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Hitboxes of new ships - Printable Version

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Hitboxes of new ships - Badger - 08-12-2006

Quick SPOILER warning: there are images of new ships to Discovery in this post that could possibly be considered spoilers. If you don't want to see them, look away now!

Igiss, I've had a look at the hitboxes of a couple of the new ships that I thought were a little... exaggerated let's say :0) and I've had a go myself to see if they could be improved at all. The two ships I thought were a bit problematic are:

Zoner Juggernaut
Frigate (not Assault Frigate, the other one)

Having had a look at the .sur files I saw they both use a variation on the Bretonian Battleship .sur, which is probably the best option for all large capships as it gives a good even "bubble" hitbox around the whole thing, and also doesn't suffer any of the problems associated with home-made hitboxes (I've read of an idea that could solve all these hitbox problems, but it could possibly create more problems elsewhere so I'm leaving that alone for now). However, these two ship models have large protusions in various places that I've noticed you've fit inside the Bretonian "bubble". I understand your reason for doing this, it's infuriating to be shooting at a ship and hitting nothing but vaccum (like the Huggy problem of old) but I believe the hitboxes for these two ships in particular are a bit... overkill.

Basically, the Frigate for instance, has a perculiar shape in that it has a large bulk at the front, a thin middle section and then a bulk for the engines. But the hitbox is as large and wide as the front bulk all over. This means you can hit the middle section from a shot that is as wide as the front section of the ship, and this model is practically as thin as a Large Train in the middle! That's a vast amount of empty space that still counts as a hit.

My suggestion is to replace this .sur with that of the Bretonian Destroyer, as it can be manipulated to cover the wingspan of the front, while still narrowing to the width of the back. However, the Bretonian Destroyer is an awkward shape, so extremities of the ship may still sit outside of the hitbox. I'll show you what I mean:
[Image: nebbhitbox1iw6.th.jpg][Image: nebbhitbox2gs8.th.jpg][Image: nebbhitbox3dw3.th.jpg]
As you can see, the wingtips and portions of the front and back hull clip through the hitbox, but the majority of the ship is covered, and the empty space is drastically reduced. I think this, though not perfect, is still a more accurate representation of the how much of the ship players should be able to hit.

I'm still toying with the Zoner Juggernaut, I think the Nomad Battleship might be a bit closer, I'm not sure yet. Let me know what you think, and if you'd like these .sur files.

Oh, one more thing: how was the Huegenot .sur problem rectified? I've had a look and that hitbox looks like it was customised especially for it, I'd love to know :0)


Hitboxes of new ships - Igiss - 08-12-2006

I've made new SURs with Anton's FLModelTool. You probably used it too, nice program - as long as creating custom SURs is one of the last unsolved modding problems.

Your point about Bretonian Destroyer is good, I'll probably use your hint for next release. As for Zoner J, it has a complicated shape... tried several battleships, but all were worse than Bretonian one.

Huegenot SUR is a resized Armored Transport one (I think), but that one was complicated... due to certain CMP specifications of Huegenot, I had to resize the SUR manually after automatic resize was complete.


Hitboxes of new ships - Retread - 10-17-2006

Yeah, that zoner jugernaught is a nasty devil for sur files.
I've been looking that over too.