Humans are able to build on very small ledges

[mole99]

Humans are able to build on very small ledges as far as the object touches the ground.

Also it seems like the hitbox is bigger than the model, therefore it is possible to have floating buildings:

Another angle:

This could be either prevented by adjusting the map, but I guess it would be better to have this in the engine. A possible solution could be to only allow buildings when more than a certain percentage of the surface touches the ground.

Also I hope this counts as a gameplay issue, otherwise I will move this to the engine.

[Gireen]

Also I hope this counts as a gameplay issue, otherwise I will move this to the engine.

good question. It depends on what the problem here is. Do humans get a unfair advantage from this way of building? Or is it more a visual intrusive?

On the other hand changing this would have an strong influence how humans build their bases.

Anyhow the hovering part is a problem that should be addressed. Maybe the boundingbox is just a bit to big

[Viech]

Bounding boxes are a crude approximation, if you make them smaller you'll run into different graphical errors (e.g. barrel sticking through stuff, in particular your eye). There are all sorts of related issues and inconsistencies. That being said, we can discuss this also from a gameplay perspective of course. At the very least it is unintuitive but one can also argue that it gives humans some nasty locations to build in.

[necessarily-equal]

I think this is a real problem. I don't think we need to have all the bbox be over some ground, but at least the center point of the buildable should be.

[ghost]

center point, no, center of gravity, yes :) I know, I'm nitpicking.

Also, what happens if 2 sides touch something, but not center?

[necessarily-equal]

center point, no, center of gravity, yes :)

since all human buildings have some form of rotational symmetry, it's almost the same. If you want to take into account the slight difference, you'll opening a can of worm where a turret could fall when turning around. Which is in itself would be quite cool, but quite hard to implement :)

Also, what happens if 2 sides touch something, but not center?

it's a corner case (hehe). It happens rarely enough that we don't need to consider it I think. And if we were to implement it, we have the loose bbox problem again: as mole99 said,

Should we tag this as an agreed upon issue?

[ghost]

I agree it's an issue. Human buildables are strong enough, and this allows them to pack more, and even some in hard to reach places for aliens where nothing would be able to really stand. I would simply take a "ground ratio" of more than 60% to allow building. Maybe make this is a cvar, too (yeah, I like configurable stuff), so that even if this change does not pleases everyone, people can tweak without recompiling.

As for the BBox size, it's a different problem, which I also consider real, but on that topic, there's more pending problems than solved ones to me, for a game in 2021.

[Gireen]

I disagree here. Requiring 50% or more ground makes building less interesting and flexible. For aliens it then becomes on some maps impossible to place proper trappers.

[slipher]

I'm with Gireen - building stuff in unexpected places is fun, and I prioritize this over realism.

That said, it does look stupid when the model does not touch the ground at all. Maybe there could be a rule like if the horizontal dimension of the bounding box is reduced by 20%, it should still touch the ground.

[ghost]

I think it would be less confusing to have part of the model out of the BBox than the current situation anyway. For a start, it already happens with human defenses. Second, people, including "those who know" often end up doing friendly fire on their human defenses or armory, or use that knowledge to shoot at targets they can't see at all.

I think a BBox size change would be the good answer, even if this imply some small features of the model go outside.

And since:

and I prioritize this over realism.

It's not a problem to have pieces of stuff extremely strong, to the point they're damage immune, right? :) Note that I would consider it normal to have, say, spiker's spikes out of the BBox.

Maybe there could be a rule like if the horizontal dimension of the bounding box is reduced by 20%, it should still touch the ground

This could work too. To have this system built would be a start, we can start experimenting with the numbers until things feel good.

[DolceTriade]

Agree with slipher and gireen. ya it's unrealistic, but it also leads to more creative bases. I'm for it.