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Tracked APC Physics

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Hello there forums, if I could have a moment of your time.

Right now the new APCs feel great! There are still a few eyebrows (mein uni-brow) raised over how fast they lose momentum when climbing up knolls as if they buried their bumper (they didn't) into the hill or switched a couple gears too high and have somewhat over responsive but manageable turning but they otherwise feel powerful. That, however is not what I am here to talk about. I am not sure as to if this is a byproduct of the engine or a simple oversight in the implementation of the physics but there is one thing that still does not feel right.

Climbing over low obstacles. In fact, it feels almost identical to running over sandbags in Operation Flashpoint; Phasing through the wall a little before sliding on top and slowly floating forwards.

Most of what I will post will be a copy and paste from another thread and my youtube video description and here is my ticket.

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12056

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Just a quick video to show off the wonky physics of trying to clear easy obstacles.

(I refer to the APCs as tanks out of force of habit)

1.The tank tracks do not appear to be taken into consideration when calculating the suspension, collision, and traction of the wheels, ie, the wheels will instantly snap to their maximum extension when they pass over a curb, wedging said curb between two wheels with the tracks phasing right through it instead of said track suspending the wheels and allowing a smooth transition over it. Also it just makes the whole thing jarringly bouncy.

2. The tank loses its momentum too quickly and will not rev up when it thinks it is pressed against something larger than this wall and thus the tracks cannot dig in and force its sloped front end to slide up the obstacle until its tracks can grip it themselves when starting from a complete stop, which brings me to my final point.

3. The tracks/wheels do not grip said obstacles and thus either do not rev at all when supported by it or experience no traction and thus spin uselessly against it. On the other hand the tank can spin and bounce on the obstacle just fine.

In Arma 2, a tank flipped up-side-down could spin around just fine as if turning was completely independent of any physical influence or constraint (the actual tracks moving the tank). I have not been able to test this in Arma 3 as flipping on my roof is very difficult (while the tank is intact) as it appears the tanks are programed to flip right-side-up from impossible angles (in my personal experience), same thing can be observed to a more extreme degree in Borderlands 2.

P.S. Sorry for the wonky camera work.

I can understand if it is an engine issue that would have to be addressed post launch in a complete expansion pack but otherwise I would at the very least, asking politely of course, like the devs to at least take a look at it and consider whether the difficulty to address it is feasible before launch.

Thankyou for your time and any feedback towards my observations or insight into the engine and its limitations are welcome, assuming they are polite.

Lastly for your enjoyment, a badass video!

And a funny video!

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The revving is unfortunately due to an unchanged *sigh* design in the sound engine where the loudness of a vehicles engine is determined by its speed rather than the amount of pressure on the pedal (or what key is being pushed). This is why the engine can go near dead silent when climbing a hill as opposed to sounding like it were struggling.

Strangely enough the Panther appears to deal with inclines MUCH better than the Kamyish, which sometimes has the mobility of a sherman M4

Further on there is no damage to tracks if you turn too sharply, there is no simulation of a limited max speed as to not damage the drive train (for example the abrams clocks 40mph and will NOT exceed that speed unless modified to do so)

The suspension is very stiff, if you make a jump and land the tank it will not in any way currently bounce like the above video or here

or here
it's as though the suspension absorbs the impact but there is no recoiled release.
There is also no damage to the suspension or crew for jumping too high (pretty sure I should have broken something in two of those leaps, be it the tank or someones neck)

I really hope BI pays more attention to tank mobility and effects like they did with helicopter speeds and agility, otherwise phsyX might have just replaced Arma 2's system rather than improve upon it.

I know that sounds terrible given all the work that must be put it in to get it to work but at the risk of sounding like quite the dick, if the end results are the same then it's not exactly much of an improvement.

Edited by NodUnit

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Could not agree more with everything you said. Also, grand choice of music in this video:

NFS's music goes with all driving videos!

P.S. It also highlights the physics engine's bias towards flipping vehicles onto their tires/tracks.

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Oh yeah the series definately has some nice music...saddly that particular bias has been there since the beginning, with the very introduction of the hunter and ifrit you could drive recklessly enough (especially in the ifrit), forcing the top heavy vehicle to roll over..something you couldn't do in Arma 2. And then it just flips itself right back up...sucks too because it kind of takes away from the feature of the tipping and the consequence of reckless driving.

My favorite part of the whole video had to be at 2:50, that wipeout was just beautiful and it would have been less of a "Ooooh!" moment had the vehicle just righted itself. It always takes away what could be an added recovery vehicle concept such as this

Rarely in Arma have we ever been able to actually flip vehicles and now they are influenced by speed shifting weight, leading to many opportunities to lose control, roll over and even flip but if physX is going to just flip them back up then it kind of takes away from the overall work.

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Sorry to resurrect a dead horse but I have noticed something new, or at least new to me. Whenever I land a vehicle from a high jump on an angled surface it will bounce forcefully and a realistic manner as long as I still have significant momentum otherwise it will not even rock on its suspension. I wonder if this is a sign that there are other things at work under the hood that we are not immediately aware of.

Lastly, this video spoils me.

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