I had a fascinating playtest session with my brother last night. The vehicles work rather well in multiplayer. So yeah, vehicle deathmatch is definitely gonna be a thing. Sure, it's never gonna be as smooth as it is in singleplayer, but the vehicles are very driveable.
Originally, I was going to do a simulation for cars, but hey, this is an action comedy type of thing (apart from the other characteristics of the mod). So I'll do a bit of more liberal car physics. Think of GTA: San Andreas for reference.
I could do what Gran Turismo 1 & 2 did, which is having a separate mode for arcade and simulation driving, though that's pretty much 2x more work. On top of that, you gotta remember that racing sims use really high-poly tracks so that they're smooth enough for the simulation to be accurate. It'd require QUITE some clipnodes for that. Unless I use Bullet for the simulation mode, where I could easily use the external physics mesh.
Hmm... for now, let's just stick to GTA:SA style arcade driving. Also, for the sake of network performance, I'll have to ditch the idea of assembling a car out of different pieces. I mean, let's take into account a veh_car_base, with 4 veh_wheel entities, and a player in the car. That's
6 whole entities! That means it'll take 3x more origin and angles sets. According to my calculations, that's 96 bytes + vehicle itself + the player = 144 bytes total. (only taking into account sending the floats in pev->origin and pev->angles).
Now, sure, I'll keep all the functionality, but for MP maps, you're just gonna have to use 'whole' vehicles if you want better network performance.
For the entire picture, here's the plan:
- veh_car - car entity that supports all kinds of parameters set by the mapper: model, seat number, engine characteristics etc. Only potential issue with this entity is the fact that this is gonna take up quite some data in the entity lump. There are gonna be many parameters to be defined, most of which should have default values, however.
- veh_car_base - car entity that "assembles". You attach other entities onto it so it can become drivable. (implemented)
- veh_[insert a real-world car name] - a preset car entity. For example, veh_yugo - acts like a Yugo 45, looks like a Yugo 45, drives like a Yugo 45.
- veh_base - the original drivable chair entity. (implemented)
- veh_base_ms - the original drivable couch, multi-seated entity. These two might get removed or renamed. (implemented)
- veh_seat - a seat that you can place. This would be a normal chair that you can sit on. No driving. By itself, it's actually an invisible point entity, and yes, you can use it to attach to veh_car_base. (implemented)
- veh_wheel - a wheel. By itself, it does nothing. Naturally, it might roll away if it's on a slope. In a veh_car_base, it'll act like it's supposed to. (implemented)
Now, if we go a bit farther into the future:
- veh_tank - self-explanatory.
- veh_boat - regular boat. You can choose it to be a motorised boat or a boat that you row, which you'd have to use a special weapon for.
- veh_boatmg - boat with a mounted machine gun on it. Motorised by default, but you can also choose to row it.
- veh_sub - a submarine type of vehicle. Moves only under water, and players in it won't drown.
- veh_heli - a helicopter type of vehicle. W and S control it vertically, while A and D rotate it left-right. To steer left, for example, you'd have to pull your mouse to the left, rolling the helicopter left. Then you'd push the mouse backward (or forward) to tilt the helicopter up. Think of it as a joystick.
- veh_plane - an airplane type of vehicle. Controls are just like the helicopter's.
- veh_ufo - imagine the submarine, but in the air. It's basically not affected by gravity. It's controlled like a helicopter.
- veh_sship - a spaceship type of vehicle. It's controlled like a plane, except it isn't affected by gravity.
- veh_bike - a bicycle or motorcycle type of vehicle, depending on the mode. Just like the boat, it can be motorised (hence it acts like a motorcycle), or it can be powered by cycling, which would act rather similarly to GTA:SA. If you hold W down, it's cycled normally. If you tap W fast, you'll cycle faster.
Lastly, imagine almost all of them with "mg" variants. There would be some sort of weapon, either a machine gun type, laser type, or rocket launching type. Now, of course, you'll be able to choose whether the vehicle will have the driver as the gunner (like in HL2 when you use the airboat, or the buggy), or if you'd rather have a separate seat for the driver and the gunner.
In the far future, we might have NPCs that drive vehicles, and, heck, even ride-able NPCs. Imagine riding a Gargantua, LOL.
You might be asking, why all of this? Will all of them be used in UAS? Not all in the singleplayer campaign. Vehicles that the SP campaign doesn't utilise can be found in some of the MP maps, as well as minigames, which are accessible in singleplayer. However, keep in mind that this is not only a SP-MP mod, but also a mod base which others could use in the future. :3 (the 'base' can be downloaded separately)
Anyway, I mentioned rowing a boat. A row would not be a weapon in this case. This mod's gonna have 'tools', which are basically weapons but instead of damaging entities, they provide certain functionality with them.
The most obvious example is a paddle tool to row a non-motorised boat. Of course, it can be used as a melee weapon. Some tools can double as weapons.
Other tools will include:
- Worldcraft WC2.0 (original) - yes, a multimetre. You'll have to measure electricity in the mod at some point. You'll see why. If you don't mind the spoilers, I'll tell ya right away.
- Lockpick. This is pretty self-explanatory.
- Rock. To distract enemies a la Far Cry 1.
- Car keys. Logically, to start a car, you need its keys. Either that, or try jump-starting the engine, which is gonna take longer.
- Phone. You heard it right. A phone is going to be quite useful in the mod. Organise actions in missions, call people, and whatnot. Unlike GTA, however, you'll have to charge it wherever you find a power source. Some sockets won't have voltage in them, and you'll use your trusty WC2.0 to check if they have them. But don't worry, the battery should last long enough.
![:D](https://twhl.info/images/smilies/grin.png)
- Universal Remote. Simply put, imagine controlling a little rocket launcher from the distance, or a mini RC car.
- Grappling hook. Very good for setting up a rope to the top of a tower. Or if you wanna do bungee jumping. However, don't let someone shoot it. It has its counterpart.
- Climbing axes. You can climb walls with ease.
- Parachute. Self explanatory.
There's more stuff than this, but I don't want to count all of them. Now, you might say that's a lot. And you're right. But you can't carry it all at once. Well, you can, but you'd be VERY slow. Items, tools and weapons will have their own masses, and the greater the mass, the bigger the slowdown will be.