6.0 Physics engine is garbage!

[ziggaron]

The new 6.0 Physics engine has been proving to be total garbage!

Constant Issues:
- Infinite Mass of deployable Objects not Launching/ejecting correctly
- Ships that are "stacked" when OOS become stuck together when player goes IS/teleports IS with those ships. Those ships then have "infinite mass" against each other and are unable to move rendering them useless until player goes back to OOS.
- All objects/ships/drones/deployable Objects have more "Mass" than ANY ship the player can fly. Why is this?!? why if I'm flying an Asgard is a ship or debris not just pushed aside by the massive ship!? Debris/wreckage should NOT have infinite mass! Example: kill drones with Destroyer (Asgard), wreck is next to Asgard, Asgard gets stuck on wreck and unable to move. WTF? tiny ass wreck has infinite mass and is "anchored" to space and unable to be pushed aside?! this needs fixed!

The new Physics Engine should have FIXED the issue with infinite mass, not made it WORSE! Get rid of anything having "infinite mass"

Recent patch notes said there was a fix to launching laser towers getting caught and thus "dragging" the launching ship with it. This "fix" needs greater implementation as, it has helped on my 1200m/s Kuraokami, but it has not helped on the Asgard. I don't care if the laser tower gets snagged, but it's tiny mass should not impeded ALL ship "flying" functions and in ability to pilot the launching ship.

Thank you!

[FanUS]

The new 6.0 Physics engine has been proving to be total garbage!

Constant Issues:
- Infinite Mass of deployable Objects not Launching/ejecting correctly
- Ships that are "stacked" when OOS become stuck together when player goes IS/teleports IS with those ships. Those ships then have "infinite mass" against each other and are unable to move rendering them useless until player goes back to OOS.
- All objects/ships/drones/deployable Objects have more "Mass" than ANY ship the player can fly. Why is this?!? why if I'm flying an Asgard is a ship or debris not just pushed aside by the massive ship!? Debris/wreckage should NOT have infinite mass! Example: kill drones with Destroyer (Asgard), wreck is next to Asgard, Asgard gets stuck on wreck and unable to move. WTF? tiny ass wreck has infinite mass and is "anchored" to space and unable to be pushed aside?! this needs fixed!

The new Physics Engine should have FIXED the issue with infinite mass, not made it WORSE! Get rid of anything having "infinite mass"

Recent patch notes said there was a fix to launching laser towers getting caught and thus "dragging" the launching ship with it. This "fix" needs greater implementation as, it has helped on my 1200m/s Kuraokami, but it has not helped on the Asgard. I don't care if the laser tower gets snagged, but it's tiny mass should not impeded ALL ship "flying" functions and in ability to pilot the launching ship.

Thank you!

Repair drones can also interfere with your ship movement. In fact, the drone can push your ship in a direction if you collide with it by turning while they are out repairing. Just don't bring repair drones at all. Have a supply ship near by.

Drones don't really need to be simulated at all. All they got to do is be out and moving with the ship like backdrop animation. Trying to make things way complicated than they need to is a poor design.

[Imperial Good]

If you have saves which reproduce physics issues, it might be a good idea to post them.

This can help the devs identify and solve edge cases or oversights with the physics.

[ziggaron]

If you have saves which reproduce physics issues, it might be a good idea to post them.

This can help the devs identify and solve edge cases or oversights with the physics.

I just experienced the repair drones pushing my ship wile fighting in a Rattlesnake. Also, I won't nor shouldn't need to share save files, the devs just need to play their own game and reproduce what people are saying ROFL. It would not be difficult to reproduce!

[ziggaron]

The new 6.0 Physics engine has been proving to be total garbage!

Constant Issues:
- Infinite Mass of deployable Objects not Launching/ejecting correctly
- Ships that are "stacked" when OOS become stuck together when player goes IS/teleports IS with those ships. Those ships then have "infinite mass" against each other and are unable to move rendering them useless until player goes back to OOS.
- All objects/ships/drones/deployable Objects have more "Mass" than ANY ship the player can fly. Why is this?!? why if I'm flying an Asgard is a ship or debris not just pushed aside by the massive ship!? Debris/wreckage should NOT have infinite mass! Example: kill drones with Destroyer (Asgard), wreck is next to Asgard, Asgard gets stuck on wreck and unable to move. WTF? tiny ass wreck has infinite mass and is "anchored" to space and unable to be pushed aside?! this needs fixed!

The new Physics Engine should have FIXED the issue with infinite mass, not made it WORSE! Get rid of anything having "infinite mass"

Recent patch notes said there was a fix to launching laser towers getting caught and thus "dragging" the launching ship with it. This "fix" needs greater implementation as, it has helped on my 1200m/s Kuraokami, but it has not helped on the Asgard. I don't care if the laser tower gets snagged, but it's tiny mass should not impeded ALL ship "flying" functions and in ability to pilot the launching ship.

