Post
by Pegasus » Fri 4. Oct 2013, 00:40
Hey Eman (welcome to the msg board too).
1. There are some conditions that will be examined when you attempt to exit a vec and, based on what's concluded, the game will pick the more suitable exit point for you. First off, exit points are vehicle-dependent and defined in each vec's class. For example, the raptor, the goliath and the ion tank have 2 ExitPositions, the cicada has 3 for some reason; benders, scorpions, paladins, SPMAs and levis have 4, but mantas have 8 because ponies. When you press the exit key, the vehicle code does an iterative check for each entry position testing whether it's blocked by level geometry or not; the first open spot is where you'll be placed. If no acceptable exit can be determined (say, if you were being a wiseass and tried to exit your raptor when squeezed tightly between two walls - or near those narrow secondary nodes in MagicIsle :@), the game will simply refuse to let you exit.
Now, I used plural in that "some conditions" phrase because CEONSS also runs the ONSPlus mutator which has additional features related to vehicle exiting, such as taking into account distance to ground below the exit point (so as not to have you exit at the wrong side of a ledge and have you plummet to your hilarious, ragdoll death). On top of that, and most importantly, ONSPlus allows you to use specific commands to pick which side of the vec you wanna leave; bind those to any keys you want and you'll immediately have a strategic advantage when such a nuanced situation comes around (e.g., when you need to exit at the right side of MasterBath's high ledges to grab a damage amp before proceeding to attack the enemy side). To configure those, you'll need to go into the ONSPlus section from the Game tab while playing and set the vec exit keys as you like 'em in the proper submenu. Alternatively, you can just directly edit your User.ini file in your UT's "system" subfolder. The most convenient way to map 'em, I've concluded, is to pipe 'em along with every other action already set to the Q and E keys, Q for SetPreferredExit Left 1 and E for SetPreferredExit Right 1. I think there's "back" and "front" too, but I don't remember for sure offhand so look for some ONSPlus documentation to be certain if you wanna use those too. Every time you change your exit preference while in a vec the selected location next to the vec should glow with some kinda colourful, silly emitter too to let you know the change happened (unless you've turned that off like I have).
2. Destroyed vehicles stick around or get blown entirely to pieces based on damage they took while dieing (or even later on until they disappear). I think for most vecs it's something like 150hp to make a destroyed vec blow up instantly, otherwise it'll bounce around (or just stay there if its chassis isn't light enough) in flames and smoke for a bit, exploding a few times and being a hazard for the driver's team (and the one who destroyed it) until its normal cycle is done, then it'll disappear. Mantas make for particularly annoying wrecks as each time they change direction and lose some more momentum, they do that explodey shit again. Just shoot a couple o' shock cores at 'em if they're bouncing around too close and you should be safe.
Eyes in the skies.
