Battlezone Forums

It was mentioned a while ago that the armory has a very unrealistic hitbox and can obstruct a base. I compiled a list of pros and cons to an armory with polygonal hitbox detection

Pros:

• More realistic
• Scavs do not get stuck as easily/can escape it easier
• Navigating your base is a tad bit better if you put the armory in a potentially obstructive location
• Can only be damaged when a physical part is shot at, rather than empty air

Cons:

• Might unbalance Scion/ISDF or make armory rushes more challenging
• New potential hiding place for a pilot
• Create slight difficulty in damaging it without proper aim

I myself believe the pros outweigh the cons, as the cons can be easily compensated for and the big hitbox is just downright wrong looking at times; it has the vibe of old-school bz1 buildings that would take damage in stupid places that look odd.

This poll is for the public's blessing of the idea.

All the models could do with per-poly collisions (buildings of course, not everything) IMO.

The Antenna and Overseer collision mesh truly sucks. We've got enough power available now to be able to afford the slight extra cost in processing.

Well it shouldn't have been that easy to hit to begin with. I think we should strive for more realism. It seems awfully cheap to rely on an unrealistic collision box for balance.

Clavin12 wrote:Well it shouldn't have been that easy to hit to begin with. I think we should strive for more realism. It seems awfully cheap to rely on an unrealistic collision box for balance.

The designers were careful about collisions. I checked through multiple models to notice this. Power has little to do with it as they are not rendered. The big box had to have been intentional and I find it unlikely it was a "last second" band aid solution. I'm just trying to garner public opinion on this.

Zax wrote:

Clavin12 wrote:Well it shouldn't have been that easy to hit to begin with. I think we should strive for more realism. It seems awfully cheap to rely on an unrealistic collision box for balance.

The designers were careful about collisions. I checked through multiple models to notice this. Power has little to do with it as they are not rendered. The big box had to have been intentional and I find it unlikely it was a "last second" band aid solution. I'm just trying to garner public opinion on this.

Bear in mind that even though they arn't rendered, they still contribute to the models poly count (the limit of which was much lower in the games original form). They still have to be 'calculated' too, even if they arn't rendered.

FSB mod has true mesh collisions on ALL buildings.

Feel free to use my collision frames if you like, just give me credit

General BlackDragon wrote:FSB mod has true mesh collisions on ALL buildings.

Feel free to use my collision frames if you like, just give me credit

As far as you told me, you just took away the col frames and let the engine decide, which is kind of unpredictable in practice.

That is the method on any static building, yes. I've never had any issues with it.

But I was referring to my collision meshes that I created for all buildings with a deploy animation:

Matriarch
Spire
All 4 Extractors

anything else I can't think of ATM.

In my experience (with a much older bz2 version) Collision calculation is one of the larger dishes in the meal of game calculation.
Removing them all is really asking for trouble and single figure fps on "big" games, Many units do not need them altered, what is there to be gained from removing them from power generators? If its not broke don't fix it.
This may not be such a big issue with the original models, but any modders out there thinking how cool their 10,000 poly buildings will be with 10,000 poly collisions once they have built a huge base, think again! A nice efficient collision mesh is one of the really important parts of your building models.

No one refers to REMOVING them. The game made ones from visual mesh just suck and have random walls in the distance and such. What is being talked about is replacing them with more form fitting ones. I still say it should of course not identically match the visual mesh.

It would not be hard to create a much more realistic collision box, while still having it far below the original poly count of the building.

Clavin12 wrote:It would not be hard to create a much more realistic collision box, while still having it far below the original poly count of the building.

Such a thing has already been made by the PB team. The question is, do the players really want such a change. There are very few negatives to it, but I thought it would be a good gesture to find out before deciding for myself what is best for the game.

As far as I am aware the collision of the armoury does not play an important part in any strategy used by players. So all but the most negative should not have an issue with it, assuming it works ok...It might act like a ramp if you make it slope at all, a problem I have with my Dalek extractors, torpedoes cannot hit them as they always jump over them. This may be why its the way it is to start with.

Would be nice to know what the as-it-is voter was thinking.

They will only show up after the fact, its always the way. Test it with torpedo's, aircraft and anything else you can think of that might respond in an odd way.