Hi all, The build on the experimental branch is now stable. With a game engine update which brings the game up to speed with 4 years of engine changes and fixes. This is necessary for some engine changes and fixes needed for the GUI overhaul. A rework on foliage rendering was needed after the engine upgrade, so I took some time to give it a polish while I got it working again. Changes · Upgrade…
Hi all, The experimental changes are now on the stable branch. Changes · Two new modes for the armour overlay: Absolute - A heatmap of the raw thickness of each plate Effective - A heatmap of the effective thickness of each plate, taking angle into account. · Added a 'Select' mode to the armour overlay to allow you to select plates and edit their thickness while in the armour overlay. · Freefor…
Hi all, The experimental changes are now on the stable branch. Immersion pass Did some work on the visual and sound effects in an effort to improve gameplay simply by removing immersion-breaking effects. I'd say it was a success and I'm enjoying battles more. Basic transmission editing Introduces a simplified transmission editing screen. This condenses most of transmission design into 5 options…
Hi all, There's a build up on the experimental branch with dynamic vehicle centre of mass and a pass on many of the effects in the game. Hopefully these changes let you feel a bit more immersed in battles! Changes · Vehicle centre of mass is now calculated. It'll generally be higher than before, leading to vehicles rocking more. · Added a 'basic' transmission editing mode. · Reworked visual eff…
Hi all, Pleased to announce that the four month overhaul to vehicle movement is now stable. Track physics has been moved off of the PhysX engine into a custom solution - opening the black box to allow your design decisions to have much greater impact on movement. 0.2.50.10 has been moved to its own branch, if you're not quite done with it. Powertrains Now entirely physics-based and behaving mor…
Leaf spring suspension stiffness reduced by 20% · Removed padding from the torque threshold required to upshift. Makes the driver less hesitant to upshift. · Improved the accuracy of the resistive torque estimation used in the gear shifting logic. Fixes some cases of downshifting immediately after launch and also makes the driver less hesitant to upshift. · Fixed belts partially disappearing wh…
Reduced lingering exhaust thickness by 1/3. · Fixed another cause of modded engine tech allowing infinite RPMs. · Constant mesh is now limited to interwar onwards. · Synchromesh is now limited to earlywar onwards. · Improved bogie articulation on leaf spring suspensions.
Fixed grade resistance not being applied to the powertrain correctly, resulting in unrealistic performance moving uphill. · Slightly reduced drifting. · Exhaust colour and density now changes with the amount of fuel being burned. · Increased speed of exhaust fumes. · Added lingering exhaust.
Lowered the coefficient of friction for tracks from 1.2 to 0.8. · Reworked lateral traction to use the same model as longitudinal traction. Affects turning behaviour and creates more drifting on lighter vehicles. · Reduced vehicle sliding on sloped terrain. · Traction now competes with grade resistance for friction correctly, resulting in more realistic slippage driving up steep inclines. · Fix…
Fixed instability sometimes caused when switching from drive to reverse and vice versa. · The driver will no longer downshift if the resulting engine speed would be above the rev limiter + the expected RPM drop from shifting. · If the driver fails an uphill upshift, they will longer attempt an upshift to that gear for 10 seconds. · Increased prediction accuracy of the torque output in the next…
Added 3 transmission mesh modes: Synchromesh (default) : Easier speed matching, allowing higher gear steps in some cases. Bigger and more expensive transmissions. Slower to engage gears. Constant mesh : Requires precise speed matching by the driver. Small and cheap transmissions. Slide mesh : WWI option pre synchromesh invention and constant mesh use on tanks. The same behaviour as constant mes…
Reworked driver shifting behaviour. Downshifts are now based entirely on torque, instead of speed. Upshifts consider whether speed can be maintained at the new gear, so the driver can upshift on inclines again. · Viscous drag on the sprocket reduced across all eras below latewar. Reduces speed loss during gear shifting. · Fixed energy injection when vehicles aren't level on their suspension. ·…
Fixed tanks sliding at stand-still, introduced with the tension changes. · Fixed track belts not colliding with objects above the track (actually fixed this time). · Engine idle RPM is now automatically configured. · The engine shift range used for the transmission warnings is now the top half of the engine's usable speed, instead of upshift - downshift. · Adding new gears now copies the last r…
Warnings are now displayed for potential issues with transmission setups. · Fixed incorrect speed limits on transmissions with top gear that's not 1:1. · Fixed vehicles rolling backwards without any inputs, more noticeable on some vehicles. · Reverted transmission smooth function to the old one, since the new one was optimized for the old shifting. It now creates equal steps between gears. · Re…
Tension around the sprocket is now simulated more accurately, track tension will shift throughout the track when transitioning between drive and reverse. Shouldn't affect vehicle performance except for the time taken for the sprocket to shift the tension when switching between drive and reverse. · Track belts now collide with objects above the track. They shouldn't clip through fenders when goi…
The driver can now go below the downshift if needed for a large gear step. This fixes some designs not upshifting. · The driver will no longer downshift if the engine is accelerating or the last shift was under 3s ago. This stops an upshift-downshift cycle noticeable on some vehicles near their top speeds. · Fixed twin transmission reduced turn performance introduced last patch. Known issues ·…
Shifting is now based on track speed instead of engine speed. The driver won't upshift if the resulting upshift RPM is below the downshift target and vice versa. Prevents the driver upshifting and immediately downshifting again. · The driver's speed match target while upshifting is no longer forced above the downshift target. If you're stalling while upshifting now, you need smaller ratio jumps…
Rewrote twin transmission driver behaviour with the new approach used on clutch braking, allowing for improved gear shifting. Should be a bit more responsive now.
