Change to current lerk flight

NoOtherDestiny

I find the current system hard to fly, especially if I have to quickly escape. I usually have to resort to gliding which makes me an easier target. I liked the old NS1 system, and I believe something similar will be much better.

Harimau

What was the old NS1 system, in detail? I don't have HL installed.

twiliteblue

Which of these do you think is more intuitive?
Option 1. While gliding, hold Forward to maintain current direction, lack of movement key input to resume normal gliding.
Option 2. While gliding, hold Forward to glide normally, release Forward to allow aim without changing direction.


I'm thinking option 2.

Harimau

Number 2. That's what I've got.
(Assuming I understood it correctly):
Hold Jump only: glide in current direction, allows mouselook to an extent without changing direction
Hold Jump + Forward: glide in direction of mouselook, changes with the orientation of the mouse.
Right?

darktimes

I think the mouselook is a terrible Idea IMHO. it makes you an easy target, and takes away skill, and also makes it overly complicated for newer players.

I say implement the old, proven NS1 flight model.

Koruyo

Strafeglide is imba. Sadly freelook isnt as usefull as i thought...

A little problem is that you can turn 180° without loosing speed or anything + you dont even need any space for it....
Another that you can glide at any speed even if you are barley moving anymore, doesnt feel natural.

twiliteblue

Thanks so much for your feedback. It looks like I've introduced some bugs. Acceleration while gliding can be to much sometimes, and air brake isn't working properly. I'll try to make speed drop if you turn too quickly. Gliding at low speed was a bit unintentional too. I'll make the Lerk drop down faster at low speed.

Free-look while gliding might be more useful once the Lerk stops trying to fly at breakneck speed after just 2 seconds in the air. =P

As for strafe-glide, I think I made the strafe speed too fast when Forward isn't pressed. What do you think about the strafing speed when gliding diagonally?

Koruyo

I think the diagonal strafing shouldnt be as good as forward gliding(dont feel any difference), atm i prefer diagonal stafegliding cause i can fly in circles while focusing a point in the middle of the room... and even while flying forwards i use it very much cause u can fly in spirals or zigzag => you can move pretty crazy while still beeing accurate enough to gas where you want - maybe too good...

Its hard to tell, better to test and feel whats right.


Ah and i have to add, i miss beeing able to just tab space to gain height(depends on speed if it works) cause of freelook, maybe test it with a freelook hotkey? (shift)

twiliteblue

<!--quoteo(post=1824985:date=Jan 17 2011, 10:56 PM:name=Koruyo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Koruyo @ Jan 17 2011, 10:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824985"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the diagonal strafing shouldnt be as good as forward gliding(dont feel any difference), atm i prefer diagonal stafegliding cause i can fly in circles while focusing a point in the middle of the room... and even while flying forwards i use it very much cause u can fly in spirals or zigzag => you can move pretty crazy while still beeing accurate enough to gas where you want - maybe too good...

Its hard to tell, better to test and feel whats right.

Ah and i have to add, i miss beeing able to just tab space to gain height cause of freelook, maybe test it with a freelook hotkey? (shift)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I don't have NS 3.2. How do you control the Lerk to air circle-strafe in that? It's a cool idea! Tho that would make the Lerk a pain to kill tho. :P

What does everyone think Flapping alone (without any other movement key) should do?
Obvious it should lift the Lerk straight up if it's on the ground. What about if the Lerk is moving? Should it (quickly? gradually?) slow the Lerk down to a hover? I think that makes sense, because the player is not trying to accelerate in any direction.

New idea: How about letting the Lerk only maintain height (and speed) in free-look mode (like an aircraft's auto-level)? ie looking left or right would make the Lerk turn left and right, but you can still aim up and down without losing height.

Harimau

With that new idea, it'd essentially be the same as walking on a 'higher' plane, parallel with the ground - which was basically my idea for the jetpack; so I don't know how I feel about that.

twiliteblue

Actually, I scrapped that idea. Lerks are suppose to be flapping fun!

I've made Flap to also act as a universal air brake. Flapping without WSAD will decelerate you to a hover, which you can maintain if you tap flap once every few seconds.

I also think that some effects of flapping and gliding should be swapped.
After watching some NS 3.2 Lerk videoes, I noticed how quickly they could change direction by flapping. Whereas in NS2, flapping feels unwieldy, and gliding allows an unnatural amount of direction change in a heartbeat, but also fails quickly if you attempt to turn too rapidly, and punishes the Lerk too much (by sending it sprawling to the ground).

