armour position & tracks

[poesel]

The Apollo N is not dead but still in the works. I was thinking about collision models,armour and tracks.

Problem one: what is front or side on the official tanks? I can't get that info out of the files since I can't do anything with those CollisionTriangle tags.

I coloured the Apollon a bit. Sorry for the bad quality but there are still issues with the lighting:

Top (blue) is quite obviuos. Front is a problem: the track covers (orange) are looking to the front (green) but would in 'reality' never be that good armoured as the 'bonnet'. DT will only calculate penetration once so a shot through the track cover will then travel freely through the tank.

Not good - so make the frontal track covers green? How is that done with the current Apollo?

Then second problem: what armour values do the tracks get? Its not front armour - thats for sure.

While I'm at it: the tracks are not very well modelled damage wise. You can shoot through the tracks into the tank, but you cannot destroy the tracks themselves. It would be much fun however, to have the tracks as destroyable components. Immobilizing a tank would then be an option if you can't kill that steel beast. And mines need not be just plain killers. They could as well just destroy a track (or a wheel).

[Imperial Grunt]

Poesel, you are definetly right about the tracks in the game, and I have wondered about that alot. A standard anti-armor tactic used by infantry is to disable a track on a tank, then destroy it from the flanks, and/or rear.

All tanks should be able to be partially immobilized by achieving a track hit (with one track gone, it can still rotate). The thor's main vulnerability from the front should just be that...its tracks. The sweet spot on the front is good, but I dont think a M-1A2, or any other modern tank, has such a spot.

It would be great for the game for the vehicles tracks to be targetable and damaged accordingly. The graphics of a tank tread unraveling would be cool too.

Same for the Paladins wheels, which can somehow take alot of damage, even from 20mm AP and 76mm fire. I would think that the wheels would be much more vulnerable. I would also assume there would be some "run flat" capability, but the performance is severly reduced.

The Paladins need some friction with their internal mechanizims and the ground. They just seem to roll around forever.

It would also be cool if actual tank tread marks and wheel tread marks were left on the ground. I am not sure how much that would impact the game, but it would be very realistic. Same with wrecks not vanishing after they burn out.

Keep up the great work Poesel.

[ClaytoniousRex]

Track damage modelling is underway. Its absence has always been a serious problem.

Poesel, here's what the current Apollo facing map looks like:

So as you can see, it doesn't really take into account the finer details that you're already getting into. For weakening the "bonnet" and other such parts, you can map them to side or rear facings . It looks like you've already made a very good start.

[Hawkslayer]

Interesting pic of the Apollo.

What are the tracks mapped to? It looks like an E, which I don't yet understand. Is that an underside armoring? Or is it Engine?

Also, T stands for Top, not Turret, correct?

So, there are LEFT, RIGHT, FRONT, REAR, TOP, UNDERSIDE, and TURRET armor values?

For the damage modeling on the above Apollo, does the entire zone of the LEFT side, for example mean that an AP hit to the front LEFT side would have diminish the armor values for the LEFT armor near the Turret area?

It's interesting to see so much of the front top assigned as FRONT, but after thinking about it, this is where you'd want most of your armor assigned, and FRONT has the most of it. I would have sworn that the top flat part of the vehicle would be a TOP value though, and thus weaker. I'll have to change my tactics. Is there an easy way to see all of the vehicles mapping this way? This would be helpful as for players to know.