Tanks - tracked vehicles driving and handling

[Beagle 684]

The tweaks to Marid and Marshal maz have triggered a new issue....the front (bow) rises out of the water when the APCs take a swim at full speed...the rear (stern goes down and in case of the Marid, it submerges.

[scotg 204]

13 hours ago, Beagle said:

The tweaks to Marid and Marshal maz have triggered a new issue....the front (bow) rises out of the water when the APCs take a swim at full speed...the rear (stern goes down and in case of the Marid, it submerges.

I wonder if it's a side effect of the shape of the hull in the Geometry LOD in relation to the mass distribution. I have a custom tank that can ford 3m waters, but it starts to do exactly what you're describing when it gets near that 3m mark. Its hull is sloped on the underside like a boat, and has an overhang in the front that goes a few feet before the front wheels. Due to its unusual design, it was necessary to utilize mass cubes distributed evenly over the tracks. 

 

I wonder if the unweighted geometry up front is acting like an air pocket, or if that's just absurd. If it's feasible, the Madrid and Marshal might have the same thing going on. My tank does not swim, but when it tries speed does seem to amplify the effect. 

[reyhard 2082]

15 hours ago, Beagle said:

The tweaks to Marid and Marshal maz have triggered a new issue....the front (bow) rises out of the water when the APCs take a swim at full speed...the rear (stern goes down and in case of the Marid, it submerges.

Checked stable and problem was there all the time but don't worry, seems like it's just matter of changing "engineShiftY" parameters in config ;)

[R3vo 2654]

When accelerating with the Zamak trucks, there front moves downwards now instead of upwards.

[oukej 2911]

1 hour ago, R3vo said:

When accelerating with the Zamak trucks, there front moves downwards now instead of upwards.

Thanks! The dev-branch update didn't contain the latest changes, this should be gone with the next update.

[GamerOnkel 100]

Can you please refurbish the Tank driver letterbox view in the tank dlc?

[R3vo 2654]

The Kamysh behaves weird when driving backwards. It's very slow and leaned towards the wrong direction.

[Bill70 EW 7]

For the devs working on the TANK DLC , ,  I hope you's make a good job of it , being an Ex tanker of a UK Regiment , I do miss the "real "  feeling of being back in tanks ,, one thing that has annoyed me when playing either Arma 2 or 3 in tanks  is the lack of a "turret" indicator for , Driver ,Commander , Gunner ( yes the gunner had an indicator as well tho most of us experienced gunners  rarely used it as we knew exactly where the barrel was in relation to vehicle hull ;) )positions this was a safety item  on our tanks .  I 've seen it being incorporated into a few of the tanks mods out there  but haven't seen it on the vanilla tanks ,  rather annoying when you are closed down in a fight trying to  get the tank into a better firing position so as not to catch the barrel on buildings or trees when driving around ,usually means  we've taken longer  to get somewhere or we've lost the vehicle..........  

 

Also if possible please sort the physics ,as some people have stated already there are times when  the vehicles  catch come small bush or a wall or some item that's in/ on terrain and launches the vehicle into the air , which has also meant losing the vehicle due to it suddenly being exposed to enemy units ........

 

Vehicle handling could be improved as well ,its a very fiddly process when driving tracked vehicles in game as the response's of using a mouse keyboard system to drive hasn't got that , analogue feeling , its  either on or off when trying to turn ,ok for  cross country but when driving on roads it just isn't " Real life feeling "......

 

Another thing I'd like to see is better viewing capability from drivers position for driving closed down ,, its pretty darn useless in arma 2 or 3 , in RL in my Chieftain back in the day ,  we had the capability of seeing both front mudguards  from drivers seat , appx 45 ° angle ....

 

And please lets forget the Russian tanks for gawds sake ( lol) am sick of them !!!   Would be nice to see Challenger 1 and 2 's being  developed and brought into the game !!  ( lol ok so I'm biast on that topic heehee)

[Sgt. Dennenboom 98]

6 hours ago, Bill70 EW said:

one thing that has annoyed me when playing either Arma 2 or 3 in tanks  is the lack of a "turret" indicator for , Driver ,Commander , Gunner

We've had turret and commander turret indicators on vanilla vehicles for quite a while now. Only the driver doesn't have it on most vanilla vehicles, but they function very nicely.

