Re: [Adonthell-devel] charedit update

[Kai Sterker]

On 7/30/07, Andrew Phillips <address@hidden> wrote:

> Actually, being able to shove and knock enemies backward in combat
> could be quite useful.

That's an interesting idea :-). We could have fighting feats that have
a certain chance to knock back (or disarm) enemies. There are lot more
possibilities than adjusting attributes or damage.


> The need to push the rocks,
> logs, and broken carts away from the road (or being able to move the
> barricade forward to a better ambush location) could be addressed by
> treating them movable map objects. It could also be done by treating
> them as items to be picked up in one place and dropped in another, but
> the idea of putting a ten-foot log or a broken horse-cart in one's
> backpack rather defies credulity.

I was wondering if we'd need to introduce a third type of map objects.
So far we have scenery-type objects which are static and characters
which are actively controlled. We could also have a category of
movable object that is passive and only reacts to outside input.

In a way, the most work would have to go into the "physics" code.
Right now it is written purely for characters. It has gravity in place
(sort of), but nothing else. So characters will fall, but movement in
other directions will never slow down. For movable objects we probably
want to give them the initial impulse and let friction handle all the
rest. Elevators OTOH can't be affected by gravity.

What it boils down to is probably a couple of flags that determines
how movement/velocity is calculated. So to push back characters in
combat, you'd probably disable direct control (i.e. the character
schedule) and turn on friction. For elevators you'd turn off gravity.
(And you'd do the same if you had a fly or levitate spell).

Sounds reasonable, but not sure if all of it can be achieved for the
next release. Collision detection and object model are still more
important.

Kai