(insert usual appology about being annoying and persistent)

The wingbug is probably the oldest bug in Vendetta, and one of the most annoying ones. I just wingbugged a valk against a behemoth. You don't even need wings to trigger it. Are there any plans to ever fix this? This bug is at least 3 years old. Most likely a few years older than that, actually. New UIs are cool, but random explosions when touching another object at low speed can really discourage people a lot more from coming back then a ... well ... sub-beautiful UI (which isn't all that bad right now, really).

Your comments are better addressed here:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/12436

This would be more in line with what they've announced that they are working on currently.

I read every comment in the thread and I don't see how anything written there will resolve this N year old bug, except that my ship might look prettier right before it explodes because I touched something at an odd angle. No?

It was not yet addressed in that thread, but that thread is the closest to what you are talking about. I don't know that Incarnate will be able to look at the vulture ship model in terms of the wing bug now, but at least your persistence will be somewhat in line with what the Devs have actually committed to work on at the moment.

You are setting yourself up for frustration by trying to champion the wing bug issue now when the Devs have pretty clearly indicated what they're focused on for the very near future.

wingbugging was the whole reason I started flying a cent - the vult was just too risky, as it would explode at random intervals while flying roid feilds, racing the tubes, or dogfighting.

FM, go back and read my first post again. I am talking about a VALK (a potato-shaped ship) "wingbugging" on a behemoth (another potato-shaped ship). This is not something that will go away by slightly adjusting the collision model of the VULTURE (or any other ship for that matter). Hell, I have even seen the frig "wingbugging" on a centaur. This is a fundamental problem in the collision code, and it has been here since before I joined. I don't know when and where the Devs have indicated this is/will be worked on. If that was the case I would be overjoyed.

Oops, okay I had the wrong ship, but it doesn't alter what I said.

I was trying to gently steer you to a more appropriate forum because it appears you are addressing issues that generally have nothing to do with the things they have very clearly indicated they ARE working on right now. In this one instance I was hoping that you would direct yourself to a forum where Incarnate was at least discussing working on the ships and where you stood a good chance of getting a response from him regarding whether or not he would be addressing the collision issues. I do now understand that you are discussing a larger issue.

I reiterate that, while the issues you bring up are certainly valid, this is not the most opportune time to be bumping them. I am concerned that you will become frustrated when no work is done on the things that you consider to be today's priority.

I'm not out to argue with you.

I think Incarnate, Raybondo, or A1k0n must have commented on it at some point, and they know more about it than I do, but...

The "wing" bug seems to happen more often when sharp points/edges of models scrape along another surface, but it can happen to any ship, even the bus. It is one source of the missing-leviathan issue we've seen a lot of since it was introduced (and hopefully the only remaining source). If it could be fixed in a few days, I'm sure it would have been. Unfortunately, it will essentially entail coding an automatically repeating/summarizing test-scenario version of the client and instrumenting the code to give us enough info to find the bug (which has been looked for by hand). And even then, the instrumentation could alter the results. In short, we have no repeatable way to produce the bug, which makes it very difficult to fix.

We're aware of the negative impact it has on Fun, but we feel that at this moment there are things we can do to improve Fun to a greater degree with the time we have. It's an old bug for a reason, but its days are numbered.

If you insert a bunch of instrumentation code in the collision handling that is displayed at an appropriate verboseness level, I am more than happy to provide you with a log. Or just grab a vulture and hit the dock wall at low speed. Its not like this is really difficult to trigger ... But again, if its helpful if I provide a log, sure, gimme a client and I will get right to it.

Ehh, wingbugs can be kinda cool.

-Shadow Guardian
a.k.a. "He Who Accidentally Wingbugged the Zelor Immediately After His First Cap Ship Battle"

I guess there's one thing we VO users can do to help, wingbug ourselves enough to find a way to reproduce it! Lay down your lives for the devs and for the sake of a working universe!

*BUMP*

you can wing bug the HAC too if you hit it right

(DISCLAIMER: Explanation from vague memory):

If I remember correctly (and I may not!), this is because the collision-response never fully stabilizes. You could describe it more accurately as an "undesirable behaviour" than simply as a "bug" (not to trivialize it, it is very annoying). But basically, we never fixed it because, as I understand it, doing so would require overhauling and perhaps rewriting a good chunk of our base collision detection/response/physics code. Or using Havok (har har).

We also never fixed it because we've always been in a position of "If we don't make the game Cooler right away.. we'll go out of business!". So, we de-prioritized problems believed to be massively time-consuming to fix, as long as they didn't crop up that often.. in favor of trying to improve the game in more visible ways, so we could someday become financially stable enough to revisit all the not-quite-right stuff we want to fix.

Anyway, Ray wrote most of that code. He's pretty busy right now, and I'm reluctant to disturb him. Maybe Andy can take a look at it in the short term. I'll bring it up, see what we can find out, and post about it to News.

The other problem is that we need a completely new damage model for collisions, which is more of a game design issue. Some of the craziness on collision damage was based on the idea that "if the physics system lets you push your way inside objects, then you should probably explode before that can happen" - i.e. solving a physics issue with a game design choice.

Will this new damage model have damage-able ship components? i.e. A vult can lose its wing (meaning it loses a weapon, some mass, plus some maneuverability) but still keep fighting?

That would rock, but could be a bit tough to code, eh?

Um, no. We still don't even have a collision system that can absolutely prevent you from getting inside objects.

AKA Ecka Estenk

Hmm, This happened to one of my vults, so now I know what a "wingbug" is. Actually , I think odd technical weaknesses in ships is a realistic reflection of real engineering.

I drove cars built by British Leyland in the 70's . They had wingbugs. And enginebugs. And subframebugs. And brakebugs.................

British ...

The Pinto had a butt bug.

Americans...