Tanks - tracked vehicles driving and handling

[scotg 204]

Perhaps it might be a good idea for future installments, then (e.g.: ArmA 4).

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

[DEV 1.81.144403 ]

 

Tigris AA vehicle is handling incorrectly (check both variants). 

 

It handles like a tank, while it should handle like an APC, as it shares the same hull as the BTR apc.

[oukej 2911]

7 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

It handles like a tank, while it should handle like an APC, as it shares the same hull as the BTR apc.

1

Seems like one of the added cages was made out of osmium :) Thanks for the catch!

[amon11 8]

hi how to decrease custom pmb-2 [APC_Tracked_02_base_F]  turn left/right [cfg]

[oukej 2911]

It's mainly tankTurnForce - decrease the artificial force or the angular speed up to which the force is applied.

	tankTurnForce			= ; // initial force applied to turning in [0,tankTurnForceAngMinSpd] ang. speed range
	tankTurnForceAngMinSpd	= ;	// in rad/s, speed where tankTurnForce starts fading to 0 @ tankTurnForceAngSpd
	tankTurnForceAngSpd		= ; // in rad/s, angular speed where tankTurnForce becomes 0

Other variables that come into play are latStiffX, latStiffY and frictionVsSlipGraph[] (mainly the first pair, before optimum slip) - the higher friction the more force is needed to turn the tank.

 

[amon11 8]

I found only this tankTurnForce=300000;

[oukej 2911]

Depends on which version you're looking at. Current dev-branch:

configfile >> "CfgVehicles" >> "APC_Tracked_02_base_F" >>
tankTurnForce = 550000;
tankTurnForceAngMinSpd = 0.95;
tankTurnForceAngSpd = 1.04;

Since last main branch update there have also been changes in surface frictions and tank control (different steering speed for W+A/D and just A/D).

[Bobrus 29]

Varsuk tank is a bit fast (58 km/h) compared to Slammer (44 km/h) and Kamysh APC is also too fast (69 km/h) compared to Panther (46 km/h) and Mora (46 km/h) - tested on asphalt airfield. Those speed diferences seems pretty strange to me and I think that CSAT armored vehicles should be slower. This is mine opinion.

[dumm dummer 4]

please  make   BREM-1  and    M88A2 HERCULES (Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift and Evacuation System) in Tank DLC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzvQRzPZtU

 

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

11 minutes ago, dumm dummer said:

please  make   BREM-1  and    M88A2 HERCULES (Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift and Evacuation System) in Tank DLC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzvQRzPZtU

 

 

Tanks DLC has been in development for better part of a year.

 

It comes out in a few weeks.

 

Is this just your dream or an actual suggestion? Perhaps March 2017 was a better time to ask :)

 

Also there is a Bobcat CRV in the game, perhaps you can use that instead?

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

On 3/8/2018 at 1:05 AM, oukej said:

Depends on which version you're looking at. Current dev-branch:

configfile >> "CfgVehicles" >> "APC_Tracked_02_base_F" >>
tankTurnForce = 550000;
tankTurnForceAngMinSpd = 0.95;
tankTurnForceAngSpd = 1.04;

Since last main branch update there have also been changes in surface frictions and tank control (different steering speed for W+A/D and just A/D).

 

Rhino feels like it should have slightly higher torque/power. Not much higher, just a touch. Maybe reserve the current settings for the UP variant and tweak slightly higher on the default variant?

[meowcat 7]

Can we actually base the "feeling" of how things are supposed to be on some real world stuff? If the developers just follow opinions and feelings this will end up being like Team Fortress 2 where everything is balanced and the military simulation is removed. For example, there is no reason for CSAT to be slower or that an APC is "too fast".

[SuicideKing 233]

12 minutes ago, meowcat said:

Can we actually base the "feeling" of how things are supposed to be on some real world stuff? If the developers just follow opinions and feelings this will end up being like Team Fortress 2 where everything is balanced and the military simulation is removed. For example, there is no reason for CSAT to be slower or that an APC is "too fast".

No one here is talking in terms of CSAT vs non-CSAT. The discussion being had is a wheeled vs tracked discussion. And people have tested  the vehicles, so it's not based on imagination. For example, darkChozo tested this a couple of days ago.

The Rhinos speed up quite slowly, but when they do they're really fast. Also been reports of it being really sluggish on hills. So yeah, maybe needs more torque.

[meowcat 7]

I think vehicles should have some rough edges and "character". Would increase the realism. It should not be based on reaching 1:1 balance in some deathmatch scenario.