Harimau

Hmm, ideally I would convert all medial motion when directionally gliding, to whatever direction you were facing, dependent on the motion of the mouse. But, seeing as that's too 'free', you could try to implement a 'lag behind', so the Lerk actually 'curves' in the air while gliding.
Flapping on the other hand, would pretty much destroy any momentum you had in other (lateral) directions.

This is my lerk flight idea, in lots of words:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Pitch: Look Up / Look Down
Yaw: Turn Left / Turn Right
Roll: Tilt left / Tilt Right

Every directional flap gives both medial and "upward motion" (lift).
"Upward motion" matches gravity perfectly, to maintain the altitude portion of motion, irrespective of orientation.
Each directional flap kills most (50%?) of your lateral motion, but maintains all of your medial motion, making it easier to change direction.
Each directional flap also adds to your medial motion, regardless of orientation.
>>Tap Jump + Hold Direction

Every non-directional flap gives only upward motion.
Upward motion exceeds gravity to increase altitude, regardless of orientation.
>>Tap Jump only

Default "Gravity" represents open wings, some "upward motion" (lift). But |Lift| < |Gravity| => Gravity-Default Lift => Default "Gravity".
??Consider also a constant fall speed (to represent terminal velocity).

Universal air-brake decreases all motion. Constant deceleration based on time held down.
>>Hold Sprint/Walk

Swooping removes upward motion, i.e. overrides default and gliding gravity, and forces max gravity.
Can be combined with brake to drop straight to the ground from where you are.
Can be combined with gliding to drop altitude quickly at will while maintaining pitch. **Must somehow restore gliding's previous vertical velocity; otherwise requires flapping to restore it.
>>Hold Crouch

**Possibly, upon release of swoop, flaps once by default (unless isonground) to counteract swoop's downward acceleration.

Directional gliding gives both medial and "upward motion" (lift between 0 and max).
|Max lift| = |Gravity|. 0 (Gravity-Max Lift) at 0 orientation; Max (Gravity-Min Lift) at 90 orientation; scaling in between.
::Use sine (sin90=1, sin0=0). Consider "Gravity-Lift" as just "Gravity" for ease.
Directional gliding maintains all speed (but not velocity) in the medial direction (however, orienting yourself downward will increase speed, orienting yourself horizontally will use and maintain that speed, and orienting yourself upward will decrease speed).
When gliding horizontally (or above), you can only flap to increase speed, else you 'maintain' the same speed.
**Basically, ideally, vertical acceleration/deceleration is dependent on pitch.
??Consider also directional gliding has a degree of lag behind, so that the lerk 'curves' in the air.
>>Hold Jump + Hold Forward

As above, but allows 'air strafe'.
Must be very limited; air strafe velocity possibly proportional to medial velocity*.
*This would solve the issue of air circle strafing.
??Combine with slight view roll.
>>Hold Jump + Hold Left/Right
>> + Hold Forward, for more forward-based motion.

Non-directional gliding maintains current speed and direction, and detaches motion from mouselook (limited), allowing you to aim.
>>Hold Jump only

Gliding, directional and non-directional, has a minimum medial speed requirement of "walk-speed". Else force default "Gravity".

<Alternative Gliding System>
>>Hold Jump -> maintains current speed and direction, and detaches motion from mouselook (limited), allowing you to aim.
>> + Hold Forward/Backward to pitch (dive/climb respectively).
>> + Hold Left/Right to yaw (turn left/turn right respectively), with slight view roll (partially in UWE's code already I think).
##More classic and arcadey. Much lower control, but that's why it's glide. Always allows freelook.

??Remove passive airtime-acceleration (in UWE's code).
Implement 'softer' airspeed cap.

First, get free motion working (no gliding), then add controlled motion (with gliding).

Things in "quotes" you effectively disregard because it's just saying how it would be rationalised in the real world, but doesn't need to be accounted for by the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I still haven't found time to make sense of the code and start coding it in though. I might try having a look at your code and just modifying that instead, since you've already got freelook in.

