Need help making tank controls.

[Limey]

As the title suggests, I need a bit of help making some tank steering. Wheels are too buggy and flip my light weight vehicles too often. Anyone mind teaching me how?

[Luke Nukem]

if you want true tank control use ADV controller

set controls as follow
left side wheels Y forward H revers right side wheels I forward K revers

so if you hold down Y / I you go forward if you hold down I it will make your tank turn left if you hold down I \ H it will make your tank turn harder or turn on the spot

[An Ning]

Originally posted by WARLORD:

if you want true tank control use ADV controller

set controls as follow
left side wheels Y forward H revers right side wheels I forward K revers

so if you hold down Y / I you go forward if you hold down I it will make your tank turn left if you hold down I \ H it will make your tank turn harder or turn on the spot

Will the AI know what to do with that? Have to ask as I actually have 1 build that has wheels now

[Luke Nukem]

no thats only if you want to control it your self

[An Ning]

ah. So for AI we still have to add ion thrusters and jet stabilizers?

[Luke Nukem]

yep

[Allirog]

nah you can hook it up to acbs

Use Warlord's description of the wheel complex controls and hook them up to "when yaw right"
---> complex control (then you have to test each number for the right complex output)
and keep going for forward, backwards, left

works on mine great

[Nomae The Jester]

So I got tank steering to work with the AI using two different methods, both with drawbacks. The problem is that Land AI has precedence over Automated Control Blocks in regards to wheels, so if it wants to go forward, all you power wheels will drive forward regardless of what the ACBs are telling them to do. So here are my ways around this:

1.) Use the Aerial AI instead. This makes the fastest vehicles, as you can set the required angle before turn so that the vehicle spends more time traveling in a straight line (I like 20 degrees or so). The problem is that there is no way to set a minimum engagement range, so your vehicle will very happily ram whatever it is you are fighting. Broadsiding maneuvers can't be done with this method. Another downside is that vehicles won't do a good job avoiding water. With this method I used ACBs detecting yaw left&right, and complex controls (if you don't know this basically fakes a key press, and you can configure the wheels to drive or reverse based on that key press). This only required 2 ACBs.

2.) Use the Land AI anyway. To make this work I used ACBs to control the drive fraction (again based on yaw left and right). This requires a minimum of 4 ACBs, more depending on the dimensions of your vehicle, because the "affect range" limiter must be used to set the drive fraction of each side individually. This has the upside of actually supporting broadsiding maneuvers, so your vehicle is much less likely to ram the enemy. The downside is that it cannot travel in a straight line, and instead wiggles. This is because the Land AI constantly sends a "go forward" command. This wiggling, and the fact that you are reducing drive fraction to turn, makes the vehicle significantly slower, unless you use a high drive fraction, in which case its turning circle is massive. The wiggling also throws off the aiming of a lot of weapons.

Hopefully the whole "Land AI takes precedence over ACB commands for wheels" thing is a bug, so that it can be patched and we won't have to use crazy methods for AI controlled tank steering. Until then I think using steering wheels on your tanks is a more functional option. Tank steering is completely functional if you don't mind driving yourself, too.

I tried naval AI and its broadside functionality seemed broken, perhaps because the vehicle is on land. Basically it worked just a bit worse than Aerial AI.

If anyone has a better solutions please speak up. I like tanks and I wish mine worked properly.

[Toasted Sunshine]

In my oppinion the land AI needs worked on a little; it's a bit dumb right now. It doesn't seem to know what to do with wheels eccept drive in a straight line and turn 5 degrees this way or that once in a while. Or that could be just my problem...

[RandomNOOBY]

nope its not just you land ai has seriuos psychological issues (maybe its a hard life being an ftd AI)