Better item dropping

[thefriendlydutchman 160]

Ill keep it short to not waste peoples time, if im standing next to a table and drop my rifle, the rifle should lay on the table, same goes for open closets, and any low ground furniture.     Furthermore id like some precise object placement, this could easily be done with raycasting, how this would work is you hold a weapon in your hand you point at a table, you click on a button the raycast fires, and the player places the item on the object, this way you could for example stack cans of beans on a table

[FlimFlamm 509]

While I fully support and desire this suggestion, it might not be so easy to implement.

For instance, if the devs program in "preset" item locations for buildings like shelves and tables, then this is going to amount to hundreds of millions of unique locations across the map. The solution that goes the route of neat looking shelf and table slots I am confident is not doable. Best case scenario here the devs could piggyback off of existing item spawn locations (of which there are millions), but this would not exactly achieve the full effect that you are looking for.

Right now dropping items in buildings is a craps shoot. Sometimes it drops at your feet, sometimes it spawns outside, sometimes it's gone forever...

IF... Dropping items could make use of cross-hair position, AND  make use of some rag doll feature or something like it in order to decide how the item will then sit in the environment, then... Well... That would be really cool. (tire fortress anyone?)

The main thing that the devs do sorely need to address, by whatever means, is the issue of disappearing items in the first place. Whether they do that by magnet-ing all dropped items to existing item spawn locations, or by tweaking how items are dropped in the first place, it matters not.

+1 for pointing out the indoor item issue. Bug reports have long been made but finding a solution is not a linear programming problem, it's a design question.

 

P.S: Placing items in precise locations is actually a main programming hurtle that devs must address when confronting base building and fortification. It might be prudent for them to investigate a solution that could function for the dropping procedure for all items. This would actually seriously improve environment intractability, and is a massive "quality of life improvement".

Edited July 5, 2016 by FlimFlamm

[thefriendlydutchman 160]

  On 7/5/2016 at 9:41 PM, FlimFlamm said:

While I fully support and desire this suggestion, it might not be so easy to implement.

For instance, if the devs program in "preset" item locations for buildings like shelves and tables, then this is going to amount to hundreds of millions of unique locations across the map. The solution that goes the route of neat looking shelf and table slots I am confident is not doable. Best case scenario here the devs could piggyback off of existing item spawn locations (of which there are millions), but this would not exactly achieve the full effect that you are looking for.

Right now dropping items in buildings is a craps shoot. Sometimes it drops at your feet, sometimes it spawns outside, sometimes it's gone forever...

IF... Dropping items could make use of cross-hair position, AND  make use of some rag doll feature or something like it in order to decide how the item will then sit in the environment, then... Well... That would be really cool. (tire fortress anyone?)

The main thing that the devs do sorely need to address, by whatever means, is the issue of disappearing items in the first place. Whether they do that by magnet-ing all dropped items to existing item spawn locations, or by tweaking how items are dropped in the first place, it matters not.

+1 for pointing out the indoor item issue. Bug reports have long been made but finding a solution is not a linear programming problem, it's a design question.

 

P.S: Placing items in precise locations is actually a main programming hurtle that devs must address when confronting base building and fortification. It might be prudent for them to investigate a solution that could function for the dropping procedure for all items. This would actually seriously improve environment intractability, and is a massive "quality of life improvement".

Actually, similar to how many game engines like Unity works, the buildings ingame are ''prefabs'' what this means is that they made one building, made this building into an editable object aka prefab, so now if they would lets say place 10 firestation buildings, but once placed they want to add a table to the firestation and paint it black, they would change the prefab and voila all 10 buildings would change!

 

This way, all they would have to do is add ''triggers'' around the furniture

 

if : player enters trigger and drops item, item lays on furniture.

}

else 

will lay on ground as normal

}

}

 

the raycast ''look somewhere and place it'' part can already be done similar to how they implented throwing objects, with a simple animation that will do the following:

lets say the button for item placement while in hand is H.

 

H gets pressed > animation gets played of player reaching out their hand to the raycast> item ''drops'' at the end of the hand with force/rigidbody so that it has gravity > if object stops moving disable force.  ( if velocity = o)

 

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by thefriendlydutchman

[FlimFlamm 509]

 

  Quote

Actually, similar to how many game engines like Unity works, the buildings ingame are ''prefabs'' what this means is that they made one building, made this building into an editable object aka prefab, so now if they would lets say place 10 firestation buildings, but once placed they want to add a table to the firestation and paint it black, they would change the prefab and voila all 10 buildings would change!

