This Is Not a Bug but a Game Feature-Chapter 193 - 142: Abstract Road Planning (Part 2)

Chapter 193: Chapter 142: Abstract Road Planning (Part 2)

"There’s no need to wait until New Year to take the test, go now!"

Chen Ba encouraged: "Don’t worry about work, we’ve got it covered! You just focus on the driving test, aim to get it done within a month."

We can’t isolate Dong!

Everyone’s out driving and having fun, leaving him alone in the studio; it’s just too cruel.

Chen Ba also felt sorry for Dong.

Over the past week, they drove seven cars and nearly toured every corner around Jiangning, the total mileage of the seven cars adding up to a whopping 28,000 kilometers.

During this time, Lu even accidentally rear-ended another car due to poor driving skills...

They had such a blast, they’re almost VIP customers at the gas stations now. It’s unreasonable not to let Dong have some fun too.

Besides, to be honest, after driving for so long, everyone is exhausted. If someone could get the license and share some of the driving workload, that would be fantastic.

"Simulations of regular road conditions are mostly complete."

At the third studio meeting, Chen Ba frowned and said, "But we haven’t started extreme weather and road condition simulations yet."

Extreme weather requires timing.

Such extreme weather doesn’t come just because you want it, it might take a year or more to wait for the right conditions.

As for extreme road conditions, that’s not about timing, but rather whether you dare to drive...

Take driving over snowy icy roads at speeds over 80 km/h for example, Tianba Studio’s timid bunch wouldn’t dare even with ample protection measures.

"Let’s hire professional drivers!"

Zhong Shengwei suggested: "We can’t handle extreme road conditions and scenario simulations; we need a professional team for it."

Regarding vehicle collisions and roll-over simulation samples, if worse comes to worst, we can refer to other test results.

After all, these materials are publicly available.

Including braking distances, collision test results, etc., specific data and results can be found on some official websites, and they can be used as references.

"Alright then."

Chen Ba thought about it and felt this suggestion was truly time-saving and labor-saving.

After all, they have the most realistic physics engine, and all the effects can be simulated through the engine. The main reason for road tests is to observe how different road conditions interfere with vehicle control.

"Are the vehicle model data complete?"

"Not complete!"

Yang Dong explained: "For some vehicle models, we can’t get specific component data; we can only rely on guessing and estimation."

Most of it is not a problem.

For parts we’re not familiar with, there’s no need to bother car manufacturers; asking some seasoned mechanics will generally give you a pretty accurate understanding.

This is no joke...

When it comes to understanding vehicles, especially those available for sale, salespeople in 4S shops might not know as much as mechanics.

Salespeople know the selling points and design flaws of a car at most, but mechanics understand every detail, and might even remember every bolt’s specific position.

"Is it really that impressive?"

"In my image, mechanics just swap heads for headaches and feet for soreness. Repairs can be done, but they involve changing heaps of new parts." Lu curiously said.

"That’s oversimplifying it."

Chen Ba explained: "There are indeed cases like what you mentioned, but most mechanics are quite knowledgeable about cars."

If you don’t understand, you can’t fix it.

The game Speeding Frenzy received a lot of guidance and clarification from the veteran mechanics during its development.

They helped Chen Ba a lot.

Mainly through their experience and the powerful physics engine, the cars in the game felt very authentic.

"The driving experience is quite decent."

Speaking of which, Chen Ba couldn’t help but lament: "But... the best control equipment for this type of racing game is still steering wheels and pedals!"

Keyboard and mouse work too.

Most players play this kind of game using keyboards and mice, with some players who have special conditions, might use controllers.

But these two control methods are somewhat awkward, or let’s say, not smooth.

The hardware most fitting for this type of racing game is actually a ’driving simulation’ set composed of a steering wheel and pedals.

"It’s hard to get around that sense of awkwardness."

"Everyone knows that using steering wheels and pedals for such games is thrilling. The problem is, these devices have a low usage rate and are likely to collect dust, not as practical as keyboards, mice, or controllers." Lu shook his head and said.

Tianba Studio is equipped with a full set of game accessories, keyboards, mice, controllers, joysticks, simulated driving wheels, and so forth.

However, players like them, owning multiple sets of game accessories, are undoubtedly few.

Most people, when playing games, only use keyboards, mice, and controllers. They might have thought about buying a joystick or steering wheel but considering the actual usage scenarios, most have given up on the idea.

"So, we should focus on optimizing the control feel for keyboards and controllers."

Chen Ba sighed and said: "Fine-tune the control feel for keyboards and controllers, only then will our game attract players to give it a try."

Otherwise, if the keyboard’s control feels like crap, people will feel awkward and uncomfortable playing, and they surely won’t play again after trying once.

PCs use keyboards and mice, consoles use controllers.

Optimizing the control feel of these two methods ensures there won’t be any major issues. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Let’s not talk about the controller issues now.

Just focusing on keyboard and mouse operations, the WASD keys are extremely familiar, and are commonly used as "automatic transmissions" for forward, backward, left, and right steering.

Besides WASD, the arrow keys next to the numeric keypad are also some keys many racing games love to use.

The mouse is mainly used for controlling the view; dragging left or right moves the game view accordingly. Clicking the left or right mouse button switches between inside and outside car views, etc.

This set of racing game operation logic has been in place for many years without much change.

But there’s an issue with keyboards and mice.

Take left steering for instance, if using a controller, the joystick can control the steering intensity; with a steering wheel, it’s even more intuitive and convenient.

But the keyboard only has one key, how do you control the steering intensity with just pressing it?

The answer is by feel.

If you press and hold it, it typically continues to steer, and when to release depends on when you feel the steering intensity is adequate.

This has always been a tough problem with keyboard and mouse operations in racing games.

Forward and backward are okay, but steering alone is hard to directly control intensity, driving feels worse than with controllers, let alone compared to the steering wheel.

How can it be optimized?

Chen Ba scratched his thigh, coming up with an idea that’s not really a solution: determine steering intensity by mouse!

While pressing ’A’ to steer left, pressing the left mouse button simultaneously would cause the car to make a sharp turn. If just ’A’ is pressed without the mouse button, it results in a slight direction correction.

This way.

When aggressive driving and rapid steering are needed, combining the mouse achieves a similar effect. When aggressive driving isn’t needed, and steering intensity is smaller, it can also slowly correct direction.

As for view switching, changing it to other keys would work.

This is not a big problem.

"Actually, besides automatic transmission, we can also offer manual transmission controls."

Zhong Shengwei suggested: "The mouse wheel can be utilized, paired with a shift or Ctrl clutch key, and combined with the mouse wheel to change gears, allowing keyboard and mouse players to experience a bit of control feeling."

Of course!

This isn’t mandatory.

If players find manual transmission operations too cumbersome, they can switch to automatic transmission and use WASD for simple controls.

Offering manual transmission mainly caters to a faction of keyboard and mouse players seeking extreme control.

Though the operations are a bit complex.

Playing manual transmission well, in some sense, is more powerful and makes it easier to achieve good results in the game, even launching an oil car like an electric car!

It doesn’t take much effort to design an additional set of control keys and logic anyway.

Even if we can’t match the steering wheel experience, we’ll strive to let keyboard and mouse players enjoy the driving fun.