[Beagle 684]

Handling and mobility performance of the new (and reworked old) vehicles is really underwhelming. In general the acceleration is really bad, especially the initial acceleration from 0-40km/h should be much quicker all over the board. Any kind of shifting is barely noticable and turns slow down vehicles much to much. (RC 1.82)

[oukej 2911]

1 hour ago, Beagle said:

In general the acceleration is really bad, especially the initial acceleration from 0-40km/h should be much quicker all over the board.

Apart from Rhino (yet to be tuned) the flat ground acceleration 0-32 km/h is usually 3-5 s. Below 10 s for 0-50 km/h (except of Slammer). .

 

1 hour ago, Beagle said:

Any kind of shifting is barely noticable

Sadly there has to be zero delay. The issue here was that the tanks were not able to turn during the shift time.

 

[Beagle 684]

32 minutes ago, oukej said:

Apart from Rhino (yet to be tuned) the flat ground acceleration 0-32 km/h is usually 3-5 s. Below 10 s for 0-50 km/h (except of Slammer). .

 

Sadly there has to be zero delay. The issue here was that the tanks were not able to turn during the shift time.

 

One of the problems with ArmA III is that flat ground and light terrain should be no difference at that slow speeds <40km/h. Another one is the still very "anemic" behavior uphill in low gears of all tracked vehicles. If that could be ironed out, the vehicles would feel much better in every terrain from rollingn hills to urban areas. Currently I cant get over the feeling that accelation is factored from 0-top speed in a linear factor, not in a Curvature.

 

Yes, the Rhino badly needs some changes in mobility.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

8 hours ago, Beagle said:

One of the problems with ArmA III is that flat ground and light terrain should be no difference at that slow speeds <40km/h. Another one is the still very "anemic" behavior uphill in low gears of all tracked vehicles. If that could be ironed out, the vehicles would feel much better in every terrain from rollingn hills to urban areas. Currently I cant get over the feeling that accelation is factored from 0-top speed in a linear factor, not in a Curvature.

 

Yes, the Rhino badly needs some changes in mobility.

 

I quite like the slow hill climbing of armored vehicles. gives some advantage to more mobile vehicles in hilly terrain

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Suspension of the Rhino appears different

 

It does not show visible effects of change in Mass. Other vehicles get lower to the ground when mass is increased, Rhino stays the same.

[Beagle 684]

13 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

I quite like the slow hill climbing of armored vehicles. gives some advantage to more mobile vehicles in hilly terrain

But that is stripping a big factor away from what is making tracked vehicles and 6-8x Wheels APCs so great, They have a mobility that is umcompared to trucks and Jeeps. Modernr MBT are not power capped. A MBT does not need its 1500hp to reach its top speed, it uses that 1500 hp to meintain that speed under abverse conditions likle slopes and bad terrain.

 

in ArmA III on the other hand all vehicles feel underowered without any power reserve. Most military vehicles today don't have limited power but gouverned maximum speed. The power reserve is used to guarante mobility. Take the 8 ton Mowag Eagle for example, it is limited to 110km/h for safety reasons.... it has enough power and gear range to drive at 160km/h theoretically.

 

In general, ArmA III verhicles tend to not shift down and use higher engine revolutions at slopes and rough terrain resulting in poor mobilty not reflecting reality.

 

This is hampering the feel of vehicles in the series since OFP.

 

PS: I really hope that the engine sounds of Rhino and Nyx are placeholders. Both sound like a street sweeper and are symply embarrasign over time, lacking to give any indication of Engine workload or vehicle speed.

 

There is also still the issue of some vehicles refusing to slow down significatly when you release the forward input, no matter if Axis or key. Examples.. Prowler, Rhino, HEMMT. Downhill all of them will accelerete quite fast without further input.

[x3kj 1247]

On 18.3.2018 at 1:40 PM, Beagle said:

Modernr MBT are not power capped. A MBT does not need its 1500hp to reach its top speed, it uses that 1500 hp to meintain that speed under abverse conditions likle slopes and bad terrain. [...]Most military vehicles today don't have limited power but gouverned maximum speed.

MBT are power capped. They need all their power to accelerate and turn the 60+ tons quickly to be considered "highly mobile". And the 1500HP that the engine produces are not all available for driving, cooling and other stuff needs quite significant amounts of power (11% on Leo 1 taken up from cooling alone) and transmition inefficiencies (esp. when turning).

Arma 3 vehicles also have maximum speed gouvernor. Enable EPEVehicle dialog and watch what happens to throttle value when you approach max speed in the offroad jeep. Arma doesnt have difficult terrain other than slopes. On non-concrete roads an aproximation is used by artificially modifying speed governor limit (-X% compared to max speed, based on surface "difficulty"). Any more realistic system would require simulation of driving resistances, which is a very complex topic, trust me.

