Destructible Environments

[Kryota]

From what I understand, it would be VERY hard to put in tremulous, but I just wanna know what everyone else thinks about it. What if the entire environment in tremulous could be destroyed? What I'm talking about is explosions leaving dents in walls, smashing through thin walls, leaving alcoves for sneaky aliens to hide in, etc... I always liked how the environments in Scorched Earth and Worms could be destroyed, and even if it would be much harder in a 3d environment (impossible for trem's engine?) and making it look good would be even harder, I think it would be nice if a few servers did it... So what does everyone else think about it?

[Death On Ice]

From what I know, graphical effects that look like dents might be possible. I doubt actual 3d dents would be.

[smartalco]

No.

No.No.No.

you could just blast a hole straight to the enemy base! (works well in worms, would entirely ruin trem)

[kevlarman]

that and there are legal issues with it even if someone had the time to implement it.

[mooseberry]

I would like this a lot, but I doubt it is possible, without a lot of changes of the engine etc.

[Knowitall66]

It would be very nice. But not really possible AFAIK. Scorch marks we already have (Blood stains would be good ).
Oh and Worms 4 FTW

[+ OPTIMUS +]

red faction did it, and i really miss that from newer games. altough trem weapons are not the weapons of phisical destruction, so i guess only grenades could ruin objects, maximum the luci, but as it is an energy weapon, it desn't fits so much. but it could blow barrels and boxes away, it would be nice.

[Taiyo.uk]

Absolutely not.

func_destructible may be a nice touch here and there but this will destroy the game. The reason for having different maps is that Tremulous can be played in different settings and not on the same large heap of rubble.

[Lava Croft]

Also, Red Faction was a really poor excuse for a game, since the 'revolutionary' GeoMod tech only really was used in the first few maps, later on the in the game you constantly ran into magical indestructible walls, merely because being able to destroy everything completely kills and kind of game-/map-flow there might be.

[+ OPTIMUS +]

blowing a hole into the wall gave a huge boost to game experience as it gave weight to the weapons. nowadays i shoot with a rocket launcher, and it is only destroying some watermelons and throwing away beer cans.
i doN'T expect "digging" by it, just some symbolic stuffs.

[Kryota]

Whoah, I'm not talking about tunneling to the enemy base, (although I can imagine aliens doing that ) I'm just talking about little dents in the walls--maybe it could be set in maps how delicate different sections of the maps are? Anyways, nothing as destructive as Scorched Earth, just something to make the map look trashed

[Odin]

The "dents" you speak of would quickly cause the game to slow down. I mean, the Rifle shoots all 30 rounds within 5 seconds. That's 30 dents you have to have the engine calculate along with everyone else's shots. The best way to do it(and currently Tremulous doesn't have the functionality), is to utilize a bump map and normal map in the bullet collision decal and use Parallax Occlusion(or Relief if you want better accuracy) bump mapping so it simulates depth. An example of this method is F.E.A.R.

[Lava Croft]

blowing a hole into the wall gave a huge boost to game experience as it gave weight to the weapons. nowadays i shoot with a rocket launcher, and it is only destroying some watermelons and throwing away beer cans.
i doN'T expect "digging" by it, just some symbolic stuffs.

How did it give a boost to the game experience if said blowing holes in walls was only present in a small part of the game? Most of Red Faction's maps were made up of indestructible walls, completely negating their 'revolutionary' GeoMod engine.

Whoah, I'm not talking about tunneling to the enemy base, (although I can imagine aliens doing that ) I'm just talking about little dents in the walls--maybe it could be set in maps how delicate different sections of the maps are? Anyways, nothing as destructive as Scorched Earth, just something to make the map look trashed

Dents could be done with some form of decals, although they would be cosmetic, not and not actual dents, with depth and all. Still, I cannot really see how this improves Tremulous.

[techhead]

Its already here, but no Tremulous maps decided to utilize this feature.
By the way, every destructible item has to be included by hand.
I'm not so sure on the amount of damage these can take, either.

It would be nice, though, if someone did include it.

