About those unpredicted simulation issues I mentioned earlier…
Many unexpected things can (and will) happen in physics simulations, many of them because of the mathematical inaccuracies. So far ATP has mostly used discrete collision detection, which is performant, but sometimes unable to handle small objects with great velocities. In the animation below, for instance, a pressor beam gives the missile a double push, causing it to speed through a module.
Limiting the velocity probably helps somewhat, but similar may happen also on CPU hiccups. For a more complete solution, three collision calculation modes are introduced:
Fast. Always uses the discrete model. This is similar to the one used so far.
Accurate. Always uses continuous calculations. The most accurate one, but may increase the CPU load on action-packed situations.
Analytic. Default setting that tracks the projectile velocity and adjusts the mode accordingly. If everything works, this should have the benefits of the other two.
Settings page is quite badly organized. I should probably re-group all the performance-related stuff, both graphical and physical. But as I have the version 0.5.2 pretty much wrapped up (and tested also on Linux), that’s a job for 0.5.3.
