Planetside 2 by Daybreak Games
Ragdoll Discussion!

Is there anyway DBG could add Ragdolls?
I know Ragdolls take up alot of memory but just make it ragdoll for example till it hits the ground and then turn it into solid? It will not take up memory like that! Infi infi! What do you mean?
- Example a guy dies on a roof and falls 50ft, the guy will be ragdoll until he completely lies on the ground then his body turns into a solid object!
- If a guy died then his body will only be ragdoll for roughly 0.5 seconds Then the game automatically turns his body into Solid object not to eat up CPU!




I'm unfortunately unabel to find any of the original announcement pages on Forgelight, the engine Planetside 2 runs on, likley because they were all lost in the transition from sony.com to daybreak.com, but Frogelight has had the capability to calculate ragdoll physics since its creation in 2012. It's just never been enabled in Planetside 2, and will likley never be enabled, because it's so intensive on the server's and client's processing, not because of memory. DBG almost certainly won't ever implement any new form of ragdoll physics either, even though your solution would mitigate some of that CPU drain (although, the vast majority of the problem occurs in the first few instants after the character dies, as that's when the most physics calculations have to be made), because doing so would require a rather hefty overhaul of some of Forgelight's physics features.
Yes, I agree
Beyond the impact it causes on performance, both CPU and RAM wise. (Think of the CPU hit of your computer having to calculate a hundred people ragdolling around) I have a second problem with it: If it is done too severely, It'd make my life as a medic even more of a pain. People can be hard enough to reach as they are, so having them rag doll around would make that even more of a pain.
The only way they could possibly do it is if ragdolling wouldn't alter the current physics for bodies too much, and even then it'd probably cause quite a hit on performance during bigger battles probably isn't worth the trade off.
Nope! You don't get what I said in the last part! "Your body will be a ragdoll until it impacts and lies on the ground, then the body just turns solid as it was before!
It will not impact the CPU severely because the time it would take someone to fall is somewhere at 0.5 seconds then the body becomes solid again! It will only impact the CPU if the guy is falling off a cliff!
Alright. Still that does leave the performance issues - as I'm still not sure if the added fidelity ragdolls offer for death animations outweigh the peromance hit. - As for the CPU impact, the time might be short, but keep in mind that the game tracks hundreds of players dying at any given time during large battles. The impact of one player might be marginal, but a 100 people dying in different locations at the same time? That's what causes the CPU hits.
We'll see when the CS comes out because CPU will be hit even harder!
If Planetside Handles hundreds of buildings being spawned, then the ragdoll effect on CPU will be minimal!
Keep in mind however that with the construction system (which I think you are referring to, as the regular buildings are part of the map and don't take up more of a n impact), you still see less buildings being built and destroyed in a given area than you see people dying there, especially when they are dying en masse like you see in big battles.
Most of the time you probably won't really notice it, but during those big fights where your system (be it a PC or a PS4) already has to put in a lot of effort to keep up with the action, the effects become quite noticeable.
In case you didn't know, these are not regular buildings! I investigated the PTS abit and found out that they just implemented Turret + Vehicle mechanics, so the buildings will have the same impact on the game as vehicles do! So even if there are ex: 7 buildings, it'll act as if there are 7 MBTs
I think you read me wrong there, Infil. The bits between the brackets is just to clarify it is indeed these buildings.
What I mean is, the amount of buildings getting built and destroyed (as well as the ammount of tanks getting built and destroyed) is much smaller than the ammount of infantry dying in a battle at any given moment. - The individual impact might not be that much of a hassle, but the overall impact might be.
Why do we even care? It's not like there's a DBG Dev watching us or anything... Life wasted... :/
Fun had isn't a waste. Besides it's a good to discuss these things - both the positives (as it would look cooler if done right), and the negatives.
Anyway, yes you're right, but don't forget that your PC must do mathematical equations every time a (Vehicle) gets hit or repaired, and the no. Of shots coming towards that vehicle... Is countless!
Yet nothing compared to your PC figuring out what happens when a Harasser hits a light assault that just used a little jetpack, for example. The calculations for deciding movements of individual body parts, essentially every major joint in the human body, are immensely complicated. Vehicles and turrets etc. are mostly just a single mesh that's 90% stationary and very limited in it's moivement. This isn't true when it comes to the micromovements of a body flopping through the air.