Weight and Carry Capacity

[Suhiir]

From the game manual :

Weight - this is an arbitrary code number which if not 0, means this thing will add extra on top of the crew number to the carry cost.

Certain types of terrain are are likely to cause breakdowns to vehicles entering them. This is based on distance/speed travelled (faster is worse), movement class (2WD is worse than track) and experience and vehicle weight.

Vehicles are given their weight in tons, generally. The oddball units come in where the weight would be below 10, and then they need to be given a "10" rating as a minimum because "10" and over tells the game the unit is a vehicle. Anything you do not ever want loaded onto any type of unit (e.g. landing craft) should get a "99" weight rating. A "99" rating is hard-coded to be uncarryable.

The Initial Indicator can be 0 (not shown), 1 or 2.
Zero indicates personnel-only can be transported --i.e. nothing with a Weight rating above zero can be carried.
A "1" indicates personnel and guns can be carried --i.e. anything with a Weight rating of 0-9.
A "2" indicates personnel, guns and vehicles (everything) can be carried up the weight restriction of the other indicators.

255 is the maximum number (for anything) -- therefore we have some basic coding restrictions on carrying capacity in regards to that.
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I was looking at landing craft and helos in specific.
Other then the above does a units weight effect anything in the game?
I'm trying to see if I can tweak (particularly tank) unit weights to eliminate the "helo transportable tank" problem.

Is there any real reason you can't assign totally arbitrary weights to tanks? Or is the breakdown-weight thing a real issue?

I notice that the monitors and PBRs are generally given a weight of 101 vs 99, does 101 have some special hard coded meaning?

[Mobhack]

As I said the other day in response to someone else's post.

Heavy helos (and transport planes too) have a compromise load capacity so that sufficient people can be loaded into the things without too much end-user complaint.

You could, if you wanted, assign about a 220 load capacity to these. That will stop large AFV being carried, but it will also limit load to 20 pax.

By all means feel free to do so in your OOB, but be prepared for the "I-bought-a-Hercules-and-it-only-carrys-20-men-wah!-your-code-is-broken" complaints from those who did not read your read-me. That would likely also be aimed at us, since the end user will assume our code is "wrong", not that you the OOB designer made a particular choice. Even if you put it in the unit info text so it is right in their faces .

Andy

[Suhiir]

Actually I was thinking of going the other way - giving the armor weights of 55+ so no aircraft can handle them

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Actually I was thinking of going the other way - giving the armor weights of 55+ so no aircraft can handle them

Then try loading them into barges in a river crossing, or a beach assault. (255 being the maximum size of a byte).

Andy

[DRG]

.........and that game guide entry about weights is on the list to be re-written because things like "Vehicles are given their weight in tons, generally" was only ever a rough rule of thumb that some have taken to have a significance equal to one of the 10 commandments. It's also bumps into one of the games bedrock / cornerstone issues that we cannot change without starting over and that is, as Andy noted that 255 is the size of a byte and that number is a byte AND a 1 indicates it can carry guns but not vehicles and a 2 indicates it can carry guns and vehicles so a barge, for instance could carry up to 99 points worth of men and guns ( 199 code ) but only 55 points worth of guns, vehicles and men ( 255 code ) and any unit given a weight over 55 can never be loaded into anything ( 99 is the common number we use for that because it's easily spotted but someone in the past, IDK who, decided to get "creative" with that and why you see 100 or 101 ) and there is NO WAY for "reality" and "game reality" to be in perfect harmony given these limitations and right now we are dealing with over 35,000 units in MBT.

Don

[DRG]

as for "breakdowns ..............vehicle weight."

No. This is why that whole section is going to be re-written. If *may* have appled at one time (or we may have assumed it did when a lot of this was wrtten down ages ago ) but the only affect vehicle weight has in the code right OTHER THAN "can it be loaded in X " is how easily you can flatten barbed wire

Don

[DRG]

.....and everyone will find most of the units classed as "LCG" are not really "LCG"'s and have been removed from the "LCG" class in game for the next patch because 1 / they only allow 1 vehicle to be loaded into them and 2/ they were intended to be direct fire support NOT landing craft and that's why, if given to the AI, they will just sit there and float so all the various and sundry "landing craft" that how made their way into the game over the years and found an nice comfortable home in "LCG" are being evicted so you might want to do the same with your OOB.

Don

[Suhiir]

Thanks for the info!
I'd considered the landing craft issue.
I'll leave the "vehicle carrying" types at a carry capacity of 255. There aren't all that many helos/aircraft with a 55 passenger capacity so I'll shave them to 53 passengers, I doubt the loss of 2 will be noticeable. Then set most of the armored (and other physically large) to a weight of 54. Too heavy to fit in a helo/aircraft but will still fit on landing craft.
I just wanted to make sure I understood how "weight" was used (or not used) by the game code first.
I also went thru and changed all the 100, 101 weights to the "noticeable" 99 since that's (in theory) the standard for "uncarryable".
Thanks again for the info !