jet power. They don't want lowered jet power. Look, basic physics theorem: f=ma, or, f/m = a. decreasing force and increasing mass both simply make acceleration less, which is what the dev team doesn't appear to want. They want high low-end acceleration.