To quickly(?) explain what I mean by medial and lateral motion and the directional flap, if you're mathematically oriented...
Taking your reference frame from your current view, where Right: X positive, Up: Y positive, Forward: Z positive; and velocities in terms of i, j and k components respectively:
1. If you move forward from rest, you will only have a k component in velocity - this is your medial motion;
2. now, you move your mouse a bit to the right and a bit down -> your frame of reference has changed:
3. your previous velocity has split into i, j and k components. k being your medial motion, and i and j being your lateral (horizontal and vertical) motion.
4. directionally flapping will simply maintain your previous velocity's k component as is (and in fact, add more) and reduce your i and j components, by an amount, for example 50%*.
*of course if you don't have 100% reduction, you'll have to add some lower threshold for lateral motion to reduce it completely, otherwise you'll have a bunch of very small residual motion.
*alternatively, you could reduce it by an actual hard-coded velocity, rather than a proportion of the lateral velocity.

twiliteblue

Here's what I've done so far:

Simplel flapping (only tapping JUMP) gives lift, and reduces any motion to a hover in 4-5 flaps. Holding BACK will do the same while gliding, without the vertical lift.

Direction Flap accelerates quickly in the facing direction, and ignores most of the velocity not in the new Z-direction (facing). eg. If you quickly tap FORWARD + Hold JUMP, and continually turn in one direction, you can fly in a circle.

BTW, the problem, I find, with the current Lerk flight model is:
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->function Lerk:Flap(input, velocity)
...
local viewCoords = self:ConvertToViewAngles(input.pitch, input.yaw, 0):GetCoords()
flapVelocity = GetNormalizedVector(viewCoords:TransformVector( input.move )) * self:GetAcceleration() * Lerk.kWingThrustForwardScalar<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
So flapVelocity can only generate up to (1 * 4 * 0.85) = 3.4 thrust with each flap. A Lerk flying at maximum speed of 13 would take 4 flaps to just cancel out its old velocity, combined with the lack of airbrake control, make flapping quite clumsy in the current build (161).

I think everything else is already roughly like what you described, like "vertical acceleration/deceleration is dependent on pitch" with simulated gravity (just like in build 161).

Harimau

Hmm, I just realised as I had it before, if you orient yourself 30 degrees down from the horizontal for example, you would also have a downward acceleration of 0.5*max gravity in addition; so you would actually curve downward with respect to your view angle, rather than accelerate in the direction you were travelling, and that isn't what I wanted, really.

I'm not sure that build 161 works how I want it to with its dot product; at least I can't find the code for GetViewAngles() and GetCoords() to see how they work.
Actually, now I'm sure it doesn't. All it does is force a certain glide velocity* if you're looking down (depending on your angle), and force zero glide velocity if you're looking up. As it is at the moment anyway, if I understand it correctly. What I want is actual acceleration.
*The strangest thing is that the velocity seems to be entirely dependent on your angle, and nothing else - not your previous velocity, not your acceleration. Again, if I understand it correctly.
(I'm assuming that viewcoords is a unit vector.)

I would also definitely prefer using the Walk key as universal air-brake. Then you could achieve the same thing as what you currently have (decrease velocity and accelerate up) just by also holding the Walk key, but without sacrificing forward motion if you want to move straight up as well.
So for example you could be moving forward at max speed without gliding, tap only Jump, and you'd still be moving forward, but you'll also be moving up. Or, you could be moving forward, and you just want to hover in mid-air, so you hold Walk to decelerate, and tap Jump as well, and you'll effectively hover.

twiliteblue

Lerk mod Updated

V 1.4 Download
<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?1cr9qf8bopm5nl1" target="_blank">http://www.mediafire.com/?1cr9qf8bopm5nl1</a>

V 1.3 Download
<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?i32fldlbs7fj7os" target="_blank">http://www.mediafire.com/?i32fldlbs7fj7os</a>

Original post
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=112361&view=findpost&p=1824885" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...t&p=1824885</a>


I think it's quite close to NS 3.2 flight. Hope it's not buggy! I've only tested it for about 5 min.

Holding BACK while gliding will rapidly decelerate. Flapping alone will also slow you down rapidly.

If you turn quickly while gliding, you will still lose control like in B161. But, now you can simply use Jump + Movement to regain control.

twiliteblue

Do you prefer Lerk Mod 1.3 or 1.4? Please test and tell me what you think. Thanks!

Koruyo

1.4 but if you only side-strafe + jump (Example: a+jump) It pushes you forward diagonally even while standing still. (if somebody wants that he would press w+a+jump)

The sidestrafe i like better in 1.3 but it shouldnt push you up(or at least not so much - dunno) so you can stand around a corner press jump to gain height and then make a sidestrafe jump while flying around the corner to shoot and make a sidestrafe jump back to dodge marines shooting back.

twiliteblue

Thanks, that looks like a bug. I'll look into it.

The biggest problem with 1.3 was that looking up while gliding wasn't providing enough lift.

<u>Lerk Mod v1.5</u>
<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?ny2zcmn84imdc73" target="_blank">http://www.mediafire.com/?ny2zcmn84imdc73</a>

<u>Lerk Mod v1.5a</u>
<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?fkgvwk7umy0fqxn" target="_blank">http://www.mediafire.com/?fkgvwk7umy0fqxn</a>
Reduced glide side strafing (I don't like it much now).

Koruyo

Im kinda happy with version 1.5 dunno why you removed it

Only the sidestrafe push while flying forward could need a little work still.

twiliteblue

<!--quoteo(post=1825648:date=Jan 20 2011, 06:42 PM:name=Koruyo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Koruyo @ Jan 20 2011, 06:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1825648"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Im kinda happy with version 1.5 dunno why you removed it

Only the sidestrafe push while flying forward could need a little work still.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Ok. I've put version 1.5 back. What improves are you suggesting?

Koruyo

Are both versions new? Or is 1.5 the same that i already have?

twiliteblue

Yes, it's the same one I removed earlier.

Version 1.5a has greatly reduced input from (Left/Right) strafe gliding when forward is not held down, and adds inertia to strafing. It's just something I'm experimenting with.

I don't quite understand what you meant by
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Only the sidestrafe push while flying forward could need a little work still.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Care to clarify?

Koruyo

If you were gliding and went from w+space(hold) to a(or d)+ space(tab) it made an airbrake + a huge strafepush to the side, which seemed to strong/far to me.
This is fixed in 1.5a (you can control it better - you just have to tab a bit more) - i like that version.

I guess we need more input from other sources, since you dont like that version as much.


Great work so far, much much better than vanilla.

twiliteblue

I've done a lot of changes in v1.6.

* Hold Jump to glide in view direction like in B160/161
* Holding Forward/Back while gliding pitches the Lerk down/up.
* Free-look while gliding has been removed. To carpet bomb, pitch up while looking up.
* Glide-strafe (yaw) inertia has been removed.
* Looking up while gliding will now make the Lerk fly up.
* Gliding acceleration and max speed have been reduced for a more natural feel. Max air speed is unchanged,
and no longer uses air-time duration as a factor.

Lerk Mod <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?yz07t4xeyufimpc" target="_blank">V1.6 Download</a>

Looking forward to everyone's valuable feedback! =)

Koruyo

Now i have to press back while gliding forward and looking at the ground => i dont like it. No just no.

Looking forward or down pulls you down too strong(problem found - i always gilde while still holding w... feels more natural) -> remove that backbutton stuff and reduce this behavior (so i can carpet bomb)

Also you gain max speed too fast, or at least the first w+space tab seems to speed you up too fast too high.

Kuriin

<!--quoteo(post=1824993:date=Jan 17 2011, 06:23 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Jan 17 2011, 06:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824993"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->With that new idea, it'd essentially be the same as walking on a 'higher' plane, parallel with the ground - which was basically my idea for the jetpack; so I don't know how I feel about that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


This brings up a concern of mine. In NS1, I think Jetpacks were completely crap because you could spam them endlessly. Do they plan on having it like that in NS2?

Harimau

I thought jetpacks had to be recharged like the half-life flashlight?

Svenpa

Jetpacks most certainly required you to land periodically to recharge if you wanted to remain in air. If he means spam by jumping up and down between floor and roof then yes, constantly hovering, no.

twiliteblue

Ah I forgot about the air brake. Here's a short snippet of code to add to Lerk:GetMaxSpeed(), after Line 85:
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->        if self.movementModiferState then
            speed = speed * 0.5
        end<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->

So while the walk (shift) key is held down, your air speed would be capped between 5.2 and 6.5.

I think free-look while gliding would make Lerk's Spike too powerful, as the Lerk would become a faster, flying marine. Lerk mod 1.5a has free look, whereas it is removed in 1.6. Hopefully the devs can test out these flight models, and make some improvements to the current code.

Price

in my mind, only a "hover" button is needed or the lerk not jumps up/get forward, he start hovering like a spaceship.
I see all time lerks fly against walls because jump let them get up and forward.