Physics puzzles

[dmw88]

I have a particular physics puzzle in mind, in which players have a certain number of crates of variable weight and have to use them to balance a single-beam scale, which has one side caged in with a combination of crates on it. Im still undecided on how the player solves it; there could be a readable that allows players to work out the relative weights of different crates, or a second set of scales. Is this possible in the engine? Additionally, itd be ideal if I could have a trap go off if the player overweights the adjustable side of the scales.

 

Have other developers successfully implemented any interesting physics puzzles? I am hoping to do a module that focuses on these in the future.

[demagogue]

Our physics engine is pretty rusty & wonky. If I recall, for "holding objects" it only recognizes objects holding objects, but not any further degrees (objects holding objects holding objects), so e.g., you can have a key in a drawer move with the drawer, but you can't have a book in a drawer with the key on the book. The book will move with the drawer but not the key.

 

So I personally wouldn't trust it with additive weight, and would instead do this kind of puzzle by something like a "move object here" hidden objective & a script for moving the beam the same percent as the relative weight. Or something along those lines.

[dmw88]

Good to know. Ill try scripting it and have the 'scale' inside a machine so its not visible to the player.

[dmw88]

Duplicate post pls delete

Edited December 22, 2018 by dmw88

[stumpy]

while you can place something of weight on a scale and the game will see it, when you take it off the scale the game will act as though something is still there, there doesn't seem to be a way to check for no object.

your plate has to be flat, you can't make concave objects, unless you cheat, where the concave object is actually made up of many objects bound together by the bind command.

[dmw88]

you can have a key in a drawer move with the drawer, but you can't have a book in a drawer with the key on the book. The book will move with the drawer but not the key.

I was playing No Honour Among Thieves last night and Goldchocobo had a drawer come out with a key on a book, how did he manage this?

 

Is the physics engine something that I might be able to work on in the source code? Im an experienced programmer.

[HMart]

I was playing No Honour Among Thieves last night and Goldchocobo had a drawer come out with a key on a book, how did he manage this?

 

Is the physics engine something that I might be able to work on in the source code? Im an experienced programmer.

 

Don't know about your question about the key, i've not worked that much with the physics engine for the time being, but the physics engine source code is totally open, so you are free to make it work better, you can also take it out completely and change it for something like Newton or PhysX but that perhaps would require much more work.

Edited December 22, 2018 by HMart

[demagogue]

Putting a new physics engine in would be great but that's a massive task and we're underhanded as it is.

 

Re: the key. I was going by memory, so for what you saw, I was maybe not remembering what the issue was correctly, or maybe he just bind'd the key to the book. I recall it had something to do with transitivity (A links to B links to C but A doesn't link to C), but I can't remember the particulars exactly. But just play with it and you get the idea pretty quickly what you can and can't do. I should have said from the start this is my guess, but don't take my word; It might work!

 

I know you can set up weight traps/puzzles really easily, like when you put a weight on a little platform, or two weights on two separate platforms, to open a door. Find one of these and you'll see the basic set up, and your puzzle is that theme but with multiple weights on the one platform. I suspect there might be an issue, but you never really know what you can do unless you experiment.