[Mass testing] Alternative ram damage mechanics and changes to energy of parts

Hello!

Today we would like to bring you a new variant of the ram damage mechanics and the corresponding changes to the parameters of parts, as well as a new perspective on power consumption and how much power generators and cabins should provide.

We remind you that all the new features described in this news are not final and may be changed before they are introduced into the game or may not make it into the game at all. You can familiarize yourself with all the planned changes in detail on the special test server!

Alternative ram damage mechanics

Why are the current mechanics getting changed?

The implementation of the current ram damage mechanics has a number of problems that cause it to be unstable in combat conditions. We won’t go into technical details, but here are a few examples:

• when colliding at certain angles, enemy parts may not be recognized and the damage will “go nowhere”;
• ramming at high speed may result in the colliding part not taking damage, while the parts behind it will take damage;
• the calculation of damage value has an overly strong dependence on speed, which can cause damage to be massive when using boosters.

Therefore, ramming is too often unpredictable for players and can either critically damage the enemy or not damage them at all (especially at high speeds).

We would like to present you with an alternative mechanic, which should work much more consistently in terms of damage implementation (locating the parts) as well as having a narrower range of damage values.

The essence of the new mechanics.

The new mechanics are very similar to how the “big” projectiles deal damage. Now we will simplistically describe how it works and what it depends on.

Now after ramming, an invisible “cylinder” is formed at the point of contact. Enemy parts within this cylinder are sorted as they get farther away from the point of contact, then damage is applied to them sequentially until it is spent or the parts in the queue run out. It works the same way on the enemy’s side as well. This search algorithm eliminates the first 2 problems described in the previous section.

The diameter of the cylinder is individual for both players and depends on the masses of their armoured vehicles. The higher the mass, the larger the “area” of damage will be.

The height of the cylinder and its direction are identical for both players and depend on the difference of their speed vectors (the values of the speeds and their directions relative to each other are taken into account).

Here are a few examples. Lets say the speed of the first player is 100 km/h and the speed of the second player is 50 km/h:

• Players move towards each other in the same line. During collision the “cylinders” will be directed along the same line, a speed value of 150 km/h (100+50) will go into the calculation of the heights.
• Player 1 catches up with player 2. As in the first case, they move along the same line. The cylinders will again be directed along this line, but the height will be less, because the speed of 50 km/h (100-50) will go into its calculation.
• The speeds of the players are directed at an angle relative to each other. Depending on the angle, the height calculation will range from 50 ( the minimum possible when one player catches up with the other) to 150 (a “head-on” collision). The direction of the “cylinder” will also depend on the direction of both speeds.

The final damage value is calculated depending on the mass of the vehicle and how much the speeds of the armoured cars have changed after the collision. For example, if the collision occurred tangentially and the speeds hardly changed, then the total damage will be minor. If the speed of at least one of the players has changed significantly after the collision, the damage will also increase significantly.

Therefore, dealing and taking retaliatory damage will be unique for different vehicles and game situations. Due to the fact that when two players collide, both damage and possible depth of damage calculations the same resulting speed and mass of both players will be taken into account, slower and heavier vehicles will deal more damage, often dealing it in the outer area, while lighter and faster ones will deal less damage, but mostly “along the line” into the interior.

Changes to parts

Due to the changes described above, the parameters of the parts related to the new mechanics have been revised (as the parts with resistance to ram damage now block damage more effectively, and the bonuses to ram damage are more consistently implemented).

Resistances

On the current game server, ramming and melee damage resistance is a single parameter. We have split them into 2 separate ones to allow for more flexible configuration. Please note that on the test server, the previous resistance only works for ramming damage, and the melee damage resistance has a temporary saw icon.

Bumpers

The parameters shown in brackets are from the game server, and those outside the brackets are shown from the test server.

The following structural parts have also been transferred to the “bumpers” section:

Passive melee weapons

Other parts

Cerberus, Bastion, Tracks, ML 200, Bigram, Shiv and Shiv (ST), Meat grinder:

• Added 50% resistance to melee damage.

Gerrida I:

• Added 25% resistance to melee damage.

