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Written by DOC
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Tuesday, 16 November 2010 15:46 |
 There have been some incorrect assumptions about so-called "sap spots" or "sweet spots" on our in-game armor that have developed over the past several years and it's time to clear these up with a better explanation about how damage is applied to our vehicles.
There are no coded "sap spots" in WWIIOL in-game vehicles. What we do have are locations and areas where satchel charges are most effective in dealing out damage. These are based on hard data and ballistics calculations, not randomly assigned at the whim of a coder.
There are sections of the armor that are more vulnerable, where a satchel detonating and sending it's penetrating jet of molten metal will punch through the armor and damage something vital on the inside. These are the "sap spot brew up" that people generally refer to. These spots are where the fuel tank or ammunition are located and where a satchel can have a devastating effect. That is the only manner in which these spots exist. They aren't "satchel sweet spots" we can move around. We would have to move the fuel tank location or the ammunition location and we have only done that twice that I can recall, once where a fuel tank was modeled in the wrong position and a second time when we found an ammunition location that was incorrect.
Now, no one here is going to tell you that a "sap spot" cannot change. Only that it doesn't change as a "sap spot" placed there to allow satchels to work better.
The things that might affect a satchels abilities are:
- What components on the inside are damaged when the satchel detonates. This varies enormously on placement of the satchel since the molten jet has to penetrate the armor and impact that component to cause the damage.
- How thick the armor is where the satchel is placed. Contrary to popular opinion satchel charges are not unlimited in their armor penetration. However the amount of armor they can penetrate is significant, sitting at around 100mm.
- The "angle of penetration". Since the molten jet travels at 90 degrees to the satchels inner surface area, and is very narrow, this will affect what area inside the tank it is pointing at and you have little or no control over that after you let go to place it. This is actually a secondary function of the collider system and is influenced by the tanks damage model LOD which in not identical to the artistic render of the vehicle, and cannot be identical due to technology limitations. Note: if the damage model LOD matched the artistic render you see, the game could not run on a home computer's ability to manage that kind of computational load
- At several points in the games evolution, "sap spots" were perceived to have changed because CRS altered them, or moved them without announcing this in a readme patch. This is not exactly accurate. Firstly because there are no "sap spots" to move or change, and secondly because this would require the satchel data be changed or the vehicles be changed. Internally, I can't recall any vehicle art changes (damage model) outside of a couple of specific examples were corrections were made, and these were recorded in the readme.txt for those patches. However, that doesn't mean "sap spots" cannot ever change or haven't. It just means WHY and HOW are nothing like what some think.
There have been times when we might recode how object colliders work to make the game run better or to correct bad bugs in some part of the game that require a re-write to overcome. This could very well have an impact on how satchel charges work as they have to function within the collider system of the code. This part of the code has changed drastically twice in the games history, and a few more times in more minor ways. All these times could well have slightly altered the details of satchel placement and the outcomes of their detonation.
As long as the satchels are still able to kill tanks after such work is done, we won't go back and return the exact same "sap spot" functionality if it changes after a drastic code update, simply because there is no way to actually do that. A satchel spot only exists wherever your placing it pulls all the following together successfully:
- The components inside the tank you are going to damage
- The thickness of the armor at point of placement
- The direction of the molten jet after it penetrates the tank (it moves at 90 degrees to the axis of the satchel placement) ie: angle of the charge after it is placed relative to the object inside it "points at"
- The "randomness" factor (which varies) ie: not all fuel tank or ammunition impacts will burn or blow up, only a variable percentage of them will
Satchels have always worked on a basis of there being no predetermined spot we pick and model for them to work on a tank. All the first "sap spots" were discovered by trial and error. Then players recorded them to teach others with that knowledge. If the code to manage how the game works (like collider improvements to get better performance or kill bugs) then, since there are no "sap spots" placed on tanks, we cannot restore them. You just have to figure out how they work after such a change and this is exactly what we would have to do ourselves. Knowing where the fuel tank is or the ammunition helps, but because the collider can do weird things sometimes, this is only a guide.
Knowing EXACTLY where to place a satchel for 100% effect every time is a matter of trial and error, always was, and always will be.
Edge cases are always going to have variation and satchel charges at their very best performance should be an edge case.
We hope we cleared up how these things work, how and why they might have changed at a couple of points in time, and why there is no such thing as a "sap spot" we can alter. |
I had 4 other points/questions about your damage model. but I think there is enough posts in the forums dating back to 2007 on the subjects.
I didn't think so.
Drill 2.PD XO/3pz