[ODE] rope made of small bodies and hinges

[Wesa Aapro]

hello all,

im a part of school project where we are supposed to make a computer game,
or a working demo of one. we are developing a 2d cave-flying-game, where
two or more players fly rockets in a cave and try to shoot each other.

we wanted to implement realistic physics, with very little knowledge on
modern game physics... luckily we found ode, which looks very promising!
so thank you russ!

every day we are learning more and everything has worked very well. we
even coded our own collision detection system!

but one problem has come up that we cant solve...

we are making a rope, which one rocket can fire, and when it hits another
rocket, it attaches to it, so the rockets are linked together. the rope is
made of small bodies linked together by hinges. the bodies have mass of
1kg each and the hinges doesnt have any restrictions or motors.

the rockets have mass of 1000kg. when linked rockets apply force to
opposite directions, there will be tension on the rope, and the rope will
stretch, which i didnt want.

i guess the reason is the iteration system, so ode can't "see" that
there are two large bodies connected by non-elastic mass. it just sees big
mass connected to small mass, small mass to small mass... and so
eventually small approximations break the system.

i tried changing ERP and CFM and i got some results, but not enough even
when set to maximum.

any suggestions how to go round this problem? or is there a better way to
implement rope?

thanks,

wesa aapro