 

This way, all they would have to do is add ''triggers'' around the furniture

 

if : player enters trigger and drops item, item lays on furniture.

}

else 

will lay on ground as normal

}

}

 

 

What you are not realizing is that each individual building, including item spawn locations within individual buildings, while being prefabricated, exist as their own unique entity in various respects. Each outhouse for instance has one spawn location inside them: what this means is that for every outhouse in existence across Chernarus the global loot and economy controllers have to include and consider an additional unique spawn location, one for each outhouse.

As it stands there are millions of spawn locations, I know from following development that initially this represented a programming challenge that required some clever file structure and function calling methods in order to have it run efficiently. I do like the idea of items magnet-ing to furniture and shelves in buildings, trust me i really do, I just don't think that it would be a worthwhile choice from coding/time and a coding/efficiency perspectives. It probably would not be hard to have items magnet to existing item spawn locations, and that would be O.K, but this would be a limitation to be honest, and likely cause players all kinds of headaches.

 

 

  Quote

 

the raycast ''look somewhere and place it'' part can already be done similar to how they implented throwing objects, with a simple animation that will do the following:

lets say the button for item placement while in hand is H.

 

H gets pressed > animation gets played of player reaching out their hand to the raycast> item ''drops'' at the end of the hand with force/rigidbody so that it has gravity > if object stops moving disable force.  ( if velocity = o)

 

Ultimately this is the ideal solution. We need to be able to place items with a very good degree of reliability and precision, especially when indoors.

Regarding how this mechanic should in the end be implemented is really unknowable to us knaves, but I have a suggestion that might kill several birds with one stone:

When base building is added, especially fortifications, they are going to have to macguiver a way to precisely place (boards for instance) in the environment in such ways that it properly connects to and interacts with things which already exist. In the DayZ mod era this is what it looked like:

 

This is obviously an unrealistically large object to just be carrying around and placing, and it is not refined mechanically (clips through the environment), but if we have something like this for , let's say, a board we want to hammer across a door, then we could have the same placement mechanic function (optionally) on regular items rather than having to risk throwing them, dropping them sloppily, placing them at your feet, or being restricted to containers.

It might seem like a small and inconsequential feature of the game, (being able to place things with comfort, reliability, and precision), but in reality the amount of impact that these mechanics actually have on game-play is staggering. Players are constantly interacting with the world through item placement. Every time someone wants to organize, rearrange, or exchange items without extra storage space, they basically need to sloppily stare at the ground in an open area, like a bunch of buffoons,  and pray that shit doesn't get lost in the grass and that nobody happens to come along. When people want to actually use items which physically interact with the environment, like making a fire for example, having shit necessarily flayed chaotically across the ground makes for a frustrating experience and is insanely visually unappealing. Rather than having my logs be randomly scattered, it would be nice to be able to pile them up in an organized fashion. When I cook, It would be nice to not have to put my raw and cooked food on the ground in order to share it and process it. Even when I'm dumping shit in my garbage pile, it would be nice to actually be able to place it in what looks like a pile rather than a minefield of trash in disarray.

In the end the devs ought to shoot for the highest degree of placement malleability that they can achieve. Every-time people want to exchange or drop items for any reason, this clunky and unrealistic mechanic of shit appearing at your feet comes roaring in and frustrates the hell out of everyone. It would insanely more immersive if we could drop and place items in ways which are mechanically useful, but perhaps more importantly, aesthetically pleasing.

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by FlimFlamm

[Troll_Hunter 54]

Great post FlimFlam.

I add to this that for base building, placing and nailing planks and boards on walls with precision would also add a lot to the game's immersion. I think this more realistic and detailed building mechanic will help to make DayZ stand out from other survival games.

Detailed item placement is also great when attaching bushes to your tent or car to camouflage it.

Apparently there is already a throwing action, why not have a dropping action? It could be as simple as pushing and holding the backspace key, to have your character hold the item in front of you, and upon release of the backspace key the item drops down from the hands. Hold your rifle out over the table, and let it drop on the table. Hold a twig over a fire, and let it drop to fall on to fire.  In a hold up situation the 'drop your weapon' command is actually animated and visualised! - no need to bring up the (immersion breaking) inventory screen too!