Hijacking and Unit "Displacement"

[Chrono Vortex]

This is based off a post I made to Project Perfect Mod. View the original thread here.

I made an interesting discovery concerning hijackers. Sometimes, the game will "displace" a unit (meaning move it off-center relative to all other units of that type) if it comes off of a repair bay or out of a war factory wrong, or if it's part of a paradrop. If this happens, it seems that hijackers can only enter that unit from the direction towards which it has been displaced.

This first bit is completely wrong. Scroll down to see the actual explanation.

Here's an example...

KEY:

In this situation, the hijacker fails to enter the vehicle because it is approaching the subject from the direction away from which it has been displaced.

In this situation, the hijacker succeeds in entering the vehicle because it is approaching the subject from the direction towards which it has been displaced.

And here's what's really happening:

13 minutes ago, Chrono Vortex said:

KEY:

In this situation, a hijacker occupying subcell 2 or 3 will fail to enter the vehicle because the vehicle is not overlapping those subcells.

Here's a map I threw together for others who want to experiment with this.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Chrono Vortex

[Plokite_Wolf]

Quite interesting. Does this occur in Tiberian Sun as well?

[Chrono Vortex]

3 hours ago, Plokite_Wolf said:

Quite interesting. Does this occur in Tiberian Sun as well?

I assume it does, since the hijacker logic is the same in both RA2 and TS (it is, right?), but I havn't tested it.

Now that you ask, I wonder if this occurs with Ares...

Edited July 28, 2017 by Chrono Vortex

[dkeeton]

Are you sure that unit displacement is the only factor? Do you know if you had a left, right, or bottom hijacker? Did you try shuffling the hijacker into a different position?

Edited July 28, 2017 by dkeeton

[Chrono Vortex]

On 7/27/2017 at 10:38 PM, dkeeton said:

Are you sure that unit displacement is the only factor? Do you know if you had a left, right, or bottom hijacker? Did you try shuffling the hijacker into a different position?

Direction doesn't seem to affect how effectively a hijacker can enter a unit that hasn't been displaced, from the testing I did. They can enter a non-displaced unit from any direction without any trouble. Besides that, the only other thing I could imagine making hijacking difficult is a messed up HVA file, but that isn't something I've experimented with.

I've updated the post to include a map which demonstrates this phenomenon.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Chrono Vortex

[dkeeton]

I'm not sure if we're fully synced up in what we're talking about. I mean that a hijacker can be in 3 different subcell location(aka quadrant): left, right, or bottom. I was asking if you experimented with all subcell locations.

[Chrono Vortex]

On 7/29/2017 at 0:41 AM, dkeeton said:

I'm not sure if we're fully synced up in what we're talking about. I mean that a hijacker can be in 3 different subcell location(aka quadrant): left, right, or bottom. I was asking if you experimented with all subcell locations.

Ah, gotcha. Now that you mention it, and now that I'm looking at it with that in mind, it looks like this has nothing to do with direction and everything to do with which subcell the hijacker is in. I was totally wrong.

What's ACTUALLY happening is the hijacker failing to overlap with the displaced vehicle in the cell it's occupying due to being in a subcell which does not allow it to overlap the vehicle.

Here's another diagram:

KEY:

In this situation, a hijacker occupying subcell 2 or 3 will fail to enter the vehicle because the vehicle is not overlapping those subcells.

Edited August 2, 2017 by Chrono Vortex