BA10 Vehicle Movement Problem

[very_bad_soldier]

I have the feeling that vehicle movement (at least T1) has gotten alot worse on BA10. Vehicles are very hard to micro and feel unresponsive. They drive around in large circles alot, very unprecise. Really not fun

Ptaq says this only happens on engine 103 and would be fine on 104. Could you please consider either move servers consistently to engine 104 or fix movement for engine 103? Maybe just revert back to 9.46 movements for now until new engine is available.

Thank you.

[Floris]

103 is still supported only because of mac users, I m not sure if we really want to apply different unit movement for 103 only

[[Fx]Doo]

So, i'll just make it clear what changed on our end.
Unrelated to the engine's "raw move" implementation, we had taked the decision to reenable the "TurnInPlace" feature for vehicles.

TurnInPlace allows vehicles to perform turns without having a linear speed at all.
It also forces a complete stop upon a certain set "TurnInPlaceAngleLimit" turn.
The counterpart (which was the main objective here) is that units will not brake AT ALL upon smaller turns.

Since the pathfinding was sometimes a little messy, and involved lots of small (tiny) turns even in straight move orders, it caused a lot of units to actually brake towards their old (now unused) TurnInPlaceSpeedLimit. Which was the "wanted speed at which the unit shall turn".

You can verify that by checking the max speed values of some units like kbots (which still use TurnInPlace = false) versus some tanks max speed.
You will find that some tanks have lower max speed, but still perform at a better speed even in straight lines. That is because of these very small turns causing brakes on kbots. This part caused quite a few painful balance issues, since we had to overall lower vehicles speed accordingly.

In practice, the way stumpies (and vehicle overall) will perform their turn is as is:
-If the move order is in the same direction as the unit's actual direction, then it will not brake, and continue accelerating towards max speed.
-If the move order involves a turn < TurnInPlaceAngleLimit, it will turn while keeping/accelerating towards its maximum speed. This is what is cause "stumpies turning in large circles".
-If the move order involves a turn > TurnInPlaceAngleLimit, it will brake (at its full brakeRate) and will only start accelerating once the remaining turn is < TurnInPlaceAngleLimit. In this case, the "turnradius" will be small and the unit will mostly perform its turn "on the spot".

The TurnInPlaceAngleLimit is dependent to a unit's turnRate and, for vehicles, is set to the amount of turn that can be performed within one second.
That means each unitType has different TurnInPlaceAngleLimits depending on their TurnRates.

[very_bad_soldier]

Thanks for that answer, interesting read! I talked to Triton and other devs about vehicles but we never managed to have a constructive discussion about the topic. Every criticism was just dismissed. Let me state that I generally like the buffed vehicles in new BA and think it is an important change. But several things are fishy about vehicle movement now which makes them less fun for me.
But its good that you add some facts to the topic so it's easier to discuss. While I think everyone with some experience in BA should have been able to see the difference himself when playing the game.

"TurnInPlace" feature for vehicles.

TurnInPlace allows vehicles to perform turns without having a linear speed at all.
It also forces a complete stop upon a certain set "TurnInPlaceAngleLimit" turn.

Yes, exactly that is one of two things I have noticed which I find very frustrating. Good to know that I am not hallucinating. When vehicles are commanded to turn now they immediately full stop where they are and slowly rotate in place which takes like 1 - 2 seconds. Feels a bit like being emped

The counterpart (which was the main objective here) is that units will not brake AT ALL upon smaller turns.

I guess this is my second point: vehicles are driving in large circles or use large turn radii when changing directions. This is often unexpected (probably not used to it) but makes the handling of vehicles unprecise and more difficult to micro.

[[Fx]Doo]

I think from now on it will only take "getting used to it".
Since the behaviour itself is more predictable: the unit will either run at full speed or brake depending on the size of the turn, and not brake/accelerate randomly because of invisible unpredictable small turns.

The effective time it takes to perform the turn is the same at max speed or at a stand still. The only difference is the turn radius.
Switching to turninplace made it manageable:
- If you want to keep your max speed because you are microing and attacking and don't want your unit to stop (ie. dodge shots), serparate your turn order in multiple smaller turns: your tank will perform each turn at its max speed and use the largest turn radius possible.
- If you want to stay away from enemy's range and retreat fast, you'll rather use a full stop so you don't get your units inside their defenses' ranges (ie llt wall): that is a case where you want the smallest turn radius possible.

The micro might be more precise actually. Small differences between move orders can result in painful stops, but on the other hand, properly planned micro will act exactly as expected since the random factor of the pathing issues have been taken out as much as possible.

I would advice you try out the different anglelimits (they are exactly equal to the turnrates shown in the unitinfo widget when pressing space), and get a hang of them. Once you know how they react and realise they finally strictly follow your orders, i think you will actually prefer this behaviour. :)

[very_bad_soldier]

I am not sure if I really understand what you are saying, but I read it as: There are two differents "modes" that a vehicle can use to turn around. One mode involves the unit to stand still for about 2 seconds and the other one involves driving a large curve.
Which one of the two modes gets chosen is depending on the angle of my move command on per unit basis (when e.g. having multiple units selected) and also takes unit stats into account that may vary for every unit type?

[[Fx]Doo]

You are right, that is the way it behaves now.
You also pointed out that it can get complicated with a selection of multiple unittypes with different orientations. Although across the different unit types that you mix in together and micro in one batch, they generally have similar accel/brake/turnrate/maxspeed stats, and ctrl + right click allows you to apply an equivalent move order to all your unit so they all behave the same when you do (given that they have similar stats).