Weapon drift (poll)

So one hic-up I’m running into with my FPS is that there are instances where my player movement interferes with shooting.

like you may be moving so fast that you outrun projectiles.

what do you think is the best solution to this problem?

1) add the players velocity to projectiles so it will never be an issue and add damage accordingly.

2) add player velocity, but only when it has a positive boost in speed. Shots fired when back peddling will still go the same speed as standing still.

3) Only apply drift to weapons where it is a problem.

4) make all shots faster than the players probable speed.

5) ignore the player velocity completely and let them shoot themselves.

6) apply only a percent of player velocity.

I’m certain that I’m going to play test all options, but going off the cuff what’s you opinion?

 

I prefer 4. Unless your projectiles are supposed to be slow and ponderous, like a snowball or a very slow rocket maybe. In that case, I guess maybe 3 rings most true. Though 6 is also tempting (and easily tunable).

 

I'm not a really a programmer so i might be saying something stupid, but why is there no option for ray traced bullets?

It seems that is the simpler, more performant method that should be used unless there is specific reason not to?

Could very well be something I don't understand. But it seems like that would solve the problem?

I know some games that want realistic bullet physics used a combination of both. Like ray trace up to a certain distance then they make an actual bullet with physics beyond that.

 

Because there’s also missile launchers, grenades, plasma rifles, etc…

 

I say add the parents velocity to the child when it's created for those items.

 

You have another option, a slight deviation from 3:
Apply a short speed boost to those slow projectiles when fired in line (= few degree cone) with the velocityvector. You can even visually indicate this by making the rockettrail glow in a different color for the duration of the speed boost or making the weapon itself glow before shooting as long as the critical speed and direction are met. The boost only needs to be short (1-4seconds) since your player will rarely travel exactly along the missile path for more than a few seconds.

That way the added velocity won't change impact point because the speed boost is not using the player's velocity direction.

You would have best of both worlds
- no incomprehensible velocity additions
- playerspeeds can be faster than some projectiles
- high speed chasing is possible since you can supercharge the muzzle velocity
- benefits to skillful movement and aiming

 

1 or 3 would be most intuitive to me (and I would assume most people but I guess I can't know for sure) as they would be consistent with the real physical world. 5 would be an interesting spin on things if you want that to be part of the challenge. You'd have to make sure you account for that in weapon balancing as that could be a pretty big nerf to certain weapons. Perhaps 2 or 6 if you want to keep it relatively intuitive like 1 but projectiles would move so slowly when moving backwards with 1 at times that it would be too hard to hit anything. Although that could be part of the challenge as well.