Open areas

Fredrik said:

The E1M8 courtyard is about 200x150 meters.

And 99% of it didn't come into play at all.

As has been said before, outdoor areas are nice to look at, but in general don't tend to add a whole lot to the gameplay. I've yet to see any actual evidence that Doom3 can't render large outdoor areas from anybody here or elsewhere, anyway.

And since it's known that Doomguy is wearing a space marine helment... well, there's your answer fishbulb.

Fredrik said:

Gravity is a vertical force and doesn't have a bloody thing to say about the horizontal force a fired weapon exerts on the one that holds it. You would "fly" backwards with the same speed you'd get on Earth, which is also known as zero meters per second provided that you have your feet on the ground.

Gravity holds you to the ground - if it is weak, you're more likely to be thrown back, by anything. Also, the air is thinner on Mars, which means less resistence to keep you from flying back. And btw, recoil does not just kick backwards - it kicks upwards also.

The idea of having a huge glass dome that encapsulates a habitated area is ridiculous. I'll argue this point:

It wouldn't serve any purpose in protecting from stuff like storms, radiation or meteorites. There are already building walls for that, and building walls are more powerful and easier to repair than giant domes of glass. Regardless of technology.

It wouldn't serve any useful purpose in holding a local atmosphere. Light-weight protective suits would be cheaper and easier to build, duh.

If you were to encapsulate an area somehow, why choose glass or even a transparent material? There's no need for seeing the sun - you could just as well place any solar cells on the roof of a metal dome. A solid metal construction would give better protection and be easier to build . Yes, glass is awfully hard to work with.

Hahahahahaha. Your arguments are pretty ridiculous too. It's the future, they could have come up with some sort of extremely solid glass many times more powerful than steel - and just as thick. For crying out loud, use your friggin' imagination - it's not that hard.
And it wouldn't serve any purpose? How about observation? observing on survey crews going outside (in space suits mind you) and see how they're doing.

And may I point out that cities encapsulated by glassdomes has been used many times before in sci-fi stories, without too many nitpicky little science geeks like yourself pointing out that it was ridiculous.

Scabbed Angel: I never mentioned that I got pissed off at you disagreeing with me (accusing me of that, however, actually MAKES me pissed so don't unless you've got some serious proof to back up that claim) - I got pissed at you for pretty much saying that my suggestion of a glass dome is ridiculous.

And yes, it probably wasn't considered by the level designers either, but I like to use my imagination to try and put some sense into the old Doom level design. It's well known, that the classic designs are pretty surreal and only meant to look pretty (for its time) and be fun.

Now I'll restate my claim to try and make things a little clearer: Doom 1 E1 and E2 never had any actual outdoor environment where you got outside the base and walked about on the landscape - it had a few areas where you could see the sky and some mountains in the distance, but that's it. The best way to transfer this to Doom 3 would be by having it pretty much indoor all the times, while occasionally reward the player with large windows that allows the player to take a look at the pretty landscape outside. Imo MUCH better than forcing the player outside in what's totally un-fun outdoor gameplay, because it allows you to see the engine rendering pretty landscapes without actually having to waste time running/walking 100 miles to get to the next enemy.

[edit]Outdoor areas are really only useful (in terms of gameplay) as boss arenas.[/edit]

Does anyone remember the bit in Total Recall where they go outside onto mars and their eyeballs start popping out? Would that happen in RL?

BlueSonnet said:

Does anyone remember the bit in Total Recall where they go outside onto mars and their eyeballs start popping out? Would that happen in RL?

I was told that it was extremely unlikely that they would last that long, but I haven't bothered to check the scientific facts for it so I dunno, but from what I was told in my science classes, their bodies once it came to "body expansion", it'd also come to body explosion really quick - like it'd take around 2 seconds once they got exposed to the thin air and till they explode.

It would add a bit more of a sickening atmosphere to doom3 if that would happen if you went outside without a suit, not that we know for sure if we'll go outside.

Maybe there'll be bits like in one of the secret levels for Quake2 two where get to close to one of the open doors and you get sucked into outer space and explode (in this case get sucked into the harsh mars environment and die) or at least watch from a window some people get sucked outside and die. Eew....

