Maniaplanet Forum

Hello there,
I have got a few ideas how it could be possible to implement those two features into maniaplanet/trackmania/shootmania. But I have no idea of how or if it all works. So I wanted to know what the smarter people of the maniaplanet community think of it.


Destroyable Environment
In Shootmania you can place Cars as items. They are having an hitbox which you can walk against, which you can shoot at, and which you can bump away(*3) with other cars.
What if you replace the skin of the item with a rock.
And what if you put all of this together in Trackmania. A rock on a street, which you can bump away by driving against it (*3). Or even multible rocks on each other.
I know this is not possible in Trackmania at the moment. But why? The possibility of crashing caritems with other cars is anchored in shootmania. Why shouldn´t you be able use it in Trackmania? The code of cars crashing cars is in the game already. Maybe there is a possibility to bring it to trackmania via plugin.
Wouldn´t it be cool to drive against a wall of rocks which then falls down on you. Or you drive trough parkingzones, hiting other cars away. This would make the game MUCH MORE dynamic.


Carcollision
Also the car collision is anchored in the maniaplanet codes. With splitscreenmode you can use it. Same idea as before: Why do not use a plugin to apply the carcollision on for example online mode.

I don't think that destroyable environment makes that much sense in Trackmania. It is an interesting idea, and it could be fun, e.g. on barns or fences.
Some items and blocks could probably get support for it, even without much impact on the performance, I guess.

But if you're thinking of a complete destroyable environment, e.g. the car crashes hard on walls or rocks and destroys them partially (although it is neither realistical nor very logical that a tough rock might even move an inch when hit by a relatively soft car), this would have a dramatic impact on the performance, on the 3D modelling, and of course on the lightmaps.
The destroyed parts need to be dynamically destroyable at the exact hit point, otherwise it won't be that good.
This means that a larger block or item would need several hitpoints and destroyable zones.

Please also keep in mind that those are based on the assumption that the blocks do not change at all during gameplay, hence there is only one ligthmap stored.
It was apparently already dificult enough to implement the daylight change (thus reducing the lightmap size for each time slice).
Now, for the destryoing of a block, you would need to compute (in realtime) a new part of the lightmap.
I don't know if this can be done at all, or if it owuld run only at most high performing PC with a necessary new "Ultra nice" setting.

The car collision for online mode would only make sense if there are not too many cars.
But how often I already saw cars only "jumping around", either because of a larger network lag, or because of the opponent number limitation.
Collisions, if they happen, need to be "proof safe", means there should really be a car next to the other one.
And then, how would you calculate the resulting trajectory of both (or more impacted) cars?
In Shootmania, it is apparently relatively easy. If the player hitbox is hit in a certain time, the player is frozen and eliminated.

I'm not telling that it is all impossible, but I guess that the implementation effort - to make it really good and useful for TM - would be too high, for what the Nadeo team is doing at the moment (mostly bugfixing) and for what they are perhaps planning in near and middle future.
I guess that your points would be something for "Maniaplanet 5.0" or even later.

Unless the community shows a really high demand for it...

Yeah while i understand you TMarc, cause the implementation and the computing stuff.
I would really like to see collision with other cars/objects!

The car collision thing, could be a own Titlepack or a rework of the Standard Envis, but optimized for Car Collision!
Races with not more then 10 Players, maybe wider Streetblocks and so on.

And for destructible Objects, they can be well included in Standard Envis.
I would prefer such things like fences, gates, barriers, a batch of tires and such stuff, where you can race through!

Yeah that would be nice, even if its in Maniaplanet 5.0!


But for now NADEO should really work on the Bugfixes, before on any new feature.
We have so much stuff now, but so much stuff is also not working or not well implented. So the Focus should be on this!

Cause the Game, like now, looks like two puzzle games with some puzzleparts missing and some mixed among each other.

Greetings

Btw. i suggested here something similar: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=45089#p303137

Edit: and here: viewtopic.php?f=538&t=44422#p300418
(But in this second one, you can see the parameters are there in Maniascript and it's already possible, but only in SplitScreen (there is a picture))

why don't add damage to the car instead of the environment?
for example, bumpng into walls would result in reduced control over steering, bad landing after a jump to a traction control issues or engine power reduction depending on where the car was hit...

according to me this should be more doable than destructible environment, because it affect only local player.

American and APAC players may already have network issues with Maniaplanet, as they're obviously not in Europe. We should wait until there are better networks before adding collisions in online modes, otherwise non-European players will have a hard time trying to play without lagging out and colliding with other players.

I don't see damage being as advanced in TrackMania as it is in, let's say Forza Motorsport. It's a very arcade racing game, so things like traction control are probably not going to work.

@TMarc I did not mean a environment which is completely destroyable. This couldn´t run any pc. But at least a few items. For example a few cars parking which you can crash. like 5 or sth

Platysynthesis wrote: ↑26 Nov 2018, 17:05 American and APAC players may already have network issues with Maniaplanet, as they're obviously not in Europe. We should wait until there are better networks before adding collisions in online modes, otherwise non-European players will have a hard time trying to play without lagging out and colliding with other players.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Lag and such are always going to be issues in multiplayer games regardless of which game you're playing. Each game will have different tricks in how to compensate for lags and such, but besides that there's not much else you can do.

Miss wrote: ↑26 Nov 2018, 19:18

Platysynthesis wrote: ↑26 Nov 2018, 17:05 American and APAC players may already have network issues with Maniaplanet, as they're obviously not in Europe. We should wait until there are better networks before adding collisions in online modes, otherwise non-European players will have a hard time trying to play without lagging out and colliding with other players.

Lag and such are always going to be issues in multiplayer games regardless of which game you're playing.

Of course lag always exists, but try playing on a server overseas.

Frankthetankmp wrote: ↑26 Nov 2018, 18:25 @TMarc I did not mean a environment which is completely destroyable. This couldn´t run any pc. But at least a few items. For example a few cars parking which you can crash. like 5 or sth

Ok, could be indeed nice

Platysynthesis wrote: ↑26 Nov 2018, 20:20

Miss wrote: ↑26 Nov 2018, 19:18

Platysynthesis wrote: ↑26 Nov 2018, 17:05 American and APAC players may already have network issues with Maniaplanet, as they're obviously not in Europe. We should wait until there are better networks before adding collisions in online modes, otherwise non-European players will have a hard time trying to play without lagging out and colliding with other players.

Lag and such are always going to be issues in multiplayer games regardless of which game you're playing.

Of course lag always exists, but try playing on a server overseas.

Yes, of course, and as such, it shouldn't stop you from making a collision gamemode, because you're going to have complications either way