Tusk:

• bonus to ram damage reduced from 200 to 100%.
• changed the collision of the front part of the cabin for more stable realization of the ram.
• bonus from one charge of the perk reduced from 60 to 40%.
• the distance for one perk charge reduced from 100 to 80 m.

Frames:

• resistance to ram damage increased from 25% to 35%.
• Added 25% resistance to melee damage.

Goblin:

• added 60% resistance to melee damage.
• bonus to ram damage reduced from 200 to 150%.

Gremlin:

• added 60% resistance to melee damage.
• bonus to ram damage reduced from 250 to 150%.

Draco:

• added 60% resistance to melee damage.
• bonus to ram damage reduced from 200 to 150%.

Borer, Buzzsaw, Lacerator, Mauler, Harvester, Charybdis:

• Added 50% resistance to melee damage.

Testing

We would like to change the ram mechanics in the next updates, so we ask you to test as many game situations as possible (collisions with cars of different masses and speeds, with and without bumpers and passive melee weapons) and share your feedback with us. This will be very helpful in subsequent adjustment of parameters of both the mechanics and the parts.

• Please describe the situations in which you think too much / too little damage was inflicted after the collision (approximate mass, speeds, what parts collided, whether the collision was “head-on”, “tangential”, angled, and any other details you consider necessary).
• Do you find the performance of ramming more stable relative to the game servers? Have you noticed any errors / illogicalities in its work?
• How do you feel about parameter changes related to parts ramming? Do you feel it is necessary to convert the above list of structural parts into bumpers?

Changes in energy consumption and energy supply

Please note that this change is experimental. At this time, we have no plans to introduce it into the game as part of one of the upcoming updates. Its future fate will depend on the results of testing and further refinement.

At the moment, 1 unit of energy is a too significant value relative to the total energy limit. This problem becomes particularly apparent among hardware, the majority of which consumes 1 energy, even though the modules themselves are not equivalent to each other. Some of the modules have a strong effect and making it weaker can make it simply redundant, and increasing the power consumption to 2 units can make it weak. The other modules are too situational and therefore hardly used. In their case, amplifying the effect would not remedy the situation in any way, and removing energy consumption would force the restrictions or negative effects to be imposed.

We would like to test the changes, the essence of which is that all energy values (that both provide energy and consume it) would be doubled and then some of them would be increased or decreased by 1 unit.

In this form, 1 unit of energy would be equivalent to 0.5 units of energy on current game servers, which would allow assigning a more fair energy consumption to a part relative to its efficiency and diversifying builds.

What has changed?

The changes are primarily related to modules and cabins. All weapons and modules not listed below have had their energy drain doubled (some of them may have had their power scores slightly changed). The values before the changes are indicated in brackets.

Cabins

Currently, lightweight and medium cabins give the same amount of energy, while heavy cabins give 1 unit less. We would like to test a variant in which lightweight cabs have 1 unit. (0.5 in the old system) more than medium cabins, and heavy ones have 1 unit of energy less than medium ones. We’ve also changed the progression of how much energy cabins give depending on their rarity.

Generators

We invite you to test a variant in which heavy generators give 1 unit more energy than light generators. In order to keep all generators relevant in battles, we have made changes to their parameters.

Hardware

An important change would be the addition of a progression of hardware energy drain within the same type. Since there is now no change in power consumption as rarity increases, the lower rarity counterparts are much less in demand than their advanced versions. With this change, it will be more difficult to mount “all the best” on the car, and the players have to make compromises and experiment by replacing some parts with the counterparts of lower rarities.

Weapons

Testing

We understand that such changes may cause some vehicles to become unavailable, but these tweaks can potentially increase the diversity of builds in the future. We ask you to build vehicles of different PS levels on a test server and upload them to the exhibition, and then give detailed feedback based on the results.

• In general, do you like the idea of energy scaling?
• Do you agree with the changes to cabins, generators, modules and weapons? If you agree partially, please specify what you don’t like about them.
• What can you suggest us to change additionally?

How to get to the test server?

After testing the changes, we invite you to leave your constructive feedback on the planned rework in the comments to this news.

The public test server is intended only for testing of the upcoming update, and may not accommodate all players without exception. However, absolutely anyone can join the server, as long as there are free spots.

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