Water Arrow/Hit Detection

[EyeOfOdin]

Hi all,

 

First and foremost, this is an absolutely stunning mod and my hats are off to the lot of you.

 

Secondly, I skimmed over the Wiki and browsed around the forums for a bit, but I haven't seen anything resembling a 'known bug' section. So if this doesn't belong here, I apologize. I have played through four missions so far, rather successfully I might add, and I'm increasingly impressed by the sheer atmosphere you've captured from the Thief series. One minor annoyance continues to plague me however: water arrows. The concept is solid and it works around 50% of the time, but the hit detection - especially when crouching - is really, really poor. I strike directly into the base, and watch the flame continue to glitter merrily in the dark. Load, retry, hit the same spot and...it works! It's not game-breaking, but I tend to only buy a few per mission - and making them count is one thing, but I'm striking the torch dead on!

 

I'm not at all familiar with the engine, having been a "Source" modder for years now; but I'm curious if this is a known-issue or if there is a way you could perhaps up the sensitivity of the flames to water ... something like that.

[Fidcal]

Thanks for the feedback. Give this a few weeks until you get the 'feel' of it. Extinguishings are not the same as in Thief. As you can imagine, we've tweaked and adjusted it over long periods and had discussions and tests to arrive at the current settings. It does get easier after a time. I can't say as I've noticed any variation when hitting the exact same spot. Maybe there's some randomness built in to add to the challenge I don't know about.

[_Atti_]

i think shooting for the flame instead of the holder is more successful, Also you can aim above the flame, the falling splashes will extinguis all fires they reach.

 

Btw: I just noticed these days that water grows moss and fire burns moss:) nice.

[Crispy]

Yes, I tend to aim slightly above the flame myself. When doing so, I haven't noticed any variation. It's possible that you're just catching the extinguish point within the water splash, so slight undetectable-to-the-human-eye variations in the impact location are causing the point to dip in/out of the water splash.

 

Maybe we can make this more forgiving in a future release.

[Springheel]

Yes, I tend to aim slightly above the flame myself.

 

Yes, the splash does not go above the impact point much at all. The water falls downwards, so aim *above* the flame (or directly at it if there is nothing above to hit).

[Mortem Desino]

Actually, I was always ticked at the collision detection in Thief. I never understood why aiming at the middle of the light fixture extinguished the fire up on top.

 

In TDM, the impact of the water arrow behaves like real cascading water. I think of it rather like throwing a water balloon: I aim anywhere up to 2 feet above the flame, and let the water splash down on the torch.

[Crispy]

Actually, I was always ticked at the collision detection in Thief. I never understood why aiming at the middle of the light fixture extinguished the fire up on top.

The water was splashing upwards as well as down (at least briefly, before gravity took over).

[Sonosuke]

I think the waterarrow is ok the way it is now.

[stumpy]

aim for the flame as the torch and flame are separate objects, unlike thief where the flame was a bunch of particles attached to the torch with the extingish stim on the torch.