I know that I am a terrible coder compared to you guys, but as a modeler, I know that you can mount objects onto vehicles, even without joints and offset them, why can't you mount fake bricks onto vehicles and just offset them to the correct position?
I just want an answer as to why that would/would not work.
The three main solutions I attempted to use for buildable vehicles, and why they failed:
"The vehicle model contains hidden nodes of 1x1s, 1x1 flats, or maybe even one of those with overlapping ramps that can be modified with unHideNode and setNodeColor to match the bricks that were placed on the vehicle chasis."This method does not work because Torque crashes when it tries to register a .dts file with too many nodes (the server, not the client). A model with as many nodes as possible but still avoiding crashing would probably lack sufficient detail to be acceptable as working buildable vehicles.
"Objects are mounted to the vehicle and/or to each other, by means of having a single model with mount points on each face, or having the vehicle chasis have mount points for each studs and the models have a single one on top."This method does not work because static shapes' positions do not update when mounted to an object, as with other related types. AIPlayers cannot be mounted because when multiple are mounted together, even at a low number, ghosting issues occur, sharing the LOD problem of method 1.
"Objects are created, scaled, and colored as bricks are built on the vehicle chasis, and have their positions and rotations updated on a scheduled loop in order to match the movement of the vehicle based on their original orientation."This method does not work because, while it can technically attain a perfect LOD, schedules cannot have a delay of 0 and it will look choppy to the user. Even with minimal schedule time, in many cases the objects will appear to not all move at once due to latency and other updating issues.
EDIT: I should note that there is a balance of those 3 that can create a working solution.
