Tanks - Damage improvements

[Maxzymator 11]

Just now, SuicideKing said:

Ah, the display. Would suggest discussing that here: 

 

Ah, damn, you're right. To be on topic: I tried to destroy Slammer with titan several times (front, side, rear/direct and top) - every time it took 3 missiles like it was nothing and the only thing that was damaged was gun, no matter where I actually hit.

[lex__1 422]

1 hour ago, instagoat said:

One major problem with A3 vehicle ammunition is ricochets. I have tested the Kuma, Slammer and T-100 extensively, firing from distances of 500 - 2000 meters, and found very odd behaviour when encountering angled surfaces.

Tank armor-piercing ammunition is divided into sharp-headed and blunt-headed. Everyone has a tendency to make a ricochet, at very sharp angles of attack. But if the ricochet did not occur then the characteristics of penetration are:

- Blunt-headed have more penetration at the corners of attack to the armor at an acute angle and less penetration at an angle of 90 degrees.

- Sharp-headed ones have less penetration at sharp corners of attack armor.
But they have more penetration at the corners of attack to the armor at an angle of 90 degrees.

[scavenjer 112]

6 minutes ago, dragon01 said:

This sounds about right for guns. Note that a 30 or 40mm will barely scratch a tank's armor, no matter which part it hits (threads, sights and so on are another matter). For missiles, try using the top attack mode (yes, APCs support it now). Direct attack shouldn't be your first choice against tanks, and should have reduced efficiency. If the missiles didn't hit exactly the same point, surviving two hits to the side armor is not out of the question.

 

You've got a point about ERA, though. 30mm AP rounds should probably detonate it away, although I'm not sure about that, either. The front plate on those is fairly thick, dunno how exactly it compares.

30mm APFSDS is nothing to sneeze at, MBTs have relatively thing side armour (most russian tanks about 80MM RHAe, not taking into account ERA) which shouldn't be too hard to get through for KE, unless composite packages are fitted.

[scavenjer 112]

Just now, lex__1 said:

Tank armor-piercing ammunition is divided into sharp-headed and blunt-headed. Everyone has a tendency to make a ricochet, at very sharp angles of attack. But if the ricochet did not occur then the characteristics of penetration are:

- Blunt-headed have more penetration at the corners of attack to the armor at an acute angle and less penetration at an angle of 90 degrees.

- Sharp-headed ones have less penetration at sharp corners of attack armor.
But they have more penetration at the corners of attack to the armor at an angle of 90 degrees.

Euh, what? You realise all modern MBT KE ammuntion is APFSDS right? (bottom pic) the biggest difference there is inbetween different kinds are materials and monobloc vs composite designs.

[lex__1 422]

9 minutes ago, scavenjer said:

Euh, what? You realise all modern MBT KE ammuntion is APFSDS right? (bottom pic) the biggest difference there is inbetween different kinds are materials and monobloc vs composite designs.

The assortment is much wider than presented in the game. I answered the question of the rebound.

[dragon01 902]

12 minutes ago, scavenjer said:

30mm APFSDS is nothing to sneeze at, MBTs have relatively thing side armour (most russian tanks about 80MM RHAe, not taking into account ERA) which shouldn't be too hard to get through for KE, unless composite packages are fitted.

Varsuk is a "future" Russian tank, which means it likely has protection levels similar to modern Western tanks. So it'll be rather thicker than that. I don't know what the intended values for Varsuk are, but it seems it'd be closer to the Abrams than to T-90 in terms of protection. Actual Russian tanks would have something to fear from 30mm APFSDS (even Armata, which mostly armors the crew capsule and would risk turret damage from it), but it doesn't seem that BI was really concerned about differences in design philosophy.

[scavenjer 112]

Just now, dragon01 said:

Varsuk is a "future" Russian tank, which means it likely has protection levels similar to modern Western tanks. So it'll be rather thicker than that. I don't know what the intended values for Varsuk are, but it seems it'd be closer to the Abrams than to T-90 in terms of protection. Actual Russian tanks would have something to fear from 30mm APFSDS (even Armata, which mostly armors the crew capsule), but it doesn't seem that BI was really concerned about differences in design philosophy.

