Ride the Rope!

[Komag]

Some folks over at the TTLG Thief forums were wondering and wishing that they could have ropes that moved that you could ride on, but they figured it just wasn't possible in Dromed. So I hammered together some junk to see how it might work in Dark Mod. I made a (slightly long) video

 

 

http://www.shadowdarkkeep.com/files/TDMroperide.wmv (1:52, 26.7MB)

 

 

What I didn't record is the bugs.

- If you ride down where you yourself hit stationary objects, you sort of keep hold of the rope "long distance" and then warp back to it once you're clear - it can get odd.

- If you shoot the rope arrow into the spinning beam as it's going AWAY from you it suddenly stops until you retrieve the arrow.

- If you have the beam turning too fast the rope can be sort of floating apart from it behind, or get stuck on things and make it stop.

- Probably other stuff I didn't notice

 

So there are bugs which may or may not eventually get worked out (very low priority right now). But the basics work pretty well!

[demagogue]

That's ... quirky. But it works, like you say.

[Ishtvan]

I tried rope riding a while ago, and yeah it works, there are a few bugs as stated, like no "auto release" distance so you end up hovering in the air if you get caught on something, plus I couldn't get the Doom3 functions to return the proper angular velocity for certain types of movers. These bugs are tracked in the internal "programming TODO list" thread.

[SneaksieDave]

That's totally going to be used in a big factory/clock tower mission.

 

And of course this always brings up the dream of simplistic swinging...

[Springheel]

I'll have to link to that vid in the next update...lots of fun physics stuff going on. I love it when the builder guard throws bottles at you from the platform as you swing by.

[sparhawk]

Yeah, the video is great. A bit hard to see during daylight, but what I recognized looked really good.

[rebb]

Hahah, it's a medieval Theme-Park . Very nice to see how robust the rope system works.

[Tels]

That's so awesome!

[Bukary]

The future of Thief editing is going to be very, very bright.

[Ishtvan]

Hahah, it's a medieval Theme-Park . Very nice to see how robust the rope system works.

To be fair there are still a few bugs to fix with it.

 

@Komag: Did you try climbing all the way to the top of the rope as it's spinning? That should also work, but maybe some bug popped up?

 

Simple rope swinging would be pretty easy to do (10% code, 90% tweaking to make the rope not seem like a killing spring of death to the player), killhour was volunteering to do it but seems pretty busy with mapping now. I might do it some time if I get burned out on important stuff.

[LordSavage]

I found a bug with the ropes. Maybe it's already fixed. But it's there in Thief's Den. When you shoot a rope arrow on one of the windows you can open and use the window then, the rope loses its "swing physics". It get them back, when you use the windows again.

[Komag]

@Komag: Did you try climbing all the way to the top of the rope as it's spinning? That should also work, but maybe some bug popped up?

 

Yes, that works fine climbing up and down the rope all I want.

 

At the top I can even mantle onto the moving beam, but usually the mantling is too slow and I end up just standing in the air for 1/10 a second before cartoon falling down to my death! (the mantle seems to work only stationary, even though the beam continues to move away) I was able to mantle onto it okay when I had it set rotating much slower though, if I started on the forward side.

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, mantling moving objects is another thing that needs work.

[Domarius]

That's a cool video - can we make it public?

[killhour]

Simple rope swinging would be pretty easy to do (10% code, 90% tweaking to make the rope not seem like a killing spring of death to the player), killhour was volunteering to do it but seems pretty busy with mapping now. I might do it some time if I get burned out on important stuff.

 

Aye, mapping really sucks all your free time away. I have a few design documents detailing the movement system I'd implement, but that's about as far as I've gotten.

[Komag]

That's a cool video - can we make it public?

 

Well I'd say it already is! This is a public part of the Dark Mod forums, and I posted it at Shadowdark. I just figured it was a silly editor test, sort like my barrel drop and guard drop vids, so nothing to hide.

[Tels]

Yes, that works fine climbing up and down the rope all I want.

 

At the top I can even mantle onto the moving beam, but usually the mantling is too slow and I end up just standing in the air for 1/10 a second before cartoon falling down to my death! (the mantle seems to work only stationary, even though the beam continues to move away) I was able to mantle onto it okay when I had it set rotating much slower though, if I started on the forward side.

 

That sounds like an (easily identifyable bug) with the mantle. Can you add it please to the tracker?

[Springheel]

I'll have to link to that vid in the next update

 

Looks like clearing beat me to it...

 

Btw, is there a range limit on throwing bottles? Seems like that guard throws a bottle an entire football field.

[Tels]

Looks like clearing beat me to it...

 

Btw, is there a range limit on throwing bottles? Seems like that guard throws a bottle an entire football field.

 

He was in the army: http://images.google.de/images?q=stielhandgranate

[Komag]

They will throw them extremely far - you can noclip and fly far away and bottles will find their way toward you from very far away!

[DigitalNapalm]

Have you tried to shoot a rope in something thats spinning about the x or y axis?

[Komag]

Yeah, X and Y axis rotation with rope arrows almost never works right. In most cases the rotation stops immediately, in most remaining cases it stops after a few more seconds.

 

Even with the Z rotation it works less than half the time, it's VERY unreliable at this point. It shows a LOT of great promise, but as-is it just can't be practically utilized in missions.

 

Pendulums and bobbers don't even take a rope arrow for some reason. Haven't tried "movers" in general.

[Doc_Brown]

Late to the party, I know, but I don't get 'round to these parts too often these days. Anyway, I was watching some of the Dark Mod videos showcasing rope arrows the other day when something occured to me. We've seen how the player's weight actually affects what the rope is attached to, and now we've seen rope arrows being attached to moving objects, so my question is this:

 

Is it possible for rope arrows to be used on NPCs? Dead or unconcious ones, let's assume, for the sake of simplicity.

 

Let me give you two examples as to why this could be useful. In the first, let's say there's a guard on a ledge above you that has a key you need. You kill the guard with a rope arrow (or shoot the corpse with a rope arrow), which then unfurls below. Jumping on the rope, the player's body weight pulls the corpse off the ledge, allowing you to retrieve the key.

 

Second example. There's a guard patrolling a battlement. The same situation as before plays out, but this time the player's weight wedges the guard's body into the space between crenels rather than pulling it down. This allows the player to climb up the rope and thus reach the otherwise inaccessible battlements.

 

The idea's not without its merits, but I understand from a technical/coding standpoint it may be out o the question. Still, I figured I'd bounce it off the boards if nothing else and see what anybody thought.

[Mortem Desino]

If I remember correctly, Rope arrows don't penetrate ragdolls or NPCs.

 

Although I HAVE successfully gotten the second of your cases to work with...

1: rope-arrowing a privy seat from inside the privy's shaft (Eeewww), climbing up, opening the privy seat (which was just a door brush), and mantling to get inside.

2: climbing over a short portcullis by throwing a rope-arrowed crate over it

3: climbing over a taller portcullis by rope-arrowing a wood crate through a loop (window/slit)

[Tels]

If I remember correctly, Rope arrows don't penetrate ragdolls or NPCs.

 

That would be a bug, rope arrows drill into the surface and so should penetrate flesh, leather and so on. There could be an exception for plate armor, but I think it would be better for game play if the player wouldn't need to try to hit the unprotected body just to stick a rope arrow into a dead guard. (otherwise a lot of frustration and reloading occurs)