Must every vehicle explode and burn?

[MehMan 0]

I was wondering about something, why does every vehicle have to explode? Every tank, humvee, truck, stryker, helicopter and plane explodes when reaching damage 1. Wouldn't it be better if things rarely exploded, depending on ammo count and on fuel level, and then a bit less rarely burned. I'd like to see more knocked out tanks, crashed helicopters and destroyed planes, than everything blowing up and burning. I think the LibMod guys have done this the best in OFP, hats off to them. Tanks that actually look like they've been knocked out instead of being blown up at a javelin range. I can understand that being hit with a missile or bomb will blow up a tank, but sometimes I'd like to see more variety in the possible damage and destroyed effects.

This is one thing that bugs me, that is also actually part of the flawed hitpoint system that ArmA and OFP uses, that I was hoping would be refined. In a 2003 RTS game, C&C generals, you could mod it and set it so that small arms fire would not harm a tank. And it still used a hitpoint system where things acumulated damage. That armour system was rather easly made and I think it could be implemented into ArmA without major changes to the code. The system was made so that weapons were given classes, like small arms, gattling gun class, bomb, missile, etc; each had a setting in the .ini armour code file that you could set how many percents of damage would the intendend class cause, relevant to it's setting.

Lets say a missile causes 100 damage, and the armour code says the armour setting for missiles is 80%. The missile would case 80 damage instead of 100.

This is a kind of system that I believe could be implemented into ArmA without major problems.

Each ammo type could define it's own values for how much damage would it cause to each vehicle class. But then you'd have to define vehicle classes, which are already defined. Perhaps a more refined option could appear.

That would give about 6-7 extra variables and multipliers.

But that would create basically tanks that are no longer vunerable to small arms(you wouldn't be able to destroy a tank or an APC with an M16, a lot of mags and a lot of time). It something that I'd like to see implemented in a patch, if possible.

I don't know if this is possible already, if it is, my bad, I haven't digged into ArmA code a lot, if not, perhaps maybe this can be implemented? Maybe with EHs?

Also, this could be linked to the kind of damage explosions vehicles recieve, could allow for custom ones for each ammo type, a bomb could make the tank blow to smitherines, same with a javelin missile, but a sabot round could actually knock out the tank, by just putting it out of commision without blowing it up to pieces.

I, again, don't know if this is already possible in ArmA without heavy scripting.

[HamishUK 0]

A damage model would be nice.

Having the vehicle go through say 4-5 different levels of damage. At least that would offer some sort of damage detail?

[maddogx 13]

The current damage textures are horrible. This is especially aparrent when shooting at car tyres. Instant rust effect.

[Average Joe 0]

Project Reality for BF2 got this right, Tank tracks get damaged etc yet the tank will remain intact.

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm in the process of changing the explosion/smoke effects for vehicles. I agree that not every vehicle needs to explode in exactly the same way from what I see in RL footage, most destroyed vehicles just have a poof of white/light grey smoke from the missile. Occasionally one might blow up due to exploding internal ordinance. Most develop a black plume of smoke after a few minutes due to burning rubber, plastics & fuel.

I'm not doing anything about the vehicle textures though. Even though I don't like them, I already have my work cut out for me

*edit* Bare in mind one of the big problems is that you cannot get the details of remaining fuel/ammo from a dead vehicle. I was hoping to set the black smoke relative to remaining fuel but it cannot be done after the vehicle is killed. It might be possible to put every single vehicle in an array and constantly update each vehicles ammo & fuel details but it'd be some time in the future for me to do that

[NoRailgunner 0]

The question about "why does every vehicle have to explode?" can be easily answered: most of the (customers) players expect this.

Even if you shoot/fire at a car:

- in RL no big explosions, no burst into flames

- in movies and action series they install "special FX" into the vehicle or they fake it later in production studios - thats entertainment!

I think BIS will not make neither an "realistic" damage model nor variety of damaged effects. Thats up to the Mod teams...

[Money 0]

Would loooove to see an ArmA ECP config that has this type of stuff in it.

[MehMan 0]

I hope they'll try to implenet more armour damage techniques, because adding a simple multiplier to the damage a thing does can't be that hard. But then again, I could be completely wrong. I'd just love to see bullets that don't destroy tanks. The biki says that EHs don't register if a tank has been hit with a bullet even though it adds damage.