Thank you!

Repair drones can also interfere with your ship movement. In fact, the drone can push your ship in a direction if you collide with it by turning while they are out repairing. Just don't bring repair drones at all. Have a supply ship near by.

Drones don't really need to be simulated at all. All they got to do is be out and moving with the ship like backdrop animation. Trying to make things way complicated than they need to is a poor design.

I just experienced this which nearly resulted in the loss of my ship, thankfully the dumbfire missiles that were destroying my ship destroyed the repair drones allowing me to regain control of my rattlesnake!

[Valhalla_Awaits]

I admit, it causes a LOT of issues and generally is worse than the old system. However... It does use less resources (scales across cpu cores better) and for the first time ever in X4 allows fleet formations to actually work. (most of the time)

But yeah, it's going to need a LOT of patching to work properly. Especially when ships collide and begin to merge into a physics nightmare perpetual motion engine, which happens an awful lot right now.

PS: As for repair drones, you can set them to inactive in the ship settings, then activate them for repairs after the battle is over. Repair drones are completely useless in the middle of battle anyway, as the ship is always dead or the battle is over long before they ever repair anything. Should honestly not activate in battle by default.

[A5PECT]

I'd be for not simulating drones, but that would remove the ability to destroy them when attacking a ship. This can be an issue if you're trying to board a ship that can repair itself very quickly if it has drones, for example a construction vessel.

I imagine some sort of setup where deployed repair drones are perpetually anchored to their parent ship, so there are no collisions while the latter is maneuvering. There's the player's "gravity well" mechanic when flying an S or M ship near an L or XL ship. NPC ships have a version of it that activates when they're ordered to dock at large ships.

[ColManiac]

Worst for me is ships colliding with one another and unable to separate until I take command then they split apart, worst is when using a ship larger than M and attacking a cap ship a lot of the time I get a warp effect when getting close to the ship, if I collide with the ship the target ship goes spinning and I get catapulted across the game map.
I also get the effects of repair drones preventing me from turning or they collide with me and send me turning in the other direction.
Laser tower deployment is now a little better 80% of the time, after assigning a deployment key I can deploy and get the ejection effect of mass amount of towers all in one go. Managed to deploy 50 towers within a few seconds, though some of the smaller ships I still get the original problem of towers not ejecting, very slow deployment and loosing towers due to prev one not deploying quick enough

[Feloidea]

If you have saves which reproduce physics issues, it might be a good idea to post them.

This can help the devs identify and solve edge cases or oversights with the physics.

I just experienced the repair drones pushing my ship wile fighting in a Rattlesnake. Also, I won't nor shouldn't need to share save files, the devs just need to play their own game and reproduce what people are saying ROFL. It would not be difficult to reproduce!

Ah yes, the "I demand they fix this issue now but I won't give you the necessary information because screw you" approach to asking for quality improvements. That works so well.
Copy paste a savefile from a situation that exhibits the problematic behaviour, upload it to a fileshare host andopen a topic in the tech support subforum with a link to the savefile and a brief explanation would get this issue fixed far sooner than than going full Karen.

[adeine]

If you have saves which reproduce physics issues, it might be a good idea to post them.

This can help the devs identify and solve edge cases or oversights with the physics.

I just experienced the repair drones pushing my ship wile fighting in a Rattlesnake. Also, I won't nor shouldn't need to share save files, the devs just need to play their own game and reproduce what people are saying ROFL. It would not be difficult to reproduce!

Ah yes, the "I demand they fix this issue now but I won't give you the necessary information because screw you" approach to asking for quality improvements. That works so well.
Copy paste a savefile from a situation that exhibits the problematic behaviour, upload it to a fileshare host andopen a topic in the tech support subforum with a link to the savefile and a brief explanation would get this issue fixed far sooner than than going full Karen.

While the statement was quite combative, it's true that these issues would come up naturally in 10-20 minutes of playtesting. Providing save games makes sense for situations that are odd and hard to reproduce, but less so if a game system is just fundamentally broken and any interaction with it showcases the issue.

[Admiral Sausage]

If you have saves which reproduce physics issues, it might be a good idea to post them.

This can help the devs identify and solve edge cases or oversights with the physics.

That could be difficult, as saving the game changes things. For instance when I got to the end of a mining escort mission, the mining ship couldn't dock at the station because the ship in front of it in the queue was stuck partially inside the station (I waited about 5 minutes to see if it would work its way free). I was going to post a save here, but saving+reloading caused the ship to pop out and everything went back to normal.

[chew-ie]

The physics engine is awesome - the main issue right now is that Egosoft decided to experiment with a sideproject instead of releasing patches in order to fine-tune JOLT. Which is quite damaging IMHO as 6.0 is now overshadowed from "AI issues" how people call it - while at the end it would be just said fine-tuning of JOLT. While we had some troubles in the beta 6.0 it was nowhere near as bad as in the release version.