Gravity holds you to the ground - if it is weak, you're more likely to be thrown back, by anything. Also, the air is thinner on Mars, which means less resistence to keep you from flying back. And btw, recoil does not just kick backwards - it kicks upwards also.

Air friction is minimal both on Earth and Mars and can be ignored completely. You don't need more than a bit of common sense to realize this.

Gravity holds you down, but doesn't fix you to a horizontal position. Your friction to the ground is what does. The gravity on Mars is 1/3 of that on Earth, which gives roughly 1/3 of the contact friction, but doesn't change a thing about the friction of simply putting one foot back for support, which I assume that you'd do when firing a gun.

Hahahahahaha. Your arguments are pretty ridiculous too. It's the future, they could have come up with some sort of extremely solid glass many times more powerful than steel - and just as thick. For crying out loud, use your friggin' imagination - it's not that hard.

They "could" come up with anything. From now on, I'll make the assumption that the monsters in Doom are accountants dressed up for a masquerade. I will consider any attempt to oppose this conception to be a sign of lack of imagination. Just because they "could" doesn't mean it's likely to be that way. You should always look for the most rational explanation.

An additional question - if they have a glass dome, why are the atmospheric generators outside of it? Or are you saying that the dome spans across the horizon? o_O

And may I point out that cities encapsulated by glassdomes has been used many times before in sci-fi stories, without too many nitpicky little science geeks like yourself pointing out that it was ridiculous.

You haven't heard me nitpick about them because there hasn't been a discussion about them, heh. Bring those stories up and I'll nitpick.

BlueSonnet said:

Does anyone remember the bit in Total Recall where they go outside onto mars and their eyeballs start popping out? Would that happen in RL?

dsm said:

I was told that it was extremely unlikely that they would last that long, but I haven't bothered to check the scientific facts for it so I dunno, but from what I was told in my science classes, their bodies once it came to "body expansion", it'd also come to body explosion really quick - like it'd take around 2 seconds once they got exposed to the thin air and till they explode.

Ugh. Dsm, quit watching SF movies or even going to science classes if neither you nor people in your surrounding can tell facts from effects.

NASA said:

when animals are subjected to explosive decompression to a vacuum-like state, they do not suddenly balloon-up or have their eyes pop out of their heads. It is, in fact, virtually impossible to compress or expand organic tissues in this way. Instead, death arises from the response of the free gasses trapped within the tissues. If decompression takes 1/2 second or longer, even lung tissue remains intact. When the ambient pressure falls below 47 millimeters of mercury, about 1/20 the atmospheric pressure at sea level, the water inside all tissues passes into a vapour state beginning at the skin surface. This causes the collapse of surface cells and the loss of huge amounts of body heat via evaporation. After six seconds, the process of cell collapse involves the heart and lungs causing circulatory interruption, followed by acute anoxia, convulsions and the relaxation of the bowel muscles. Yes, that's right. If you take your helmet off in space, within less than a minute your suit may fill up with fecal matter. After 15 seconds, mental confusion sets-in, and after 20 seconds you become unconscious. You can survive this for about 80 seconds if a pressure higher than about 47 millimeters of mercury is then reestablished.

I might add that in regards to Mars, any humans stationed on the planet would of course've been depressurized in advance, so exposure wouldn't be even as dramatic as that, but something along those lines is what'd happen.

BlueSonnet said:

Does anyone remember the bit in Total Recall where they go outside onto mars and their eyeballs start popping out? Would that happen in RL?

That might all have been part of an implanted (and fictitious) memory in any case.

dsm said:

they could have come up with some sort of extremely solid glass many times more powerful than steel - and just as thick.

Actually, there's a kind of "glass" that's much stronger than ordinary glass: transparent aluminum (I believe it's something along the lines of AlO3 or something similar). If I remember correctly they're already using it in riot gear helments for the hood over the face.

That's the first time I've heard about transparent aluminum other than in Star Trek 4.

