Game movement speeds and classes

[Kiwikkiwik]

OK so my belief is that a fully tracked vehicle can move cross-country faster than a wheeled vehicle because a wheeled vehicle has to go around a ditch, a rock, a soft spot. A tracked vehicle can go straight over it. The detour can be quite long. A tracked vehicle can cross a ditch at speed a wheeled vehicle has to virtually stop. A tracked vehicle can manage a steeper slope. A wheeled vehicle has to be careful (slow) when travelling cross country because it is much easier to hang it than a tracked vehicle.
Because cross country speed is fixed at either half or one third of road speed a game wheeled vehicle nearly always has a better cross country speed than a tracked vehicle because it has a higher road speed.
The tracked Opel Maultier should have a better cross-country speed than a 2 wheel drive Opel truck but in game they are the same.
M3 Halftrack should have a better cross country speed than the M3 wheeled scout car, but it is actually less.
There are any number of similar examples.
I think a tracked vehicle's cross country speed should always be higher than that of a wheeled vehicle unless the tracked vehicle is very slow.

I think in reality all vehicles actually travel quite slowly cross-country, because they have to pick out a path and avoid obstacles. And because when the gears are working in the cross-country low range then acceleration is much slower. In game the range of cross country speeds is I think too large. Britain's Matilda moves along cross-country at 9 kph, Humber LRC II can travel cross-country at 39 kph while jeep can belt along cross-country at 51 kph. At 51 kph a ditch or rock will have the vehicle airbourne, and broken. A vehicle built to have good cross country ability will usually have low road speed. A vehicle built to travel on roads will have a low cross country speed. The opposite is true in the game because the higher the road speed the higher the cross country speed, within a class.
At this site you can calculate Jeeps cross country speed.
http://www.public.asu.edu/~grover/willys/speed.html
With 28 inch tyres at 4000 rpm with low selected a Jeep has a cross country speed of 40 kph, game has 50 kph However 40 kph is cross country speed at maximum engine revolutions which isn't appropriate for cross country driving. In the rough we are looking for maximum torque, that is achieved at 2000 rpm, this gives a cross country speed of 20 kph. So the game cross country speed for Jeep is more than twice what it should be.
Jeep details are available at this site
https://www.automobile-catalog.com/auta_details1.php

It seems to me there is a very simple way to make more vehicle cross-country speeds similar. Flattening out cross-country speeds reflects a generally more careful approach to cross-country travel. I think different type vehicle's cross-country speeds are generally the same because they all have to drive carefully. One way of making all vehicle cross country speeds similar across classes would be to change the fractions used to calculate cross country speed,
from
Moveclass 2(Wheeled)ccspeed = 1/3 road speed
Moveclass 3(A/T Wheeled)ccspeed = 1/2 road speed
Moveclass 4(Track)ccspeed = 1/2 road speed
to
Moveclass 2(Wheeled)ccspeed = 1/4 road speed
Moveclass 3(A/T Wheeled)ccspeed = 1/3 road speed
Moveclass 4(Track)ccspeed = 1/2 road speed
So the fast road vehicles cross-country speed drops a lot more than before but only to about the speed of a tracked vehicle anyway, or if we are lucky less.
This 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 format also makes I think an important distiction between wheeled and tracked vehicles. Amongst other differences a tracked vehicle can always take a much straighter path cross country than wheeled. And so can take a much shorter path to an objective, ie travel further.

In game the speed of travel matches the duration of a turn, The ROF however does not, for example if the game turns are 3 minutes each then a large AT gun with ROF of 10 rpm should get about 30 shots per turn but it actually only gets 3. This problem applies to every weapon in the game. Lowering cross-country speeds is the same as giving the AT gun slightly more shots per turn as it takes more turns for its target to traverse a given distance. So lower cross-country speeds make the game not only I think a bit more realistic but also slightly improve the ROF/Movement mismatch

I would mention here that fixing the ROF and Speeds mismatch can be achieved by rescaling the game to 25m hexes. This would be straightforward to do by simply doubling ranges.

