Please remove the Spidertron screen wobble

[CheeseMcBurger]

Please, please, let us turn this wobble off. I understand why it was implemented and see the artistry in it, but I just can't play with the Spidertron because the wobble makes me feel seasick. All FPS games let you remove the headbop, because they understand some people have issues with that. I believe Wube would make a good thing if they also could give us the option to reduce the wobbly motions in the Spidertron.

Please.

Edit: I'm talking mostly about the camera wobble, not the spidertron itself. (Although that would also be nice to not have).

[Panzerknacker]

Ability to turn it off for those that really vomit otherwise sounds like the better idea, I don't like the idea of having features removed from the game only because some people can't understand or handle them.

[sarge945]

If this is anything like the other thread about this

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=104637

Then it's already been discussed to death and won't be implemented.

Personally, I feel like some sort of "camera smoothing" should be added. This would basically cap the camera to moving at some maximum speed at all times, with larger movements being handled over time. This would probably solve most problems with camera jerkiness without affecting much else.

[Koub]

If this is anything like the other thread about this

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=104637

Thanks, missed that one.
[Koub] Merged topics with the same suggestion

[Danjen]

I'm honestly unsure if I'm in the luck majority or not here, but by the time I get a spidertron I'm almost entirely working from map view.

I dislike working from map view since using WASD to move the screen pans it over way too fast, so you have to constantly zoom in/out to adjust the speed

[AileTheAlien]

some sort of "camera smoothing" should be added

This seems like it would work well enough, and should be easy enough to build. (I forget what physics things you'd want. Friction? Just a cap on the camera velocity? A cap on the acceleration? One of those should work...) Right now I can't use spidertrons, because I feel like barfing when riding in them.

[sarge945]

some sort of "camera smoothing" should be added

This seems like it would work well enough, and should be easy enough to build. (I forget what physics things you'd want. Friction? Just a cap on the camera velocity? A cap on the acceleration? One of those should work...) Right now I can't use spidertrons, because I feel like barfing when riding in them.

What you want is a maximum camera movement speed. As the spidertron moves, the camera's "desired point" is updated, and it slowly moves to that point over a number of frames. If the desired point moves too far away, the camera teleports to the point in a single frame.

This means that if the desired point moves back and forth suddenly (ie the wobble when it stops movine), the slower camera movement will naturally cancel out the two motions and only move towards the end point.

In order to not make it annoying, the camera should follow the player exactly with no smoothing whenever the player (or their spidertron) is being moved by the players movement inputs, so that it doesn't lag behind the player it's following. But any non-voluntary camera movement should be done with smoothing and move relatively slowly.

[Tinyboss]

Throwing my hat in the ring (even though this is "won't implement", it's so frustrating that I have to hope the devs can be convinced).

There is clearly some damping in the system, because the swaying dies out rather than continuing forever. Can that be turned up?

[Tinyboss]

TL;DR

Increase the damping on the spidertron's legs, to mitigate (not remove) the camera wobble when driving it.

What?

This is NOT a duplicate of the suggestion to remove spidertron camera wobble. I understand completely why that one was moved to "won't implement"--the wobble is not an added feature that can be "turned off", it's a consequence of the very physically realistic way the spidertron moves.

This is a very specific suggestion, not to remove the camera wobble, but to mitigate it. There is clearly some damping in the physical system, because the wobble does die out, and does not just continue forever. So can this damping be made stronger, so that the wobble dies out faster? A setting in the hidden "the rest" section maybe? Or would a mod have the needed access to do it?

Why?

The wobble makes building very difficult when driving and interferes with clicking entities.

[Koub]

This is NOT a duplicate of the suggestion to remove spidertron camera wobble. I understand completely why that one was moved to "won't implement"--the wobble is not an added feature that can be "turned off", it's a consequence of the very physically realistic way the spidertron moves.

[Koub] Sorry to disagree, but it is. the goal of this suggestion is to remove the effect, and there have been several ideas on how to achieve that, yours is one of them. Threads merged.

[katastic]

TL;DR:

- Spidertrons have inertia and their walking (say horizontal) can "pull" up and down, misaligning a simple "walk west and place rows of buildings" which is a core aspect of many people's building workflow.

What?

- Allow disabling spidertron inertia.