I'd also just like to see tanks not blow up, but rather, if there must be a fire, take on flames slowly. Again Liberation 41-45 for OFP has this done awsomely in their mod.

[mr reality 0]

The exploding of vehicles is just another reason why i rarley play Arma now. When a M113 gets hit, almost the entire squad gets killed alongside it. As it is, its totally unplayable because of this nonsense.

Two thumbs down....

[Guest Ti0n3r]

The exploding of vehicles is just another reason why i rarley play Arma now. When a M113 gets hit, almost the entire squad gets killed alongside it. As it is, its totally unplayable because of this nonsense.

Two thumbs down....

Agreed. That's really retarded and makes mech squads totally useless. It was the same in OFP, but it's even worse in ArmA...

[Col. Faulkner 0]

Actually I feel that the hitpoint system is fundamentally

inappropriate as a simulation of anti-armour weapons. Much

better would be a representation of the way tabletop tank

battles are fought. There a calculation of armour penetration

is made based on armour plate strength and the penetrative

capabilities of weapons at different ranges - if applicable.

In a tabletop wargame this is all done by looking up tables

and adding a random factor - not complex calculations at all.

This would completely remove silliness like the "anti-tank-

M16" and the "collect enough points and you own a

tank" problem. Even a simplified system could still be an

effective simulation without imposing too much of a CPU hit.

I doubt very much that this could be superimposed on top of

the hitpoints system by modders though.

Regarding burning. It'd also be nice if vehicle design was a

factor in determining the readiness of a vehicle to brew up.

As an example compare the performance of WW2 M4 Sherman

tanks before and after wet ammo stowage was introduced.

Early models of the M4 were nicknamed "Ronsons" or "Tommy

cookers" for a good reason.

Edit: I think maybe that "you own a tank" should be "you pwn a tank"

Edit (again): I suspect that the person who wrote that

vehicles explode spectacularly because people expect it is

right. This occured to me when I was testing out an addon

A/Tk rifle a while ago. I was shooting at empty trucks and

each one conveniently rusted, sagged then exploded in

flames as they accumulated hits. "This is really crap!"

I thought, but I suspect that not many would really share

that opinion. Call me weird but I like it when I don't

really know if I've killed that target or not..

[MisterXY 0]

Yep, I agree with most of you. The damage model in ArmA needs some improvements for sure.

The only question is, from who? The devs or the modders?

[malick 0]

Agreed...

Systematical explosion is not the most realistic thing. I'd like to see knocked out tanks, or maybe just a "random" explosion in config.cpp.

Regarding more complex simulations, like armour penetration values, everything seems to already be in ArmA (wasn't it GranQ that found it ?). Of course, it is not implemented as it was only a test bed for VBS2 development.

Let's hope talented modders will correct this side (CAV, JAM, ECP ?)

Malick

[wipman 1]

Hi, the vehicle damage model in ArmA is certainly not realistic and

even bad in some cases; i'll like to see an ArmA ECP that fixes this

kind of issues, but i think that's too early for that, took years of

gaming to reach that level. Let's C ya

[r2101 0]

well... agreed it would have been nice to have a more detailed damage system in place... actually i am leaning more towards the old opf particle/cloud system for smoke and explosions...

about survivability of apcs... well... in opf i just toned down the law/rpg class a bit... two config values...hit&indirect hit (that was easier than changing i dunno how many different apc armor values *lol*). should do the trick in armed assault too... and make mech-inf a bit more use-/durable.

and even without a more acurate damage system it worked quite nicely...sometimes a track got destroyed, sometimes the main gun was defective... and some of the passengers/crew were injured...but had normally enough time to bail out...

[MehMan 0]

Actually I feel that the hitpoint system is fundamentally

inappropriate as a simulation of anti-armour weapons. Much

better would be a representation of the way tabletop tank

battles are fought. There a calculation of armour penetration

is made based on armour plate strength and the penetrative

capabilities of weapons at different ranges - if applicable.

In a tabletop wargame this is all done by looking up tables

and adding a random factor - not complex calculations at all.

This would completely remove silliness like the "anti-tank-

M16" and the "collect enough points and you own a

tank" problem. Even a simplified system could still be an

effective simulation without imposing too much of a CPU hit.

I doubt very much that this could be superimposed on top of

the hitpoints system by modders though.

