Playing around with the vehicle physics in Torque, experimenting with different types of suspension, tyre forces, centres of gravity, etc. The original intention was to codify the game rules in a similar manner to a boardgame (CarWars from Steve Jackson games, anyone?) but the more I use the Torque system the more I’m inclined to let the physics engine do the work of resolving control, skidding, crashing etc.
I have also been prototyping the in-game vehicle control GUI: basically you have a speedometer which shows current (red) and target (grey) speeds; you also have a steering wheel which indicates the angle of your front wheels. They are clickable and also controlled by the arrow keys while the GUI is visible. When you select a vehicle in-game, the circle around it indicates how far it will go in 1 second, and a second ‘ghost’ version of the vehicle is shown indicating where it will get to after steering and physical forces are applied for 1 second. The idea is to calculate this ‘ghost’ version using ideal tyres that don’t skid… otherwise it’d be too easy to tell when you were pushing it too hard!
I’ve also coded up impact forces on the vehicle: when one gets hit by weaponfire, the game will apply a force at the correct point, which may affect handling or even blow the vehicle into the air. The mouse does it at the moment…it’s fun!
Some outrageously large field artillery must have hit this car… which naturally we need to have in the game, some nasty big weaponry will defend truck stops and the like…
[This is an historical blog post which used to live on my Darkwind website]