Tracks

[Alfa-142]

The tracks on the tanks locks inversed to what they should when turning. E.I turning right should lock the right track, but instead the graphics shows the left track locked.

A petty detail perhaps...

.w

[poesel]

ok - I was a bit bored sitting alone on a 1. server while the demo server was full... grrrr

As this was also puzzling I did some test driving. Three cases of turning right (I omit the other direction for brevity):

1) standing still:

The left track ist standing, the right is moving backwards, but the tank turns around its centerpoint instead around the left track.

I would prefer to have the left track move forward and turn as is.

2) moving forward:

The left track ist standing, the right is moving backwards, but the tank turns around the right track. The animation is just the wrong way round.

3) moving backwards:

Everything all right. Obviously a case of only backwards QA driving.

[ClaytoniousRex]

Obviously a case of only backwards QA driving.

We had to fire the forward and turning QA guys due to budget constraints here at TBG Software.

I think you'll find that all of this track foolishness is unique to network play. In standalone the tracks should be correctly simulated - not only fixing the "backwards" problems but also correctly showing the actual speed of each track (instead of simply locking one or the other).

In addition to the tracks being animated backwards (which is now fixed for the upcoming 1.1.0 release), in order to save precious bandwidth, your network client is actually trying to figure out what the tracks are doing based on how the vehicle's orientation is changing. The server (which does the real physics) knows what the tracks are really doing - the client, on the other hand, is making a lot of guesses. That's why you see one or the other track locked in a turn. Try it out in standalone to see the difference.

[yurch]

Originally posted by ClaytoniousRex:

in order to save precious bandwidth, your network client is actually trying to figure out what the tracks are doing based on how the vehicle's orientation is changing.

Does this include the suspension as well? (if not, well, it should! )

I had a huge ranty post brewing about how the client side physics simulation felt... nonexistant. I hope the tank models get a suspension as well one day, they really do feel like greased bricks sometimes.