Gliding - Should our Mechs need pads, at all?

#1
As much as I loved gliding from the first second I took to the skies from a pad in Copacabana, always having to deploy those pads, even when one is already high enough, looks silly. The only good thing in them is the extra altitude they can give and that others, who might not have their own, can use the deployed pads.

But, surely...our omni-frames will have enough room to support thrusters that could just lift us high enough in the air, where the glider-wings could deploy. It should also be possible to just jump straight off of a cliff, unfold our wings and glide wherever. Free-falling. Virtual sky-diving. One could spec their frame to have more jet energy (or its Ember equivalent) to boost higher and gain more altitude before deploying their wings. Or add more power to the thrust, so instead of slowly ascending and climbing the meters, they'd quickly launch into air, depleting the energy reserves for that single thrust, before gliding off.

Customizing our wings could have different effects, as well. Heavier frame-builds would need heavier wings, which could reduce the speed at which one could glide, but they would be somewhat less vulnerable in the air, able to sustain more damage. Lighter, faster builds would glide more swiftly, but they'd be more fragile and could be shot out of the sky or made to lose altitude, reeling from shots.

The rate at which we could take flight would depend, not on the cooldown on some pads, but entirely on our jet energy reserves to gain altitude with or our position, if we're already high enough to deploy our wings. It would add to the pace of the game, to the pace of combat, to the pace of exploration. We could relocate faster, from one side of the battlefield to the other. Rushing to safety or to the aid of another. Or to get to a better vantage point faster.

Bases, outposts, major to even more minor settlements can have booster pads on their walls, battlements, towers, perhaps a few could've been conveniently deployed by guards on the cliffs above settlements or above their posts to facilitate faster air-travel for Reaper operatives.
 

Ammara

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Jul 26, 2016
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#2
From http://crixa.io/2016/08/the-omniframe-a-m-e-k-battlesuit/

"The Omniframe contains jumpjets as well as glider wings, allowing it to jumpjet over obstacles as well as glide from high points to more distant locations. It does not, however, fly under power."

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This implies that Omniframes won't be needing pads. They should start to glide like how battleframes did with celestial gliders.
 
#3
I could also see a powered circuit being also being able to be installed into the MEKA. I would imagine that the biggest issue for flying as such will be the netcode for UE4 as the servers will only be able to handle so much traffic per shard (this is what's happening with FF rubberbanding imo).
 
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#4
I could also see a powered circuit being also being able to be installed into the MEKA. I would imagine that the biggest issue for flying as such will be the netcode for UE4 as the servers will only be able to handle so much traffic per shard (this is what's happening with FF rubberbanding imo).
And what could be done about the netcode issue? Is it related to a server's maintenance?
 
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Ammara

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#5
I think that servers rubberband players when the latter is too many, because at one point the game's company decided to host their game on cheaper servers to save mon$y. Cheap servers have less bandwidth allowance and slower hardware, so the change to cheaper servers would negatively impact gaming experience, including rubberbands.
 
#6
yeah, each server more or less has settings that allow for more traffic between players, updating location, not only of you but mobs, deaths, what other see during a fight.


So in the above diagram there's two situations. The top one is updating locations for everybody and show too much is being updated as you might not see the players that are far away, that's bad netcoding and as Ammara said, if you have a poor server it makes it worse.

The lower part of the diagram shows better relationships but the two players on the left don't see each other, this might be becuase there's a wall or a hill between them :cool: But the result is that there's less internet traffic as well as sever traffic.

This is why on FF, they removed the transports becuase the netcode for those was transmitting this to all players on one shard who it went by adding load to the servers. But it's also poor netcoding as really you should of only received a token position than an actual position and the ability to jump on them mid flight should not of been possible, unless you're right on top of them, but this just complicates the coding again (sigh).
 
#7
yeah, each server more or less has settings that allow for more traffic between players, updating location, not only of you but mobs, deaths, what other see during a fight.


So in the above diagram there's two situations. The top one is updating locations for everybody and show too much is being updated as you might not see the players that are far away, that's bad netcoding and as Ammara said, if you have a poor server it makes it worse.

