Tank Damage Mechanics & Ballistics - Devlog 2 

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Looks really good Alex. Hopefully you aren’t assassinated by Gajin

im glad to be in such a little known upcoming game

8:18 don't forget for course smoke shells as they are really useful for tank and infantry alike

I'm very excited to see this game develop, one feature I want to be added, which I don't know if it is already being worked on or not, is that instead of having a generic HP system for each of the soldiers/tank crew etc, there would be individual hit points for each of the limbs, providing certain nerfs, when lost, sometimes being detrimental, such as losing your arms as a gunner would make it so you couldn't fire the cannon.

This is a super cool project! Reminds me a lot of the Red Orchestra 2 type tank combat which I've always liked and so this would be a great alternative to Red Orchestra and War thunder, because of the grind in War thunder and the fact that red orchestra 2 isn't receiving updates anymore. This seems really cool and I wish you guys the best on this project, good luck!

how have i never heard of this game!?? this looks fantastic

Let's goo! Amazing devlog once again.

This looks so nice! been playing and making videos for War Thunder for almost 10 years, gameplays and cinematic alike. I am so hype for Aces & Armour. Can't wait to try this one out in the future.

I am very interested to see where this is going. Best of luck to you!

Suggestion shrapnel does not fly straight at then arc down it is almost always a weird shardy shape it would really Tumble and roll in the air but still be mostly straight at high speed

I think this will be the first game in existence to model the spalling of armor rivets.

really lookin forward to this game! congrats for the awesome job

Looking amazing! If I find a way to support the patreon definitely will, kinda' broke though but happy to see the progress on the game. Will the weather have more gameplay additions than just the visuals of like rain and snow?

Amazing stuff guys. Wow!

heard of this game through eta and i am very excited for it! hope to play it when it comes out!

all this stuff looks amazing! if this turns out to become only a very detailed and realistic Panzer IV simulator, i will still be very happy :)

Looks like such a cool game, I can't wait until it releases or open alpha/beta begins

Are there plans for realistic 1st person views? or are you keeping the WoT 3rd person style view? Game is looking really good btw!

What's the end-goal player and vehicle-depth scale of the game? I always thought it would be sick to have a game where everyone from the infantry on the frontline to the logistics truck drivers to the pilots in the sky to the artillery operators 20 miles away to the SAM radar operator 100 miles behind the lines was a real person.

A good part to model would be the firing controls like the hand crank for manual turrets.

Not really sure how much value you guys would get from this since the engines are so vastly different but I would suggest messing around with the TABS mod for teardown for ideas of satisfying visual damage. You can physically see the holes shells make and whole parts will come off with some explosions. Again I know being that teardown was built with destruction in mind and it's systems cannot be replicated in this game that it wouldn't be exact but I think it could work for reference to model some damaged tanks

For the damage model, I think it would be a lot more interesting (and difficult) to model individual subcomponents, such as the fuel lines for tanks/engines or for the crew members their torsos vs their legs so a shell hitting their legs isnt lethal. Additionly, I am a meteorology student and storm chaser and if you need more help with the weather system (idk how experienced the guy you have if theyre a meteorologist ignore this bit) I'm def up to give some advice if you wish to go more in depth there

Please don’t forget that AP, APHE, and APCR should have similar damage. The same should apply to APDS if I am correct (50 50, not entirely sure). The cone of spall should match how much energy is left when the shell makes a full pen, as well as the damage. Example would be that an APFSDS round blasting through a panzer 4 would have a a narrow cone due to the velocity left in the shell after full pen, and crew should be significantly more damaged by an spall. But let’s say something has just enough to go through, would have a wide cone and less damage. How would over pressure work in your game btw? Is that something you have modeled?

having this game be a project similar to operation harsh doorstop would make it game of the year hands down.. a free to play competitor to gajin that runs funding based on donations and patreon ( cosmetic camo ) ( I'm broke )

Snail bless you great work!

I dont know if you know about WW2 online but maybe you can get in contact with the guys at CRS to maybe do something with them?

Will there be IS-2s in your game?

carius wasn't commanding at this time, he was a loader

Will you be able to machinegun the crew trough holes left by shells?

1:28 goober spotted

what scale of warfare are you looking at representing? squad level or platoon level or company level? imo combined arms is at it's best at the largest possible scale

amazing work 👌

Is the area around a shell hit on armour (blocked or ricocheted) going to be weakened like on a real tank? It would make for interesting battles between small cannons and medium or heavy tanks.

great stuff!!

nice

I feel like this is going to be War Thunder's rival

With all these goodies, i have some REAL concerns about performance, expecially if you want to actually go for big battles.

You got me.

Hey maybe add my on top of the tank like Panzer 4, Sherman, IS 3,

Holy sh15t keep cooking bro

if you're going for realism, why are there hp pools at all? you're simulating the path of projectiles, right? can you not calculate a chance of critical damage depending on the projectile's path? like, if the projectile's path through the component is about as long as the component itself, that's 99%. if the path is 1%, like when you just scrape the corner of it, then it'd be 1%. or something like that.

