Monday, April 23, 2012

What physics model do spinfusor disks use?

Question

In Tribes: Ascend, I often notice my spinfusor disks seem to go slightly off course over large distances when I'm flying, even though I could have sworn the reticule was over the (immobile) target. I know that disks are not affected by gravity, so there appear to be three other possibilities here:

  • I can't aim.
  • The game adds a slight random shift to the aim at high player velocity.
  • The disk velocity is the sum of instantaneous player velocity and muzzle velocity (that is, physically correct).

Which is it?

Answer

None of the above, you're just not accounting for a mechanic in the game called inheritance:

Projectile Inheritance (or simply inheritance) is a mechanic in Tribes: Ascend which causes projectiles you fire to "inherit" some of your current velocity. T:A currently has 50% inheritance on all projectile weapons. This means that if you fire a Spinfusor perpendicular to yourself while traveling at 200 km/h, the shot's end-point will be a trajectory taking into consideration its firing speed, aiming angle, and 100 km/h worth of inheritance in the direction you were moving.

Answered by Decency

No comments:

Post a Comment