[teabagginpeople 398]

9 hours ago, Bill70 EW said:

For the devs working on the TANK DLC , ,  I hope you's make a good job of it , being an Ex tanker of a UK Regiment , I do miss the "real "  feeling of being back in tanks ,, one thing that has annoyed me when playing either Arma 2 or 3 in tanks  is the lack of a "turret" indicator for , Driver ,Commander , Gunner ( yes the gunner had an indicator as well tho most of us experienced gunners  rarely used it as we knew exactly where the barrel was in relation to vehicle hull ;) )positions this was a safety item  on our tanks .  I 've seen it being incorporated into a few of the tanks mods out there  but haven't seen it on the vanilla tanks ,  rather annoying when you are closed down in a fight trying to  get the tank into a better firing position so as not to catch the barrel on buildings or trees when driving around ,usually means  we've taken longer  to get somewhere or we've lost the vehicle..........  

 

Also if possible please sort the physics ,as some people have stated already there are times when  the vehicles  catch come small bush or a wall or some item that's in/ on terrain and launches the vehicle into the air , which has also meant losing the vehicle due to it suddenly being exposed to enemy units ........

 

Vehicle handling could be improved as well ,its a very fiddly process when driving tracked vehicles in game as the response's of using a mouse keyboard system to drive hasn't got that , analogue feeling , its  either on or off when trying to turn ,ok for  cross country but when driving on roads it just isn't " Real life feeling "......

 

Another thing I'd like to see is better viewing capability from drivers position for driving closed down ,, its pretty darn useless in arma 2 or 3 , in RL in my Chieftain back in the day ,  we had the capability of seeing both front mudguards  from drivers seat , appx 45 ° angle ....

 

And please lets forget the Russian tanks for gawds sake ( lol) am sick of them !!!   Would be nice to see Challenger 1 and 2 's being  developed and brought into the game !!  ( lol ok so I'm biast on that topic heehee)

Are you giving feedback on the changes.

 

Oe Have you not tried dev branch? 

There are already changes to the tanks on there. 

 

As boom noted. The gunner indicators are there. 

[lex__1 422]

New results with IFV-6s Panther

I understand now why Project Arma3 and Project Take On Mars are in one branch of feedback.bistudio.com

[oukej 2911]

On 10/12/2017 at 5:57 PM, oukej said:

Known issues at this point are:

• occasional RPM spikes during turns that can abruptly "accelerate" the vehicle
• occasional loss of control in turns on some tanks (move fwd or back to get out of the broken state)
• sometimes climbing onto vegetation before destroying it
• int. sound in turn out and commander view
• tank (hasdriver=true) can be driven from commander even without AI driver
• less pronounced recoil ('frozen' suspension) when stationary
• possibly too high neutral turn rate

It has slipped through today's changelog. Nevertheless, after a long pursuit our programmer has been able to eliminate a big chunk of ill-suited von Braun's technology from our tanks!
It doesn't mean there won't be any chance to turn your MBT into an HLV but that chance should be slim and only coming from a haywire collision.

[Strike_NOR 898]

10 hours ago, oukej said:

after a long pursuit our programmer has been able to eliminate a big chunk of ill-suited von Braun's technology from our tanks!

 

Fantastic news! Tank you™ for your continued efforts to smooth out these bugs! It has been a long standing issue, contributing to all sorts of weird things.

 

I must admit though, that while being incredibly frustrating at times, you also get some hilarious results as @dslyecxi so elegantly captured last summer :) 

 

Also this one had me in tears:

 

 

One day we will hopefully look back and chuckle while rolling into battle with calm nerves, knowing that these things were a thing of the past :)

[teabagginpeople 398]

14 hours ago, oukej said:

It has slipped through today's changelog. Nevertheless, after a long pursuit our programmer has been able to eliminate a big chunk of ill-suited von Braun's technology from our tanks!
It doesn't mean there won't be any chance to turn your MBT into an HLV but that chance should be slim and only coming from a haywire collision.

Are the changes making it to stable release alongside tac ops? Not seen any word on that.

