Those who have ever played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are probably well aware of just how frequently planes seemed to crash near CJ's location. The reason for these crashes were always up for debate with fans. Were they intentional? The result of some bug? Were they all part of an elaborate Easter Egg that involved finding Big Foot?
After almost 20 years, the mystery seems to have finally been solved. Former Rockstar developer, Obbe Vermeij, took to Twitter to reveal the grand secret behind what the reason was for those plane crashes. If you guessed that it was a bug, you would at least be somewhat correct.
In GTA San Andreas, small planes are periodically created near the player to perform a fly-by.
Sometimes they crash.
Before creating the plane, my code looks for obstacles in its path.
It scans a number of lines in the forward direction of the plane. These scans are slow so I used the absolute minimum. (Just the body and wingtips I believe) This is why thin obstacles are sometimes not detected.
In addition, the planes would sometimes loose some height, right after being created because their initial speed may not have generated enough lift.
There was an additional problem when map models were not streamed in yet. Their collision would be loaded after the plane had already been created.
These issues would occasionally allow planes to be created on a doomed flightpath.
I was aware of the crashes and briefly considered removing the fly-by’s altogether.
Sometimes they crash.
Before creating the plane, my code looks for obstacles in its path.
It scans a number of lines in the forward direction of the plane. These scans are slow so I used the absolute minimum. (Just the body and wingtips I believe) This is why thin obstacles are sometimes not detected.
In addition, the planes would sometimes loose some height, right after being created because their initial speed may not have generated enough lift.
There was an additional problem when map models were not streamed in yet. Their collision would be loaded after the plane had already been created.
These issues would occasionally allow planes to be created on a doomed flightpath.
I was aware of the crashes and briefly considered removing the fly-by’s altogether.