Ichor said:

That's the first time I've heard about transparent aluminum other than in Star Trek 4.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR NUCLEAR WESSELS

Fredrik said:

They "could" come up with anything. From now on, I'll make the assumption that the monsters in Doom are accountants dressed up for a masquerade. I will consider any attempt to oppose this conception to be a sign of lack of imagination. Just because they "could" doesn't mean it's likely to be that way. You should always look for the most rational explanation.

An additional question - if they have a glass dome, why are the atmospheric generators outside of it? Or are you saying that the dome spans across the horizon? o_O
You haven't heard me nitpick about them because there hasn't been a discussion about them, heh. Bring those stories up and I'll nitpick.

I agree.

DSM said:

Scabbed Angel: I never mentioned . . . B]

All my point was that it probably wasn't considered. Your imagining that there is a glass dome is like me imagining that suites cover why they can go into "outdoor areas" which there are in the game. If you walk into a hallway from which the ceiling is removed, is it not, at least visually and "outdoor area"? Maybe not maybe so, I don't WANT to piss anyone off, sorry if i did in any way, i'm just arguing that the usefulness (of uselessness) or stressing realism in a game, but you haven't even tried to touch that. I'm not saying its not interesting, (I'm facinated by holes in logic in things) but in a game or any other form of entertainment, who cares?

DSM said:

I dunno who's the most foolish...you for insinuating that a Mod is a fool, THUS MAKING HIS BLOOD BOIL, or me for suggesting something pefectly likely, which you haven't managed to gather proper proof against in your post. Again, that area is not what I'd call "a huge outdoor area" - it's merely a long room where the roof appears to be "missing".B]

In caps is why thought i pissed you off. If your "blood boiled" (figuratively i hope ; ) ) because i thought your idea was foolish, and thus disagreeing with you, you disagreed with my logic, dig? In turn i took that to mean you were pissed of because you disagreed with me. But enough, I've made my point on taking entertainment too seriously, feel free to comment on that if you want.

Enough!

http://www.crytek.com/

The whole concept of an engine not being able to do "large open areas" is absurd. Just:

* Lower the player's viewpoint closer to the ground
* Make him run slower
* Shrink his bounding box

Holy shit, you just made the level bigger!!

While this is true, the main thing about out door areas is that the amount of polygons, (and in Doom3s case, lights) in view at once tends to rise. Which makes thing runs slower, as you might expect. I guess this is what people are referring to... but we've seen two seperate shots of out door areas, even if they arent playable. The 'Possesion' scene, where you see the city for a couple of seconds, and the intro to the new E3 video, where you see the edge of the base in the desert. Also the scene with the monorail thing is reasonable outdoor, and has a fair bit of detail. I don't see what people are arguing about...

dsm said:

Also, the air is thinner on Mars, which means less resistence to keep you from flying back. And btw, recoil does not just kick backwards - it kicks upwards also.

And that means that projectiles would move a hell of alot faster :D and not as much arch
I just thought about using conventional ammunition on mars though, because it may not even work if theres not oxygen how will the powder combust enless they have oxygen compressed into the casings with the propellents.

dsm said:

I was told that it was extremely unlikely that they would last that long, but I haven't bothered to check the scientific facts for it so I dunno, but from what I was told in my science classes, their bodies once it came to "body expansion", it'd also come to body explosion really quick - like it'd take around 2 seconds once they got exposed to the thin air and till they explode.

Yea thats what I was thinking because if theres very little air pressure the pressure inside of your body which I think is 12. somthing pounds per square inch would cause you to expand and explode just like in open space but not to that extreme.

Fredrik said:

Air friction is minimal both on Earth and Mars and can be ignored completely. You don't need more than a bit of common sense to realize this.

G

but air pressure and density does effect objects quite a bit, When people are playin sports in high altitudes the ball flies like a mother fucker. Also another interesting point it makes for excellent respiratory training I was in mexico city which is at quite a high altitude and played alot of soccer with my brother. When we went back to canada it was extremly easy to breathe and took along time to wear yourself out, sadly the effects only lasted for 3-4 days.

OK, here we go:

1. The biggest enemy of this engine is excessive numbers of light sources. In an outside environment, as some people have already pointed out, you're limited to 1 light source: the sun. This will help by reducing the number and complexity of any lightmaps/shadows that the engine has to render.