As well as lowering the fastest cross country speeds, lowering the maximum road speed would also have the same effect of slightly improving the mismatch between movement and ROF. It is unlikely any vehicle actually ever travels at maximum speed for any length of time. Negotiating corners, poor visibility, wet road, icy road, heavy loads, towing, recommended speeds, various obstacles, the vehicle is worn, the road is worn, you don't want the engine to blow up, the driver is sensible and so on.
I think it would be suitable to make game maximum speed about 4/5ths of current maximum speed. This is easy to do, wherever the code reads maximum speed from the vehicles data multiply it by 4/5 and pass on the new lower value in place of maximum speed. You could put in place a lower cap so maximum speeds less than say 21 kph, still use full maximum speed.

You could then choose to use the capped 4/5th maximum speed to calculate a slightly lower cross-country speed.

Motor cycles get a road speed 90 kph this gives them a cross country speed of 45 kph this is clearly a suicidal speed to ride across country. I would move motorcycles and the early 6 wheeled armoured cars into 1/4 movement class 2.

I don't think Infantry really moves any faster on road than on clear, surely they can run just as fast on clear as on road. I would make infantry movement the same on road as it is on clear, 3 hexes.
I seem to remember regular Japanese Infantry used to have a movement factor of 7 that got dropped at some point. I would be overjoyed to see that reinstated.

Polish units 548 and 549 are interesting in that they illustrate a missing element in the game, the Horse artillery, these were able to keep up with regular cavalry. So I guess some armies might get a light load, speed 12, limber. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_artillery
Thanks for your time

[zovs66]

Tlr ...

[scorpio_rocks]

Not sure you understand the interaction of MP, Move Class and Terrain type...


It is possible, but foolhardy, to move quickly off road you run a risk of "bogging down" (again much higher for wheeled than tracked).


No idea where you get the numbers from? I have never seen anywhere in documentation that says CC speed is 1/3 road speed... It depends on the terrain type...

[Imp]

While I agree to some extent some vehicles are to fast off road in my view. Worst offenders are perhaps small fast WWII utility vehicles like the jeep which are faster than Land Rovers & Humvees off road despite the later having superior off road capability.
Now your looking at specific vehicles capabilities & tailoring the speed for that & there are 1000's of vehicles.

These are the only ones that strike me as maybe being worth adjusting slightly long ago I checked vehicle speeds & on the whole they were pretty good, certainly far better than a similar game. Its a simple calculation & some vehicles will be off due to good suspension drive trains or whatever, its not perfect but its not bad considering.

The problem with your calculations is you are not looking at what hex tiles represent & you probably need to generate maps with more fields rough hexes.
Clear - is just that grass dirt with the odd bit of vegetation & maybe a few minor undulations.
Fields - can also represent rougher terrain more vegetation, hedges fences etc hence it causes hinderance to sight & movement.
Rough can be anything from rocks -graveyard - small gully etc etc. Something that needs to be driven through carefully.

So the problem is really you want maps with less clear hexes & more features including other terrain types that adversely effect wheeled vehicles more than tracked.
You can adjust with the map generator or choose batlocs to suite what you want.

Using your example of a Motorbike round where I live doing more than 45kph off road is not a problem in most places unless the grounds wet. Need to slow for some things so that would be a rough hex, field or stream.
Taking into account the scale of a hex however I can drive around a lot of this difficult terrain & still be in the hex so the majority of the open terrain around me would be clear.
One area has some small not nice hills undulate badly, rolling hills would be clear these should be fields with some rough in steep areas.
Going up the mountain near me is a different matter entirely it should be mainly rough hexes then become impassable terrain.

[Kiwikkiwik]

Well thank you for your replies scorpio rocks and Imp. I forgot to point out, but I am considering anything that is not a road hex to be cross country. So when I say cross country I mean travelling in clear hexes. You can see the 1/2 1/3 crosscountry speeds by just running any member of the relevant class across clear hexes. The point I would make is this, a clear hex is unlikely to actually be clear. How flat the clear hex is depends on that areas rainfall which can be measured by what's on the ground, if it's green, ie grass, then that's enough rain to make for the myriad little rivulets, edges, soft spots, general ups and downs, that's the rain drainage pattern which you have to pick your way through. So in Europe Russia Asia almost everywhere, clear is actually irregular enough to prohibit travelling around at anything more than about 10 or maybe 20 kph, for two reasons. The ground is uneven and sloped one way or another so you are constantly changing gears to adjust to the grade and to slow down and speed up because of various obstacles, Also if there is any sort of vegetation, you often can't see the ditches. Grass likes to have a level top but can fill in the ditch making it invisible. In the desert you can actually see the ground so that is a great help, but it still does rain, and there is usually some sort of a drainage pattern to negotiate after all it has had millions of years to develop. Imp I think a motorcycle is probably not a good example for what I am saying. I would challenge anyone that plays the game to take a drive in their car and at some open place (a clear terrain hex) just drive off the road then tell me how far you got before you met a little creek, a fence, a steep patch, soft patch, somewhere where the vegetation got a bit thick, or whatever it is that stopped you. Then If you can get a straight run long enough tell me how safe you feel safe driving wherever you are at 40 kph.
The other point is that as soon as you are driving off road you are in low gear which is slow.
If you look at ww2 video of tanks and trucks etc moving about in 'clear' they are invariably moving pretty slow. This is of course excluding propaganda type shoots of course.
The other commonsense point I would make is if you have a ferrari then you might get away with driving around at maximum speed. But in my car if I drive at maximum speed I can tell I won't live long.

