Here's another major iteration on the damage model with a much more advanced approach. Should fix most of the inconsistencies of the previous version. Overall this update provides a buff to high calibre and muzzle velocity cannons, with the addition of overmatching.
This update's for the 0.2 alpha, you'll have to opt-in to play it:
Changes
Shells now simulate overmatching. This is when the force required to redirect a shell becomes higher than the plate can resist. With enough energy, projectiles will start to ignore the slope of the plates they hit. Realistically, this will only be a concern with plates thinner than 30mm. This effect drops off significantly at an impact angle above ~80 degrees. You might want to rethink any 5mm roof armour...
Shell deflections now create spalling.
Shells now simulate denormalization. Penetrations will now change the path of the shell, depending on how much energy the penetration consumed.
WWI armour is now carburized steel, instead of RHA. Simulated as a x0.5 effective thickness modifier.
Applique armour is now structural steel (excluding addon structures), instead of RHA. Simulated as a x0.4 effective thickness modifier.
Shell deflection angle now changes depending on how far the shell penetrated before being redirected away from the plate.
Shells no longer automatically bounce above certain impact angles depending on their calibre. Instead, deflections now happen when a gouge shallower than 1 calibre is created and the impact angle is higher than 10 degrees.
The damage model will now ignore any applique armour intersecting with plate structures. So fenders clipping into armour wont reduce its effectiveness.
Connected plates now have their thickened edges merged if their points are within 5mm of each other. This can result in armour thicknesses that differ slightly from the set value, but it was deemed better than having cracks in armour.
Thicknesses in the armour overlay armour sampler are now shortened to "999+" above 999mm.
Fixes
Spall direction now changes based on the angle of the plate which created it.
Spall is now a significantly less effective penetrator than shells.
Spall and shells no longer bounce as if they were perfect spheres.
The armour overlay effective armour readout now correctly scales with the hit part's strength relative to rolled homogenous armour.
Ricochets are no longer perfectly reflected as if shells were a sphere. They'll slide up the plate more.
Stopped shells and spalling bouncing down cracks which would be too small for them.
Fixed parts being incorrectly damaged by non-penetrations.
Fixed holes in the backs of plate structures with certain setups.
Fixed the move tool hitbox not scaling with its size correctly.
Remaining 0.2 alpha features:
Improved freeform selection tools
Turret and part decoupling
- Hamish
0.2.30.0 - Defence Scenario (0.2 Alpha)
Hi all,
This patch brings the Defence scenario across to the 0.2 alpha.
Additions
Reimplemented the Defence scenario.
Added a distance travelled since last refuel to some scenarios. You'll need to include enough fuel in your design to be able to start the scenario. You'll enough excess to complete the scenario, so fuel leaks can now become a genuine concern.
Added a scenario budget widget to show the scenario's mass limit and how many vehicles will join you.
Fixes
Fixed a case of freeform merges corrupting the structure.
Fixed a case of freeform merges failing on edges not connected to any faces.
Fixed fire extinguishing not working.
Fixed fuel tank leaks not working.
Fixed destruction of one transmission in a twin transmission preventing you from having some mobility using the fully functional one.
Default fire extinguish hotkey changed from 'F' to 'X', to avoid overlap with cruise control binds.
Changes
Removed the arbitrary 'Cross the line' fail condition from the Defence scenario.
Moved the whole Defence scenario map 200m towards the enemy. This provides more open ground before the main slope and reduces the time to first contact.
Fields scenario now has 100km travelled since last refuel.
Vehicles without a powertrain now receive x5 less recoil, since they can be anchored to the ground.
Crew members now disappear when killed.
Fuel tank leaks now only leak to a certain level. e.g. If a fuel tank is at 50% health, it wont leak below 50% capacity.
Fuel tank leak rate is now shown during leaks.
Reduced grass height and density on the Defence scenario, to improve performance.
Continuing on with scenarios next
- Hamish
0.2.29.1 - Damage Model Fixes (0.2 Alpha)
Hi all,
Work is underway on reimplementing the remaining scenarios.
In the meantime, a few damage model fixes for 0.2.29.0:
Fixed addon structures attached to a cannon barrels not being in the correct position in the armour overlay after being moved.
Fixed incorrect damage model behaviour with perfectly overlapping plate faces.
Fixed the damage model getting confused between what's armour and what's air in certain cases.
- Hamish
0.2.29.0 - Fixes (0.2 Alpha)
Hi all,
Had a bit of a slow patch on this update, hopefully back on track now.
This patch is for the 0.2 alpha branch
Fixes
Freeform: Fixed case of extend action corrupting plate structures. +
Allowed placement on the side of armour plates.
Fixed cannons using late-war muzzle velocity, regardless of the current era of the vehicle.
You can no longer select parts through the sides of armour plates.
