Making the River Rat badge more reliable

[Nerva]

River Rat is a perpetual thorn in the tuckus for everyone trying to get their exploration badges in Praetoria.  It's an irritating cuss of a badge, mostly because of its positively janky hit detection for awarding badge credit.

 

Would it be possible for the devs to take a look at River Rat's awarding 'hitboxes' and extending them so that they're more reliable?

Another idea would be to put buoys in locations where the badge awards.  Maybe ones with lights on them, if they exist.  That way you know if you can get close to the buoy, you've got the badge credit, or should have gotten it.

[AboveTheChemist]

I am not a dev, but I have spent a fair amount of time over the past few days studying the River Rat volumes. A vidiotmaps user mentioned a while ago that some of the River Rat location markers on vidiotmaps were not quite right, and there was some recent discussion on discord to that effect as well. As a result I've located the River Rat volume boundaries and center points as precisely as possible for inclusion in a forthcoming vidiotmaps update of the Nova Praetoria, Imperial City, and Neutropolis maps, and I'll update the /thumbtack coordinates in a few of my other mods at the same time. I'm not sure if that will satisfy any of the issues that prompted this thread, but at least those particular mods will have more precise location information for the River Rat markers.

 

In the course of my data gathering I only had real issues with one volume, and that was for the volume denoted on the Nova Praetoria vidiotmap as River Rat #6. In a nutshell, that volume is set 1.5 feet higher than all the other River Rat volumes and as a result, characters that attempt to enter this volume via swimming along the North-South axis end up swimming under the volume and not getting credit. Flying or jumping just above water level seems to award this location without issue, and the analogous River Rat #6 across the zone border in Imperial City does not have this issue. I plan to post more details in the geometry errors thread later. Otherwise, swimming or otherwise traveling at or a few feet above the water surface should be sufficient to trigger all the River Rat locations.

 

Edit: Geometry error report posted here for anyone that is curious

Edited December 15, 2021 by AboveTheChemist
updated with geometry error report

[Nerva]

1 hour ago, AboveTheChemist said:

In the course of my data gathering I only had real issues with one volume, and that was for the volume denoted on the Nova Praetoria vidiotmap as River Rat #6. In a nutshell, that volume is set 1.5 feet higher than all the other River Rat volumes and as a result, characters that attempt to enter this volume via swimming along the North-South axis end up swimming under the volume and not getting credit. Flying or jumping just above water level seems to award this location without issue, and the analogous River Rat #6 across the zone border in Imperial City does not have this issue. I plan to post more details in the geometry errors thread later. Otherwise, swimming or otherwise traveling at or a few feet above the water surface should be sufficient to trigger all the River Rat locations.

 

Spagh dammit! That's the one I missed! I went back this morning and got it, by going to Imperial City and tagging its counterpart there.

 

In hindsight, I should've realized that was possible because the badge credit locations are clearly marked and numbered in Vidiotmaps, but for some reason it never dawned on me that Nova Praetoria and Imperial City share the River Rat credits that occur on Nova's west border.

[Shenanigunner]

So just like trained dolphins, we have to jump through hoops for that badge?

[lemming]

I find that if I have the Badges Tab open while working on River Rat, I can tell when I've hit the marker properly.  (I also try to avoid the heck out of them if I'm not going for the badge at the time, so I don't waste time swimming in circles later)