2. Having established point 1, the engine will be further relaxed by the fact that the base is dug into the Mars surface. This means that the area immediately around the base will not be a very complex landscape, more like a series of small cliffs and giant boulders, so there will be no reason for the engine to have to run long, rolling landscapes (where the fuck are you gonna go?)

3. Saying that the engine can't draw large landscapes, and referencing some of the landscapes we've already seen, suggests that what we've seen is, or is approaching, the limits of what this engine can do. What the hell is wrong with you? (noone in particular) Would you show everything it could do in previews? Fuck no, you'd show some of the potential, and then leave the real shit for the end result. Id isn't dumb enough to show off all the engine can do, or even most of it. Just like with some of the monsters. We've seen some cool designs, but the really mind-boggling stuff is still to come. If what we've seen so far is even 60-70% of the engine's capabilities, what it can do overall is still going to be plenty awesome.

4. While it is simpler and, by my opinion, cooler, to suggest that to go outside, all you'd need is your suit, there is nothing farfetched about an overall environment being maintained inside of a dome. While the dome doesn't necessarily have to be made out of glass, I don't see what's so hard to believe about the concept. When electicity was discovered, I doubt the people of that era would have beleived the simple concept of a calculator. The thought that a tiny machine could do ANY mathematical computation in seconds. It's over 100 years in the future for Christ's sake. If there's anything that can be said about us humans, it's the the longer we're around, the faster we progress.

5. The dome doesn't need to be made of glass, but something transparent could be believable, if only so that the people living on the base could be reminded of Earth by looking up and being able to see the sun and the stars. Looking up and seeing a dome would be rather depressing. The effect of having nothing but a night sky above you (as you probably wouldn't be able to actually see the dome) would be more attractive.

6. Fred, what kind of drugs are you on? The difference between air friction on Mars and Earth can be ignored? I don't think so. Like 12ga. is saying, there's a huge noticable difference between the effect of air friction just on different parts of Earth, never mind a totally different planet.

The_Aeromaster said:

OK, here we go:

1. The biggest enemy of this engine is excessive numbers of light sources. In an outside environment, as some people have already pointed out, you're limited to 1 light source: the sun. This will help by reducing the number and complexity of any lightmaps/shadows that the engine has to render.

Well, two lightsources to be specific:
Light1 to render the sun
Light2 as ambient to brighten up the shadowed areas a little

That should do suffice for a basic start.

... rolling landscapes (where the fuck are you gonna go?)

The thing about huge landscapes is, that gamers usually claim this as a last resort to bash id software engines.
So far I haven't really played a single player game where the inclusion of huge landscapes did lead to anything else but to walk longer distances to find the red key.
It's surely cool in multiplayer to have plenty of travelling time from base blue to base red with some defense stations between them, but that's it for me.

Unless terrain get's populated with lot's of npc creatures and many little details it'll boil down to walking through a desert with loosely vegetation.

With what get gamers confronted with when travelling through open space? Usually it's some sort of flying entity that attacks you, but I don't have the feeling that the open space was created to offer us that cool fight with something flying above our heads and shooting laser beams at us, but more like it's an afterthought like "we have to do an open space to make gamers happy, but what do we do there? Let something fly over their head and make life harder for them, that should do it".

If anything than it's vehicles that add to terrain based gameplay, but if you look at it deeply than you'll find out that the vehicle is only used to cut down progression time from point a to point b hence reducing the felt distance to what you would travel in a smaller area by your feet.

Let me act a little provocative:
Is it possible that developers just render out large areas to offer their religious followers an argument they can always throw in when picking over the current id software engine?

As long as developers, or more important - game designers - don't get a better idea to use terrain than to let fly things over your head or to present you with a horde of enemies in a canyon or to simply stretch travelling time + game time with it, that long terrain will be not much more than a "filler" which isn't offering anything at all but the "ah - terrain!" effect.

Feel free to disagree - It's more a philosophical than a technical thought.

3. Saying that the engine can't draw large landscapes, and referencing some of the landscapes we've already seen, suggests that what we've seen is, or is approaching, the limits of what this engine can do. What the hell is wrong with you? (noone in particular) Would you show everything it could do in previews?