[Dracone]

I think the phrase "destructible environments" is becoming more and more overrated. To be honest, I like destructible environments as much as the next guy, but unfortunately it's not improving at the rate many other aspects are. To me, it's becoming rather boring really, and overused. Yet the hard part is, do you just decide you don't want it in? I'd say no to that.

I think the right way to put it is that developers making destructible environments look better, but not making the process of destroying the said environment that much more fun.

As for Tremulous and destructible environments, I don't think that it could be implemented very cleanly at all considering the engine's capabilities.

[Lava Croft]

The question is not if destructible environments in games are cool, but if they are cool in Tremulous, which I think is not the case.

[Atom Eve]

Exactly. I love blowing stuff up as much as the next gamer, but blowing random things up in Tremulous doesn't really add anything to the gameplay, and could only serve to bog down the engine.

[Superpie]

you guys all talk about how it would slow the game down... have you ever thought of it being a frickin' graphics option? 

[Odin]

you guys all talk about how it would slow the game down... have you ever thought of it being a frickin' graphics option? 

You must be new here.

[Death On Ice]

He's been around the forums since:    January 03, 2007, 10:53:38 AM

Around Tremulous for quite a while longer.

[Odin]

It was a joke.

[Superpie]

ROFL FUNNY JOKE

[Revan]

Exactly. I love blowing stuff up as much as the next gamer, but blowing random things up in Tremulous doesn't really add anything to the gameplay, and could only serve to bog down the engine.

If it was something like the oil barrels in Worms3D then it would be cool

[mooseberry]

ROFL WAHTS A JOKE?!?

[Lava Croft]

Exactly. I love blowing stuff up as much as the next gamer, but blowing random things up in Tremulous doesn't really add anything to the gameplay, and could only serve to bog down the engine.

If it was something like the oil barrels in Worms3D then it would be cool

Explodable barrels are perfectly possible in Tremulous.

[player1]

Where the hell is that pile of crates? Now, let's see: nightstick or rocket launcher?

[blood2.0]

  NOT WITH THE QUAKE 3 engine  but go buy l battlefield bad company's frostbite engine  and will use it. till then you will have to stick with not being able to kick around a box. i know its hard but we all have to sacrifice something


[One is enough, thank you -Paradox]

[Atom Eve]

I support more exploding barrels and boxes in Trem maps.

[player1]

Exploding barrels (for those with ranged weapons) - could be two kinds, one filled with Alien acid, and one filled with Human explosives
Destructible crates (for those with melee weapons) - could be several sizes, with larger ones being harder to destroy

Exploding barrels: Hrm, this seems to favor Humans, but maybe they should be in the default Human bases in maps where they are used to balance this? Very few Alien classes would be able to detonate them from afar (+goon, +mara?, +granger?, maybe 1.1 rants) without dying, but barrel jumping might be cool. This idea rates a "Hrm".  (Sounds cool, could easily get annoying, seems unbalanced, maybe the lid could provide a safe haven for the Alien detonator, or maybe dretches could use them for suicide runs inside Human base, what would their "hit points" be?).

Destructible crates: Seems useless, but if foe were hiding behind a nest of destructible crates, you could slash/shoot your way in. Also, some areas of map would be made inaccessible to certain classes, if, say, a large pile of crates were destroyed (although it would suck if that were the only way to play a certain map, it could add enough depth to somewhat counter the Human advantage - since they have mostly ranged weapons - if Exploding Barrels are added; since Humans would be more affected than Aliens by accessibility issues). Could you push crates around with this engine? You can sure touch and manipulate a lot of artifacts in RtCW, so maybe. Would you want to? It might make the game a little too Deus Ex-like. "Hey, push that crate over here so I can climb up into that open air-vent!"

I like the idea of Human barrels in Human areas (like a grenade going off), Alien barrels in Alien areas (acid splash damage), and destructible crates of various sizes in neutral areas (default, that is, at mapstart). But maybe only if put there by the mapper, or as a layout/devmap kind of tweak for interested server ops/admins. I wouldn't like to see them spread willy-nilly over the existing maps. 

[Lava Croft]

See player1, these are exactly the wild and stupid ideas I refer to so much.