[bungievid]14573311[/bungievid] Sorry for being so late but had a long 12 hour work day. And to make matters worse I was up till 3 hashing out some ideas as well as a draft for this report on construction of the drop pod as well and the dozens of problems I had with it and tricks to fix it. This will probibly take more than one post. I don't mean to bump this thread at all. Also still figuring out the thread format to embedd videos. Drop Pod Drop Pod components Player; The goal is to have player easily survive drop and mostly unharmed (may add two if the drop pod gets working reliably) Crate Heavy Small; Drop pod base/ drop platform Barricade Large; Front of Drop pod Barricade Small; Drop down door and back of drop of drop pod. Drop Carriage Components Landmine sideways; switch of drop pod, activate with standard melee attack Wall and small railings; deflect blast from switch Fusion core above; hold door in place until switch is activated, use the false spawn start trick on door to get it in place. One way shield door; deflect blast from switch to core above while allowing door to drop freely Walls railings and scaffolding; hold door in place while allowing it to drop straight with little deflection or bounce Landmine base; holds base and rest of drop pod up till fusion core chain sets it off allowing the drop pod freely. Shield Door base; protects player from the blast from the landmine base and fusion core chain Fusion core chain; delivers the explosion from the switch to the landmine base. Propane tank; time delay in fusion core chain to ensure door falls and is seated before drop pod falls. Camp stools X2; holds tip of large barricade keeping it from tilting to gravity or getting blown back by explosions. Problems and fixes with drop pods. Switch kills player; adjust railings small, wall, large barricade and one way shield door to deflect blast. Switch cannot be triggered by melee; adjust placement of switch and one way shield door to allow access to red button of switch. Red button of landmine is safe, metal outside edge is deadly, think of it as a doughnut of death. Core above dose not detonate; adjust angle of one way shield door and placement of fusion core above to allow core to detonate without killing player allowing door to drop freely. Door falls down before switch is hit; (without grabbing) on small barricade open properties and switch physics to fixed, then adjust fusion core and scaffolding. (Be sure to adjust spawn time on fusion core to allow good pod respawn Door fails to drop; check physics and set to normal, check scaffolding to ensure friction does not hold up door Door flips and rolls at start of round; check and adjust scaffolding, you will need to block off the top tips, the top of the front lower face, and the angled face to keep it from going hay wire, remember to keep the back/inside of and the bottom of the door clear, that is being held by the fusion core above. Door lands crooked falling over on the deck or landing cocked sideways causing a fatal platform unbalance; adjust door and scaffolding. Adjusting Side railings for door is the best way to fix it. A small lip at the deck may keep it from tipping over. Also make sure door is straight up and down, and rotation along the axis will cause crooked door deployment. Large Barricade tips inward; two camp stools facing the top tips of the large barricade will prevent this. It will also prevent the large barricade from being blown back by the blast resulting in yet another fatal platform imbalance. Door not seated before drop pod deploys; check propane tank for timing, this is very delicate as placement requires it to be nicked causing the flame stream and a delayed detonation. If too close than the tank will explode instantly denying the much needed delay for the door to fully seat on the platform. Base does not fall; check placement of landmine base to make sure it detonates, also check placement of base shield door to ensure that it prevents blast from reaching player not base mine. Finally check to make sure crate physics (and the barricades) to normal. Fusion core/ land mine drops before being placed; Set physics to fixed, again this had happened to me allot start new round go down to the dropped item which will be lying on the ground and delete it then start over. A one way shield door sometimes makes a good safety net. Fusion core chain dose not detonate; adjust fusion core chain, this error has happened to me allot, not to mention I spent hours pulling apart to make sure everything went together perfectly. Base and pod falls crooked flipping the crate and causes the pod to disassemble before landing. Resulting in a MISDROP (fatal landing); check and adjust coordinates on crate and barricades, there should be no rotation, slight rotation may occur when Drop Pod components bunch up switching physics from fixed to normal, adjust components coordinates (sometimes with 90 degree rotation snap) and height/ depth to keep parts from bunching. Base should be flat lengthwise to the front, large barricade handle should be resting upright on the base. Door should deploy falling straight down landing upright. These components will result in balance allowing the drop pod to fall straight, barricade keeping player as close to the base as possible. Also try not to walk around or stand on the very edge. A clone crate lands on top of player and the guardians snatch him up, again another misdrop; adjust crate max/min limit to 4 (or however many drop pods you may have if less). Because the crate falls so fast the physics engine sometimes clones the dropping crates in a previous location, right above the player. Player receives damage from fall resulting in a ROUGH DROP where the player takes some damage either it be a small energy from shields lost or down to the last bar of health but still alive; The main design mechanic is keeping the player as close to the base as possible throughout the entire drop. One trick I found taking a clue from Reach Mythbusters is crouching at the last second allows you to take less damage. This is not really a new thing because modern paratroopers use their legs to absorb the shock of the landing preventing injury. Now while I am working around to make this map and drop pod mechanic as newbie proof as possible, remember modern day paratroopers train and practice for hours before they go on their first drop. Science Fiction ODSTs will more likely trying to do the same. Another problem is that players tend to suffer more damage if other players on the map. Connection, server and host strain may cause delays in player drop from base drop resulting