It's proven that the engine can draw large landscapes, much larger than the in the intro level (which in fact is much bigger than it looks like).
All this is said with the word "acceptable performance" in mind.

But you can be sure that this point wont get picked up and chances are that only a few posts below this one, someone will post that the engine wont be able to render open areas.
Even if such people would stand in the middle of nowhere they'd claim that they're trapped in a box.

12ga:

And that means that projectiles would move a hell of alot faster :D and not as much arch
I just thought about using conventional ammunition on mars though, because it may not even work if theres not oxygen how will the powder combust enless they have oxygen compressed into the casings with the propellents.

The projectile would move just as fast when leaving the gun - it'd however decelerate more slowly due to the lesser air friction, and fall to the ground slower due to the lesser influence of gravity. Gunpowder explodes even without the presence of oxygen in the surrounding.

Yea thats what I was thinking because if theres very little air pressure the pressure inside of your body which I think is 12. somthing pounds per square inch would cause you to expand and explode just like in open space but not to that extreme.

Read My Fucking Post. You do NOT explode in open space.

Aeromaster:

Fred, what kind of drugs are you on? The difference between air friction on Mars and Earth can be ignored? I don't think so. Like 12ga. is saying, there's a huge noticable difference between the effect of air friction just on different parts of Earth, never mind a totally different planet.

How much does air on Earth do in stopping you from falling backwards? Approximately nothing unless you're moving at 100kph or so, which you most certainly aren't. The air isn't what prevents you from flying backwards if you fire a gun, so it's irrelevant in this case.

Regarding the dome: I don't see any need to have redundancies in a project of the proportions of terraforming Mars. There's even no need whatsoever to introduce the concept of the dome to explain anything in Doom - there's nothing that indicates its presence and it just adds more questions.

If you really think there is a dome, email someone at id Software to get it straight.

I remember seeing suggestions for possible mars bases, a lot of which featured 'biodomes' containing plants, because plants swallow up carbon dioxide and make oxygen they'd be useful 'air cleaners' inside a large base on another planet, the idea of a huge dome surrounding the entire base is a bit dumb though, it'd only make it more awkward for ships to land, and if you have a huge dome round the base why have windows in the buildings, and if there where no 'sealed off' areas everyone on the base would be fucked if a single meteior came down on the dome. Though if people really did want to look up and see the sky of mars aboive them, whats so wrong with having skylights in the ceiling?

Fred's right, you wouldn't explode in open space^ There simply isn't enough pressure inside your body pushing out to create this effect if the outside pressure was zero (or close to it). That's why if you were to go outside a sub in deep water you'd get crushed, sort of, I don't know how bad lol. There's not alot of pressure in ya.

Again, I'm not saying the dome idea has to be there, I'm saying that whoever said dsm suggesting it was rediculous, or whatever similar term you used, was an idiot, it's not very farfetched. It doesn't have to be made of glass, as I've already said, and therefore can be made of something that can take hits from stellar objects, such as asteroids/meteoroids. Also, in the future, we may have some way of destroying incoming objects like that. Want to land a ship? Have a fuckin port in the dome that opens up. Anything else? Why have windows in the base? There ain't no fuckin windows, you can jump out em, the shape is just there to make you feel at home.

And Fred, I didn't say anything about the effect of air pressure on Earth preventing you from flying back or anything like that, that was someone else. All I said was that the difference between air pressure on Earth and on Mars is not negligable, as you claim. Please dismiss my comment about you being on drugs^ I was in a hurry.

The_Aeromaster said:

Again, I'm not saying the dome idea has to be there, I'm saying that whoever said dsm suggesting it was rediculous, or whatever similar term you used, was an idiot, it's not very farfetched. . .

Either Fredrik or me, I guess. dsm, I want to appologize for coming off that way in my post. My last words on this are that the idea is not stupid, just that there needs to be a suspension of belief in fiction from reality, or the immersion can never be complete in an entertaining way. . . I'd like other's thought on what should and should not be excused, but I don't know if satisfying my curiousity on this subject is thread-worthy. Either regarding physics (i think there was a similar thread over at Phobos Labs) atmospheric elements, weapons, concepts of hell, etc.