 

Perhaps yous want to keep that for tank dlc release. Personally it would be a welcome move. You could argue there might be unforeseen bugs. But surely no worse than how it is now. 

[lex__1 422]

17 hours ago, oukej said:

Nevertheless, after a long pursuit our programmer has been able to eliminate a big chunk of ill-suited von Braun's technology from our tanks!
It doesn't mean there won't be any chance to turn your MBT into an HLV but that chance should be slim and only coming from a haywire collision.

After updating the DEV yesterday, I can not reproduce high flights and great speed. Thank you.
But still casual revolutions of cars, jumps on objects of a landscape are reproduced, as if cars lose a measure of weight.

- By all cars where there is a rotary tower, there is no sound of turn of a tower. The sound of turn of a tower was gone yesterday or the day before yesterday on DEV.

 

- Today on DEV, a background sound in the tank when the motor is switched off, the sound is similar to a sound in a huge empty iron barrel).

[oukej 2911]

5 hours ago, teabagginpeople said:

Are the changes making it to stable release alongside tac ops?

Definitely, bug fixes go always in asap whenever it's important or safe enough ;)

[R3vo 2654]

20 hours ago, oukej said:

It has slipped through today's changelog. Nevertheless, after a long pursuit our programmer has been able to eliminate a big chunk of ill-suited von Braun's technology from our tanks!
It doesn't mean there won't be any chance to turn your MBT into an HLV but that chance should be slim and only coming from a haywire collision.

 

Not really fixed. Easily resproduceable. And not haywire collission either. Video:

 

Kamysh & Mora's suspension seems to be in need of some tweaks.

 

The Slammer and Mora engine sound produces some cracking noice. Here's a video, maybe someone else hears it, too.

 

Also, the Mora's

 

[oukej 2911]

Wow, nice! These mounds are inserted objects and there might be different behavior than with map objects or terrain. Can u pls try it out e.g. on the rocks on Stratis airport?

Still a solid repro there, thanks!

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

14 hours ago, R3vo said:

 

 

 

Sounds exactly like what's happening when there's a DC offset in a currently playing sample and abruptly stop it/switch to another sample.

 

Cheers

[lex__1 422]

15 hours ago, oukej said:

Wow, nice! These mounds are inserted objects and there might be different behavior than with map objects or terrain. Can u pls try it out e.g. on the rocks on Stratis airport?

Still a solid repro there, thanks!

Majority of subjects of the map, fences, borders, steps of ladders, objects of cemeteries, obelisks.... all - cause a throw of cars, but it isn't so frequent, 50/50. Hills on video, show a problem more often than subjects of the vanilla map.

2 hours ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

Sounds exactly like what's happening when there's a DC offset in a currently playing sample and abruptly stop it/switch to another sample.

It is similar to a crash from the loudspeaker, when there is no good filter of pulse hindrances in electric devices. It is frequent, and long ago is reproduced in a game.
Hearing irritates.

It should be reported in this branch

 

[R3vo 2654]

16 hours ago, oukej said:

Wow, nice! These mounds are inserted objects and there might be different behavior than with map objects or terrain. Can u pls try it out e.g. on the rocks on Stratis airport?

Still a solid repro there, thanks!

I was only once able to reproduce the issue by driving against one of those white stone walls placed in cities around Malden, however, I wasn't able to reproduce it reliably.

 

Overall it looks much better now. Especially because tanks cannot exeed their maxSpeed anymore.

[lex__1 422]

1 hour ago, R3vo said:

I was only once able to reproduce the issue by driving against one of those white stone walls placed in cities around Malden, however, I wasn't able to reproduce it reliably.

 

Overall it looks much better now. Especially because tanks cannot exeed their maxSpeed anymore.

Maxspeed is valid - isn't reproduced. Thanks for the solution of this problem.

  Throws and revolutions aren't solved.

When the car overcomes obstacles in forward or back movement, the problem isn't reproduced, or very exceptional case.

The problem easily appears when wheels of cars or tracks of the tank, use side (left or right) touch with an obstacle.

On an uneven surface, side crashes of wheels happen to a surface more often.

DEV 1.79.143650

 

It still, isn't present changes

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T120795

 

[en3x 209]

Well documented, I did not know about technical side of this. Nice job lex.

