Issues With Hawkeye

[Marxon]

(this is a continuation with an on stream discussion with @Anton )
First, I'd like to show the issues with the shotgun aiming, note how the fix mount shows greater pitch range than the turret mount:

Spoiler: Image

Now similiar things regarding the repeater rifle in short and long range respectively, note how the sideways and even the UPSIDE DOWN placed rifles show better pitch range than the upright placement:

Spoiler: Images

Close range

Long range:

Next I'd like to bring attention to the issue with hawkeye wing wheels being prone to sticking into terrain:

To elaborate on the note of wheel height parity, the issue lies in the fact that the ride height and suspension travel of various hawkeye wheels leads to most attempts of mixing two or more types on the same tech almost impossible. For example, tread wheels will suspend garrison wheels and bike wheels, and bike wheels can suspend warhorse wheels and treads, the inconsistency is suffice to say... bothersome. That and of course, hawkeye treads scrape the terrain and take damage.

Lastly, and not sure if this is common to all rudders, but in this instance, turning left in air resulted in two of the 3 rudders on this tech aiming in the opposite direction, inverting the steering.

Hope all this helps track down and squash these issues, good hunting Anton.

 

[Anton]

(this is a continuation with an on stream discussion with @Anton )
First, I'd like to show the issues with the shotgun aiming, note how the fix mount shows greater pitch range than the turret mount:

Spoiler: Image

Now similiar things regarding the repeater rifle in short and long range respectively, note how the sideways and even the UPSIDE DOWN placed rifles show better pitch range than the upright placement:

Spoiler: Images

Close range

Long range:

Next I'd like to bring attention to the issue with hawkeye wing wheels being prone to sticking into terrain:

To elaborate on the note of wheel height parity, the issue lies in the fact that the ride height and suspension travel of various hawkeye wheels leads to most attempts of mixing two or more types on the same tech almost impossible. For example, tread wheels will suspend garrison wheels and bike wheels, and bike wheels can suspend warhorse wheels and treads, the inconsistency is suffice to say... bothersome. That and of course, hawkeye treads scrape the terrain and take damage.

Lastly, and not sure if this is common to all rudders, but in this instance, turning left in air resulted in two of the 3 rudders on this tech aiming in the opposite direction, inverting the steering.

Hope all this helps track down and squash these issues, good hunting Anton.

Hi @Marxon , thanks a lot for pointing these out!

When designing guns we are trying our best to keep weapons balanced and give them appropriate arc of rotation and at the same time avoiding the barrel intersecting other blocks. I think HE shotguns are fine, they have the widest arc of rotation without intersecting potential blocks around them. HE Repeater rifle however does look a bit problematic, we'll have to look into it.

In terms of wheels though, that does seem a bit inconsistent, not sure how it turned out like that. We'll look into that as well! And also sometimes wheels do sink through the ground, that's a know issue. I believe it has to do something with the wheel physics. I'm not a good game wheel physicist so I'll have to pass this on to code team!

And lastly, rudders do operate correctly as far as I'm aware. I've just checked them on my flying tech and rudder rotation seem to be based on the centre mass of the tech. I believe rudders were designed to rotate your plane around the forward axis, so if you have rudders above the centre mass point and below it, then they should turn in opposite directions. Just like in the screenshot you provided, you have 2 rudders above the centre mass of your tech, and one below. The game probably doesn't take into account how many rudders you've got on your tech, so maybe that's why it causes problems. I hope that makes sense

You might also want to tag our designer @zanzistar (Kris) if you find something wrong with blocks in the future, he's heavily involved in block balancing as well

 

[ZeroGravitas]

I believe rudders were designed to rotate your plane around the forward axis

AKA "roll" the aircraft. It thinks it's a plane (unless you use the hover-bug for ground controls).


A somewhat related looking issue, that is a bug (that's not been commented on by the devs, yet) is that horizontal wings, placed exactly on the centre line, have undefined flap direction for roll control (i.e. sometimes the same wing, in the same place, will pitch up, or down, dependant on pseudo-random data). They should be set to not flap at all with [A]/[D] control.

 

[-=ROOSTER=-]

A somewhat related looking issue, that is a bug (that's not been commented on by the devs, yet) is that horizontal wings, placed exactly on the centre line, have undefined flap direction for roll control (i.e. sometimes the same wing, in the same place, will pitch up, or down, dependant on pseudo-random data). They should be set to not flap at all with [A]/[D] control.

This change needs to be made for propellers as well. A propeller on center line (i.e. a tail rotor on a helicopter) will change direction part way into a turn, making it necessary to put two of them (opposing directions), which adds unnecessary weight to it, just to get to turn the same both directions.

 

[Marxon]

Hi @Marxon , thanks a lot for pointing these out!

When designing guns we are trying our best to keep weapons balanced and give them appropriate arc of rotation and at the same time avoiding the barrel intersecting other blocks. I think HE shotguns are fine, they have the widest arc of rotation without intersecting potential blocks around them. HE Repeater rifle however does look a bit problematic, we'll have to look into it.

In terms of wheels though, that does seem a bit inconsistent, not sure how it turned out like that. We'll look into that as well! And also sometimes wheels do sink through the ground, that's a know issue. I believe it has to do something with the wheel physics. I'm not a good game wheel physicist so I'll have to pass this on to code team!

And lastly, rudders do operate correctly as far as I'm aware. I've just checked them on my flying tech and rudder rotation seem to be based on the centre mass of the tech. I believe rudders were designed to rotate your plane around the forward axis, so if you have rudders above the centre mass point and below it, then they should turn in opposite directions. Just like in the screenshot you provided, you have 2 rudders above the centre mass of your tech, and one below. The game probably doesn't take into account how many rudders you've got on your tech, so maybe that's why it causes problems. I hope that makes sense

You might also want to tag our designer @zanzistar (Kris) if you find something wrong with blocks in the future, he's heavily involved in block balancing as well

My experience is that the hawkeye wing blocks work the exact opposite as to how you described, the image shows me turning right, and you can see the rudders up top where a rudder normally is, is turning backwards while the ones below center of mass are turning the other way. This is fine if you're using them to roll, but that's what horizontal wing surfaces are usually for, so this redundancy actually causes techs to yaw backwards.

The wing wheels most commonly sink into the ground after being dropped from build beam or when moving with faster wheels, towards the direction of their side attach point.

You do great work btw Anton, and I'll forward future reports like this straight to Kris as you suggested.

This change needs to be made for propellers as well. A propeller on center line (i.e. a tail rotor on a helicopter) will change direction part way into a turn, making it necessary to put two of them (opposing directions), which adds unnecessary weight to it, just to get to turn the same both directions.

I second this totally, rotor fans should push sideways in both directions when moving forward not just when stationary, also hover thrusters should ideally push to the side when moving forward or back as well.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

the image shows me turning right, and you can see the rudders up top where a rudder normally is, is turning backwards

It's not flapping "backwards", and remember, while you're in the air you aren't "turning" right, you are rolling right.

Deflecting the tail flaps on a (real) plane to the left will push passing air to the left, and so push the top of the plane to the right (conservation of momentum, etc).

There's really no bug there, just a suggestion for yaw controls, ready for a (potential) controls update.