Tank Comparison Chart? - Longbow Digital Arts Discussion

Author	Topic: Tank Comparison Chart?
peeeto Member	posted May 29, 2001 08:12 PM am i remembering correctly that someone did a tank comparison chart recently? something that compares armor, speed, etc...? if so, where is it? i can't seem to find it anymore. thanks! IP:
Random Chaos Member	posted May 30, 2001 01:58 AM I just wish all servers would go with low friction on 1 tank IP:
JVortex Member	posted May 30, 2001 03:32 AM at one point i said i was going to do one. havent got around to it yet tho. i suppose i could start on it now, my comp cant do much else at the moment. text editing sounds like a plan. give me a couple few days to get it finished up. IP:
peeeto Member	posted May 30, 2001 09:15 AM thanks, JV - i was just thinking about how to assign attributes to new tanks... IP:
JVortex Member	posted May 30, 2001 02:20 PM well i got it started and was rather surprised at what ive found so far. most tanks all have almost exactly the same stats. it seems that the real deciding factor to a tanks performance is really center of gravity and body shape/ size and the attributes that TM asigns based on those factors. and as to the common idea that liquid tanks are "weaker" than the steel; that doesnt quite seem to be true. thus far it seems that they are fairly evenly armored (with a few exceptions of course) but the way it seems to work is that liquid tanks are pushed around much easier than steel tanks. be it from weapon pushing or being pushed by another tank. ill have more info in a couple days. IP:
Rex R Member	posted May 31, 2001 04:43 AM continuing JV's comments bout tanks in general liquid tanks should have(in theory) the same armor rating(with 1 exception-mite) as the steel tanks however the liquid tanks have IIRC a lower mass. the maxaccel and max speed are the same(cept the mite again) as the steel tanks (20 & 50 respectively). as JV said the shape of the tank makes more of a difference in regard to stability and how nimble. example the skimmer tank and the Recon have the same MaxAccel but the recon is byfar much more nimble than the skimmer. IMHO the only way to get a proper comparasion is to set all the tanks to the same accel and speed, then test them on the same track(driver training?) you could prolly use the laptime as a yardstick to compare tanks IP:
The Weatherman Member	posted May 31, 2001 01:02 PM The chart is a really good idea, JV. It will be nice to have an all in one place comparison. What determines the center of gravity? Just shape? One thing though: I know that the platys armor is 1, same as most. However, I did a field test of the platys front armor vs a steel and the platy took 20 pts compared to the barbarians 15 pts damage from a direct main gun shot. For back and side numbers and some good discussions on how hits are calculated look here /forums/archive/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000016.html (I know you were a contibuter to that, JV ) So where does the difference lie? Is it in the mass #'s. I don't have time to test this but, a simple test would be to redo my experiment with a play modded to be heavier or a steel modded to be lighter. (Platy weighs half of a steel) Maybe damage = max shot damage - armor * x - weight * y . Note: damage for the main gun is set to .2 . What do you think? [This message has been edited by The Weatherman (edited May 31, 2001).] IP:
JVortex Member	posted May 31, 2001 02:20 PM well i think so far Rex has the right idea on how damage is calculated. liquid tanks (because of body shape) have few front facing pollies. most of a liquids pollies end up being side or rear facing, and side and rear hits are what does extra damage. according to LDA tanks use the same bounding box for both impact detection and weapon hit detection (just collisions in general really). but jim also states that its a bounding box that is not a true cube shape. the bounding boxes actual area is based on the shape of the model. the turret (not including the weapon barrel) also has its own seperate bounding box as well. this is y smaller tanks can navigate narrow areas easier than the larger tanks. (eg. Dwarf vs. Claymore in a ravine). this is also y smaller tanks can get flipped over and bashed around easier than the larger tanks. the wider/ longer tanks models have a larger "footprint" and this combined w/ the center of gravity will keep them on the ground better. think of it like a VW bug (liquid) and a garbage truck (steel)(assuming they both have the same center of gravity). in a head on collision the bug will loose and be tossed aside (smaller footprint and less mass). side impacts to both vehicles are more likely to tip over the bug than the truck. an exception to this is a tall and narrow vehicle, a tall vehicle (such as my Napalm Tanker) that is also very narrow is easily tipped over from side impacts. as to center of gravity; the center of grav is the x, y, z absolute zero cooridnates of the tank model itself. with most (stock) tanks this zero point is the absolute center of the turret at the very top of the tank body (so: on top, right in the middle). the stock tanks are wide enough that this works very well, but on tanks like the naalm tanker its center of gravity is WAY too high up because of its height. so making a tank w/ the turret in the front or the back will alter how the tank handles IF the zero point is where the turret meets the hull. wiht the collision bounding boxes and front and rear armor it may hold true that part of what determines front and rear impact is where the zero point of the tank is located? a zero point set foreward may make for a larger rear armor area while setting the zero point in the rear would make for more front armor and less side armor. i have a tank in the works now that utilizes a rear mounted turret, so i suppose ill find out soon enough. as an example with the Napalm Tanker i really should have made the model so that the zero point was inside the tank, not on top. this would make it handle so much easier. had i have known then what i know now... but oh well. so a tank stat comparison chart is going to be hard to do... as it turns out you could take a tank and by altering the placement of the model (not altering the models pollies) and leaving all ent file stats alone make it handle and take damage completely different (i think). these are my conclusions so far, if im wrong on any of this someone please point it out (as im sure you will anyways ) ------------------ Let the rocks roll and the battle commence. BZ The RPG. Check out the site! Loads of Tread Marks support and AddOns. (Under Heavy Construction) The non-TM areas of the site have been resurrected! IP:
The Weatherman Member	posted May 31, 2001 06:25 PM My only problem with the front vs rear facing polies idea is that a shot to the back of a platy does 40 pts while to the back of a steel only does 30 points (notice they are double my front numbers). So that still has the weakest aromor point of the platy being weaker than the weakest armor point of the steel. The only flaw could be thatI may have accidentally been shooting the back of the steels turret. I feel pretty sure I hit it square on the rear body though. I will try the modding test some day and I maybe we can do some testing in M-player whenever we meet up, JV. How about this - can some modder make a steel and liquid brick or I beam tank with an elevated turret? That way we can have a true test between the liquid and the steel. - BTW, can you just take a steel and call it a liquid in the .ent so that the program consideres it a liquid that is identical in shape to a steel? IP:
JVortex Member	posted June 01, 2001 01:14 AM i was wondering that myself. i dont know exactly what it is that TM uses to determine liquid from steel. its quite possable that TM just asigns different cariables to liquids. chances are its the texture settings that TM reads, tho i dont know. tis worth testing. and a brick tank for testing purposes is also a good idea. an even better idea would be a response from LDA on this... hint hint IP:
Rex R Member	posted June 01, 2001 02:16 AM easyest thing to test, far as i can tell all of the liquid tanks have 'liquid' as the 1st portion of their name so take a dreadnought(tank20a) rename to liquid tank20a... and see if that makes a difference IP:
coax Administrator	posted June 01, 2001 07:13 PM I've been following this discussion for a while now and I've concluded that you guys will never know unless LDA tells you. ------------------ LDA Players, Information, and etc... IP:
JVortex Member	posted June 02, 2001 03:43 AM oh well thank you coax for your optimistic thoughts . im determined to figure this $#\|^ out w/ or w/ out LDA! hehehe IP: