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PRT! I Don't Know About Anyone Else But....

MarsWalker 6 years ago updated by Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 6 years ago 10

This game just got SUPER MORE FUN!! I love the PRT! I love it! Perfect speed too! You can use an RTGenerator in them too. Just AWESOME! As soon as I'm better situated I can't wait to take it for a ride around the perimeter. See how long that takes me, and if electrical will be problematic. I've been airborne a few times I know, even though it's hard to tell because of the limited view to the immediate ground, but I had to be! And it never tips over! I LOVE THAT! I hope you never change it. I like it just the way it is. It's a blast, hahaha. I <3 You!

I noticed the other day when I found my first PRT that my suit battery didn't drain while nighttime driving and I just thought that might be because of the RTG? Anyway with this new update and the new PRT that I found today, I haven't driven it at night yet so I don't know if I was just imaging that or not now. If the PRT does charge up the suit battery though, I think that's great. Everything else that's not completely perfected yet doesn't bother me at all. I'm used to video games and I can adapt. No real problems for me with it yet anyway. I really love the thing :D

Whoops, just tipped it over, hahaha. Well, at least I know it can happen.

Did it not turn back over for you automatically?

Yes it did. Thank God, lol.

Haha, yeah, it always should. Not realistic, but I figured it was easier than dealing with how to address a flipped rover. Might come back to it later with an option requiring time and effort to flip the rover (similar to a part near the end of the book version of The Martian).

I wonder if there would be a way to add something (some kind of a "driving safety system") which would somehow prevent it from climbing anything so steep that there's a risk of flipping? I'd say something like that would make sense both in terms of a safety system for a vehicle lke this, and also to deal with the issue that it currently has very unrealistic terrain climbing capabilities.


Not sure how to implement it tho, the part where its pitch/roll angle would be calculated and checked against a safe/allowed threshold is the straightforward part, but what should happen when it's exceeded? How would movement become restricted in such way that it can't be driven further up the slope, only back down from it?

The problem with a system like that is it could quickly become just as complex as it would be to program such a system for a real vehicle. It would also run the risk of going against player expectations and result in moments of "Why isn't the rover moving?". I think I'm leaning more towards allowing the player to mess up, but then providing them with tools to fix their mistake, rather than just preventing them from making costly mistakes in the first place.

Well, I don't take it up steep rocky hills anyway. I'll drive over to where I find a new waystat and park it at the bottom and climb up myself. I was driving at night when I tipped it and going too fast and didn't notice a big rock coming up and drove over it. That's how I rolled it. I drive a bit slower now at nighttime. Maybe instead of having us having to right it once rolled over, have a damage system in place, where the machine will now limp back to the hab and you need a bunch of 'scrap metal?' to fix it operational again. But I don't think you should worry about that too much right now anyway. You just got it implemented to the game so it'll take time to perfect it.

Rover damage is another interesting option that I'm looking into for sure.