Scabbed Angel said:

Either Fredrik or me, I guess. dsm, I want to appologize for coming off that way in my post. My last words on this are that the idea is not stupid, just that there needs to be a suspension of belief in fiction from reality, or the immersion can never be complete in an entertaining way. . . I'd like other's thought on what should and should not be excused, but I don't know if satisfying my curiousity on this subject is thread-worthy. Either regarding physics (i think there was a similar thread over at Phobos Labs) atmospheric elements, weapons, concepts of hell, etc.

And I need to apologize for my behavior before - sometimes I'm bitten by a mad Doom demon and start acting all retarded.

All right, let's make arguments like grown ups (if possible). I don't think the dome idea is unbelievable at all, though it might not fit with Doom 3 (I never suggested that it would), but it's also important to note that Doom's environments weren't really supposed to be believable in the first place - Doom 3 is on the other hand. Observation domes are quite feasible imo, but my overall point all the time has been that classic Doom has not have any outdoor areas comparable to a potential Mars landscape in Doom 3. It has had a few areas where the sky was visible, but no areas where you would walk out of a door to see a large plane stretch out before you.

My point is that Doom 3 could easily catch those few "outdoor" areas in Doom E1+E2 by having large windows in certain areas of Doom 3 like in this screenshot. And I'm convinced that there will be areas with even larger windows in Doom 3 - maybe even panorama views.
So for showing off huge outdoor areas, there shouldn't be a problem. Moving about in outdoor areas is also possible but won't be a great part of the game according to iD. I don't know if Fredrik is right in all his science stuff (in my experience the probability of fredrik being right on these thing is fifty-fifty), so I'll rest my case in terms of believability in going outside. It might be realistic if there's a space suit, but I still have my doubts about firing a weapon in a Martian atmosphere - maybe if they increased recoil slightly or reduced general accuracy in the game as soon as you go outside.
All I know for sure is that Mars has a different atmosphere than Earth and I know that such things could alter the behavior of projectiles. I know that a bullet's ballistic trajectory depends a lot on the air resistance, wind speeds and things like that, so I would assume that firing a weapon on Mars *might* not be as easy as it is on Earth.

Personally, seeing as it's on Mars, I would much rather explore the gloomy space station than go out on a Mars walk - there's potential for more demons lurking in the shadows inside the base than outside and thus potential for better gameplay inside. And as I've already said: I'd rather reserve large outside areas for an Earth setting than on Mars.

Just my opinions.

the idea of a huge dome surrounding the entire base is a bit dumb though

I do not recall having suggested a single large dome over the entire base, though I might have in a weak moment where my brain was on vacation - if I really suggested that I hereby retract the suggestion. What I think I suggested, was that certain areas of the base was covered by a dome or an overhead dome (instead of a roof), and that certainly wouldn't be dumb if you ask me.

Looks like I wasn't completely on to what you were trying to say either dsm. I agree with your reasoning. The only thing I disagree with is that I'd rather see them render an impressive Mars landscape than an Earth one, simply because we all know what Earth looks like. It'd be cool to see something different. That's just a matter of opinion though^

Having the thread revived after a period of time probably helped too.

The_Aeromaster said:

Looks like I wasn't completely on to what you were trying to say either dsm. I agree with your reasoning. The only thing I disagree with is that I'd rather see them render an impressive Mars landscape than an Earth one, simply because we all know what Earth looks like. It'd be cool to see something different. That's just a matter of opinion though^

Having the thread revived after a period of time probably helped too.

Yeah, we know what Earth looks like, but don't we also know what Mars looks like? Afaik, Mars is just a reddish (orange) landscape of rocks, while Earth has more variety in the landscape.

I was kinda thinking of ruined cities. Imaging standing atop a sky scraper or the like and see the city stretching out before you - it may not be a landscape as such, but it'd still be a huge outdoor area. I'm pretty interested in seeing how the iD artists and level designers interpret a futuristic city in the Doom era, because they haven't showed us that kind of thing before.
I hope we'll see that in the sp mission pack for Doom 3 - they had better throw in scores of new textures not found in Doom 3 itself to make it as well-designed as the Martian base levels.

