acceleration & throttle

[poesel]

I wanted to do some test driving with an improved cutter so I upped track acceleration but I doesn't have an effect (that is from 4.0 to 100.0!).

What I can see in the gunners view is that the throttle is rising only very slowly (throttle goes in .1 steps from 0 to 1).

Now I'm guessing: the actual acceleration depends (linear?) on the current value of the throttle. So the longer you press the pedal the higher is the actual acceleration.

This is unfortunatly not the case for internal combusion engines.

If the input method would be analog and the input value would be directly mapped to the throttle then everything is fine. For a digital input this is just an acceleration delay and makes the vehicles sluggish.

Additionally if you release the 'w' key the throttle goes immediatly to zero and you have to build up throttle again. This is _very_ inconvenient for tracked vehicles because they don't roll out.

What I suggest is that for digital input methods the throttle is set to 1 with no or a much much smaller delay.

[ClaytoniousRex]

Regardless of the max acceleration of the tracks, you still also have the acceleration of the user's throttle (his input), which is controlled via the Acceleration tag (I think it's actually on the wiki for once!) So you would need to raise that one, too, to get the result you're looking for.

Careful, though, you don't really want instant acceleration up to max speed as you described. Imagine what would happen physically - or just try it . But there's certainly room for much faster acceleration than what's there now.

[poesel]

Uuups, missed that tag. Yes, its in the Wiki.

I played around a bit and my guess is that 0.1 is the max value (going higher doesn't make a difference).

You are quite right for wheeled vehicles. Its quite funny to ride the paladin on its two back wheels though.

What would be better for the feeling of driving an internal combustion engine is to decrease the acceleration over velocity. Thats what you have in your car but here its more like an electro motor.

Tracked vehicles are another thing. I did test driving with the cutter and an apollo. The AccelerationRate should be 0.1 or at least 0.05 for both of them.

Giving the cutter an TrackAcceleration of 12.0 (yes. from 4.0 - not typo) makes it a joy to drive. This is the punch a construction vehicle should have. The low topspeed then fits perfect.

Raising the acceleration for the apollo from 4.0 to 6.0 makes it a better attack tank. The paladins will still outrun it - no problem here.

IMHO all tracked vehicles should get a raise to 0.1 including Thor and Mercury. Try it - you will like it