Boomtrapezoid Boom Trapezoid

This ticket is going to take a break from the norm, and will be in the form of a short story - a tale, if you will. Please ensure you are sitting comfortably.

It is entitled "Seriously messed up physics - plus, the tale of the retarded black box in the corner".

One day riot was getting owned in boomtrap by norgg, and complained about the over-the-top wind effects on the machinegun. What wind effects? the norgg said. So it turns out that what riot had got used to as wind, erratic flightpaths (especially with the machinegun), was actually NOT meant to be there. Shit. So riot decided to go and have a play in practice mode, and see if we could get to the "bottom of the problem" - literally. So riot went digging: http://ehopkinson.com/temp/boomt...

Once he had cleared away the majority of the dirt using the death's head, he discovered to his mild surprise that the silly box for text in the bottom left corner is in fact a physics object. Right. No big deal, although explosions go through it and projectiles and tanks do not, causing a rather retarded effect: http://ehopkinson.com/temp/boomt...

But this is no big deal really, it's just something odd on his quest to discover the physics bug. Riot believed the physics issue was likely caused by a timer missing some part of the program flow, and so incorrectly calculating some distances - with the deflection being equal to lag, or possibly system load. After all, riot's computer was very, very old. So he proceeded to try and stress the system - by making a rolly bouncy pool of physics objects all interacting together: http://ehopkinson.com/temp/boomt...

He soon noticed that whenever one of his many browser tabs reloaded, or any other system event occurred, the game would judder a bit and... all the rollers would spontaneously leap up together in a fit of jubilant boundyness, as if someone had given a kick to the bottom of the screen: http://ehopkinson.com/temp/boomt...

While the system was in this stressed state, he decided to also try the machinegun - and, sure enough, the trajectory was all over the bloody place. I don't just mean wavering a little which is what he saw in online play, i mean some of the shots were cutting corners and changing direction midair and shit. He fired continously at about a third power, around 45 degrees, knowing he was sat on a totally flat surface and not sliding anywhere (thanks mysterious black box) - the trails and differing impact points showed clearly that there was a problem. This machinegunning also prompted the little balls to leap around more, like a pool of frogs on fire: http://ehopkinson.com/temp/boomt...

All of which suggests a timer issue in the physics engine. Over longer trajectories, the overall difference seems to even out a bit better, but by no means perfectly - some of the individual trajectories are just downright wacko: http://ehopkinson.com/temp/boomt...

Also, i notice explosion sounds are queued. Each one doesn't play until the last one finished. This means my boomtrap was banging on for maybe ten minutes after i finished shooting. That probably needs a separate ticket.