[Strike_NOR 898]

5 hours ago, lex__1 said:

The problem easily appears when wheels of cars or tracks of the tank, use side (left or right) touch with an obstacle.

On an uneven surface, side crashes of wheels happen to a surface more often.

 

I am going to make a "guesstimation" here and try to propose what may be going wrong.

 

The way it appears to me, ArmA's wheels "snap" to surface. Meaning that if suspension of a given wheel is not fully extended, it is "snapped" to the surface (sticky). If the vehicle moves over a hill, and the front wheels extend their suspension to maximum extension, then the wheels do not extend further, but they still "seek" to snap to the surface of something.

 

This method always works fine when there is a sudden increase in distance from vehicle hull to ground, because the wheel will simply "detach" from the surface, however it seems this has a really adverse effect when the opposite happens - when the distance suddenly decreases.

 

When a tank traverses it's hull sideways, the roadwheels will hit some curb/stone/object and immediately, due to wheel/terrain "snap" it compresses the suspension in a nanosecond. This means that the force is happening at light-speed, transferring to the hull, and then launching the tank (this is ground control to major Tom, there's something really wrong).

 

To me, this seems to be the reason. There is no "inertia" in arma suspension. In real life, the wheels are heavy, suspension is heavy and so if you try to compress the suspension, it will happen over time, not instantly. Sometimes it actually seems that ARMA 3 does not have physical suspension, only visual. Meaning that the 3D geometry model that acts with the surface is not really using suspension, but it's only animated for visual appeal. I may be wrong here, but that's how it feels some times.

 

 

I found a video that strikingly resembles this theory of no "arma shocks". It's made by someone in algodoo, and shows a three-wheeled vehicle with suspension, and one without. Just look at the one without suspension as it hits a tiny "bump", and think about what you see in ArmA :)

 

At 0:09 the first vehicle with suspension hits the small bump, look what happens to the second one immediately when it hits the bump:

 

 

This is very much resembling what we see in arma. Now imagine that you "spawned" the vehicle without suspension so that the wheels where clipping through the object, but standing on the surface. The result? If the vehicle wheels are designed to "snap" to the surface, they will instantaneously travel the height of that object in virtually an instant. Leading to X amount of m over no time.

 

 

A quick example of what this would look like. If a tank in arma, stands beside a curb that is 10 cm tall (0.1 meters). Imagine you traverse the track sideways so that the wheel "snaps" to the top of the curb as soon as it touches it. Let's say the time it takes for the wheel to perform this snap takes 0.01 seconds. 10 milliseconds.

 

Then the speed becomes 10cm x 100 milliseconds = 10m/s.

 

10 m/s = 36 km/h which would definitely launch the vehicle upwards in a small jump, if it does not properly absorb/dampen the shock.

 

Now what if the distance increases? Well the speed increases substantially. I don't know how many "ticks per second" the arma simulation runs at, but we can assume this is a constant. So then varying object height should vary the results.

 

Poles seem to fling things to infinity and beyond, while small stuff seems to make vehicles jump.

 

Have a look at this Quad ATV vs box. Although provoked by "moving the box", it seems highly related.

 

 

Seems again that the game is trying to check if the vehicle should be ontop, or next to the object it is "half-way" clipping through. It suddenly decides "oh, you are trying to be on top of the crate" and transports the front up there in a single "simulation tick" then we have Liftoff!

 

Like I said, I'm not 100% sure what's going on here, as I have not made any AddOns in O2 or tried to make vehicles in ArmA, but it does look to me that the problem that is causing this has to do with suspension, and wheels snapping to terrain/objects. The wheels should "transition" from the previous surface height, to the new object height over time, not in an instant. That would soften the effect some, and secondly the shocks should compress fast enough so that the force is not translated to the hull of the vehicle, subsequently launching it into space.

 

I'm just adding my take on it and hoping it may lead the devs to the clue of what is going on.

 

 

PhysX? More like SpaceX :)

 

Edited November 22, 2017 by Strike_NOR
Clarified Quad vs Box

[kremator 1065]

Everytime I see these tanks launching into the air it doesn't make me laugh (like in some of the gameplay videos) it actually makes me quite angry.  It better be sorted for Tanks DLC.