Fixed addon plate structures not preserving mirror state when undoing a detach and delete.
You can no longer save part blueprints with an invalid file name.
Fixed issue with opening a selection panel while another is open. +
General stability improvements.
Damage model
Significantly raised the allowed complexity of penetration simulations. This fixes the issue of complex armour being invulnerable. You might see lag spikes when hitting complex armour models, but the optimizations should reduce this heavily.
Fixed armour overlay penetration sim visualization sometimes having missing path segments.
Fixed fragments bouncing off of the inside of plates in certain cases.
Improved handling of hitting parts overlapping armour plates.
Changes
Significantly raised the upper limit for how detailed plate structures can be. (Point limit now 32bit when required)
Damage model: Raised the hard limit on the number of fragment bounces from 16 to 255.
Removed checker pattern from the armour overlay.
Optimizations
Optimized damage model simulations. A minimum 20x speed increase, with complex cases being hundreds of times faster.
Significantly reduced the in-battle damage model CPU overhead of using a lot of applique armour and addon structures.
Modding
Cannon operating pressure is now stored using a u32bit int, instead of u16.
Returning more scenarios to 0.2 next.
- Hamish
0.2.28.2 - Part Blueprint Saving & Loading (0.2 Alpha)
Hi all,
This one returns part saving and loading to the 0.2 alpha branch:
Reimplemented part blueprint saving and loading for engines, transmissions, cannons, tracks, paint, posture and plate structures. The part save and load buttons have moved to beside the blueprint name field. Plate structures don't save their attached parts as this is planned to be reimplemented in a different manner.
Reimplemented engine presets.
- Hamish
0.2.27.2 - Crew Posture QoL (0.2 Alpha)
Hi all,
Here's a little quality of life patch for crew posture. For the 0.2 alpha branch:
Additions
Selecting crew posture editing points (RMB default) will now show move arrows, allowing posture to be moved like every other part. The current posture editing with (LMB default) still works.
The move hotkey (G default) will now begin a move of the currently selected posture control point.
Added crew posture presets.
Part blueprint saving and loading returning next.
- Hamish
0.2.26.2 - Hotfix (0.2 Alpha)
Fixed keymapping screen showing default bindings instead of rebound keys after reopening the settings menu.
0.2.26.1 - Settings Menu Fixes (0.2 Alpha)
Hi all,
A few fixes for the 0.2 alpha branch settings menu here.
Fixes
Fixed settings changes not applying immediately.
Fixed the controlled vehicle firing when clicking resume in the pause menu.
Fixed control rebinds not applying instantly.
Fixed control rebinds not reverting when cancelling settings changes.
Fixed photomode not correctly applying movement speed settings.
General stability improvements.
Additions
Added a 'Low' vehicle shader quality, adjustable with the new 'Shader quality' option in the graphics settings. Removes non-essential effects to improve GPU performance.
Added DLSS quality settings.
Added low, medium and high quality options for TAA and SMAA.
Changes
Tweaked TAA to be better suited for fast moving vehicles.
Removed obsolete "Ignore space requirements" and "Place anywhere" cheats.
Removed "Override cannon traverse rates" cheat.
Removed double-click to change compartments setting. Compartment selection has improved enough to make this obsolete.
Control rebinds are now synced with the Steam cloud (if enabled).
Split display settings into a seperate settings tab.
Disabled track microbumps due to the current implementation being too CPU intensive. This will be reimplemented with a different approach.
Fixed cannons creating a new shell size when loaded, instead of using the one they were saved with.
Fixed the view not syncing to the scope's aim direction when exiting scope view while aim lock is on.
Freeform: Fixed a case of mirroring stopping certain actions from running.
Freeform: Fixed faces potentially thickening along edges which have been deleted, which resulted in file corruption. Designs corrupted by this will now correctly load excluding the corrupted structure.
Freeform: Removed ability to split an edge connected to more than two faces, which resulted in game instability and file corruption. [https://github.com/Muushy/Sprocket-Feedback/issues/716]
Freeform: Fixed the button to place a new turret (non-revertably) replacing the currently selected plate structure, instead of spawning a new turret. [https://github.com/Muushy/Sprocket-Feedback/issues/715]
Freeform: Fixed Shift+D to duplicate also triggering the rotation placement tool mode.
Freeform: Swapped the y and z positioning slider names to match the transform hotkeys.
Removed sentience from the spawned ally vehicle in the flat sandbox.
Fixed parts of the currently controlled vehicle turning invisible when viewed from certain angles.
Powertrain info is no longer shown when controlling vehicles without a powertrain.
Fixed incorrect shadowing of track belt segments.
General stability improvements
Changes
Freeform: Allowed an edge to be split when it's not connected to any faces.
Freeform: Actions are now triggered on hotkey press, instead of release.