The lower part of the diagram shows better relationships but the two players on the left don't see each other, this might be becuase there's a wall or a hill between them :cool: But the result is that there's less internet traffic as well as sever traffic.

This is why on FF, they removed the transports becuase the netcode for those was transmitting this to all players on one shard who it went by adding load to the servers. But it's also poor netcoding as really you should of only received a token position than an actual position and the ability to jump on them mid flight should not of been possible, unless you're right on top of them, but this just complicates the coding again (sigh).
So dispensing with multiple transports (ground and air) traveling between locations should help servers handle traffic better, then? Asking because there's a thread for what kind of transportation we'd like to see in Ember and there were talks of transports ferrying people, which could also be attacked, generating random encounters for defense and assist.
 
#11
So dispensing with multiple transports (ground and air) traveling between locations should help servers handle traffic better, then? Asking because there's a thread for what kind of transportation we'd like to see in Ember and there were talks of transports ferrying people, which could also be attacked, generating random encounters for defense and assist.
Then it needs to be tweaked for that type of event than a wholesale updating of locations. This is where they'd balance server options like render distance of players / vehicle's / environment. The less complex something is the less it can break. In saying that details like holstering a weapon back into it's holster isn't needed to be made. So, pretty much a ground player can see air objects whereas air players have reduced objects.

air transport gets attacked by NPC
then;
air transport > (landing) (keeps flying and crashes) (ignores threat)
then;
(transport lands) > (NPC event starts)
(transport crashes) > (NPC event starts)
(ignores threat) > (Risk of dying | NPC Event starts)

So in that conversation those type of things that happen are triggered and then the event starts. Just like when you're about to walk through to an empty room and you pass the door and see the room suddenly full of creatures, that's an event response.

what FF got wrong in random events is that the template they used spawned parts of that encounter underground and needed an event area to validate the space for that event so they're be no errors. Well, that's where beta testing comes in to play to provide better QA...
 
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#12
parachutes? but they can be destroyed too just help to prevent the fall turning into a splat perhaps?
Well, surely our mechs would have boosters on the back of their feet, too. I won't make the argument that a chute wouldn't be able to slow the descent of some mecha suit, because it could. They're dropping tanks off of planes with parachute(s), plural.

I would see a use for them, occasionally. Deploy them when you're literally dropping into battle from up high. Slowly descend without having to expend jet-energy, while being able to shoot the whole time and clear some of the enemies if the LZ is too hot.
 
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Daynen

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Aug 3, 2016
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#14
I would be fine with the booster pads we had in FF; the trick is that we wouldn't need the pads for gliding anymore. They'd just be a sharp boost upward to give us some initial height. There's probably some better, more fun and more sensible device in the works, but that would at least be acceptable to me.
 
#15
Another thing that should enter into gliding and boosting mechanics is air-control.

I only have a +25% boost to it. The legendary Skybreaker reactor looks drool-worthy. However, I'm not sure what air-control translates to in Firefall. From what I can tell it gives me more mobility to dodge sideways, but apart from that it doesn't seem to do much else. It's still useful for my Electron as I like to hover around as much as I can, picking off enemies before I even land.

And that brings me to the idea for an ability that our mechs could upgrade to, if one invests mods in a possible aerial movement skill-tree.

Our mechs could eventually have enough mods or just an ability that would stabilize the output of their boosters to make them hover in the air, perfectly still, without gaining or losing altitude (like that Chosen boss in the OCT event). They could remain airborne for as long as their jet energy would allow them to. The ability could, therefore, be similar to Overclock.
 
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TankHunter678

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Jul 26, 2016
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#19
Not sure on booster pads tho. I would like to see vehicles play a more important role for a long journey v/s the Omni. Imo it would depend on how large the maps/zones end up being.
Honestly speaking I kinda question how effective vehicles will be with the omniframe. Inside or outside of combat. I mean sure dropships would always be useful but... I do not see how other vehicles will work out.

The common thought is that we will be defenseless outside of our omniframes. We would need to hop out of the omniframe to board other vehicles. So if we hopped on a bike just cause it was fast on the ground... if enemies show up we are screwed and can only run away.