[Imp]

I will just say I think your perception of driving off road is wrong
been a while since I 4X4ed but you assume difficult terrain is more frequent than it is in a lot of places in the world. Some places really are not vehicle territory, not talking a few hexes more like you could have crossed the map on foot just as fast.

But keep in mind hexes are 50m across there is more often than not a fairly fast route through it or as in the game drive through another hex or 2 to go round the problem.

A 4x4 with off road tyres that you don't mind scratching the paintwork on collecting bushes & if military driving through fences etc can go places that would surprise you.
Most of the time is NOT spent in low gear if you have a low/high box low is only used for heavy mud or really steep hills normally. It's very useful coming down steep hills on loose terrain which is dangerous & has to be done dead slow as the brakes will just lock.
Same loose sand or whatever can easily be done on the level at around 40mph you will slide & have the odd scare on a particularly loose or fine grain bit but as said so long as you don't mind scratching the paint its fine.

What restricts your speed the most is passenger comfort not risk in most places plus repair bills you will break suspension & drivetrain components over time.

Oldest 4x4 I have driven was a 1980,s Land Rover top speed around 70mph, never got it above 60mph off road normally around 30-40mph because as I said its uncomfortable. Rubbish on the road but I thought it very capable off road you could go virtually anywhere.

Then I got to drive one of the work dump trucks its wheels were about 3 times the size of the Land Rovers, slightly bigger than those fitted to modern military vehicles.
Boy did I get a surprise smooth ride bigger wheels do not fall into the ruts I can go 20mph faster in greater comfort virtually everywhere. I can also make my own path to a large degree small shrubs & bushes pass underneath unnoticed you don't even feel them.
The odd thing was it had better traction & hardly moved about at all steep inclines if loose or very muddy were the only things that needed care & maybe a push from a Dozer.

This I would assume is more akin to a military vehicle it weighed something like 25 tons loaded had large wheels

What I am trying to explain to you is if you go down a road with a bad surface & potholes in your car the ride would be better in that truck doing 50mph over one foot high bumps & ruts.
Your 10kmh is the speed you would drive over an obstacle the size of your car so you don't tip over.

[scorpio_rocks]

Kiwikkiwik a quick search on YouTube will bring you many videos of modern military vehicles travelling at high speed off road.

The low-speed, low-gear careful driving you seem to be talking about is, as Imp points out, a civilian (less capable) vehicle driving so as not to scratch the body work - this is NOT how a military driver works especially not in a combat zone!

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A491rFrTvKg BTR (an older less capable vehicle...)

[Mobhack]

All games use some sort of range band based on vehicle speed - e.g. the WRG WW2 and Modern tabletp 1/300 rules used bands of very slow, slow, average, fast and very fast with speed ranges given, which overlapped so you could decide on edge cases.

The game uses a formula to give the relevant MP to vehicles - its in the Mobhack help. The vast majority of users seem completely on board with that. Not very common to have total rewrites of the whole movement system demanded by end users.

If the OP wants to use slower movement then he has Mobhack available and can make his own OOBs to suit his own particular tastes.

He's been told several times before that he can always edit his own OOB set and post it in the mods forum. However, that has never happened - just yet more long posts as if he seems to think we will redesign the game to suit one particular end user's pet notions. Not going to happen.

[Lancer]

Don't normally use jeeps in the game but this thread made me think of that iconic ww2 photo of a flying jeep towing a 37mm gun.

https://www.reddit.com/r/4x4/comment...a_bantam_jeep/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rug4...ature=youtu.be