PNMS Key Concepts

The key concepts go over important information about how the PNM System.

Seat Identifiers

The PNM System has evolved over time and with it some legacy artifacts remain.  Among them is how Seats are identified which has been improved an updated.  Because of this you will find multiple methods of getting a Seat by various properties.

  • Index - This is the index in the array of seats on the mount.  One of the least common ways unless you are iterating through every seat.
  • Id - the ID is a numeric number assigned to the Seat either automatically or manually by you.  The PNM System populates the Seat ID automaticaly but developers can manually change the id number
  • Name - This is the newest method of retrieving seat information from the mount, looking up a seat by a designer friendly name.

Controlled vs Owned Pawns

The PNM System Controller component tracks which pawn the player is currently controlling and uses the concept of owned versus controlled to keep track.  The Owned Pawn is the pawn the player starts with during play or returns to when they dismount.  This is usually the first pawn that is possessed by the controller.  From then on all other Pawns fall under the Controlled Pawn category.   Controlled Pawns are the pawns that the controller is currently controlling such as a vehicle or an animal mount, but  when not mounted the Controlled Pawn and the Owned Mount will often be the same.

Linked Actors

The PNM System has a concept of Linked Actors which represent something such as a waggon, a Trailer, or even a gun turret that is attached to the mount and may or maynot have its own movement methods.  For Example a Gun Turrent can be a Pawn Class where the player takes possession of the Turrent and then uses it to fire at enemies.  The player can rotate the turret but it is still attached to the pawn.

Currently the PNM system does not provide built in support for Turrent Movement or even how to build them, it only supports the concept through the linked actor system.  Implementation of a Turrent, Wagon, or Trailer is left entirely up to the Development Team.

Positional Versus Direct Mounting

The PNM System has two types of Mounting; Positional Mounting and Direct Seat Mounting.

Positional Mounting is used when the rider approaches the mount and is mounted to a seat based on the position they are relative to the mount rather than specifying through some mechanism which seat they want to mount to.

Direct Mounting is used when the player is allowed to directly specify which seat they want to mount to.  This could be done through collision colliders, specific interations setup based on the mesh you are targeting, or any other method you can think of to injdicate that you want the player to mount at the specific seat.  This is all done through what ever interaciton system you have setup and not the PNM System.