in much larger of a gap upon landing. Considering I want this to be a game mechanic on a fully playable large map I may adjust the height of the system to a lower altitude. Other people mentioned an over shield, however that will eliminate the possibility of a 2 player drop, also if the drop pod dose work right then the overshield player will have too much of an advantage on the defenders. Not to mention any amount of shielding will not prevent death from a fatal fall height. (I’ve tried, you either loose nothing if not small fraction, or everything and health) Barricades’ collapses on landing resulting in a JAM trapping player inside the drop pod on the ground; Only had this happen to me on a few 3 second drop test when I was hashing out a drop pod design on some other drop pod maps getting ideas. The drop pod design I am working on is a 5 second drop. During a drop pod fall analysis I noticed that the barricades fall slightly slower than the base resulting in a disintegration where the base, barricades, and player began to separate after 4 seconds. I would like to keep the 5 second design but in light of this lowering to a 4 second drop may significantly decrease the chances of drop pod landing mishaps that occur. Other items I need to add to fix Door too low forcing player to crouch to enter; the door is kept as close to the base as possible yet allowing a player to still enter due to distance limitation on fusion core above and switch. One thing to note is that the front of the door tends to dip lower than the sides of the door allowing players to freely walk in from an angle vice straight forward. Solution to fix this is lowering floor and adding a bank ramp to guide players around the low point and into the pod. Other players through grenades resulting in premature activation of switch; Unfortunately I have to prepare for grievers ruining a game match for their own team. So I’ll more likely put a shield door to the drop pods keeping someone from across the room shooting it for the heck of it. Will also more likely add shield doors around the explosive chain to keep enemy snipers acting too cheaply. And last but not least I need to add a drop chute for the pod the fall through before exiting a drop ship/site/platform. All in the works. Video Fixed enjoy
I cant watch the vid it wont work on my i phone or id tell ou what i think. It sounds like a cool idea
Wow, thats awesome. I love how the small baricade comes down, theres a short delay, then it drops. Really cool. The only thing i'd be worried about is budget, it looks like it uses a lot of stuff, so maybe this kind of concept would work better in competetive maps than aesthetic ship maps ect. Has anyone even made a competetive map with a drop pod in it yet?
Budget is no problem, it is the alocations and item allotments. Fore example, I want to make four of theses for a map. But I can only place 24 explosive items (aka, landmines, plasma batteries, fusion cores, or propane tankes.) Which means I need to limit to 6 explosive items per pod. Another thing limited is 10 barracades, I was thinking of mabey say a 4 baracade pod design but after that I would only be able to make 2 of them. I am trying to make a map that can deliver 4 to 8 players in a single salvo. (I'll keep 4 jstpacks as an alt means of decent. However still have problems with the prototype, problems still unresolved which effects it realibility, did a string on slayer which had 13 drops, 2 were perfect, 4 took some damage, and 6 killed me. Had some other players try it and they couldn't make a landing, I'd try another custom game slayer string when I move closer to the door (or other manipulations on the way down) and made 5 sucessful drops and 3 damaged but still lived (most didn't touch health) before one killed me. I want to make that the constiant ratio without having to make some movement adjustments. You know make it noob proof. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Okay more problems, Other players not making a sucessful (or survivable landing); atempting for a fix, reviewing clips of drops and watching where player is standing for sucessful drop vice unsucessful drop. Possibly placing walls or cones to place the player without interfeering with the rest of the pod. Barracades falling inward instead of outward causing impact damage killing player on landing; adjusting placment of barriers/cores/landmines in atempt to solve this problem. more to come. Player may move slightly to increas chance of sucessful landing after switch is pressed; atempting to place walls or objects to direct the player where to stand to activate the pod and other things. aditional player cannot ride pod without taking damage; This may or may not be fixed at the time. With current resources I could make 4 single man pods with a 45 second spawn (needing jetpacks to take the rest of the team). However I need to work on the solo operation and get that working regularly before worrying about a doubile drop.
Omg...that is SOOOOOO COOL! This just revolutionized the way I see how Drop Pods can be done. Also, one way to make a good assurance to survival is to put a custom powerup inside that gives player invulnerability for about 5 seconds (about the time it takes to hit the ground from beginning of drop; might need to be more for you because of the explosives delay). PS: I don't spy an ODST helm on you in the video. *tsk tsk tsk*
the drop pod was amazing i wanted to kno if u could show me how to make one more of a visual learner it would be amazing in my new video
Sorry for the late reply. That thing known as life kinda took over and had not had a free weekend till now. Heck even this easter weekend would have been used up if not I hadn't gotten sick. Well I kind of declared the prototype finished and begun construction on 2 foward droppods where I want them to land (yeah in water which I am going to turn into a reef. I'll be online tomorrow to continue construction. Might as well do something while I am under quarentine. Okay well while I am working on the front 2 droppods that are going to be on the invaision map as you can see in this fileshare here is one of the problems I have with the pod. And that is the door that drops down once the button is pressed. In this fileshare video you can see the malfunction with the small baracade and me trying to troubile shoot take apart and reassemble the pod door to get it to work. I am not going to render it because it is long and it is moslty forge fails (non-death type) of me trying to get this project to work. So you'll just have to see it in Reach Theater instead. Activate the download HERE.