Greetings!
We are super excited to finally be able to share some more details about what you can expect from the new Armour Overhaul coming later this year.
Before we dive deep into the blog below, we first want to thank you for your patience as we go through this long procedure of overhauling a vital aspect of our game. We believe that the game is only as strong as the weakest link and our armour system was one of the key items on this list.
We also want to remind you that the following information is work in progress and as such, it is not representative of the final product.
NEW SEATING SYSTEM
https://medal.tv/clips/55445942/d1337PvRzFZp
New Seating System
One of the first topics we discussed when we started planning out the new driving mechanics was the topic of the seating system. Most of our players are very familiar with the “Offset Bug” where characters will be offset from the vehicle, this causes those characters to float or have a weird angle when in a vehicle.
This is an old OWI Core bug that has been problematic for us for a long time. The core of our new driving system was focused on creating a new seating system in an attempt to eliminate this bug permanently.
While developing the new seating system, we also wanted to address the concern of the tank crews entering and exiting the tank. We wanted a system that would allow players to enter a respective seat directly rather than having to switch seats after entering the vehicle. But we also wanted to focus on eliminating armoured crew magically entering the tank from any angle.
As an example, in order to enter the driver seat, you will need to climb on top of the tank and enter by interacting with the hatch leading to the driver's position. This is true for all seats, this allows all players to immediately hop into their respective seats without needing to deal with seat switching, it also encourages players to be more cautious with how and when to exit the tank.
Players can still switch seats using the same key layout as in the previous system.
https://medal.tv/clips/55248126/d1337W9Og3ok
New Hatch System
Additionally, we have added some new stages to how players can turn in and out of the tank. Now players will be able to better control the level at which they expose themselves from their hatches. Ranging from just peeking out of the hatch, to being fully exposed.
This has advantages and disadvantages as exposing yourself fully allows you to get the best possible view, but you are heavily exposed to enemy fire, peeking out will act as a middle ground between being turned in and out, giving you some protection from enemy infantry.
MANUAL GEARING & DRIVING MECHANICS
https://medal.tv/clips/55058684/d1337pwGoQ4b
Tank Driving Demo
The other topic we discussed surrounds how we can improve on how the tank drives, how it interacts with the environment and most importantly how the player experiences driving tanks.
To this extent we completely broke down our existing driving mechanics and built it up from scratch, now instead of using an imaginary automatic transmission system, the tank is controlled by gearing and throttle.
The way this differs from the old system is that you no longer press a key to go forward and backwards, but instead, you control a throttle up and down. This means that players no longer need to hold down a key to keep driving, but instead, they can set the throttle at a certain value and this affects how fast the tank accelerates.
What this means for the driver is that they have much more control over how fast their tank drives, allowing them to tailor the speed better to a given situation.
Turning the tanks is primarily done by braking one or the other track, this means that with the new system tanks will not drift from side to side as much, requiring less constant input from the driver in order to keep a tank going straight.
Driving a tank means matching your RPM to your speed, as speed changes you will need to adjust your gear in order to keep RPM high enough so that you won’t come to a stop. This puts greater emphasis on the driver paying attention to his instruments when driving as well as the terrain they drive on.
Another important change to the driving mechanics is that different driving surfaces will affect how your tank performs. Driving on a road will allow your tank to reach its top speed, but you run the risk of running into mines, anti-tank guns or enemy infantry.
Alternatively, you can go off-road and lose out on the top speed, but obviously, you don’t run the same risk of hitting any mines, anti-tank guns or infantry unless you get really unlucky of course.
We have also put extensive work into ensuring that physics act how you’d expect from a tank, tanks should feel heavy and somewhat clunky to drive, but they should be able to ford over objects and gaps with relative ease, our old system wasn’t as good in this regard with tanks being stuck on objects it should otherwise be able to scale.
NEW HUD & UI
Lastly, we have put some work into a new HUD & UI that will help crews get a clear overview of the tank as well as its condition. Since the new armour mechanics are almost entirely based on component damage rather than hull damage it means that we need to ensure crew members can get an overview of the status of various components at a glance.
For the driver, you have new HUD symbology for your Throttle, Parking brake, RPM, Speed in Km/h and gear setting.
The throttle is represented by a white bar that fills up or depletes depending on how much throttle you want, the throttle will stay where you leave it, making it convenient to set up to a certain speed. Next to the throttle, you will find the parking brake symbol, if the parking brake is on, the symbol will be lighted up.
The RPM, Speed gauge and gear setting is located above the throttle and will help you keep track of the optimal conditions for driving your tank, this is a skill that any driver will need to learn and mastery of the driving system can allow tankers to use their vehicle to the fullest.
Now let's talk about the compass and damage indicators. One thing we wanted to do with the new system was to come up with a solution to help give tank crews a general idea of where they are being engaged from, this is done by representing the general location a hit came from by using a hit indicator.
This hit indicator is not very accurate and will only give you a general idea of the direction of your enemy, this ensures that combat is fair towards the tank engaging, but also gives crews a fighting chance to get their bearings. Crews should not rely on this system, but their commander and his spotting ability.
When you inevitably take damage from an enemy, this is represented by the damage icons which are ordered by their function to the tank. At the top, you will find component status for your turret drive and cannon breech/barrel.
Below is the health status of your ammunition and fuel tanks. (While we do not simulate fuel levels, they do pose a significant fire hazard to the tank.)
After that you will find your engine and transmission status, damaging these will seriously affect vehicle performance and potentially causing the tank to become immobilized until repairs have been made.
And lastly, you can see health status for your left and right track respectively.
In the gif example above the tank has taken a hit from its 12 - 3 'o clock and the hit caused significant damage to the transmission as well as starting a fire in the ammunition stowage if the fire is not put out quickly it will lead to the tank burning down.
Summary
So to end off this devblog, we want to thank everyone for their patience while we work through this update, as you can see we have gone through every part of the armoured system, giving it more than just a bit of bug fixing, we are super excited to allow our players to get a hands-on experience with this new update.
In the next devblog, we will talk about the shell mechanics as well as a more in-depth explanation of the component damage system.
Until then we highly recommend joining our Discord server where developers chat actively with the community as well as sharing small inside information from development. It's a community definitely worth being a part of!
Sincerely,
Periscope Games
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