From Swedish T-80U trial:

Quote

Topspeed:

 

On pavement, forward: 70.3 km/h
On pavement, backward: 11.3 km/h
On a grass field: 49.8 km/h
On a plowed field: 37.7 km/h

In difficult terrain:
T-80U average speed: 19.3 km/h
T-80U fuel consumption 201 liters/10 km
Strv 104 average speed: 14.4 km/h

 

 

On 18.3.2018 at 1:40 PM, Beagle said:

But that is stripping a big factor away from what is making tracked vehicles and 6-8x Wheels APCs so great, They have a mobility that is umcompared to trucks and Jeeps.

What is stripped away exactly? Mobility in this context is the ability to cross difficult terrain at all (without having to use winches all the time). Speed (5kph vs 10kph) is not a concern in this. Before this update MBT could climb slopes of 60° (yes degree, not %) - totally ridiculous. And based on the changes i've seen i'm pretty sure they can still do. So i'm not sure why you are complaining about this? If anything, the vehicles in arma are overperforming, because terrain difficulty is not well represented.

 

On 18.3.2018 at 1:40 PM, Beagle said:

In general, ArmA III verhicles tend to not shift down and use higher engine revolutions at slopes and rough terrain resulting in poor mobilty not reflecting reality.

What makes hill climb ability non-optimal ingame is the constant gear switching on slopes. But the difference in speed lost from that is neglectible in Arma, because gear switching time is very low and engines dont stall. It's a general issue of auto gearboxes (even IRL). The simple solution IRL is, to switch to manual gear mode (which we still dont have in arma).
Using higher rpm would give you a neglectible speed advantage - depending on torque-rpm-curve and slope.

 

Drivingphysics in Arma 3 are dodgy no doubt. The simple fact that a vehicle can accelerate on it's own on flat ground with certain configuration is a striking indicator that the "simulation" is not complying with the law of conservation of energy  - the core principle of physics. To solve some shortcomings of physx (which are due to sloppiness), they added yet more sloppi fakery, which in turn makes it even more errorprone and complicated to adjust physics. Sloppiness and band-aiding in physical simulation always results in more sloppiness and band-aiding. I hope they learned this lesson and came to the right conclusion for the new engine... But still doesnt mean that everything is wrong about it. Driving in games makes you have different perception. A 25° slope in RL most consider it very steep to drive on, in a game most people dont consider it a big deal and expect things to be capable of more than this. Also, driving around corners. Every sane person drives around sharper corners <30kph. In Arma they take corners at max speed and complain that the vehicles flip over...

[Beagle 684]

What im complaing about are speeds not reaching 30km/h on roads uphill. Happens not only to full blown MBTs but also Wheeled IFV. I spend my whole service tiem with thosse wheeled APC and they don' drive like lame ducks even on 20% gradients on gravel ground. And yes, the 6 and 8 wheelers simply can go where 4 WDs have problems to keep up. I did never ask for higher speed or jumpig up slopes, just for betetr acceleration from 0-40 and better speed retention on slopes, that includes roads. Meaning the speed not to drop below 25km/h all the time and rarely exceed 40 .

 

And the T-80.... all vehicles (prototypes) that we have in game were designed to surpass the T-80 in mobilty.

Wheeled IFV and MGS do so for sure.

[en3x 209]

On 1/4/2018 at 5:18 PM, en3x said:

There 2 notable troubles that I experience. 

 

Stopping at low speeds. (makes tanks impossible to move with infantry with M+Keyboard)

 

And spinning on the spot on any angled slope makes you move forward or backward without your input. (so staying still and turning right without any throttle on the slope would move tank backwards down the slope)

 

Came here to say the same thing. Rhino should be the fastest of all new DLC vehicles. It has wheels. Speed its biggest advantage of wheels over tracks.

 

On the other hand tracks offer better offroad capabilities because they distribute weight more evenly on all sides.

 

So yeah Rhino should NOT be the slowest out of all of them. 

[darkChozo 133]

The Rhino is actually the fastest of the DLC vehicles. It just has crap acceleration, which I wouldn't mind seeing increased a little.

[Beagle 684]

I think a big problem with mobility (not top speed) is about the way how shifting  is simulated. The logic is shy of shifting a gear down resulöting in the feel of "starving in high gear".

Another problem exclusively to tracked vehicle simulation is the absence of a real functional brake, instead you have onyl reverse which makes the already unprecise steering (no analogue sterring for tracked) even more twitchy.