Changing jump speed and jump height independantly

Okay, so I figured out what was limiting my use of the Platform behavior! With Jump Strength, you can't change jump height and jump speed seperately. If I want a guy to jump 450 pixels at 150 pixels/sec, there is no way to do this with the Platform Behavior. This really ruins it for my platform game. It seems (unless I'm wrong) that I have to use Custom Movement, which will be a hassle from what I've already tried with it. I might try a combination of Custom Movement and Platform Behavior, but I suspect some of their features won't coexist correctly for what I'm doing.

For example, since I felt as though the built-in Jump Sustain was inadequate (and yes, I was using it correctly, even in examples I've seen it doesn't look right), I decided I'd make a triple jump system. This would arguably work better for the style of my game anyway, but when I tried making it, the inability to alter the speed at which the jump is made ruined it. I needed three jumps of a certain height, each made very quickly. I have also noticed that I couldn't make a jump in the middle of another jump, though I am not 100% certain (though pretty sure), that it isn't just my fault on the Event Sheet side. Basically, unless I can add complexity to jumping in my game, it won't be a good platformer.

Note: I don't post .caps because I don't want people stealing my game. No one outside of my beta testers will play it until they accept an EULA

Edit: Okay, while playing New Super Mario Bros. I noticed up very close inspection that Mario's Jump Sustain does have the tiny pause or lack of smoothness whatever that the Platform Behavior has. Maybe it is more noticable in Construct or maybe just with my sprite (and since I have no animation yet, even the tiniest things stand out in a jump), but I should be able to make it look good enough. Still, it is essential I find a way to alter jump speed. One reason I need it is to help add more variable height to Jump Sustain. I noticed Jump Sustain is very much tied to Jump Strength. If you tap Jump, it will go as high as the Jump Strength/Gravity allows. This is the minimum jump. Now, if I alter the Jump Strength/Gravity to make the minimum jump smaller but have a sustain that makes it basically jump three times (since that is pretty much what Jump Sustain does), the speed will not feel right.

Is there a question you need help with in this thread? Or did you accidentally post a new thread instead of a reply to your old one?

Anyway, do whatever you want with your game, but please don't go around saying things like "jump sustain doesn't work," or that you "can't make a double-jump with the default platform behavior," because it's not true. I can guarantee you that they do work, and you're either doing something wrong, or what you want to do is really weird and non-standard and you're just not explaining it clearly. Regardless, if you don't ever show examples, then you're not going to get any help.

The least you could do if you expect proper help is to recreate the problem in a blank .cap with plain circles and squares and tell us what you expect it to be doing and what it's doing wrong.

Also, no one is going to steal your game. But if you're really concerned with theft then ask someone here who knows what they're doing to look at your .cap privately and pm it to them.

The bottom line is you are only going to get proper help if you allow us to properly help you.

Good luck with your game.

Sorry about the completely stupid way I've been going about getting help. I also realize I'm explaining this poorly. I can do Jump Sustain and Double Jump with the Platform Behavior. They work, but they can't be controlled well enough (for me specificaly that is, unless I'm being stupid again), without being able to change the speed at which the jump is performed. I would like to know if there is a way I can alter how long it takes to perform the same strength (read: height) of jump. See, I want to be able to perform a jump with a set height, but do it faster than it is currently letting me. Just like there is Horizontal Speed, I want to be able to control Vertical Speed from a jump, and still be able to have the right height from the jump.

Once again, sorry about this whole thing.

Edit: I don't think posting a .cap will help at this point because it isn't something that is even in my game, so there's nothing to fix.

I see. Well, the main thing to keep in mind is that you need to balance your jump strength with your jump gravity. That will allow you to change the speed of your jump. You just need to experiment with it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/jumping.cap

v0.99.82

I made an example of two objects that jump the same height, but not the same speed. It took me only a moment of tweaking the settings to get them to do that. You can make all sorts of different jump styles by altering these settings, from floaty, round-topped jumps to sharp triangle jumps.

The jump strength is the speed at which the jump starts, not the height of the jump. But as soon as the jump starts gravity is going to affect it. From your description it sounds like you want a perfectly linear jump that is 150 pixels per second until you reach 450 pixels in height, at which point you begin to fall. If you ask me, that would be a rather awkward looking jump. I've included an example of what that would look like as well. Gravity affects the speed of the object immediately, so you can't really have a consistent speed of 150px per second during the length of your jump because it just wouldn't look natural.

What I would recommend is that you make a testing playground for your platform object. Set some benchmarks, like that dashed line I have in my example. Tweak the settings until you get the thing jumping at exactly that spot and at the speed you need.

Otherwise, yes it's perfectly all right to make your own custom platform behavior that does what you need to do. Others have done so when they needed features that weren't available with the platform movement.

Thanks, that .cap is very helpful. I should be able to get it just right now.