Why is RA2 so dumb at detecting collision

[123savethewhales]

The more I mod this game, the more I notice how dumb RA2 is at detecting collision.

1.  How high you can raise a component depends on the initial Y Values of the mesh, regardless of which AP you use.



See how I lay the battery flat?  If I have it upright, then you can't raise it higher even when using the other AP when clearly nothing is colliding.  This is also why half sheet cannot connect to chassis below 0.406107 (where the Y value was used for it's width).


2.  RA2 cannot handle concave curves



See that?  Nothing in the center, yet the game treats it as though something is there.  The game just draws an invisible line through the points.  This is why some component's damage just plan suck regardless of the stat you give them.

3.  So why doesn't it happen with Tribar?

The game only c for one fully connected object in a mesh.  More than 1?  It simply ignores it.  So looking at the tribar you see 3 bars right?



It's collision mesh is actually drawn as separate objects.  So while it is visible with F12, only the upper right bar in this image actually collides with anything, no wonder why they are so hard to knock off in stock.  You can of course fix this by changing the Simulation Geometry number, but then you will end u with a giant pyramid as mesh and face problem #2.

I am surprise that with so many mods out there, nobody notice any of these things.

[Trovaner]

I've known about all three issues for quite some time but there doesn't seem to be any way around it.

[Pwnator]

The easiest solution for the tribar issue is to settle for a slightly larger pyramid (this would mean remodeling the tribar supports), and have the 3 APs floating a couple of units away from the vertices.

As for the concave issue, I guess breaking the component into 2 would improve point damage, but yeah that still sucks.

[123savethewhales]

Changing the tribar's collision mesh is easy.  How balance would "floating AP" be though is a whole other matter, though I suppose it would still be a a lot better than 1 bar worth of collision.



the collision is now a 3 point pyramid with length == 70% of the tribar.  That's the biggest hit box I can make without reaching below the center AP (which will makes it a complete pain to use).

[Sage]

I ALWAYS WONDERED WHY SPINNING THE TRIBAR MADE IT FIT SOMETIMES

[Venko]

I'm aware of all these downsides of the game, but sadly I can't offer a solution