Mike D Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 I tried doing a search on this under the terms: braking, stop, stopping, deceleration, etc. and didn't find anything. So if this has already been answered somewhere let me know. My question is in the demo I've taken one of the Shermans in the Riesberg scenario and sent it barreling down the road and into the center of the town just to see what would happen. As turn 1 starts, there is the usual slight delay before anything happens, then the tank starts to lumber forward and gain speed as you would expect. It continues to accelerate until it reaches its top speed and then flies down the road. If someone doesn't nail it w/ 88 and/or P-faust, it comes to the end of it's plotted movement down the road and then comes to an instantaneous halt. No deceleration, no apparent slowing down, just instantly stops right in its tracks. From 30-35 mph to a complete stop in under one second. Pretty impressive, but somehow not very plausible. So out of curiousity, I'm wondering if this descrepancy has been addressed in the final version of the game, or not. Thanks, Mike D aka Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 There has been mention of "deceleration" on the board before, but I can't remember how to search for it. My GUESS would be that if you are telling the Sherman to go full bore down the road (by plotting a distance further than it could reach in 60 seconds), then at the end of 60 SECONDS it is still travelling at that speed. The stop is for animation purposes (signalling the end of the 60 second phase). At the start of the next 60 second phase the Sherman is traveling at the same speed as the previous turn (assuming its not still accelerating). I don't know if there is an actual representation of deceleration or not (haven't paid close enough attention). If there is, then it is possible that it may be bending the laws of physics a little to stop quickly. There are limits to what the graphics engine of CM is set up to do and this MAY be one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sabot Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 I've seen AFVs slowly roll to a stop after being hit. I'm sure it could be duplicated on a live tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmead Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 In my recollection of the last time this subject came up, Steve stated that deceleration was not depicted in the game. It was a question of fps and general processor speed/ability. This question came up because of the behavior of the hellcats which were capable of @50mph in Last Defence ripping down the hill and coming to a halt. Factors in not including it were traction of the surface driven on, different speed capabilities of various vehicles and that it really doesn't make any substantive difference in the way the game plays. So no its not in, but we all agree it would make great eye candy along with brake dive, porpoising (nose lift on acceleration) and rocking back and forth after stopping, not to mention suspension compression under gun recoil and any of a number of the manifestations of real objects and the laws of physics... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted April 28, 2000 Author Share Posted April 28, 2000 I realize everything comes to a screeching halt at the end of the 60 second turn. And that they have stopped as a result of the end of the turn and will continue at the start of the next if they havn't reached the end of there plotted movement. What I'm referring to is when a tank gets to the end of it's plotted move and comes to an abnormal screeching halt. And I'd think if they can model tanks on the move and getting hit and knocked out decelerating and coming to a stop then they could model normal movement coming to a stop the same way. Mike D aka Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted April 28, 2000 Author Share Posted April 28, 2000 kmead et al, You bring up a good point and it's one of the primary reasons I'm asking this question in the first place. Namely, that the instantaneous stopping is not realistic and that it may very well affect game play in an unrealistic way. Think about it. Those Hellcats in LD can get up to a pretty good clip fairly quickly and dart to and fro like a bat out of hell. And when they want to dart behind some cover they can dive behind a building and then come to an instant stop in that cover. This makes these little buggers very difficult to deal with. If they had to properly decelerate and brake to come to a stop behind the building they would be exposed for a longer period of time as they would have to start slowing down before reaching the LOS shadow of the building and would therefore be exposed to enemy fire for a longer period of time. Time in which a German Stug or the Tiger could zero in on them as they are slowing down and pop them a good one before they disappear behind the building. As for the eye candy aspects of slowing down and watching the tanks nose dive down as it stops, etc., I could really care less. It's the potential, and in my view inevitable (though perhaps minor), effects on game play mentioned above that I'm concerned with. Thanks, Mike D aka Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Madmatt Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 I am not sure why your search showed nothing as mine found tons of threads where this was covered. And I should know as I asked this EXACT SAME QUESTION back in October.. Here is a recap from the last time this came up: Yes, this same question was asked a few months back by a mere junior member then, name of Madmatt...I remember it clearly...All excited that I had a question worthy of posting, scared of the flames that might ensue, patiently waiting to see if (the then) legendary Fionn or Moon or even (GASP) the great one himself, STEVE would respond....Ahhh the joy , the pain of waiting I couldn't contain my enthusiasm Ok ok ok, here is what Steve said about it almost 2 months ago...: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt, The scaling does make it seem more extreme than it is, but we don't have deceleration. Would LOVE to have it, but found that the Tac/Strat AIs required far too many CPU cycles to anticipate it correctly. Since the AIs couldn't be coded to use it correctly, and is really only an issue for fast moving vehicles, we decided it was better to just leave it out. Realistic? Nope. Could we get both realism and gameplay to work together on this? Sadly, no. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And thats why...I had also asked if they could model tanks 'locking tracks' and skidding, but it appears that was also a little too much to model...Probably just throw a tread evertime I did that anyway! Madmatt out... ------------------ If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ! combathq.thegamers.net [This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 01-27-2000).] IP: Logged Big Time Software Moderator posted 01-27-2000 01:36 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just to finish this one up... A tank could stop on a dime (or almost) if it were going at Move or Hunt speeds. Fast... well... depends on the vehicle in question. A Churchill or Jagdtiger can't go that fast, so their braking time would not be all that great. Maybe 10m or so?? Wheeled vehicles on pavement going fast would take more than that, but since they usually get picked off as their means of stopping, not a big deal The single worst case combo is a Hellcat going Fast on paved road. The Hellcat can go almost twice as fast as most tanks, and significantly faster than the rest. So we feel at least comfortable with the suspension of reality in regards to braking becaue the Hellcat in SOME circumstances is basically the only one that REALLY breaks the rules of reality to a noticable degree. Steve ------------------ If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ! And if it's NOT on CMHQ then its just GOT to be on CMHQ-ANNEX... Coming Soon!!! combathq.thegamers.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted April 28, 2000 Author Share Posted April 28, 2000 MadMatt, Thanks for the info. I could have swore I'd read something on it before too, but didn't have any luck finding it last night. That's one of the pains of trying to use the search engine. I did try a number of different terms and some of them came back w/ all kinds of different past postings. But few of the topic headings had anything to do w/ the subject at hand. What few did seem like possibilities turned up nothing when I actually read through them in detail. I must have tried decelerate vs. deceleration. When I do a search here now on decelerate it comes back w/ absolutely nothing found. When I use deceleration I find your posting, and another one a little later, etc. So which word is one to search on? decelerate deceleration decelerating . . . etc. It's a crap shoot as near as I can tell. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. Guess I'll have to try thinking of every possible term that someone might possibly use to describe a certain subject next time, then go to the dictionary and find every possible varition of those word(s), and then try every one of them. Mike D aka Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Yeah, what Matt said I said It isn't totally realistic to not have deceleration, but it is far less of a problem in actual fact than it is in theory. And in any case it is totally impractical to simulate it from a coding/hardware standpoint. Vehicles slowing to a stop after being hit was a piece of cake to add because CM simply choses a vector and decelerates the vehicle based on its last speed after it is knocked out. All of these factors are easy constants that do not impact orders or user interface. Of course we aren't simulating ground conditions and a host of other realistic physics. Not worth our time or the CPU cycles to make it more complicated than that. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Madmatt Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Try just using the search word 'BRAKE'. Its the simple things in life... Madmatt ------------------ If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ! And if it's NOT on CMHQ then its just GOT to be on CMHQ-ANNEX... Coming Soon!!! combathq.thegamers.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted April 29, 2000 Author Share Posted April 29, 2000 Thanks guys. I understand where you are coming from. Mike D aka Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts