Ground Vehicle Maneuverability

[SmokinLoon]

I am a bit curious if anyone has ever taken notice to the manner in which the gv's handle the terrain differently, if at all (aside from the jeep and M8 doing cartwheels at 60mph+)?  After seeing some videos online of the different tanks performing maneuvers over rough terrain I upped the AH tanks and ran them through an obstacle course.  The course consisted of a group of small hills of different slope grades, and I simply ran the tanks up and down and through different angles.  Speeds were kept constant at near 25 mph (3rd gear in T34's and 6th in Panther).

What I am found is that there is not much difference between the tanks when it comes to angles of track impact when the grade changes.  In the AH line up, the Panther has the best vertical scaling ability at .91m (3ft), and the M4 series and Pzr IV the worst at .61m (2ft).  I tried approaching different grades of slopes from being perpendicular to a 45 degree angle and there seemed no difference.  When one tank made it they all made it, when one got hung up (front dug into the ground or slope), they all got hung up.  I also looked up the ground pressure and the T34x has the best in the AH line up with .68kg/cm squared, and the Tiger the worst at 1.04kg/cm squared.  Perhaps the 1 ft difference in vertical scaling ability is not enough to notice a difference, I'm not %100 sure.

Just for the heck of it I also ran the LVT-4 through the same obstacle route and that too had the same characteristics as the tanks.  I was not able to find the vertical scaling ability of the LVT 4, but with the high tracks one would think it should be able to tackle a bit sharper of a grade change than the other tanks?

FWIW, I did not test the turn radius, acceleration rates, or track length of any of the gv's yet.  My biggest curiosity was if there was/is any difference in how the tanks tackled rough terrain.

Any comment from others or HTC?         

 

[Blooz]

The game engine is designed for simulating flight. The ground vehicles have to obey the same rules as the planes and maneuvre funny because of this. You're not really driving a vehicle so much as you are flying the vehicle at zero altitude.

I'm sure it's the same reason that when you play WW2 Online the aircraft move funny because the game engine is designed or ground movement simulation rather than flight. Same problem reversed.

[Lusche]

All tanks are more or less behaving the same, some difference in top speed (both on flat country as well as climbing hillsides) aside. The differences in ground pressure do not matter (much? at all?), we do not bog down, we do not lose tracks by excessive maneuvering and so on.

You're not really driving a vehicle so much as you are flying the vehicle at zero altitude.

We also can fly, err: run down extremely steep slopes at insane speeds, and when we crash @ 100mph into the bottom at the end, we just come to a halt. 

[Blooz]

We also can fly, err: run down extremely steep slopes at insane speeds, and when we crash @ 100mph into the bottom at the end, we just come to a halt. 

Yup. I agree it's strange but imagine the uproar if they were modelled like planes and each time your vehicle touched an object (tree, building, hedge) it exploded...lol! A grove of palm trees would be like a minefield.

[Yeager]

You're not really driving a vehicle so much as you are flying the vehicle at zero altitude.

yup

[Dr_Death8]

Handling wise I have not noticed any difference, however there is a remarkable difference when it comes to climbing slopes. Usually the faster tanks, (such as the T34-85, M-8, etc...) do not climb worth a crap. This includes climbing mountain slopes and even small hills or "bumps". 

[Dr_Death8]

Yup. I agree it's strange but imagine the uproar if they were modelled like planes and each time your vehicle touched an object (tree, building, hedge) it exploded...lol! A grove of palm trees would be like a minefield.

Where you been?  The tanks flip over. 

[SmokinLoon]

Handling wise I have not noticed any difference, however there is a remarkable difference when it comes to climbing slopes. Usually the faster tanks, (such as the T34-85, M-8, etc...) do not climb worth a crap. This includes climbing mountain slopes and even small hills or "bumps". 

I'm guessing that HTC modeled the transmission and engine RPM's to a certain degree.  I have no clue how deep they went in modeling the engine performance, but I do feel there is a difference in the acceleration rates between the tanks.  If HTC modeled into the acceleration rate and a tanks ability to climb, etc, then the power to weight ratio and the transmission had to have been modeled to a certain degree.