Long Read:

The TL;DR plus some more elaboration:

And before I go further, yes yes, I know the second I say this people will say "just use ghost mode" and "you shouldn't need to hand build at that tier" but these are silly arguments. The RIGHT way to play the game is however the player enjoys it most. Period. For many people the FUN is to hand design things and not just place blueprints. (And I'm not saying if you like chunk sized blueprints you're playing the game "wrong" either.)

Spidertrons break something that normally works and is a core aspect of building and "fun" for people. Which means it's actually better to just slap a bunch of exo-legs on power armor than use a spidertron except for combat. (And that's not even getting into "spidertrons still can't path around water" issue.)

So what's the solution? Well, the only obvious one to me is allow an option for removing spidertron inertia when placing buildings. Maybe that'll make it feel more jittery for some but magically, building now works again AND you get the advantage of a spidertron being armored, equipped, and capable of walking over obstacles/trains. Is that a multiplayer sync issue? I don't know your codebase--worst case it's a server-wide feature. There may be other better solutions.

Also, if you only allow it while building, for example, if for some reason there's some new meta of "no jitter spidertron is 10x more powerful", only allowing it during building will prevent that. But regardless, if it was at least a server-wide option, players would decide which they prefer, and I'm always a fan of choice--especially if it doesn't add significant codebase complexity to maintain both options. (In terms of complexity this could probably be handled by a 1-liner Lua mod)

Anyhow, thanks for listening, and I hope you have a great day,
--Katastic

[atomizer]

previously 92843

[eugenekay]

You could just get out of the Spidertron.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into an older thread with a similar suggestion.

[katastic]

Come to think of it, I have a simple in-game solution for this that could make everyone happy. (barring API/server-side/multi-sync issues as I don't know your entire API.)

- Belt equipment modules remove inertia for spidertrons.

They're already used to prevent you from moving... on belts. They're per-player optional. They feel like an upgrade (though you'd have them before spidertrons). They're tiny compared to mid-late game equipment sizes.

Now players get whatever version they want, and it's a physical upgrade made not an options menu switch, so that also works in-game "lore" wise.

[zeldrakef]

This is an old thread I know but I'd like to bring up exactly this. I can get motion sickness / nausea very easily, and the wobble of the Spidertron is sickening and can give me a headache. This isn't an "I think the game would be better if X" sugggestion, (as others have pointed how it can cause your power poles to go all wobbly), but rather an "I can get a headache playing the game due to some improperly tuned parameters" problem.



The issue is crucially the overextension. You release the directional key, and the Spidertron keeps moving and decelerates (that bit's fine), but then that same deceleration causes it to go backwards for a little while: at which point it overshoots and adjusts back and forward before settling down. This image already in the thread describes it perfectly:



Whatever the internal parameters are that control the Spidertron's movement, the damping is not high enough (too high mass? not enough damping?). So it wobbles and I get a headache.

Just as the game has an Arachnophobia toggle, it would be great if there was a Spidertron Wobble toggle. For instance, Age of Empires II HD can have a similarly decelerating camera that gives me similar nausea, but by turning the Scroll Inertia up to its maximum setting (see image) this completely eliminates any headaches, by just tuning one parameter. The point is that the Spidertron doesn't need to be recoded and its movement can stay quirky and unique due to its leg-like nature, but one of the parameters needs to be adjustable in order to prevent headaches.

Perhaps this could be the form of an equipment item that increases the damping parameter (to make it more than just a camera effect, it could also add like +500 HP), maybe it's a setting, maybe it's a toggle in the remote; the exact implementation is up for grabs, but there needs to be some way to change the "underdamping" to "overdamping" seen in the curve, so that it no longer wobbles back and forth and I don't get a headache.


It's also worth noting that none of the vehicles do this: they may keep travelling for a while as they decelerate after you release a directional key, but they never ever will go backwards without you pressing the key to do so. (Mathematically, they are a first-order PDE, where speed is only modified by acceleration), whereas the Spidertron must be a second-order PDE, with speed being modified by acceleration and damping, which is what allows it to wobble like that).


(I wasn't sure whether necroing an old thread or creating my own would have been better, please let me know if I should repost/reword this somewhere else!)

[radical_larry]

I don't get any sickness from it but it's still really, really, annoying to do anything in a spidertron due to this wobbling. This is an eight-legged endgame robot and it can't keep its head still while moving? A really bizarre design decision.
Even the pentapods don't seem to wobble like that. Maybe we should be able to tame and ride them instead.