Ship physics for Pulse - Analysing the past

[Dogg Thang]

Although the barrel roll flaws have been addressed somewhat for Pulse

Are you allowed say what's changed?

You're absolutely right about the logic of the barrel roll - there is none. I'm actually slightly surprised it was kept in Pulse. I think I'd prefer a more controlled system of boosts - like every craft gets 2 to use at its disposal. But then, that wouldn't really add anything to the normal pick-up system, which works fine.

There is something slightly bizarre about the difficulty in the physics in general since the game moved from PS1. I'm not a developer or programmer so I have no idea how different systems affect things but almost everyone agrees that the physics in 2097 and 3 were just lovely. Now, they came with other problems - being able to fly through scenery for example. But in terms of ship handling everything felt right. Fusion dropped all the floatiness completely and Pure got some of it back but in a way that is just ever so slightly off. At higher speeds, serious cracks in the physics began to appear.

I wonder if developers have more realistic physics engines at their disposal that actually makes control far more complicated than it has to be? It's like the first three games worked on certain reliable behaviours rather than actual physics.