Recent Interviews

[SmokeJumper]

I'll answer a few of these here, as long as they pertain to Core Combat (I'm doing a quick flyby while waiting for a change to save, so I'm not sure when I'll be by again to check this thread out). Here goes:

a) Pop locks haven't been figured out yet for the caverns. It's different than aboveground because the interior spaces "suck up" people (you can't see them, so they're not an FPS-drain), but the caverns have more "static" objects (non-moving) that add poly budget. Therefore, until we get some big fights down there, we're only guessing (albeit they are educated guesses) at fps issues. I expect them to be similar to continent levels.

b) Platoons are being worked on now and should be out "soon".

c) Occlusion code (where you talk about objects being drawn "unnecessarily") also costs CPU in order to determine which objects need to be drawn. Often, such occlusion code is more expensive than merely drawing the objects. This is the case with the situation you've heard reported elsewhere. PlanetSide draws what it does because it's cheaper that way.

d) The "buildings" in the caverns are crystalline and VERY different than what you see aboveground on the continents. There's also a heck of a lot of them. The environment is very dense and the challenges are more interesting due to the 3D-style environment (ceiling buildings, ground buildings, and even some hovering ones).

e) Modules can be stolen. They can be destroyed. And they also time out after a certain length of time (still testing to find the "sweet spot" on that timer, but currently it's 48 hours or more).