RE: Airboard
05-22-2012, 11:45 PM
Sorry about the antivirus troubles you guys! Not really sure how to deal with it! 
Big a-bunch-of-possible-ideas post ahead, very little is a concrete plan.
Controls: I still think it's more fun to fly around without thrust than with (I'm trying to figure out how to make THAT more fun-- just faster overall, maybe). Weaker gravity maybe? I dunno. Talking with people in chat and also voiced here, I'm pretty much getting rid of the dismount-on-collision for everything but hitting the floor, at least for now. Instead, you'll bounce off. I actually think thrust is way more fiddly than not, simply because you only really use it when you're trying to go from point to point. Maybe if you didn't turn as sharply while thrusting, in conjunction with going faster? So you'd make big sweeping arcs as you travel. With no wall-collision and ceiling-collision dismount, navigation without thrust will be far more forgiving.
Takeoff: Takeoff is also another key thing I gotta figure out. Suggestions raised were: be launched upwards by takeoff. Always face left or right on takeoff, not motion dependent. Have a set "launch sequence" for takeoff that leaves you either curving upwards after boarding or at least at a slightly upward angle, perhaps starting more off the ground.
Parallax: Yes! Eventually. It's not actually that hard! The question of whether they should parallax up and down remains a mystery, I'll play with it.
Braking: Braking is currently... silly. Why can you hover upside down indefinitely? Suggestions from IRC included, instead of a hover-anywhere, make it a slow-fall button, where you can control horizontal movement. Good for landing! I could do away with the normal dismount button entirely, or make it tap-for-fall, hold-for-brake. These are all Thoughts.
Also rolling around in my mind pretty much since I started was using the contrails as weapons against enemies-- and their contrails would hurt you. That could cause you to fall off, mayhaps. The question then is, do you only hurt them while thrusting? If that's the case, you either gotta combine thrust with normal riding to hurt them, or just jet around thrusting the whole time. Hm.....
Big a-bunch-of-possible-ideas post ahead, very little is a concrete plan.
Controls: I still think it's more fun to fly around without thrust than with (I'm trying to figure out how to make THAT more fun-- just faster overall, maybe). Weaker gravity maybe? I dunno. Talking with people in chat and also voiced here, I'm pretty much getting rid of the dismount-on-collision for everything but hitting the floor, at least for now. Instead, you'll bounce off. I actually think thrust is way more fiddly than not, simply because you only really use it when you're trying to go from point to point. Maybe if you didn't turn as sharply while thrusting, in conjunction with going faster? So you'd make big sweeping arcs as you travel. With no wall-collision and ceiling-collision dismount, navigation without thrust will be far more forgiving.
Takeoff: Takeoff is also another key thing I gotta figure out. Suggestions raised were: be launched upwards by takeoff. Always face left or right on takeoff, not motion dependent. Have a set "launch sequence" for takeoff that leaves you either curving upwards after boarding or at least at a slightly upward angle, perhaps starting more off the ground.
Parallax: Yes! Eventually. It's not actually that hard! The question of whether they should parallax up and down remains a mystery, I'll play with it.
Braking: Braking is currently... silly. Why can you hover upside down indefinitely? Suggestions from IRC included, instead of a hover-anywhere, make it a slow-fall button, where you can control horizontal movement. Good for landing! I could do away with the normal dismount button entirely, or make it tap-for-fall, hold-for-brake. These are all Thoughts.
Also rolling around in my mind pretty much since I started was using the contrails as weapons against enemies-- and their contrails would hurt you. That could cause you to fall off, mayhaps. The question then is, do you only hurt them while thrusting? If that's the case, you either gotta combine thrust with normal riding to hurt them, or just jet around thrusting the whole time. Hm.....