I see where you're going, though I still think a Martian landscape is predictable and pretty much similar to what other games have rendered barren planetscapes before it.

Just my opinion of course.

Fredrik said:

Gravity is a vertical force and doesn't have a bloody thing to say about the horizontal force a fired weapon exerts on the one that holds it. You would "fly" backwards with the same speed you'd get on Earth, which is also known as zero meters per second provided that you have your feet on the ground.

That is the most idiotic post I've ever seen in my life. Do you have any regard for physics whatsoever? What you just stated is only applicable if the force is horizontal to the inertial frame you are using, WHICH IT ISN'T IN ANY WAY. There will be a vertical component of the motion, and that is where gravity of the moon will have an affect. Even if you have your feet on the ground, there is still that affect of gravity on you. It all depends on your inertial frame. GRAVITY HOLDS YOU DOWN...HELLO?????

AIR RESISTANCE accounts for about 10-30% of the motion depending on its uneveness, its speed, and the air density. However, since the air density of mars is significantly lighter than that of Earth, the other two come into play more. When we talk of fast moving projectiles with an even centre of mass and is moving at insanely fast speeds, then air resistance can be ignored. However, in ordinary circumstances IT CANNOT.

If you fire a projectile like a bullet in Mars, A) You could negate the affect of air resistance, heat loss and pressure difference because it is fast moving. B) The affect of gravity would be less significant which translates to more trajectory and more range, although its horizontal component remains unchanged.

Panoramic windows and small domes are no compensation for outdoor parts. I think the levels should include some real outdoor parts, because otherwise the design would be too limited (kinda like Wolfenstein 3D, wouldn´t it?). Outdoor areas add to the exploration factor of the game.
The scene with the monorail train in the E3 movie, or the one shot from the PC Gamer magazine where you see a Hell Knight standing in front of some sort of mining facility build into the sandy landscape (and it seems that there is no panoramic window between the HK and that outdoor part) - wouldn´t it be a shame if you wouldn´t be able to explore those enviromnents? Step outside and look arround, without using an airlock and space suite every time, and without realising it´s somehow sealed off with a glas dome.

What you just stated is only applicable if the force is horizontal to the inertial frame you are using, WHICH IT ISN'T IN ANY WAY. There will be a vertical component of the motion, and that is where gravity of the moon will have an affect. Even if you have your feet on the ground, there is still that affect of gravity on you. It all depends on your inertial frame. GRAVITY HOLDS YOU DOWN...HELLO?????

READ BEFORE YOU POST. I explicitly excluded the vertical component.

I wrote, quite specifically, that the HORIZONTAL force isn't affected by gravity. And it's the horizontal force that kicks you backwards.

The vertical force makes you fly UPWARDS. I wasn't talking about that.

The issue is ground friction to keep you from flying backwards. And even as little gravity as there is on Mars is enough to keep you in the same place.

AIR RESISTANCE accounts for about 10-30% of the motion depending on its uneveness, its speed, and the air density. However, since the air density of mars is significantly lighter than that of Earth, the other two come into play more. When we talk of fast moving projectiles with an even centre of mass and is moving at insanely fast speeds, then air resistance can be ignored. However, in ordinary circumstances IT CANNOT.

You're wrong. Objects that move at HIGH speeds are effected MORE by air resistance. It's for objects that move SLOWLY that air resistance has no meaning whatsoever.

If you fire a projectile like a bullet in Mars, A) You could negate the affect of air resistance, heat loss and pressure difference because it is fast moving. B) The affect of gravity would be less significant which translates to more trajectory and more range, although its horizontal component remains unchanged.

Read again, I NEVER talked about the projectile. I was talking about the person firing it.

Tetzlaff said:

...where you see a Hell Knight standing in front of some sort of mining facility build into the sandy landscape (and it seems that there is no panoramic window between the HK and that outdoor part)...

Bahh, i thought that even hellish critters cant live without air - they still have laungs. Hmm, thats strange...

I mean, if will go out on the martian scape youll all alone and there is one danger - to be out of oxygen in your suit...