Honestly, my biggest concern is performance.

it seem i need to upgrade device soon.

A game to surpass war tbinder

It’s been so much fun working on this with you guys, can’t wait for the play tests!!

i would say this is very ambitious, but it has been done before, there is GHPC and the tanks in Red Orchestra 2, and if you could, attempting to get in to contact with the GHPC devs could be very insightful, and the devs at operation harsh doorstop could also be beneficial for the infantry and weapons side of things.

This gets me more excited, than some flashy UE5 trailer.

One thing id really love to see, that no other game has done afaik, is when a shellhole is created, to actually be able to see through it. Ie, if a 50mm round goes through a plate, being able to then look out of said hole. Would be really cool

Absolutely loving the development and the idea behind the game. One idea I do have that I've really never seen in any combat game is armor degradation. As in, when your shell penetrates the armor or bounces and leaves a gouge in the armor, that either fully removes the armor value in that spot or greatly diminishes it. So, for example, if the Pz.IV front plate has an armor value of 100mm, and you bounce but leave a gash 70mm deep, the next round only has to penetrate 30mm in that spot. Additionally, if a round goes through the armor, you could shoot through the hole or at the sides of the hole to penetrate with much less penetration required. I have no idea how hard any of this would be to implement, but just some food for thought.

Looks very promising, good luck to you guys! Try not to get trapped by feature creep. Get the base mechanics you want to add done, then add more details as future updates. If you so wish of course.

Seeing eta was quite the surprise but reassures me that this game will be great

Cool and advance features. Amazing? 👍 Wanna know how you guys handle optimization.

in a few years time i hope this will be a fully fledged game, im so excited to see how this project evolves forward!

sounds like a massive scope for a small studio but good luck

Go go A&A!

I Love this game! Can't wait to play it.

On some of my tests with lead plates (for down scaled physics reasons) the bullet would loose most of its velocity and stop but it would have torn out a chunk of lead in its place of impact that would be roughly the same size. This chunk would then be thrown into the back board with considerable speed

While you're on the topic of smoke simulation, here's a detail you could model which i've only ever seen in one other game. These ww2 tanks don't yet have bore evacuators, as such i remember reading some reports or stories that mention how smoke from the breech and the MGs could build up on the interior of the tank under heavy fire, only being able to escape slowly through vision ports or small gaps in the armour. Since you're modelling the interior of the tank you'd be in a unique position to explore that visual effect. On an only barely related note, i'd be interested if you have any plans for how fire damage might eventually work in this game, it's usually pretty basic in other games, and on the eastern front where this game is planned to first be set molotovs were a fairly common threat to tanks.

rain water dripping down the slopes of the armor is crazy detailed simulation. Good job!

Question: (this is the first video about this game i came across) Are tanks going to be controlled by one player or a crew of a few players? Edit: I just saw your first video and it answered my question in the first minute xD

Something to keep in mind is that the difference between WWII projectiles like APCR/APHE is VASTLY different from APFSDS. Whereas the APHE might ricochet in one piece on the UFP of an Abrams, APFSDS will shred itself and tumble into ineffectivity. Also, depending on the round in WWII, capped shells will have better penetration angles than non capped shells. This looks pretty great so far though, and I'm rootin' for y'all!

This is so wicked. I can’t wait to hear about all the little greblely things that are going to be put into the damage model that we haven’t even thought of yet. I know it’s very early on right now but just looking at this my imagination is swimming

Wt but better!👍👍

Absolutely kick-ass! Just discovered this channel and i'm super pumped about this game! One question: Where will this game be released, in terms of platforms? I'm assuming either Steam, EGS, or maybe just setting up its own website for CD keys kinda like Starsector or something. In any case, Super excited about what the future of this game will bring, and i've already subbed to your channel so i can get updates on the progress!

If you really wanna model in realism, you gotta factor in shell hardness and armor hardness as well as fracture toughness for both. If say the armor has a hardness higher than that out the shell, the shell has two options, with a high velocity, an impact can exceed the fracture toughness of a shell material thus resulting in the shell shattering even if the velocity is extremely high enough to damage armor. On the other end, if the velocity is lower, the shell could plug, deform, deflect, or so forth. This works a bit vise versa, with armor, is the shell is harder, the shell would deform or shear the armor resulting in a penetration, however, if it exceed the fracture toughness, the armor itself could shatter, velocity plays a part as well as extremely high velocity’s can go over a threshold of the fracture toughness. This is the poor excuse for a system war thunder also makes called hull break

I really wanna see the ability to possibly crew one tank with your friends like someone is gunner and another is driver etc I have been wanting a game like that forever

There is another game that has infantry, tanks and planes and is under development: Beasts of Steel. It´s on steam.