The T-100 Varsuk in game doesn't have the space for composite armour on the sides, that's why it has ERA modelled, which only provides protection for the first shot and against CE unless it's thick ERA.

[x3kj 1247]

This is great. I guess. It's hard to judge, because the description is all very vague. Needs more details.

5 hours ago, Asheara said:

The component system - simulation of AP rounds should be much more accurate, while the spheres are still there for the explosive damage. Passthrough should also work more deterministic than before

Could you explain in detail what exactly was improved there. Is it just the vehicle firegeometry and hitpoints that where changed (and therefore kinetic projectile simulation beeing better?) Or was more changed? What about point A and B from this ticket ?

 

Quote

The armor simulations - the vehicles have been given passing protection in form of SLAT and ERA armor, while there are currently three types (SLAT, Light ERA and Heavy ERA), which should have some differences between ammunition (we also have 4 types of ammunition - AP, HE, HEAT and Tandem Heat). We're aware that current configuration is not yet ideal, but we'd appreciate your help in pointing out the issues.

How does that armor system and components system work? I see there are new selections in fire geometry and properties in hitpoints that reference them. What is the purpose of that? Do HEAT rounds now actually spawn penetrating projectiles on impact, or do they just apply damage like old HE, except with different modifiers now (based on the armor config) and different per "component" ? Or do HEAT rounds really penetrate and can only damage to whatever the penetrating jet hits, like kinetic rounds?

 

Pointing out issues is extremely difficult without knowing more details. Even then it's difficult, as its basically impossible to judge how it all works without having an indepth look at the model itself (firegeometry and layout, hitpoints and layout, hitpoint and armor configs). Arma doesnt have a penetration cam like in warthunder and no "viewer" for showing armor geometry and internal layouts, so anything that happens precisely after the projectile touched the target is a big black mystery box.

 

Docu on what the value range in the cfgarmorsimulation does would also be helpfull to understand it

class Armor_ERA_Light
  class Default
    hit[] = {1};
    speed[] = {1};
  class AP
    hit[] = {1};
    speed[] = {0.9,1};
  class HE
    hit[] = {0.1,1};
    speed[] = {1};
  class HEAT
    hit[] = {1};
    speed[] = {0.25,1};
  class TandemHEAT
    hit[] = {1};
    speed[] = {0.9,1};

 

I would also like to ask for more information about bullet ricochet mechanics. Bullet ricochet chance is semi-random, but seems influenced by deflection parameter in ammo config. Can we get a formula for chance of deflection based on impact angle?  I made an empirical test from 45° to 70° (1250 shots in total... ) for one ammo deflection value (20) against armor material, counting the deflections and nondeflections. I'm not to keen on repeating that again for further deflection values in the hope of finding commonality or a pattern.

 

 

@Community

could we please keep this place free of endless "i know more about armor/tank ammo than you do" and focus on whats actually ingame?

 

 

 

 

[Strike_NOR 898]

So here are my initial thoughts:

 

Overall improvement of armor simulation. Nice to see individual pieces of ERA and SLATS take damage when hit. A good visual indicator of damage as well! 

 

Here are the points of potential improvements:

 

• HEAT ammunition (RPG's, Tank cannons, Titan AT)

Currently does some kind of indirect hit damage, which is very sad considering the improvement made on the PCML warhead (which actually simulates HEAT). I was expecting a penetrating jet (projectile in arma engine), but instead it seems we got the indirect hit thing, which makes the final HEAT damage feel more like HE. My suggestion is to implement PCML type HEAT "projectile" into all HEAT projectiles/weapons to simulate a shaped charge "jet" penetrating the target (also damages modules and crew in its path).

 

• Slat armor

Fun fact: Slat armor actually aims directly at preventing the RPG-7 warhead from detonating. The way the RPG-7 fuze is designed, when passing through the slats, will cut the wires/leads that connect the fuze to the warhead, effectively preventing detonation. For all other purposes, slat armor has actually proven to generally increase the effectiveness of HEAT ammunition (except RPG-7), because the standoff distance becomes better to focus the HEAT jet (how ironic!). If the HEAT warhead detonates (as it does ingame right now) the Slats do little to nothing against stopping the HEAT jet from penetrating.

