RAT CHAT #7 was a very well attended event that resulted in alot of questions GOPHUR wasn't able to get to during the chat.  They ranged from subjects such as AOs, the new Spitfire 1B, plans for new AT guns and the possibility of improving the currently modeled infantry knife. We promised to mark them down and answer them later and so DOC agreed to finish what Gophur couldn't. Check out the questions and answers below.

Will there be anything done to the blackout model?  Currently aaa guns can blackout when being pushed and trucks do the same when driving on rough surface and planes black out very easily. - Popeye0

Yeah and we hate that. I know I do. It's difficult because this is deeply imbedded in how the physics engine handles blackouts. It's a global value that is really difficult to seperate out of the engine and make it treat different vehicles differently, like planes and trucks. We do need to find a solution however, becuase it blows that you can spike a G limit while on the ground just because the terrain isn't very smooth as far as bump mapping goes in a lot of areas. I don't know exactly what that solution will be, but we'll be looking at a number of possibilities and see what the coders can come up with to improve this.

Question regarding AO's and possibly geared toward 1.29: With the ideas introduced to lowering the AO's 2 to via the server population, will we see anything regarding automatic AO removel after a certain period of time via a set of limitations, per se no activity, no cp's capped, or something of the sort?  Leaving AO's up for hours unattended and then one side ninja capping the town out from the other side is becoming a much widely used cheap tactic. - Rokal

We've been talking about further refinement (actually new functionality) to make AO's more flexible in meeting a wider range of criteria and this idea is a part of those discussions at CRS HQ.

How are you guys modeling the new spitfire? Is it going to look like the spit5? Is there any chance we will see it in the next newsletter. - Li85

The Spitfire Ib is more akin to the spitfire Ia, but with the gun armament of the Spitfire Vb. Since a Spitfire Vb looks exactly the same in terms of fuselage and wings to a Spitfire Ia the end result of the physical model will be like a Spitfire Vb with a Spitfire Ia nose spinner and exhaust stacks on it. In terms of the paint job it gets, it will be similar to the Spitfires in the game right now, but with sone identifying features so that up close you can tell them apart, but not so easily from far away. Just like we did with previous varients of aircraft in the game already.

Is there any plan to add Bayonets, or, make the knife stronger, because right now the knife is like a plastic toy. - Onearmy

Yeah I have a ticket I am going to look at this dev. cycle which is to make the knife more efective. No bayonets at this point in time, perhaps later when we redo the iantry weapons again.

Any chance you will allow aaa/atg to spawn with a truck? (that is to say 1 player with 2 units, ex: i spawn aaa i get a truck to tow my bofors). - Yokilla

We can't do that the way the game engine works right now. Ideally when we seperate vehicles from players (which is in reality, bailing) we can think about how to make truck/gun combos work more in this manner. That's a ways down the track however, as it means creating an ability that the game engine was never designed to do at all.

Any plans to add in more weapons? in particular, Anti-Tank weapons. - Maranuk

Yes indeed, we have a plan to begin the work to get anti-tank rockets (infantry) done sometime soon. That means Piats, Bazookas and Panzershreks or Panzerfausts.

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