The driver starting in 2nd gear on launch is now an option in the steering wheel properties. (Off by default) · Fixed transmission aux gear multi stage threshold not saving correctly. · Fixed the driver not always applying the requested throttle during steering. · The driver no longer tries to keep RPM at the target max on top gear. They'll go up to the rev limiter like before. Should fix some…
Hi all, Here's a full rewrite of clutch braking driver behaviour for the movement overhaul on the experimental branch. Allows for more complex behaviours like speed matching while shifting, as well as cleaning it up on my end. Changes · Reduced leaf spring stiffness by 1/3. · Clutches are no longer engaged linearly, now following an easeInOutCubic curve. · Made steering clutch speed faster. · T…
Hi all, Sorry for the wait! This was a tricky one There's an experimental build of 0.2.51 up on the experimental branch This time powertrain and track behaviour have seen a full overhaul. Main Changes · The powertrain simulation is now much more realistic. · Moved the track simulation off of PhysX into an in-house solution. This allowed for in-depth rolling resistance and bump-stop simulation a…
Hi all, 0.2.50 is now stable! Bringing with it the new cost system and a host of transmission changes. 0.2.49.4 has been moved to its own branch - in case you weren't quite done with it. Cost system This update introduces a new cost system, completely separated from mass. It allows higher value to be assigned to expensive materials and complex parts, which has already been a great tool in balan…
Hi all, There's an experimental build of 0.2.50 up on the experimental branch It introduces a new cost system and some significant changes to transmission sizes: Cost system The goal of this is to give value to material rarity and construction complexity. The cost system sums the cost of every part in the vehicle. Each part considers its material, assembly and forging cost. Crew members, which…
Hi all, Commanders are back! Create a commander by assigning a crew member to any viewport on the vehicle. Fully healthy commanders provide these benefits: · 50% faster role switching · 100% wider view direction cone · 100% faster scan direction change frequency. · Removes the +0.5s reload time penalty. · Allows bots to stop and fire accurately while advancing These bonuses only apply when the…
Hi all, Some new parts for you today New M4 Sherman Parts All made by Vidarr, from the community. · Filler cap · Sprocket wheel · M34A1 mantlet · T66 Tracks · Headlight · Split-hatch Cupola · Vertical volute spring suspension (VVSS) · 3 Sandbags · VVSS roadwheel Leaf spring suspension From the Italian Carro Armato Fixes · The radial vent and vent assembly now correctly emit smoke during engine…
Hi all, Here's 26 new parts, all made by DarioXN while I was working on 0.2. He took the cover and header pictures too. New Parts · 6 hole wheel · 90 degree vent · Alecto muzzle brake · Bolted tow loop · Italian tow loop · Welded tow loop · Char B1 track belts · BT-series track belts · BT-series internal sprocket wheel · Reinforced track belts · IS-4 Vent assembly · Cromwell fenders · Feifel fi…
Hi all, Here's the reconsidered post-0.2 roadmap, as promised: Quite a radical reorder there but hear me out. The reorders are driven by a desire to focus on core gameplay. Focusing on making a polished heavy-feeling and realistic single player tank experience with just AP cannons, RHA armour, good maps, good AI, good audio and a load of immersion. Then all of the other bits can come onto a str…
Hi all, Pleased to announce that after 30 months in development, 0.2 is now considered more stable than the stable branch (by quite a bit too!). 0.2 is moving to the main branch, where it will become the default experience. 0.1261 (the current default branch) will move to its own dedicated branch in perpetuity. The experimental branch will go back to being unstable changes, but will be kept clo…
Hi all, Final patch for the experimental branch to wrap up the 0.2 beta. A separate post on that to follow. This patch removes the placeholder models for turret rings and traverse drives. Traverse drives are now a concern when designing, as they'll need to be fit in like everything else. Changes · Replaced the turret ring placeholder model with a finished model. · Added an electric turret drive…
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