If we disregard real life though, I have the following suggestion: See if you can make the HEAT warhead explosion turn into a sparky puff of smoke instead of exploding, to simulate that the warhead was disabled (fractured) instead of detonating. It is also a gameplay-wise good feedback to the attacker that his shot failed to penetrate the slats. Also, when the HEAT warhead "fails", the slats should withstand multiple attacks (2-3) from this type of warhead before being damaged.

Slats should not really be susceptible to damage from AP rounds, but rather very sensitive to powerful high-explosives.

 

• ERA

Seems to be sensitive to AP and HEAT, but way too sensitive to HE. A nearby exploding vehicle (vehicle destruction) will trigger the ERA. I get it if you shoot a 120mm HE round at the ERA, yes it should go off. Also explosion radius seems to ignore line of sight, so hitting the rear of a Tank will detonate the frontal ERA (?!?!).

 

• Armorsimulation in general

I still feel AP rounds do some very wonky stuff at times. They seem to more reliably penetrate in a straight path, but you really should rework ricochets. As an example, I fired a 105mm APFSDS round at the T-100 turret. The angle was so shallow, that the round completely bounced off (did not enter the vehicle mesh), yet the turret took immense damage and the gun was destroyed. What is the point of ricochets if they deal that much damage?

Disappointed that there isn't a better destruction mechanic and that the vehicles still seem to draw from a health pool, instead of breaking down in modules. You basically still spam the tank with ammo until it "auto-explodes". Also, because AP is the only ammo that actually passes through the target, it is the only viable option to kill crew. If you fix HEAT though, things will be better!

 

 

This is all I can think of right now, so far so good, but I hope you can take a look at the aforementioned points.

 

Also, some documentation as to what is happening "under the hood" would be really helpful right now.

[goko-- 147]

I don't know if its a useful feedback, since I got a gpu from 2010 (hd5850 1gb) so maybe others don't experience what I do but;

an explosion takes 1/2 of my fps. It hits from 90 to 40's inside VR map, only 1 tank destroyed.

 

There is also zero 'damage modeling' as I expected It to be sadly.

I was imagining what happens when you shot a wheel of wheeled and expecting to see blown up track when I shoot at a tank.

When lets say right track of tank has full damage..it should have some kind of visual feedback. am I asking for too much? Its just bad simulation when you shoot a turret of a tank and suddenly all of it catches up rust in a big explosion. Or molten spot on the armor should be visible to eye (not just thermal) with a cannon shot, even if it isn't destroyed.

[x3kj 1247]

54 minutes ago, goko-- said:

I don't know if its a useful feedback, since I got a gpu from 2010 (hd5850 1gb) so maybe others don't experience what I do but;

an explosion takes 1/2 of my fps. It hits from 90 to 40's inside VR map, only 1 tank destroyed.

Similar situation here, GTX 660 - Titan explosion particles wreck my fps, much bigger impact than i would be used to.

1 hour ago, Strike_NOR said:

Also explosion radius seems to ignore line of sight, so hitting the rear of a Tank will detonate the frontal ERA (?!?!).

This is "normal". Only other objects can occlude indirect damage-> a wall can occlude damage on a soldier/tank. But they can't "self occlude" - or differently said, the center of vehicle seems to be counted for registering/checking if indirect damage is to be applied, if yes -> all hitpoints within indirect range (dont remember exactly, may also be ALL hitpoints of the vehicle isntead) receive damage (according to their individual explosionshielding setting).

 

1 hour ago, Strike_NOR said:

The angle was so shallow, that the round completely bounced off (did not enter the vehicle mesh), yet the turret took immense damage and the gun was destroyed. What is the point of ricochets if they deal that much damage?

The issue why that is mentioned in this ticked, point B

[bars91 956]

Been messing around in both Virtual Garage and 3DEN.

 

Kuma seems to have no ERA visualisation - shot one ERA block w 3 RPG-7 rounds - no damage to both ERA and Kuma itself.

[AveryTheKitty 2626]

I don't think those are ERA panels...?

