Advanced guide on how to get more power out of man cannons for ramps

Just thought I'd share this article I wrote for my forge group.

"The Friction Technique"

As asked for here's a link Download SKYJUMP

update: I have found a way to increase the power for spartans too. I used this technique to get twice the distance on a man cannon jump. I will add this to the guide when I have experimented with it more - I'm using four man cannons at the moment - I want to try and get the same distance with 3.


In this article, I outline "the friction technique" of man cannon placement. I developed this technique for my Skyjump Rocket race map: "SKYJUMP (STUNT)" to be able to get more height and distance on jumps. I was trying to think of a way to get more power out of man cannons because it seemed that if you added more man cannons that were all facing the same way, you only got the slightest bit more power than if you just had one there. How much power? You can use this technique to have two man cannons jump a wraith across the map! I call it the friction technique because it seems like the man cannons get more "grab" on the vehicle. It's like friction is at work because the angle of the man cannons has a level of oppositional force aswell as pointing in the same direction. I calculate this technique as giving about 30% more power, which might not sound like much, but is just enough to give jumps that epic feel.

Ok first up I'll describe what it looks like, here's a crude diagram, if you want to have a better look check out the real thing in my Skyjump map - in my fileshare, on Bungie.net and forgehub. I've only really used this technique once for this map. When I found it I kept it to myself whilst I finished the map, now that I'm finished I'm sharing it.

man cannon..........==========
...............................\ \ \ \ \
...........jetstream---->..\ \ \ \
....................................\ \ \
......................................\ \
........................................X
----ramp------------------ / /
..................................../ / /
................................../ / / /
.............................../ / / / /
man cannon...........==========


<>First I'll mention that all ramps are going to function better if they are perfectly level across the width, you can do this by getting the angle you want and then pressing the bottom of the object against some level ground - eg. the top of the bases on Standoff.

<> The man cannons are parralell and one faces up, one faces down, this is very important. You can use a square object and press the man cannons - one on top and one to the bottom of it - and do a save quit to line them up parralel. You might have to make one not spawn at the start whilst you put the other in. Use markers on the square object that you're pressing them against to have them lined up properly. And of course your ramp is going to be angled upwards, unlike this diagram which is straight for the purposes of illustration. Note that the angles are not correct here, in the real thing the jetstreams of the man cannons should be criss crossing at a 90 degree angle.

<> the distance between the two man cannons can vary quite a bit - it depends on what you want to boost. You need to have the jet streams criss crossing for the best result and you can take it right in and have the man cannons quite close together and it still works. The sweet spot seems to be from just criss crossing the jetstreams at the tips to having the jetstreams cross at their halfway mark, Take it in or out further than this and whatever you're boosting could be unstable.

<> You want to position the cannons so that whatever you're boosting will pass though the centre of where the jets criss cross to get maximum power - note that in the diagram the jets cross at a level above the ramp.

<>The easiest way to do this is to have the jets crossing at the end of the ramp so that your vehicle is boosted AFTER it leaves the ramp - this way they dont cause the vehicle to interact with the ramp - this makes the wheels bounce hard off the ramp and then you could flip any which way.

<> the downside to having it at the end of the ramp is that the vehicle will stay at the same angle of the ramp whilst you fly through the air -meaning your vehicle will be tilted back whilst in the air. If it's very well balanced you might be able to overcome this and have gravity bring it back to level - which would make your landing easier. This isn't much of a problem as long as you have a good flat and level landing that's been tweaked and tested alot.

<> I wouldn't recommend the other way which is to have the man cannons speed up your vehicle whilst it's still on the ramp, (which is what I did for Skyjump) this is a very hard thing where you need an overhead stabilser, you need to have the vehicle not bouncing around as it angles up the ramp and everything needs to be in perfect balance. I must have down well over a hundred adjustments to get this right on skyjump. But it does give the jump a clean feel and your vehicle will fly straight and level - making the landing easier and smoother. Again, I dont recommend it, if you can find another way then do that, but it's not a big issue.

<> I should mention that because you can make a jump so big with this method, if you're a bit off centre on the ramp, you're going to be alot off centre at the landing, there is little room for error. This can be a problem in race type games when everything is hectic or you get knocked by someone racing behind you. The solution would be to have a wider landing ramp. I didn't do this on Skyjump - I like the slight difficulty of my map - it rewards skill.

<> You get so much speed out of this method that it make it hard to build landing ramps for it, even if you've got the angle perfect you still seem to flip all the time, If there's not much angle in the jump and the landing then you can get away with it. Eg. I've seen this technique used on a race map since mine came out and this guy had a smaller jump which shot you straight and fast but not very high, you land on the ground, and this works well. I think it's because your vehicle is going faster than it's own wheels are spinning and it flips itself. If you can get it to work good luck to you.

<> To counter this problem I like to use shield doors as the landing pads, they have no friction, you angle them so that your vehicle bounces off them and continues forward level to the ground. To place them you'll need a save quit, and put them upside down so you can interweave the bottoms with the map and not have to worry about the center piece knocking on the ground and putting the thing off centre when placing them. I call them frictionless devices. You're going to want to use a fairly flat and level area for the landing, or a downhill area so that you have some balance in landing and dont flip.

<> To know where to place the shield doors get lots of small objects like single crates or barrels and litter your landing area with them. Repeately go over your jump and note which ones you knock over when landing, make sure you're going over your jump in the middle of your ramp. Now you should have a very good idea of where to put your shield door landing pads.

<> To make your shield door landing pads work better you should try to have them perfectly level, heres a tip on doing this - when placing it push it out a bit, then zoom in on it whilst still holding it. You'll have these lines on your screen that are like "monitor vision" or something - you can use these to line it up. Now, it will look lined up to you, and it will be - but only on the one axis. It could just look lined up, it needs to be straight on the axis running from you to away from you. So get above the shield door, use the dot in the middle of it and the centre bottom piece of it and line these up with the monitor's centre dot and the middle of it's health bar. Now your straight on that axis, you can line up the angle, tilt it forwards or backwards for the angle you need, move it to the ground looking down. Position it, then hold the trigger and rotate it till it's perfectly level using the zoom in and line it up. Save quit. There's an even better way to do this if you have HDTV where you get the shield door at an angle where all you see of it is a line of pixels. Then you rotate it till the line is not jagged any more and becomes more and more straight, till it's just a straight line of pixels across the screen. When you do it real good it will disappear - it's between pixels!

<> You can use the technique for spartans too, though I'm not sure how much of an extra boost it gives, haven't really tested it

That's about it folks, hope this helps out. Peace
-Scalpel

 

It seems to get more power with people, but not as much extra as with vehicles, maybe if you have them very close. I haven't really tested it, might try it out later.

 

added a link and made a few changes, I didn't describe it much because it was written for a forge group who know the map already

 

when I say man cannon guide, I mean forge placable man cannons. But I think the geometry man cannons are more powerful and also work differently. They seem to be about putting you a certain flight path to get you somewhere specific. Whereas the forge placable ones just work as a jetstream.