Sonicandtails218 said:
Okay, so you know how in, say, Sonic 1, you roll down a hill and go up a small ramp and shoot off? There's no equivilant in SRB2, and it would do great for level design if there was, but as far as I can tell there's no Z momentum considered, even if running up several sectors.
This is something I was thinking of recently as well. I've seen slopes faked smoothly before, but when you look at Chemical Plant Zone, Techno Hill Zone is flat as heck. One thing I really think would be possible would be a "fake" slope sector, and like with the aforementioned CPZ, if you spindash or run long enough down a slope, your speed increases until you reach a certain speed faster than the currently possible maxspeed.
To go along with these slope affects, I noticed in the classic Sonic series that your force against gravity varies depending on the angle slope you're running up/down and the speed you're traveling at; this especially counts for jumping, because when you jump while going down a slope, you just dash forward off it instead of upward - and when jumping while going
upwards on a slope, if you do it at just the right angle, you can jump all the way into the ceiling. If the above is integrated somehow, I'd like to see this.
Of course, though I haven't a damn clue how we'd do those two things because of my lack of coding/programming skills in these types of categories, I'm sure it would require extra engine work (hopefully you could just make a "slope" sector that uses that effect above). But to sum it up, the extra gravity quirks combined with a slope sector would probably solve your problem.
As for the existing effects, all I can think of is the Zoom Tube, which is very static and you can't move during the whole time; there is the wind effect, but it probably isn't as clean, imo. Otherwise, vertical springs are your best bet.