[bars91 956]

11 minutes ago, Night515 said:

I don't think those are ERA panels...?

 

Aren't those the "heavy" ERA panels? I mean it's not like they are buoyancy modules since Leo2 don't swim...

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Nah, they're AMAP-SC modules. Not ERA

The AMAP system uses passive appliqué armor and the only active component is AMAP-ADS which isn't simulated on the Kuma (even if it is part of the model - same with Trophy APS on the Slammer).

[bars91 956]

1 minute ago, da12thMonkey said:

Nah, they're AMAP-SC modules. Not ERA

The AMAP system uses passive appliqué armor and the only active component is AMAP-ADS which isn't simulated on the Kuma (even if it is part of the model - same with Trophy APS on the Slammer).

 

Shame. Would be real useful to have AMAP-ADS for Kuma, Trophy for Slammer and Drozd-2 for Varsuk.

Active defense systems are becoming mainstream even today...

[scavenjer 112]

25 minutes ago, bars91 said:

 

Shame. Would be real useful to have AMAP-ADS for Kuma, Trophy for Slammer and Drozd-2 for Varsuk.

Active defense systems are becoming mainstream even today...

This is what I've been advocating since we first saw the tanks, but alas.

Honestly the armour simulation still seems like a placeholder, I really really hope it isn't final or remotely final.

APFSDS somehow works better if you hit areas such as the turret ring/face/gun and seems to bounce around in the tank causing massive damage.

Shooting the side of the tanks sometimes does nothing (fighting compartment hits) shooting the autoloader on the back of the Varsuk does nothing or only disables turret/gun, RPG does nothing there.... (lots of ammo there normally....)

Same can be said for most MBTs.

 

HEAT doesn't do more damage when hitting sides (no ERA, AMAP or slats) and does basically nothing.

[scavenjer 112]

Also, as other people have noted, APFSDS really doesn't ricochet as much as it does in-game, 70s APFSDS had roughly a 50° chance to ricochet at 10° from the horizontal AoA.

As you can see here, this T-72 got hit twice, the first skimmed the top of the turret not penetrating, about a 4° AoA according to some people, the second shot did penetrate and hit at a similar angle, you can even see it normalising towards the end when the tip fully contacts the armour.

[Asheara 214]

14 hours ago, instagoat said:

One major problem with A3 vehicle ammunition is ricochets. I have tested the Kuma, Slammer and T-100 extensively, firing from distances of 500 - 2000 meters, and found very odd behaviour when encountering angled surfaces.

 

Tank rounds need to be -way- less bouncy. What often happens is that the projectile shatters, and the tracer goes flying off while the penetrator in the front of the round continues through the armor.

 

 

Thanks for pointing it out! I made a mental note about this before, but we're yet to fix it. I'll definitely put it on my list of thing to be dealt ASAP.

 

14 hours ago, SuicideKing said:

First of all, tanks a lot for this update! ;-)

Of course, i excitedly checked stuff out, and thus have some initial feedback.

 

Kamysh + slat cage vs PCML from the side

• The slat armour on the opposite side also gets blown off.

Mora + cage vs PCML from the side

• DIR works intuitively (low damage, cage blown off on one side, no hit point damage)
• TOP works as expected when it comes to overall damage value. however hit point damage is strange - hitting it from the right damages the left track??

 

Ooops, will need to look into it. Damaging the opposite side is not desirable, thanks for feedback!

 

13 hours ago, scavenjer said:

Right, another round of testing this time using Varsuk: 

1. HEAT blows up quite a lot of the ERA on the slammer UP (and Varsuk UFP as well) https://imgur.com/a/2GKvW maybe less should blow up at once?
2. HE agains blows up all ERA on the entire vehicle even ERA that's on the other side of the tank.
3. after the ERA has been blown off, HEAT still does no damage to the side of the slammer  UP, and for some reason APFSDS does only 50% damage from the side (90° angle), yet when I tired it on a slammer UP with ERA it one shotted it!.
4. Neither HEAT from the Varsuk nor HE seem to destroy the camouflage netting on the Kuma (side shots directly on netting)

 

Uhm, yes, in my tests HE and HEAT were blowing up completely all around the vehicle too  Didn't manage to figure it out yet and fix it on time, but it's in progress. About HEAT doing no damage to the side on Slammer UP - also on my to-do list, though honestly not sure yet WHY is this happening. But I'll figure it out! And as for the netting on Kuma - as far as I'm aware, that's not even supposed to happen. The netting gets destroyed mostly due to explosion of ERA and Kuma doesn't have any. Netting is not a separate hitpoint to be destroyed, simply a fluff which goes with destroying other hitpoints.

 

13 hours ago, .kju said:

@Asheara

can we get docu on CfgArmorSimulations please - or is it essentially hardcoded engine functionality and not extendable anyhow?

 

Yes you can! I'll try to write it today, apologies for the delay, I know it would be more ideal to have it ready with the devbranch release :)

[Strike_NOR 898]

24 minutes ago, Asheara said:

Ooops, will need to look into it. Damaging the opposite side is not desirable, thanks for feedback!

 

For direct attack (DA) with the PCML, this indeed is a bug/undesireable feature, as the PCML works like a HE weapon in DA mode.

 

@SuicideKing However for top attack, keep in mind that this may actually be a feature and result of how the HEAT warhead works. Because of engine limitations, @oukej explained that the PCML has to scan at an approximate 45 degree down angle for targets to be reliably detected.

This also means the HEAT "projectile" will travel downwards at 45 degrees. Which in turn means the projectile will enter the upper closest side and exit the lower opposite side of the target (where the tracks are) and damage this area. Thats probably why the opposite tracks are destroyed and may very well happen IRL.

[silentghoust 132]

Maybe I couldn't do it with the small testing time I had for tonight. But it seems like crew damage is still using the same model? I couldn't seem to kill any off the crew with close range AP shots, and the global "damage" effect for them seem to come into play. Is this something that will be added to the Tanks DLC or did I just not test well enough to see it? 

[Callsign 128]

While I'm really liking the improvements overall (especially the camo nets!), it's a shame not to have any damage of the optics or sensors from small arms simulated as it is with helicopters and planes. This is a good leveller in gameplay terms as it would mean infantry have a chance to take on tanks, and tankers would have to be more careful in how they attack. As it is, unless you've got multiple AT units (not talking about against other tanks), tanks are pretty invulnerable, when it reality you can brick a tank just as you can a helicopter. All I'm asking for is consistency really.

[KeyCat 131]

Quote

You basically still spam the tank with ammo until it "auto-explodes". Also, because AP is the only ammo that actually passes through the target, it is the only viable option to kill crew. If you fix HEAT though, things will be better!

 

 

Ohhh noooooo!

 

Say that this isn't true! Heck we could destroy some component even in OFP 15 years ago

[scavenjer 112]

4 hours ago, Asheara said:

-snip-

Thanks for the response!

I wish I could help out more in some way, I'll continue to do testing but so far it seems as if the vehicles still use legacy configs (very thick side armour maybe?).

 

Is the HEAT jet actually modelled? Or does it still use indirect hit splash damage?

[armilio 14]

First of all, great work, i wasn't expecting so much improvement for the tanks update! you are exceeding my expectations. 

My biggest concern right now is about the AT weapons. They was always too weak against tanks. Or, well, especially against Kuma and Slammer. But now i have difficulties scratching even a Varsuk with a Titan, hitting weak points without ERA on the side or on the rear. PCML and RPGs should be able to heavily damage tanks hitting the right spots, while titans should be able to do big damage just avoiding ERA. I'm not saying i always want a catastrophic kill (BOOOM) with one hit, even if it should happen sometimes, but at least i would like to disable the combat effectiveness of the tanks, disabling the engine/trucks or the gun, or both. 

As a person that went in depth in how the vehicle damage simulation worked trying to tweak it for the events of my clan, i would like too some docs on the changes. With that maybe i could help more to understand where are the issues really come from. Because, as @scavenjer said, it seems that there is still the "splash damage hit" meccanics in place with the AT weapons, instead of a good HEAT simulation, but this is my past experience speaking. 

But again, really appreciate the job that you are doing. 

EDIT: I used both PCML and Titans in direct attack mode.