Why vehicles feel "wrong" (imho)

[Netherby]

Well it finally dawned on me why the wheeled vehicles especially just felt "wrong" in their controls..

None of the vehicles have suspension!

Which is why they tend to tilt and bounce and roll a lot.. It's just more noticeable in the faster vehicles, but it effects the tanks as well to some extent too, especially going over steep terrain..

I realise it may be difficult to alter the game at this point if there aren't provisions for a suspension type system already in it, but it would make the "feel" of the vehicles a lot better and more fun to drive in my opinion.. They move a bit like bricks without it..

Perhaps also the vehicles should be made all wheel drive? It's sort of annoying to not be able to move because your back wheels aren't on the ground and seems a bit unrealistic for an AFV to be rear wheel drive..

There is also something that niggles at me about the brake system.. Often it feels like brakes are only being applied to the front or rear wheels based on your direction (front wheels for forward movement and rear for backwards). They also seem to react strangely with acceleration.. Hold down forwards and brake at the same time while sitting still (you wont move) then release the brake while still holding forwards and the vehicle will rear up on its back wheels (possibly doing a back flip), doing the same thing with reverse will have the same effect only it will rear up on its front wheels..

It is kinda cool looking to do it, but it makes me wonder what's going on with the brakes..

Another thing I noticed tonight, when a Shrike bumped into my Thor it was able to push me around.. Should smaller vehicles really be able to push the larger heavy ones? (this was from it hitting me in the side, not the front or rear).

One final thing with with tracked vehicles turning, not so much with the Thor, but the Apollo and the Command Track can go spinning wildly when you turn them.. You can make them skid sideways too sometimes, but mainly they spin crazily fast sometimes.. I'v seen an Apollo spin out in a full 360.. It's painful turning your front armour towards the enemy only to have it spin out of control and end up facing your rear instead..

Well that's all from me currently

p.s. please add gamma correction slider to options menu

[ March 24, 2006, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: Netherby ]

[ClaytoniousRex]

None of the vehicles have suspension!

Not true. They do have suspensions. It's very hard to see this when playing on the Internet due to latency - when you finally get to play single player you can really see the fluid motion of your tires bouncing up and down as the vehicle traverses terrain, etc. As a network client, we don't even try to do dead reckoning on this motion (with lag it would be meaningless) so things look a lot more stiff. But the actual physics on the server are still using the real suspension.

So, yes, there are suspensions. Now that of course does not mean the suspensions don't need to be tuned! We've been tuning and tweaking them for months in the private beta. They've been too stiff and too loose over many iterations. We fully expect that this process of tweaking will literally never end (and I can even now say that without despair in my voice).

p.s. please add gamma correction slider to options menu

Roger!

[Netherby]

Well I'm glad to hear suspension is actually there

But yeah I think it is too stiff currently..

Any comment on the all wheel drive vs rear? Or the braking thing where you can make them vehicles do wheelies and flips?

[inktomi19d]

Originally posted by Netherby:

Well it finally dawned on me why the wheeled vehicles especially just felt "wrong" in their controls..

None of the vehicles have suspension!

Which is why they tend to tilt and bounce and roll a lot.. It's just more noticeable in the faster vehicles, but it effects the tanks as well to some extent too, especially going over steep terrain..

I think that what a lot of people are missing is that many of these vehicles are moving really fast cross country. The paladins do about 80km/h, and the shrikes do well over 100 km/h. 40 km/h is about the maximum safe speed in a humvee, beyond that grass or sand can cause some really wild slides, and wheel ruts or small logs that you might not see in the grass can send you flying. The suspension on the truck can generally handle driving faster than that cross-country, but you need to be really careful.

The tanks in the game aren't all that fast, but the trucks are fast enough that they'd be bashing their drivers and gunners all around. The way that most people drive in game, their trucks would have broken mirrors at the least, and most would be breaking CV joints and tearing off mufflers.

It's hard to feel speed in the game, and because DropTeam attempts to use realistic distances where most games don't, 110 km/h doesn't feel that fast to most of us. In a wheeled vehicle, safety and control considerations will keep you at about half your top speed most of the time, and you'll generally only go full throttle for short sprints in a straight line across terrain that is fairly clear.

Also bear in mind that the two maps we have so far are dominated by snow and grass. On either of those surfaces wheeled vehicles tend to slide. On either one you need to use the accelerator a bit like you were vectoring thrust; give it a little tap after you turn your wheels to overcome the forward inertia. On wet grass in particular a truck can behave like a stone skipping across water.