Regarding burning. It'd also be nice if vehicle design was a

factor in determining the readiness of a vehicle to brew up.

As an example compare the performance of WW2 M4 Sherman

tanks before and after wet ammo stowage was introduced.

Early models of the M4 were nicknamed "Ronsons" or "Tommy

cookers" for a good reason.

Edit: I think maybe that "you own a tank" should be "you pwn a tank"

Edit (again): I suspect that the person who wrote that

vehicles explode spectacularly because people expect it is

right. This occured to me when I was testing out an addon

A/Tk rifle a while ago. I was shooting at empty trucks and

each one conveniently rusted, sagged then exploded in

flames as they accumulated hits. "This is really crap!"

I thought, but I suspect that not many would really share

that opinion. Call me weird but I like it when I don't

really know if I've killed that target or not..

This is somewhat achiveable in ArmA seeing how the realistic ballistics mod made it possible that a bullet fired from an M16 from 1km away doesn't kill you if you get hit in the body armour. The rest is just a dream for now.

I do believe my idea is somewhat achievable since it requires only a few more variables and a multiplier action added, I do believe, standing from my current knowledge of general coding, that it could be added in a future patch. However I have no idea how the ArmA engine is coded so I'm just talking out of my ass, but following common sense one would think that it wouldn't be too hard to implement that.

[Barely-injured 0]

I believe WGL mod for OFP have had that problem fixed, tanks and APCs were usually knocked by hits and sometimes explode although I think that is because the mod made it hard for vehicles to reach a damage value of 1 ((ie. it would still explode if it ever reached 1 but that was rarely required)) and also all stuff still had some kind of burned look on them. lets hope they implement it in ACE

[Gimpster 0]

You know some form bullet penetration is already modeled in ArmA. It was one of the new improvments to the core engine and a selling point in their adds. I was just in the editor and an m16 will not shoot through a stone or cement wall but will shoot through wood walls. Maybe what is already there can be expanded on? I did notice that the effectiveness of my bullets was reduces when passing through the wood wall as well. So the wall was asorbing some of the bullets energy (Perhaps speed).

Maybe just like the issues with the balistics having incorrest figures this is also a feature that is there but not currently implimented to its full potential? Its at least somthing to look at.

[max power 21]

I'm not sure what game you have been playing but all vehicles burn but only the ones with a certain ammo/fuel load explode. The strength of the explosion again is dictated by the amount of ammo and fuel.

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm not sure what game you have been playing

We've all been playing Armed Assault.

but all vehicles burn but only the ones with a certain ammo/fuel load explode. The strength of the explosion again is dictated by the amount of ammo and fuel.

Where did you find this info?

[rundll.exe 12]

Thats has been so since OFP 1.00, but its not working out verry good. THe blast radius is way too big.

[Inkompetent 0]

Cheers! And in the process we might also get rid of the ridicilous fact that AT-4s and RPG-7Vs can destroy MBTs. Blowing the tracks are one thing, but without Javelins or some equivalent, why even try to engage a MBT with only infantry?

And yeah, would be nice to see some more vehicle specific damage models, like incinerated crews in the BMP if shot from behind, and simply being disabled or parts of the people in it getting hurt/killed when penetrated by AT weapons.

[max power 21]

I'm not sure what game you have been playing

We've all been playing Armed Assault.

but all vehicles burn but only the ones with a certain ammo/fuel load explode. The strength of the explosion again is dictated by the amount of ammo and fuel.

Where did you find this info?

Evidently you haven't been playing ArmA if you think that every vehicle will explode 100% of the time, regardless of circumstances... or you've been playing with your eyes closed and your hands clapped over your ears.

It's been like this since OFP, and it's still true when I play ArmA today. Play the sanitization mission, and tool around afterward destroying stuff. You'll find that none of those vehicles except the two uazs will explode. Even the Shilka won't explode.

[ArmaVidz 0]

Yep the damage system needs some serious work. I just didn't want to complain.

Here's some stuff one dude is working on - awesome imho

Test13 HMMWV Destruction

Gameplay HMMWV Destruction 2<span style='color:red'>insane!</span>

Compilation of Building Destruction

[-Snafu- 78]

Mecha Stalin. I think. Made a post in Torni's M60 thread or the ACE thread about an armour damage system he discovered 'hidden' within ArmA. There was a video demonstration.