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Any chance we can tone down some of these terminal effects?

I mean even the often criticised (for exaggerating its terminal effects) YouTube Javelin video:

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with the turret embedded in the ground beside the vehicle. Or this

QUMxZ34Ptco

where the turret does fly higher, is tame compared to these in game screenshots:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showpost.php?p=269940&postcount=2130

Example 3: Hellfire fired at M48/M60 MBT:

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Look at the parts up to 1min and from 2mins to the end.

The turret remains on the vehicle (pretty sure the assistance from the barrel travel lock isn't noteworthy :))

Example 4: Bill2 fired at Centurion MBT:

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Obvious ammunition "cook off" and catastrophic fire but the turret pops only a few cm.

All four of these (Javelin, TOW-2B, Hellfire and Bill2) have arguably more significant terminal effects than any main gun round.

I mean we are usually talking about several tonnes (10 - 20) of turret!

I have no issue with them popping and displacing on the hull, or rising say a few metres or so and landing either back on the hull or beside the vehicle, but surely they shouldn't be a danger to aircraft!

Certainly not after being hit by a main gun round (its not like every shot we fire is a JDAM or something).

I've never seen turrets go so high that they become a consideration before you can call "clear air, clear ground". ;)

Perhaps link it to the Difficulty or Realism setting so that at low Realism you get "moonshot" turrets and zoomed F8 while at higher levels its becomes more like the real world where smoke or flames coming from the target is usually all you see, or even just the incandescent flash of "steel on target", not a huge piece of steel/composites arcing towards the stratosphere.

Edited by Gibsonm
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I say: No...see TOW against bombed up T-72 (video say "tacticaly loaded)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUMxZ34Ptco#t=42

Or in other words, my example 2? :)

Yes I get that "sometimes" (hence why I used the word usually in the last paragraph) this will happen from an ATGM round, especially if its "top attack".

But that behaviour shouldn't IMHO happen when you hit the target with a tank round.

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Three identifiable sources of error are in play:

  1. Possible overestimation of effect
    We did some basic calculations years ago what height was possible; I suspect that Al didn't run a scientific study about it, but the numbers aren't completely pulled out of thin air either. Still, the energy stored in the propellant on board would in principle be sufficient to accelerate it to the velocity with which we let it take off.
  2. Possible overestimation of the likelihood of a catastrophic kill
    I've always pointed out that in our damage model the actual figures that determine how likely a component is to fail in case of a collision with a projectile are pure conjecture. Maybe the figure shouldn't be in the 5% range but rather in the 1% range, who knows.
    Also, I must also say that the "turret pop" majick doesn't lie in the projectile, it's tied to the component boxes inside the vehicle. Hit the right spot with enough power, and the ammo cook-off does the rest.
  3. Simplification of the component model
    What we don't simulate is a delayed cook-off where only one or two rounds blow up in a more or less rapid sequence rather than all of the them at the same moment. Maybe we should simulate the location of every single cartridge and track its consumption, and simulate how likely the cook-off of one is to also let an adjacent cartridge conflagrate as a variable of its proximity to the first one. This could create nice, ometimes delayed chain reactions and might more often result in a more gradual ammo cook-off.

Finally - yes, I'd like to see a more gradual approach here. We have so far deferred it until we have a proper particle system in place (we're working on it). Once that we can create prettier effects we'll think of how to put them to good use.

Will we actually go out and do an analytically correct model of the propagation of ammo cook-offs - no, of course not. Yes, I agree that we could probably tone down some of the effects if we soup up others. But I won't make a science of it because there simply are no reliable base numbers to go with that I know (and I doubt that they exist to begin with).

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Maybe we should simulate the location of every single cartridge and track its consumption, and simulate how likely the cook-off of one is to also let an adjacent cartridge conflagrate as a variable of its proximity to the first one. This could create nice, ometimes delayed chain reactions and might more often result in a more gradual ammo cook-off.

I like where this is going. :cool:

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Obvious ammunition "cook off" and catastrophic fire but the turret pops only a few cm.

It totally depends if the turret is actually locked to the hull, or simply rests by it's own weight, which seems to be the case with the T-tanks. In the former case the turret stays largely in place, in the latter it can pop like a cork from a champagne bottle. The energies involved are similar, and so are the turret weights.

A fundamental prerequisite for any "turret pop event" is open storage of ammunition inside the hull, particularly under/at the bottom of the turret.

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Sorry but I can't get the first one to run.

As for the other three, if they are all missile strikes then I'm not too worried as the main point I was trying to make is that we seem to get "missile like" hits from "gun hits".

Also I'm not too worried about the TOW hit on the 2S1 since:

- I already showed that a TOW has a bigger terminal effect than a gun round (my Example 2 video).

- The 2S1 being SPA has a much less armoured turret than a tank.

- The 2S1 being SPA has much less ammunition protection (loose charge bags, etc.) than a tank with one piece ammunition.

Of course if the intent was to just show some more videos of catastrophic explosions ... ;)

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I'd like to see more variation in the way destroyed vehicles are portrayed.

More fires, more hatches popping open and crews bailing out, etc. Right now I feel like we mostly see either see catastrophic kills with the turrets popping off, or just a little puff of smoke and that's it.

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Windowed mode without borders. For users of several monitors, this increses inmersion and is more difficcult to move the game screen when you click where you must not.

On a related note, when SB window loses focus, the sound stops. It would also be nice if this doesn't happen.

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