entspeak

I agree with you, Celery. There are "zombifying" parasites, for example (take a look at The Last of Us or DayZ SA). In fact, 1/3 of the world is infected with a parasite that is linked to schizophrenia. So, undead or infected with a "zombie" parasite... they all can be called zombies. But my point is that both here and in DayZ the use of "infected" over "zombie" is intended to stop the requests that the zeds in the game behave more like they are undead - which is the way most people view zombies. So, as I said... the semantic argument is pointless. Call them zombies if you like; just don't call them undead - which is how some in this thread have referred to them.

Look... the distinction being made here between infected and zombies is simply to keep people from confusing live humans with the undead. These (and the zombies in DayZ) are not rotting, undead zombies - that's it... simple as that. So, the semantic argument is pointless. The point is that these will not be rotting, undead humans; they are infected, living humans.

Ah... just played the latest build and they've changed it. It no longer operates the way it did when I made the OP. Now the all the cameras operate on the same principle - though, you're right... you can't disable smoothing on the 3rd person view. I'm just glad they changed it. It used to be so much harder to control.

I wasn't really referring to the movement smoothing... basically, the 3rd person view is an orbiting camera and the mouse dictates the direction and speed of the orbit - the farther the mouse is moved to the left, for example, the faster it will orbit around the rover to the left... the only way to stop it is to move the mouse back to the position it was in when you chose that view or deactivated the cursor. And if you activate the cursor, the camera will stop, but not immediately. So, you end up dancing the camera around in order to look at something specific - it's a bit jerky. It's not like in Arma where it moves the same way in 3rd person as it does in 1st. My opinion is that it should work like it does in Arma... it's much easier to control.

Currently, the way to deal with this is to save the game before you do anything. I learned this the hard way, too.

Yes, I do hide the HUD often so that, once I'm oriented toward an objective, I can just drive using the camera. I understand the low priority... I'm all for bug removal. :)

This is very true; there is no GPS for Mars. However, Mars has been mapped thoroughly. Currently, there are localization techniques used to determine where the rover is at a particular time - location data pulled from image headers, for example. Now, given the delay issue, this can't be done in real time, but we also can't drive the rover in real time. So, having a real time localization system - "a kind of GPS, if you will" - that can be used for navigation and orienting the rover to complete tasks is not necessarily "realistic," but it is authentic and more immersive. Incorporating these localization techniques would also be incredibly useful for the extremely hard command delay difficulty level that seems to be in the works. I'm just proposing a real-time version of it to go along with the real-time command difficulty levels. Here is a paper that includes a description of the various ways rovers are currently located and navigation is accomplished. Mars Exploration Rover Mission - Rover Localization and Topographic Mapping

For me, I like to use the GUI as little as possible. It would be awesome if, on a harder difficulty (though not solely on the delayed command difficulty), on the Lens HUD, there were map coordinates - a kind of GPS, if you will. And you could work in conjunction with a gridded map. Then, in the Mission, it could give you map coordinates to go to and you would have to direct yourself there and locate, using orienteering, which item needed to be analyzed/photographed. For example, if you needed to photograph a particular rock formation on the edge of a crater rim, the rim coordinates would be in the mission and along with a general idea of the shot desired to be used. You could then, using orienteering, navigate to the opposite side or down into the crater - or whatever, depending on the desired shot, locate the formation to be photographed, orient the camera and take the picture. If you needed to analyze a particular rock, the exact coordinates of that rock could be given in the mission and then you'd navigate toward it and do the analysis. If you needed to analyze a particular section of atmosphere, you'd get those coordinates and navigate there. So, basically, in an advanced mode, you could turn off the visual helpers and use orienteering/GPS to navigate to points and perform the tasks. In future, once manual landing is incorporated... this coordinate system could be used to choose landing sites.

It should be noted that rovers now have a rather advanced AI system so that they can make minor adjustments on their own without needing a command. And, if the feedback tracker is where the devs want this stuff suggested... why is there a forum for suggestions?

I also prefer to use the camera for immersion and haven't really had this issue. When approaching a hill there is a change in the horizon. Yes, it can be more difficult at night especially when you have a fixed camera. But once you get the higher end gear and the ability to rotate the camera, this isn't really an issue. Perhaps, these could be additional sensors that could risk damage.

It's nice to be able to hide the two upper HUD windows and I wish I could do the same with the others. Since I use a joystick - which seems to render the onscreen and mouse control useless (meaning they don't work anymore once I start using the joystick), I would like to be able to minimize those and only see which item the Primary and Secondary are controlling. I currently cycle through them using the right and left triggers on my joystick (L1 and L2 for Primary, R1 and R2 for Secondary). Or perhaps there could be a button that could temporarily call up the mission objective waypoints while the HUD gui is hidden.

Unlike in Arma, the 3rd person camera control in TKOM is really awkward to use, in my opinion. It seems that mouse position only serves to accelerate/decelerate rotation around the rover. This is very hard to control... I usually end up having to jerk it around constantly in order to maintain a particular view. It would be better, I think to use the Arma 3rd person camera control which is more precise. This will make it easier to see how the rover actually operates in 3rd person and examine damage.

It would be great if, when you select the radial menu with the joystick, that the particular stick assigned to select it (in this case the right one) allows you to move the cursor within the radial menu. As it stands, you select the radial menu with the right stick button and then have to use the mouse... which is kind of clunky.

I agree. It would be nice to be able to assign controls to joystick buttons. As it stands, since I use a PS3 controller, I have to assign keyboard commands to buttons in Motionjoy in order to make full use of the joystick.

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but the 3rd person camera control is awkward. It's really hard to be precise with it - as it is in other BI games. It seems to spin out of control. Is this a setting issue or just the way the camera works?