Vehicule in reverse

[golan4x]

Hi all,

First, sorry for my spoken, i'm french and i learn english.

Next, i would like to thank to dev and graphic team. I have played to Warzone 2100 ten years ago, between 1999 to now. I reinstalled this game two month ago after one visit on your web site. I replay often now.

All the same, a lot of SRT game are release since 1999. There is a feature bothers me. All vehicles can not turn or reversing. This is a big gameplay problem, because vehicule can not pull back when they are shot. This problem is evident under artillery fire.
I don't know if this feature is possible, but i think that battle can become most dynamic and management units easier. It's a shame to lose experienced units ...
(See JPG join file)

Thank Team !

[KukY]

It would be good.

[Per]

Yes, it is a good idea.

[GPolice]

Great IDEA Great!!!
Hope we can build it fast in the Next Beta .

[3drts]

Well, tracked vehicles should have a turning radius of Zero,
So they should be able to turn around in say... 1-2 seconds, and then retreat, all the while firing their turret.
Can we make the turn radius 0 for tracks?
As for just going in reverse, I would assume that it would reverse slower, so when does it reverse, and when does it turn?
For fleeing an enemy, going in reverse should be too slow...
But when you are attacking a structure, and trying to stay just out of weapons range, Reverse would be a very good feature to have, right now, if you venture into weapons range, and try to retreat, it will drive forward as it turns, and rather than.... say... 1 lancer hardpoint firing at your tank,now 5 of them fire at your unit as it tries to turn around and go back.
Reverse would be very useful for sieges and retreating from structures when you stray just inside their maximum range

[Saberuneko]

I like this one... Yes, maybe on RL wheels cannot turn in a 0 radius, but tracks and hover should be able to.

[Per]

elio has an old patch at https://gna.org/patch/?1087 for making tanks drive in reverse. Hopefully someone can pick up that work and finish it.

[Kamaze]

World in Conflict has such a feature. If you place an order within a certain angle behind the Vehicle, it will drive backwards for a short range, turn around and drive normally then. Also, you have the feature to order an unit to do a reverse retreat. Which means, that the vehicle drives to the desired location completly backwards, this results in a slower movement, but you keep your better armored face to the enemy.

I remember that we have patched in a faced armor as well, so, these features might be very interesting. Plus a feature to define the facing of an unit.

[Black NEXUS]

Turn on the position, or move backward, simple yet brilliant!

[Zarel]

I always thought the movement code had too much complexity... However, I suppose this doesn't make it any worse, so feel free to add it.

As for turn radius, iirc, all units already have a turn radius of 0. It's just that sometimes they don't use it, since sometimes moving and turning is faster than just turning.

[Assault Gunner]

I would really like this feature. I lose units too often because they can't reverse at all, but rather turn toward the enemy units.

[KenAlcock]

When I was a kid, we owned a tracked bulldozer, which I also got a few rides on (talk about feeling the power of a vehicle beneath you). When I was in the Marines, I rode around in an AAV a few times (which is tracked), and also a LAV a few times (which is wheeled). I have seen the Marine Corp's LCAC up close, but I never got to ride on one.

Tracked vehicles have a turn radius of Zero (0), which means in a game like Warzone that one should be able spin around in-place without so much as touching another unit in an adjacent tile, which golan4x shows in his right diagram. This is because the operator can stop or reverse one track while the other track goes forward, literally making the vehicle do an about-face. I know of no wheeled vehicles that can perform this maneuver, so they would have to adhere to the maneuver that golan4x displays in his far-right diagram. A half-tracked vehicle's turning radius should be somewhere in-between the two. Hovercraft, should have the worst turning radius, bar none, and to my knowledge, they cannot go in reverse. And they should have a worse turning radius over water than over land. It should also be worse when traveling at high speeds than for slow speeds.

[The LCAC's] maneuvering considerations include requiring 500 yards or more to stop and 2000 yards or more turning radius

For more interesting reading on these topics, see:

The Wheel Versus Track Dilemma (PDF).
Piloting a Hovercraft – Universal Hovercraft
LCAC – Federation of American Scientists

[Assault Gunner]

Actually, modern military hovercraft have extremely limited reverse movement capability, due to the fact that a hovercraft is scarcely maneuverable under the best of conditions. Furthermore, a hovercraft's sheer speed causes a loss of maneuverability.

Now, wheeled vehicles with independent drive for each wheel are completely capable of a complete turnaround on the spot.

However, I agree that hovercraft should have the worst turning rate. After all, their main protection is sheer speed. It is often that I have seen enemy missile batteries miss a hovercraft moving at a 90 degree angle to the direction of the rocket's firing motion.

[Joe]

Tanks front armor is strongest, you would retreat backwards. In fact, turning around uncovers your weak sides for some time.. bad idea. (No clue if there are different armor zones in WZ, but it looks more realistic)

[Corporal Punishment]

@ KenAlcock: The old Dover ferry hovercrafts had reverse capability from their 360° rotational propeller pods. However, this was extremly complicated and will probably not apply for military hovers in general and WZ hovers in particular since these use rudders instead of rotational pods to direct thrust.
Half tracks proved to have poor maneuverability in WW2. Their turn radius was actually wider than that of wheeled vehicles of comparable size. This was due to the lateral drag exerted by the front wheels onto the tracks meeting a considerably larger resistance than it would have with several wheeled axles. This was why half-tracks were dropped after the war in the first place.
Modern wheeled off-roaders and military vehicles sure can't rotate on their vertical axis, but do pretty close to it. Thanks to having more than one controlled axle even 8 wheeled fighting vehicles gain the turn range of a go-kart. This is even true for 4 wheelers. Think of monster trucks or rock crawlers, which use controlled front- and rear axles working antipodal.
That said, I believe the order from worst to best maneuverability should be hover, half-tracked, wheeled, tracked propulsion.