Leaving this comment so people will know I was here before this game blows up

Cool! Just a technical side note, you may already know this. You are correct that a shorter barrel is associated with a lower velocity, however, the propellant charge's design intent has a lot to do with it as well - i.e. low vs. high pressure. A longer barrel will only help to an extent with a low pressure, low velocity shell. A good analogy would be a modern .45 ACP pistol round being fired out of a 20 inch long barrel - that would be like a low pressure shell in a long barrel. Long barrels are mostly only warranted by high pressure propellant charges - and a beefier breech / chamber is needed as well.

I'm am so happy youtube recommended me this lol. I am excited to see where it goes! that panzer 4 model is really crisp! especially the interior, lots of little details that add so much to the model, not to mention the textures! all the streaks and grime, the weld beads, so good. well done! A suggestion for the damage model pertaining to HE shells (if this hasn't been thought of or considered already). It would be cool if HE still did damage to the tank even though it didn't perforate the armor plate. While I cant with authority say exactly what kind of damage HE would do. But I imagine getting hit with something heavy going really quick and then exploding would impart a lot of force. and that force would probably bulge, or crack the armor plate, or knock things loose inside the tank. or mybe even jam the turret or elevation mechanism.

This gonna be on console

Crew member gore please, i want the real red orchestra PTSD experience but in high-fidelity.

This just bounce to me on youtube. Anyway looks great. Good luck.

Oh wow, this game sounds incredible

Also would be great to make realistic dust that can trail long behind the tanks and linger in the air for a while on dry days depending on the wind ofc. This is somthing I feel all video games get so wrong.

Realistic mechanical issues such as engine breakdown and random fire would be cool to see

Hey I’m just curious, but what is the idea on a bailed out crew. What i mean is what happens to player crew members after bailing out of a destroyed tank? (Btw gonna be a patreon i love the idea of this game.)

tbh I would stick to the Eastern front. Tanks barely saw action in the pacific in comparison.

One thing about snowy tanks, make sure to consider which parts would get hot on a vehicle. Snow would melt there :D

A really simple way to simulate crew injuries would probably be to assign multipliers to each hurtbox, ex. 0.75x for limbs, 1.25x for upper torso, 3x for head, something like that. A bleeding mechanic where bandages or tourniquets would need to be applied could be something extra that would be interesting to see.

This is awesome man! I would like to add a few idea's. Firstly, GHPC does this very well, the voice acting inside the tank should not be calm at all. When engaging an enemy tank there will be shouting, repeating commands, etc. It would be cool if the player could choose between the native language of the crew or english (maybe with an accent). Another thing which would be awesome, is that you can actually fire personal weapons through the ports in the armor when infantry is closeby. And lastly, empty shells could become a huge problem if just dropped on the floor, all sorts of stuff could get in the way or stuck because of them. I there anything planned for these ideas?

so basically like if MTC4 wasnt stopped by roblox studio limitations, sign me the hell up

I hope you are creating a game competitive with War Thunder, not with World of Tanks

We definitely need something better than War Thunder

make this game and Ill buy it god damn it :D

Now it sounds a lot more like Enlisted but with way more realism, for better or worse.

This makes war thunder look like a small indie game in comparison

I'll pay my rent money for this game I'm so excited for it

so... you're making GHPC but in WW2 and different? neat, always welcome a tank game made with love. and has this much detail.

For the algorithm

Out of curiosity, how will the damage look? For example, will there just be a small decal where a tank was penetrated/hit? Or will it be a bit more detailed? Will there be variations similar to war thunder such as ricochette marks or different types of hit decals depending on what type of shell was used? I'm looking forward to this!

Warthunder but… better?

Is this game gonna have mod support? if so, instant buy, i'll probably support the development too if there's a way

Please make it better than War Thunder. I've been. Playing for 11 years and the game has gotten worse with helicopters, CAS and impossible kill shots from spawn to spawn points and through multiple buildings.

One thing ive love to see is realistic artillery usage, using a drone operator to scout and correct fire would be awesome

How will you be handling the optimisation of the real time shell frags and the armour frags? since that plus the already high quality textures and the AI system, i imagine it would melt most desktops that aren't running super powerful CPU's

Don't forget optimisation, almost all successful games have good optimisation

Tripwire Interactive did modelled interiors in Red Orchestra 2 on two types of 'Panzers', two types of Soviet T- tanks aswell as two half-tracks. From what I've heard it was ALOT of work, like every tank was a whole project on it's own. So I wonder what the acual scope of the game is? How many vehicles do you guys plan to do before release? Best of luck with this game, i see quite some progress since the last video a month ago. The weather effects are very nice.

Whenever you decide to add artillery support or Radio support, can you add Gustav artillery support? If the game has fortification building for engineers or just straight bombing people, tanks or houses. And depending on how the game works on the future, maybe the size of the artillery support you get gets bigger based on how good you've done in the game or match. From mortar, light artillery, heavy artillery to gustav support.