Vehicle damage system update

[Mats391]

One of the featured changes in the upcoming v1.5.5 update is a complete overhaul of the vehicle damage system. In the past, this was very unforgiving for armor crews as it often left your vehicle unable to move after a single hit. This is due to how the current system decides the chance of disabling and what gets disabled. Right now it checks whether to disable parts of the vehicle at two values vehicle health point (HP) values: 50% and 25%.

For example the chances for disabling an APC are:

• When dropping below 50%:
  • 80% chance to disable tracks/wheels
• When dropping below 25%:
  • 90% chance to disable tracks/wheels
  • 50% chance to disable gun

With that, the focus was on disabling the tracks/wheel often leaving the vehicle unable to retreat. That usually was a death sentence for the crew and vehicle. These numbers were not randomly chosen, but put into place to allow infantry to fight these vehicles effectively without making them die on the first AT hit. However there is another issue with this. Since the disabling can only happen when crossing those 2 HP values, dealing too few damage has no chance of making an impact. This is very obvious on the ATGM vs tank front armor. A full HP tank can take an ATGM to the front and not worry about getting disabled by it.

With those problems in mind we set out to rewrite the entire damage system and change the way disabling gets checked. Now checking for disabling happens on every significant damage taken and is based on the previous HP and the damage taken. The base chance to disable is based on this formula:

In addition to that we also added a modifier to the chance of disabling the tracks/wheels. These now have a 75% lower chance of getting disabled than the turret.

Note: Dropping from 100% to 50% results in same chance as dropping from 50% to 25%.

With that an ATGM to the front of a tank already add a real risk of disabling turret, tracks or both as well as increasing the chance to get disabled when taking further damage.

We also changed how the turret disabling works. In the past we disabled the entire turret making no weapon usable and disabling movement of the turret. This also had a side effect of the players still seeing themselves shoot locally, while the server did not register any shot. The new way is based on [R-DEV]Alon's work of modifying weapon overheat values from the server side. With that we now selectively disable weapons for the gunner. In the current implementation the coax and smoke launcher will stay active while every other weapons gets disabled. We also upgraded the HUD to display when your weapon is disabled. The name of the disabled weapons will then turn red.

At last there have been some other changes and fixes to the code. Most notably the disabling of ATGM on Bradley has been removed as it would have required significant work to update for only one or two vehicles using it. This feature may come back at some point.
Another change is to the upside-down check done on choppers. This is now more forgiving as it will no longer instantly disable the main rotor (main rotor can't get disabled anymore on choppers), but instead damage the chopper while it is upside-down until it dies or the damage disabling kicks in.

We hope these changes will make the usage of these assets more enjoyable. Please provide us with feedback when v1.5.5 comes out and let us know how you like the new system.

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- The Project Reality Team

[CAS_ual_TY]

This actually sounds like a very good change.

So Bradley got a buff, what about the Puma?

[Frontliner]

Both vehicles use(d) the same system. It's removed on both for now.

[Psyko]

Math burns my eyes

May I ask, does this dmg change only apply to ATGM or does it also apply to being hit with rounds from other projectiles?

[AlonTavor]

this applies to any kind of damage

[chrisweb89]

Looks pretty good. Always asking for more I was wondering if its possible to have different disabled states for the turret. Basically having 3 possible levels of turret health. 1 being good to go completely, all weapons good, 2 being turret can still move and function but main weapon is down and finally the 3rd disabled state of turret is unable to move, and all weapons are down. Thinking about the IRL hits some would maybe disable a weapon or crewmember and others could completely disable the mechanism and leave the turret useless.

Its also going to be quite strange now dealing with tanks especially, not really knowing if their main gun is down or just not being used.

[Hunter291]

So you did this instead of fixing aa thanks.

[mockingbird0901]

So you did this instead of fixing aa thanks.

Fix it yourself then if it's so important to you.

[VTRaptor]

IMO there should be some sort of field repair system where the crew could partially fix the vehicle and get it back on its tracks/wheels. A bit time taking, but still quicker than begging anyone for a logi.

Disabled vehicle is as good as dead.

[FFG]

So you did this instead of fixing aa thanks.

now apcs wont get tracked every lat fired at them like they were before. It required a rework because it was buggy af

[Raidonrai]

Change looks pretty lit.

[PBAsydney]

Love it. APCs should finally be useful on forest and urban maps again.

[Carti]

Really cool update, looking forward to play it when it comes out

[Psyko]

So you did this instead of fixing aa thanks.

mom: look we got you a jet ski for christmas
child: BUT I WANTED A MONSTERTRUCK!!!

the stones it takes to criticize a gift.

[Hunter291]

Man if you only knew what I've being saying. Its a joke man

[SShadowFox]

*says stupid shit*

*gets criticized*

"It was only a joke lol. How can you guys not see a joke through some words on a forum? lol"

[Psyko]

It totally wasn't a joke...

If it was a joke...Can you please acknowledge that your joke bombed?

[Imchicken1]

Sounds like a great change for both infantry and vehicles. Thanks!

[Menuen]

Good change . Let's hope that your turret will not be down after 1 AP shot from the tank all the time. And also if you have time you could fix big weakspots on Abrams, Chinese and French tanks

[DogACTUAL]

now apcs wont get tracked every lat fired at them like they were before. It required a rework because it was buggy af

Wasn't that because DEVs literally set the chance of that happening to 80% with full intention?
Seems like lately quite a few fully inentioned behaviours ingame are called a 'bugs' lol.

Fix it yourself then if it's so important to you.

DEV forbade us to try fix it ourselves, afaik only current DEV team is allowed to touch AA balance. I am pretty sure if some community faget came out with a fix right now it would not be allowed inclusion, there is a strong gatekeeping presence when it comes to balance and game meta affecting changes to PR.
Which is mostly a good thing, keeps turds like this out of the game meta. But in some cases like AA balance, i think DEVs are a bit out of touch since none of them really play CAS anymore.

In any case, the new disabling system looks really cool and i guess everyone including myself is thankful that someone took the time to improve this mechanic of the game.