All that increasing a vehicles weight tends to do is cause it to slide more in the direction of travel, and be less likely to fishtail or bounce side to side.

Perhaps also the vehicles should be made all wheel drive? It's sort of annoying to not be able to move because your back wheels aren't on the ground and seems a bit unrealistic for an AFV to be rear wheel drive..

I hadn't really realized that they weren't 4-wheel drive. It makes sense though, given the way that I get stuck a lot. I think it should be relatively simple to make the trucks behave like they are in 4-lock because that's the way you want them to work while driving cross-country anyway.

The trucks generally seem to have a lack of torque too. One wheel with good traction ought to be enough to pull a truck when the other three wheels are slipping. In the real world that would probably take changing gears and some finesse with the accelerator, but for the game I would think it better to assume the driver can do it if you just tap "w" or "s".

The trucks seem to get high-centered a lot. That's not exactly unrealistic, but from a player's perspective it's sort of difficult to watch out for. Remembering to always cross obstacles diagnally, while searching for good hull-downs, avoiding skylining, and maintaining a stable platform for the gunner is tough to do when you're not focused on driving.

Another thing I noticed tonight, when a Shrike bumped into my Thor it was able to push me around.. Should smaller vehicles really be able to push the larger heavy ones? (this was from it hitting me in the side, not the front or rear).

That bothers me too. Much about the way vehicles move could be a whole separate game, and I think that the designers were really a lot more focussed on the gunnery side of the game. Movement is good enough as it is, but I really think it would take a lot more work to make it fully accurate. I think a simple check just making it so wheeled vehicles can't push a heavier track at all might be easy enough to do, and be a bit more realistic. I've seen up-armored humvees push or pull about twice their weight (though doing it can cause a lot of damage to the drive train and suspension) but that's really the exception rather than the rule. Generally lighter vehicles can't move heavier ones, and if they have enough inertia the lighter vehicle generally gets damaged rather than moving the heavier vehicle. I kinda think that the way the game works now assumes that neither vehicle gets damaged in a collision, so the game just calculates weight and speed. While a Shrike moving at 130 km/h might have enough weight and speed to move a stationary Thor, the kinetic energy should crush the Shrike before being transfered.

I think really needing to worry about crash damage might make the wheeled vehicles "unfun".

One final thing with with tracked vehicles turning, not so much with the Thor, but the Apollo and the Command Track can go spinning wildly when you turn them.. You can make them skid sideways too sometimes, but mainly they spin crazily fast sometimes.. I'v seen an Apollo spin out in a full 360.. It's painful turning your front armour towards the enemy only to have it spin out of control and end up facing your rear instead..

I've seen M1A1s spin when turning too, especially on ice or snow. On grass they just oversteer a bit, and cut deep furrows in the ground. Most times that a real world tank slides they throw track too.

Most players run their vehicles at top speed most of the time. I've seen real tanks slide from turning at too high a speed for the terrain. Then the driver needs to spend hours putting the track back on, or waiting for a recovery vehicle while the commander jumps onto a new tank. The only reason the Thor doesn't slide is that it can only make 20-25 km/h -- I don't think it can operate at an unsafe speed.

[Netherby]

I'm not talking so much spinning while moving forward and turning, I'm more talking about crazy spin-outs while sitting still and rotating..

[inktomi19d]

Originally posted by Netherby:

I'm not talking so much spinning while moving forward and turning, I'm more talking about crazy spin-outs while sitting still and rotating..

I've seen some of that. The vehicles shouldn't slide when they neutral steer.

[Type98]

Collison on the server side may be turned off and therefor no collision damage. There does not appear anyway to tell though from the client side.

Feedback on acceleration/speed either visually or auditory while in third person view would help with steering. Right now only the turret zoom view provides any speed information. The auditory queues (under Linux) does not help in my case as most time it is not distinct enough to be heard over the background noise.

[ March 26, 2006, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: Type98 ]

[inktomi19d]

Originally posted by Type98:

Feedback on acceleration/speed either visually or auditory while in third person view would help with steering. Right now only the turret zoom view provides any speed information. The auditory queues (under Linux) does not help in my case as most time it is not distinct enough to be heard over the background noise.

Good point. It would be nice to have a speedometer in the regular view.