Heartlings' collision

Suggestions
#1

Okay, just decided to re-try SH A22 to see what’s new. Aside from new sweet gen roster (yay) and desert more packed with resources (double yay), I couldn’t help but notice hearthlings have no collision. In other words, they easily pass through each other.

I’m not sure but I guess it’s they way things always were. The question is, should that be changed?

One of the most obvious problems I can see right away is that this will need a “resolution” mechanism when our buddies will use doors or ladders together to prevent a famous Skyrim companion door thing.

From the other side, it will make sense to build defensive locations small to control the flow of enemies (and be able to play 300 spartans). Also, hearthlings (and enemies) standing inside each other look weird.

What do you think?

3 Likes
#2

This is the only problem I see. I don’t mind they having no collision, but when they stop inside another person it really looks bad. The main problem is performance, collision calculations are hard in the cpu. But I think that a single check when they stop moving would be enough, like when they start talking, if you noticed, they push others around.

2 Likes
#3

Do they? Because one of mine guys stood inside the other while he was talking to a third.

Calculations-wise, I don’t think collisions are TOO hard to introduce. From one side, hearthlings are moving, and that complicates things. From the other, we don’t need to take into accout the actual model geometry as in more graphics-heavy games like Dishonored or Fallout 4. Some kind of a “bounding box” should be enough, and it should only take into accout other moving objects (hearthlings, enemies, pets) since static objects are already processed.
The only thing throubling me is the performance hit. But then again, from what I know hearthlings already do regular raycasting to decide if the surroundings are cramped. Guess this addition shouldn’t make things significantly slower.

1 Like
#4

The guys that will talk, in the very first frame when they finally reach each other to talk, activates a collision. That happens only in that single frame, so it is possible to someone later “enter” them.

3 Likes
#5

I foresee hearthlings standing in doorways blocking everyone from entering and exiting, tunnels bottlenecking lines of hearthlings that stand in each others way, hearthlings trying to run inside to safety but blocking the doors and getting slain outside, hearthlings traffic jamming all over the place.

I actually love the fact that they go through each other because it means they won’t die needlessly from obstruction confusion and can just get on with the task at hand.

Maybe a check to see theyre not stopping inside someone else, but I like it the way it is

2 Likes