[ODE] Car simulation (with no wheels) - clever ideas needed

[DjArcas]

>What you said you were doing was applying a force on the box itself, as if
there was a jet engine >mounted on the car. That's not likely to give
car-like handling.

I know that's how we did the physics on Rally Fusion, but unfortunately I
was on the audio code :)

>Once you get this cheap-ass car going, you'll notice that there's a reason
there's a Hinge2 joint; >cars usually need suspension ;-) If using four
balls with hinge2 joints and a box is too expensive >for your pile-ups, you
could detect pile-ups, and turn off the joints for the balls, just simulate
one >body that's the box + balls with some friction against ground, for
vehicles involved in the pile->up.

That's ok for terminally crashing cars, but if you start to nudge another
car, and end up with 5 or 10 non crashing, touching cars, the frame rate is
rapidly going to be disappearing down towards the 10s :)

My other option is to try and simulate a car, 2d style (think
'supersprint'), then attempt to move the box to where I think the car should
be... that could be rather messy tho.

But I'm pretty sure that trying to field, say, a full pack of nascar cars,
each with more accurate chassis than a box, with hinge2s for the wheels, is
going to bring your PC to it's knees.

Adam