Vehicles should be faster off road and in turns.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Pretty simple really. Vehicles should accelerate while turning with the accelerator pressed to the floor, not slow down as in the game.

There also seems to be a major issue with vehicles slowing down when the center of the vehicle goes off pavement. I see no reason for this. My 2004 Crown Victoria Interceptor can in real life go over desert and grass three times the limited speed of A2. This makes driving anywhere that is not on a road a real pain in the ass. You can forget about it even if there is a slight hill. Brakes should also be more effective at stopping small wheeled vehicles.

I want an explanation for this ridiculous 'feature' and a way to fix it. If BIS cannot figure out how vehicles work then I hope a mod maker has. This is by far the most annoying part of the game, and has been since ArmA1. I do not remember OFP having such terrible driving relatively for its age, though that could just be nostalgia speaking.

[tubeyoumedia 1]

I agree with you.

[TSAndrey 1]

Fully agree. Driving offroad with cars is annoying

[chrisb 196]

There was a little fix for this a few years back, ‘Proper’ mod, ‘CarsFasterOffroads_Gameplay_C_OA_PR’ pbo. I have it, somewhere, can’t test it at the moment, not using the HDD it would be on.

Not sure if it still works, never really used it, but it should be on Armaholic or Armed Assault under 'Proper' tweaks, maybe worth a try, not sure..

[froggyluv 2136]

Also fully agreed - not sure why it wasn't 'fixable' ages ago.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

From playing the ArmA 3 Alpha this does seem to be resolved. Now we can actually turn and accelerate too! Imagine that.

[SpreadTheBlood 1]

From playing the ArmA 3 Alpha this does seem to be resolved. Now we can actually turn and accelerate too! Imagine that.

Very glad to hear this :) Though I still feel it should be patched in the previous games..for example while playing DayZ taking a "shortcut" never helps escape the zombies because of how slow the vehicle drives off road xD

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Now with proper physics a lot of the high ground clearance vehicles will actually tip over when turning sharp at higher speeds. Never before in ArmA have I felt the need to actually drive well. Nothing like that feel of retreating at full speed, trying to make a sharp turn when suddenly you start tipping over. Quickly correct your driving or you will end up on your side in half a second, surrounded by enemies. I can't wait to see how the tracked vehicles handle.

[TingoUK 1]

Hopefully, They can get this fixed.

[Delta Hawk 1829]

Just my two cents I understand why driving off road is slow. A Crown Vic can go over grass and dirt easily...a lot of cars can, slowly, but there's more than just grass. There's ruts, ditches .etc that can easily stop a vehicle or bottom one out, injure or even kill you. Since ArmA seems to have a problem replicating this with their terrains, I can see why they made driving off road slow in order to balance real life gameplay.

If they made it realistic and you drove fast off road, vehicles would fall apart, injure or even kill the driver and passangers, and then people would complain about that.

You may have a Crown Vic, but I know you wouldn't go offroad with it at 50mph or 80kph.

If you don't like the driving in ArmA you could always play Battlefield 3. I think you might be happier with that driving quality.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

If I had an HMMWV I would definitely go 50 mph off road in the desert, and I have during driving school in Texas. There is no reason to artificially limit the off road capability of purpose-built vehicles. I was simply using my Crown Victoria as an example, but if I had one just for play I could definitely take it out to a desert at 50 mph. Driving well built, big, and heavy vehicles fast off road will not cause them to fall apart and kill the occupants. If you are in rocky or craggy terrain then I could understand, but flat desert and farmland does not slow you down that much.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Well there is a higher percentage of damaging your car if you drive without care through unknown terrain at high(er) speed. Btw how do you know that there are no bumps or holes in the ground on farmland? What about quicksand or shifting quick-sand in the desert? It's usually not the car who speeds up or down - it's the driver who may don't want get stuck somewhere and later has to pay the price for his need for speed. Something like broken axle, gearbox damage or overheated cooler could be nice to have but I guess that would be to much for casual gamers.

[dm 9]

Just my two cents I understand why driving off road is slow. A Crown Vic can go over grass and dirt easily...a lot of cars can, slowly, but there's more than just grass. There's ruts, ditches .etc that can easily stop a vehicle or bottom one out, injure or even kill you. Since ArmA seems to have a problem replicating this with their terrains, I can see why they made driving off road slow in order to balance real life gameplay.

If they made it realistic and you drove fast off road, vehicles would fall apart, injure or even kill the driver and passangers, and then people would complain about that.

You may have a Crown Vic, but I know you wouldn't go offroad with it at 50mph or 80kph.

If you don't like the driving in ArmA you could always play Battlefield 3. I think you might be happier with that driving quality.

This is spot on.

Depending on the map, the terrain grid may be anywhere between 1.5m and 10m, that means there is 1.5 - 10m between each vertex of the terrain mesh. That means it is impossible to model in details like ruts, pot-holes and all the other micro detail that real world terrain has. For that reason, every surface material has a roughness in its configuration. This allows vehicles to be artificially slowed down even tho every game surface is essentially perfectly smooth.

Yes, I agree flat desert should have much less roughness and allow for higher speeds. But farmland, certainly European farmland, should remain as rough as it is now.

[Delta Hawk 1829]

I know the capabilities of the HMMWV and the complacency that drivers get with driving offroad with a HMMWVs all too well. When I was in the Marines we were doing night time driving off road. Someone did about 30-40mph off road. And then he hit a rut. A guy in the back of the HMMWV flew up in the air and landed back down on the bench seat...in full combat gear. He broke his back. Hearing this over the coms I decided to go slower with my HMMWV. I couldn't see past the hip high grass. Guess what? I ended up hitting a rut too that bottomed out my HMMWV. Besides some skin off my knee from the dashboard, no one was injured. If I was going 50mph, I would have nose dive into the other side of the rut. I'm geussing you're in Fort Bliss, El Paso and not Fort Hood cause Fort Hood isn't flat at all.

I do agree like DM before me though, flat desert should be easier.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Yes flat desert and most farmland (from what I have seen in real life) is what I am specifically talking about here. I understand uneven and rocky surfaces being simulated in game and quite like how they did that. I made this thread to point out they should fix vehicles traveling way too slow on flat, smooth terrain.

Sometimes while driving off road I will be going about 20 mph maxed out, then I will hit a little patch of different colored terrain and that will shoot me up to 40 mph. Then once I go over that little patch the speed goes back down to 20 mph again. Quite strange. I think this is caused by different textures having different speeds associated with them, and the textures can sometimes be all mixed in with each other causing strange bursts of speed off road.

It should be noted ArmA 3 does not seem to have any of these issues or 'features'. Now it is up to the driver, not the game forcing you to go slower off road. If you fail to yield to the terrain you will get injured, your vehicle damaged, and probably flip over or something worse. I much prefer this system, as it is more realistic and one more thing to consider when driving. "Do I want to be safe and slower, or faster and unsafe? Maybe I will get shot going too slow, but maybe I will wreck if I go too fast." These are all concerns which real convoys and any driver will have to think about. When the game (ArmA 2) automatically dictates what speed you should be going, and 'locks' you to it that is bad.

Edited March 24, 2013 by JuggernautOfWar