[BlackRain]

Anyone who plays the game for even a short time will immediately notice the issues with the Physics Engine. I also find it strange that no one testing the game has seen the issues. I have to constantly teleport in and out of sectors because my ships collide with each other and push each other endlessly off the map if I don't. Some people mention providing saves but they won't take modded saves and all my games are modded.

There are a lot of ships colliding, ramming, pushing, pulling, spinning, etc. You see it all the time when In sector and it only gets worse the more ships you have. Having a fleet is a real chore.

[jambock]

Well; i like the engine far more then the one before, game runs smoother, best fps, best CPU usage; but it need urgently to be tuned, that's true; a lot of times i destroy a small ship (fighter) with any big ship (L or XL) and the small ship simply gets stuck in the hull of my ship making it rotate slowly without me being able to control it... Among other things. The game needs a lot of fixes urgently.

[Mycu]

Unfortunately it was also my experience. Yesterday I was testing something for few minutes (still haven't played 6.0) and after a short while my trader got 'merged/stuck' with a second ship and both started some weird dance - both trying to get free from each other.
Both failed to make it for 10 min - so I assume that in such scenario ship is disabled as long as it is in high attention.
It was a modded save, so can't provide it, but the issue was unrelated to mods ofc.

This post's topic is too harsh as physics engine change brings many improvements - but the issue is definitely quite serious.

[Feloidea]

Ah yes, the "I demand they fix this issue now but I won't give you the necessary information because screw you" approach to asking for quality improvements. That works so well.
Copy paste a savefile from a situation that exhibits the problematic behaviour, upload it to a fileshare host andopen a topic in the tech support subforum with a link to the savefile and a brief explanation would get this issue fixed far sooner than than going full Karen.

While the statement was quite combative, it's true that these issues would come up naturally in 10-20 minutes of playtesting. Providing save games makes sense for situations that are odd and hard to reproduce, but less so if a game system is just fundamentally broken and any interaction with it showcases the issue.

I would assume it's not as clear cut a case as some people would want to believe. Just because a problem comes up relatively often doesn't mean it's easily solved. Usually it's several different things interacting with one another that sum up to create the problem, or multiple independent triggers having the same effect and it's not as easy as to fix one thing and suddenly everything works. That's why a savefile and short explanation of what happened plus as accurate steps to reproduce the issue are so crucial, even for what may superficially look like a trivial problem.

Either way, whilst it can be understandable for people to get upset at things not working as they should, just ranting and then categorically refusing to participate in trying to fix the issue is a textbook example of how not to act!

[mr.WHO]

I must be the strange or lucky one, but I finished whole Boron DLC plots with my save continued since 1.0 with massive fleet/empire and I haven't seem any issue but one time:
Something small hit my XL ship putting it for short but violent rotation - I made a few 360 circles till the ship stabilized on it's own.

Other than that, my experience with new engine was flawless.

[jlehtone]

Anyone who plays the game for even a short time will immediately notice the issues with the Physics Engine.

What issues? I've had now several hours in 6.0 and I have not noticed anything extraordinary. Perhaps I've been flying wrong way in wrong place with wrong ship, but nevertheless the "anyone" is not completely true.


Devs do not have time to "play 10 to 20 minutes" and hope that whatever they do is the thing that reproduces whatever some player encounters. How many saves can you check in a day? What if none of them reveals any issues? Not that day.

Yes. Some issues are very hard to reproduce. The closer we can get to that and the more precise our description is, the better the chance that devs manage to deduce what might be the actual issue.

[BlackRain]

Anyone who plays the game for even a short time will immediately notice the issues with the Physics Engine.

What issues? I've had now several hours in 6.0 and I have not noticed anything extraordinary. Perhaps I've been flying wrong way in wrong place with wrong ship, but nevertheless the "anyone" is not completely true.


Devs do not have time to "play 10 to 20 minutes" and hope that whatever they do is the thing that reproduces whatever some player encounters. How many saves can you check in a day? What if none of them reveals any issues? Not that day.

Yes. Some issues are very hard to reproduce. The closer we can get to that and the more precise our description is, the better the chance that devs manage to deduce what might be the actual issue.

I guess you haven't noticed it yet because you don't have a lot of ships of your own. Once you do, you will definitely notice it especially if you fly around with your fleets a lot. Having ships in fleets and attacking other fleets will always lead to this. Of course, I also see this happening all the time with ships assigned to stations.

[spankahontis]

I must be the strange or lucky one, but I finished whole Boron DLC plots with my save continued since 1.0 with massive fleet/empire and I haven't seem any issue but one time:
Something small hit my XL ship putting it for short but violent rotation - I made a few 360 circles till the ship stabilized on it's own.

Other than that, my experience with new engine was flawless.

Must admit, i've seen some trading ships rubbing against the station a few times.

But they've only just rolled this out, it still has plenty of bugs left to steam out.. I feel the OP is being a tad hyperbolic.