Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Vattic]

I still don't understand why GoblinCookie wants realistic take-off and landing physics in DF.

Given the resolution of the game (single tile creatures mainly) I hadn't really noticed this and don't see it as so essential, but there is something cool about having larger creatures take more than an instant to take flight; Some delay makes them seem large. It would make fighting with them and eventually flying them as mounts more tactical. If you caught one on the ground or forced one to land you could take advantage of their difficulty gaining flight. You could also damage their legs to stop them getting up to speed.

Would calculating a short mostly straight path away from a creature for them to run along, only taking flight if they can get up to speed be as resource intensive as some have said? Larger creatures would realistically avoid doing it where possible. I worry more about having it detect cliffs for leaping off and similar more novel methods. A cap could be set on the speed required for take-off and any creature the raws say are capable of flight should be able to (no slave to realism when it comes to having unrealistically large fantastical creatures).

[Putnam]

I still don't understand why GoblinCookie wants realistic take-off and landing physics in DF... A game where you can decapitate a bronze colossus by throwing a Hoary marmot at it.

Since when has anything in the air been realistic in DF?

you can't throw hoary marmots

you're thinking of fluffy wamblers

[Evil One]

I still don't understand why GoblinCookie wants realistic take-off and landing physics in DF... A game where you can decapitate a bronze colossus by throwing a Hoary marmot at it.

Since when has anything in the air been realistic in DF?

you can't throw hoary marmots

you're thinking of fluffy wamblers

You're right, my mistake.

You launch Hoary Marmots and throw Fluffy Wamblers.

[DG]

I still don't understand why GoblinCookie wants realistic take-off and landing physics in DF... A game where you can decapitate a bronze colossus by throwing a Hoary marmot Fluffy Wambler at it.

Since when has anything in the air been realistic in DF?

If you think that particular legendary incident is an example of DF working as intended there's little wonder why you can't understand the motive behind this suggestion.

[Evil One]

I still don't understand why GoblinCookie wants realistic take-off and landing physics in DF... A game where you can decapitate a bronze colossus by throwing a Hoary marmot Fluffy Wambler at it.

Since when has anything in the air been realistic in DF?

If you think that particular legendary incident is an example of DF working as intended there's little wonder why you can't understand the motive behind this suggestion.

If such 'legendary incidents' were rare then you'd be right, however there are numerous examples of DF physics not bearing any resemblance to real physics.

[Putnam]

And most of those are placeholders.

See: the entire combat momentum system.

[Evil One]

And most of those are placeholders.

See: the entire combat momentum system.

'Some' of them are placeholders... One of the problems with a game as complicated as DF is that the physics system (no matter how hard Toady tries) will ever be 'quite' correct.

The more complex a physics system is the more that can and will go wrong with it, it eventually becomes a case of fix one thing and break another, so there'll always be incidents of people throwing objects and insta-killing something they shouldn't or causing something to go very wrong.

[Putnam]

Yeah, but as it currently is is very wrong. Basically, it ignores the whole "flexibility" thing, making every strike as if it's being dropped from straight above with a floor below (every kick is a curb-stomp etc.)

[Rogue Yun]

It would depend a lot on what the atmosphere is like in the DF world. It might be more dense so it might be REALLY easy to take off and land for just about any bird/creature. I would guess, with all the "Giant" insects around, that the oxygen level is VERY high (If that is what they breath). I don't know what it is like to have a lot of oxygen in an atmosphere, but I imagine it would help with takeoff and flying.

I would also say it would also depend on how the bird/creature was designed to take off and fly.

Quetzalcoatlus, "one of the largest known flying animals of all time" (Wikipedia so we can trust it) could launch itself airborne from a standing position.

However, I do encourage birds doing birdlike things in DF. I made a post a long time ago about natural nesting.

[Dirst]

A dense oxygen-rich atmosphere would make fires very dangerous and hard to put out... Kinda like they are in DF.  That said, my guess is that the air is intended to be Earth-like because there's no real storytelling reason for it to be different.

A game with necromancers and indestructible artifacts can have a little leeway on aerodynamics.

[GoblinCookie]

Given the resolution of the game (single tile creatures mainly) I hadn't really noticed this and don't see it as so essential, but there is something cool about having larger creatures take more than an instant to take flight; Some delay makes them seem large. It would make fighting with them and eventually flying them as mounts more tactical. If you caught one on the ground or forced one to land you could take advantage of their difficulty gaining flight. You could also damage their legs to stop them getting up to speed.

Would calculating a short mostly straight path away from a creature for them to run along, only taking flight if they can get up to speed be as resource intensive as some have said? Larger creatures would realistically avoid doing it where possible. I worry more about having it detect cliffs for leaping off and similar more novel methods. A cap could be set on the speed required for take-off and any creature the raws say are capable of flight should be able to (no slave to realism when it comes to having unrealistically large fantastical creatures).

The main gameplay reason for this as opposed to realism is that it makes it easier to fight flying creatures that are large.  At the moment they can swoop down, kill things, take off, swoop down, kill things etc.  This means that the troops scatter in panic and it is not possible to close in with your troops. 

A large creature not being able to VTOL instantly gives a squad time to close in on the flying creature once it has landed.