Ammo rack shell size selection now shows (Calibre)x(Propellant length) instead of (Calibre)x(Total shell length)
Optimizations
Track belt movement and physics is now multithreaded.
Significantly sped up CPU-side rendering of track belts. (Using Unity's new ECS)
Sped up vehicle spawning (Belt segments are significantly faster to spawn through ECS).
Significantly sped up opening of design selection.
Happy new year!
- Hamish
0.2.24.7 - Fields Scenario & AI Reworks (Geometrics Alpha)
Hi all,
This update's for the 0.2 alpha, you'll have to opt-in to play it:
Fields Rework
Fields has been reworked using the new scenario tech to intensify its long-range big-battle feel, and to generally make it more of a challenge. The map has been expanded westwards by about 500m (50% wider) to make it less of a corridor and promote different ways of tackling it.
Spoilers ahead, so skip this section if you'd like to do the scenario blind:
Heavies at the back changes
They're now a much tougher design, requiring the best AT guns of the period to pierce the frontal armour.
They'll no longer charge at you. Instead, they'll hold the hill and fire down on you.
They spawn at the start of the scenario, so you'll have to fight them and the light tanks simultaneously.
If you charge them with greater numbers or they take heavy losses, they'll fall back.
Aggressive lights changes
There's now AT variants scattered amongst their ranks.
They split up into two groups to form a crossfire.
If you avoid engaging them, they'll turn around and chase you down.
Profile now matters more than ever due to the shallow hill cover from the enemy heavies while you engage the enemy lights.
You can head west to avoid a close quarters fight with the light tanks and use a hill as a shield from the heavies. Doing so opens you up to flanking fire from the lights.
The scenario can now be completed by reaching an exit point, providing a way for mobility focused designs to succeed. Should you break through a flank, the enemies on the other flank will relocate to fire at you from the side.
Changes
Reimplemented Fields map.
Added a 'None' powertrain option to remove the powertrain and tracks entirely, allowing you to make stationary AT guns.
Reimplemented camera shake.
Camera shake no longer affects the position of your crosshair.
Camera shake now affects your view rotation as well as its position, instead of only affecting camera position.
Camera shake now affects scope view.
Added an impulse-based camera shake which adds more weight to sudden events (cannon fires, received hits, vehicle collisions).
Greatly improved AI handling of mission and player orders. They should no longer get confused and sit around doing nothing.
Reimplemented bot formations.
Bots now follow their adjacent vehicle in formations, instead of following the lead vehicle directly. Improves turning and makes formations feel more organic.
Taking control of a member of a formation and driving off will break the formation into two separate formations.
Bots now halt until the slot in front of their assigned formation slot is filled, instead of all bots trying to immediately rush to their assigned spot.
Greatly improved the driving precision of bots. Allows tight enough manuvering for urban maps.
Bots now zero-in their shots when not moving, getting more accurate over time.
Allies on Dunes no longer charge in by default. Instead, they'll advance until they see an enemy and then stop while they engage.
Reimplemented the 'Move to' bot command. It's more reliable now.
Disabled the dip to black when switching vehicles below 100m.
Reimplemented the ability to control the vehicle you're aimed at ('C' by default).
Vehicle cycling now favours non-immobilized vehicles.
Lowered ignition rate of flameouts, slowing down how quickly they ramp up.
Flameouts now need to build up enough pressure to blow the hatches and become visible.
Charging an enemy you outnumber will cause them to fall back in reverse.
Added stall prevention to driver AI. Below a certain RPM, drivers will ease off the throttle to let the engine get up to speed. Stops bots getting stuck on hills.
Separated turret rings and baskets from the 'Exterior' category in the overlay settings.
Allies on Fields now start in a convoy.
Added 1 decimal place to roller array angle property.
Shrunk the size of bushes on fields.
Added flowers to fields.
Moved the building area closer to the action on fields.
Disabled red tint take damage effect until it's better implemented.
Fixes
Fixed mirrored addon structures not adding the mass of the mirror.
Fixed vehicles not colliding with each other and the environment.
Fixed crash when switching wheel layout to grouped on old blueprints converted to 0.2.
Fixed decals flickering. More noticeable at high speeds.
Fixed bots not accounting for their vehicle speed in their aiming. Allowing bots to actually hit things while moving.
Fixed bots never applying full throttle when driving up slopes.
Known issues
AIs do not avoid one-another
AIs do not check if another ally is in their line-of-fire.
Formation of large formations now takes too long.
The remaining features before 0.2 is feature complete and at feature parity with 0.127, in order of highest priority:
Better crew posture manipulation controls
Improved freeform selection tools
Saving and loading of individual parts
Radios
Turret and part decoupling
The scenarios will be returning over time when their respective tech is updated. After that, 0.2 enters beta. The beta will only receive fixes, optimizations and iterations on existing features.
