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Yeah, every engine I've worked with even Epic's Unreal 3 engine suffer from a lag to users when too many static objects have their new locations updated to all connected users. This is the problem with vehicles as each part of the vehicle is treated as a single static object whose position needs to be updated even when mounted.
I've observed whay Tt Games did to address this issue in a single player game with Lego Star Wars, and it's pretty much the method I would have taken and is similar to the one I suggested in another post for allowing editing of structures in BS' retail without crashing the engine.
Instead of mounting the bricks to a moving vehicle, just have the player mark a set of bricks that are mounted to a defined vehicle base as "completed." Then have the engine dynamically define a static object whose shape and color matches that of the vehicle created and replace all of the bricks with this single vehicle object thus using this new dynamically created static object as its skin. This way you are updating the position of one object. Granted there will be a momentary lag when the object is defined and updated to everyone in the begining, but it shouldn't be that noticable.
For extra credit, you can store all the brick definitions used to create the vehicle in structure that is attached to the object, so the player can place the object back into edit mode where the static object is removed and replaced with the bricks used to define it. Even better would be to make it so when the vehicle is destroyed debris objects are setup from the brick definitions attached to that vehicle.
This is how game design works. You just have to fake it well enough that the players think it is all legit. Suspension of belief. A good game designer is really like a magician that way.
I've observed whay Tt Games did to address this issue in a single player game with Lego Star Wars, and it's pretty much the method I would have taken and is similar to the one I suggested in another post for allowing editing of structures in BS' retail without crashing the engine.
Instead of mounting the bricks to a moving vehicle, just have the player mark a set of bricks that are mounted to a defined vehicle base as "completed." Then have the engine dynamically define a static object whose shape and color matches that of the vehicle created and replace all of the bricks with this single vehicle object thus using this new dynamically created static object as its skin. This way you are updating the position of one object. Granted there will be a momentary lag when the object is defined and updated to everyone in the begining, but it shouldn't be that noticable.
For extra credit, you can store all the brick definitions used to create the vehicle in structure that is attached to the object, so the player can place the object back into edit mode where the static object is removed and replaced with the bricks used to define it. Even better would be to make it so when the vehicle is destroyed debris objects are setup from the brick definitions attached to that vehicle.
This is how game design works. You just have to fake it well enough that the players think it is all legit. Suspension of belief. A good game designer is really like a magician that way.
What do you think Elf?