SGP: Black Ops Testing - CG004 - District 08 Door Blocking

[ColdGlider]

After responding to enigma in this Theorizers post, I came up with a hair-brained scheme I'd like to try with four players.

District Doors won't close if you block them... until you force the aBMA to load a new BSP by opening a third district door.   In that case, the engine will close the door into the district whose BSP is in the aBMA so that it can replace it with the newly requested BSP's data.  When this happens, whatever was blocking the door into the old aBMA district is repawned at its original spawning location.

So what if that object is a player?

The immediate answer that springs to mind is:  he gets warped to the rest of group.  And this may be the case.  But if two players are both blocking the same door, a third player is blocking the second door, and the fourth player opens the third- what "group" do the first two players warp to?

I don't expect anything here.  I just want to see what happens.

Because I am absolutely insane, attached is a project plan (Excel) and a here is a map of the strategy.

[EnigmaBiz]

you are SICK and I love it!!!!

[ColdGlider]

Check your Glyph Hunters board... the party to execute this is forming!
[party info]

[VsH Tepec Fett]

I think that the two players that stay "blocking" the first door will be teleported with the one who make the loading sequence appear. I've done that thing once (but the purpose wasn't the same) , and i think the case was nearly the same, too.

Whatever, if you couldn't do that before monday, i'll do this and give you the answer.

Tepec

[ColdGlider]

We did this early this morning:  thebraino, his guest, PittyCity, and myself.  As expected, people were teleported/warped.  Unexpectedly, this occurred in a seemingly nonsensical fashion.  Oftentimes, two members would simply swap spaces with two other members and would remain apart! 

We could not get two doors to remain open, let alone three. 

If you block Door 001 (see my map) with a mongoose, the game engine will close Door 001 as soon as a player walks into the "preload zone" near Door 002.  You can stand at the southwestern corner of the building that is in the northeast corner of the District and see both doors to witness this happening.

If you try to block a door with a player, the the preload boundary will trigger a warp.  The group was laughing at the warp behavior... it seemed pretty random for the most part.

Test Case Closed, as far as I'm concerned.

[ColdGlider]

My test plan results are attached, for the sake of documentation.

[EnigmaBiz]

Question:

 Do we have a unit or measure in ODST?

Like how far party members can stray from each other, I think that might help, if only to limit our testing and narrow ideas/ theories.

[thebraino]

Whenever we got close to a door, we warped. (I'll be using a situation similiar to what happened, as I'm not exactly sure as to what the order was, or who did it)

In one case (I'll be using B, B(1), CG, and PC):

B and B(1) were at door 2, CG and PC were at door 1
B went close to door 2, and warped the farthest player, PC, to door 2
CG, wondering what had just happened walked towards where his teammate had dissappeared (door 1), warping B to door door one
PC moves towards door 2, warping CG to door 2
B moves towards door 1, warping B(1)

In each case, after being warped, you warp to behind the target: On a 'graph line' measuring the distance between the two doors as '0-1-2-3-4-5-6', B is measured at 1, CG at 2, and B(1) at 5. When B moves to measurement 6, he warps the farthest player B(1) behind him to measurement 5.
This is how every player was warped, instead of the same person just being warped back and forth =)

[ColdGlider]

The warping doesn't seem to be based on a unit of measure, per se.  Group movement is limited by the ability of the game engine to keep the environment occupied by the group in memory.

Based purely on testing and observation, the game engine can keep two districts in memory at once; therefore, a group should be able to roam freely across two districts.  The caveat is this:  if any player stumbles into a preload boundary for a third district, then the game engine will cause player warping to protect itself from having to render three districts at once.  This is the behavior which results in blocked district doors being closed.

[ColdGlider]

This is how every player was warped, instead of the same person just being warped back and forth =)

And that's why we call him the braino.

[thebraino]

The warping doesn't seem to be based on a unit of measure, per se.  Group movement is limited by the ability of the game engine to keep the environment occupied by the group in memory.

Ah, yes, I could have been a bit confusing. I was trying to get across that the player 1 is warped 'behind' the player 2 based on what direction he was warped from, not the direction player 2 is facing.