Vehicle Damage System Thread - FUEL: REFUELED mod for FUEL

The damage system is notably flawed and need of improvement. Post your suggestions here and discuss.

The current logical approach would be to provide various options such as 'realistic' style option (i.e. you crash and well you crash lol), an 'arcade' setting (a reworked version of what it is now) and a disabled setting. Most racing games have this feature in some capacity.

I really like the idea of various options, this approach would satisfy anyone

First, about the "death", that screen with a logo/respawn. As I understand, you can decrease/increase the speed of this part, right?

Second, as I understand - there are durability params in vehicle configs. Your idea of various realism levels would utilize different values for those parameters (higher/tuned/as low as possible), right?

It would make me incredibly rigid in my underpants if I could toss the motorcycle man off of a cliff and watch him noodle all the way down. But options are king man.

bac9-flcl wrote: First, about the "death", that screen with a logo/respawn. As I understand, you can decrease/increase the speed of this part, right?

At this moment in time I've only located the parameters which controls the speed of the logo itself... not the actual time to the re-spawn occurs. I don't even know if there is a value for this without looking into it further.

bac9-flcl wrote: Second, as I understand - there are durability params in vehicle configs. Your idea of various realism levels would utilize different values for those parameters (higher/tuned/as low as possible), right?

Yes, each vehicle has its own durability params - I would provide a set of various param files, one for each style of setting. At this stage the setting would be switched from outside the game from the mod manager. I.e the default installation would include the reworked current damage system, but the user would then have the option to switch to a realistic or a disabled option if they wished.

Fatbassguy wrote: It would make me incredibly rigid in my underpants if I could toss the motorcycle man off of a cliff and watch him noodle all the way down. But options are king man.

I would also like the option so your vehicle doesn't automatically reset as its incredibly annoying when you flip your vehicle or fall off something and you don't get to see it . Its something I don't know how to achieve yet, but will be looking into.

Vetron wrote: I would also like the option so your vehicle doesn't automatically reset as its incredibly annoying when you flip your vehicle or fall off something and you don't get to see it . Its something I don't know how to achieve yet, but will be looking into.

Oh god YES! That is so annoying, Im driving around in a monster track and if I hit a rock that I can't even see I automatically respawn, WTF is up with that?

Ah, by the way.

If the damage system takes into account what bone was hit (vehicles and driver have a skeleton, as you know), then there is a very interesting option. Have you ever played Elastomania? It's not exactly what I'm talking about (in Elma only your head was damaged), but pretty close.

I'm talking about the case when the vehicle can't be damaged, - but not the driver. How does it works? For example, yes, you can perform the ride down the dangerous slope on the motorcycle and the vehicle damage/respawn won't stop you from doing that. But, you have to watch out for the driver - if he hits something with his body - respawn happens.

This works very well on surfaces which are difficult to traverse, such as rough rocks, hard slopes, dense forests etc. while driving the vehicle without driver's protection. You have to watch carefully about how and where will you land after the jump. You'll have to use brakes and complex maneuvering a lot, to lower speed and prevent hitting something while descending from the mountain slope. You can't jump into the canyon 300m deep, because the suspension won't keep the driver from touching the ground, - the vertical speed is too high even if you'll land with your wheels down.

But - this kind of balance doesn't prevent you from jumping into the same canyon while driving 360 degree protected monster truck which monstrous wheels and suspension - I suppose it's not possible to hit the driver directly in such a vehicle. Maybe in a buggy welded from tubes, but not in something like Educator.

It doesn't prevent you from performing extreme stunts as long as you're being careful and aware of environment: for example, you can speed up on your motorbike and fly off the precipice, if you know what speed and direction to choose to touch the slope below on almost parallel trajectory (without suspension being epically hit from below).

Sorry for the confusing description.

This kind of balance allowed Elastomania to focus on extremely complicated routes where the precise speed, aerial acrobatics and weight shift mattered a lot - it wasn't possible to just ride through a level on top speed without making any attention to anything around. Of course it was 2d motorcycle physics arcade, not 3d game like FUEL - but the point is that it's nice solution to simultaneously allow players to make insane stunts and at the same time don't let them just straightly pass through everything like cheaters.

P.S.: And yes, I dig motorcycles in FUEL

P.P.S.: By the way, these conditions force you to actively use weight shift controls which are present in FUEL (for quads and motorcycles), but almost not used, since you will live anyway (after jumping off the small ramp) or die anyway (after jumping off the mountain). No, of course I use them while slowly descending from extreme slopes or to regain balance during some extremely lucky jumps, but all that is quite inconvenient in the original game due to that instant death damage configuration.

Edited by: bac9

An interesting idea - it would certainly make better use of the weight shift controls (I want to improve weight shift too).

The drivers are not treated as a separate entities to that of the vehicles (I believe), I'm not even certain that the vehicles have a locational based damage mechanism.. rather vehicle x has say 300 HP and receives x based damage for say falling from x height etc. - But the idea is a good one and maybe it could be feasible if a form of locational damage could be achieved, i.e. such as while driving a bike you land on your head lol

There are 678 parameters for each vehicle, I don't yet know all the options for damage - however values around 584 are damage related (and I know 584 is related to fall damage) - maybe after some good old fashioned 'trial and error' with some of these values fuel might surprise us all lol

Once I make the early changes discussed in this thread and produce the different settings it will produce a better understanding of what the game parameters will actually allow - because there are still many unknowns.

Yes, i love to watch vehcle falling down cliffs ,etc, very funny and enjoying, just hate reset soon , hope a way to only push a button then reset...