Vehicle handling

Vehicle handling  
General  
Type Mechanic
Applies to Wheeled, tracked and rotary vehicles
Units Mostly not labelled in the data (shown as stored)
Data  
Acceleration time Not yet known
Curves Vehicle Curves

Handling is how a vehicle moves: how fast it goes, how hard the engine pulls at each speed, how far the wheels turn, and how it slows down. The data stores these as numbers and curves, and the wiki shows them as stored. The data does not label most units, so the numbers are relative values unless a field names its unit, such as the steering angle in degrees.

Overview

Each vehicle has a top speed from its vendor stats. Its drive comes from a torque curve (the engine’s pull at each RPM), a set of gear ratios, a torque split between the axles, and a brake setup. Steering and speed limits come from separate curves. Helicopters and the airplane use a different flight setup, and the data for it is much larger than this table covers.

How it works

Speed, torque and gears

The torque curve is the engine’s pull at each engine speed. A peak of 475 at 5,500 means the engine pulls hardest at 5,500 RPM on that vehicle. Gears multiply that pull. A low first gear (a big ratio) gives more push when starting, and a high top gear gives more speed. Tracked vehicles use the same kind of torque curve against engine RPM, with the curve running up to 5,000 RPM. The torque values carry no unit label.

In a wheeled vehicle’s gear list, the last ratio is the reverse gear, applied in the opposite direction (confirmed in the game code). The other entries are the forward gears, in order. The Bobcat’s list, 4.2, 2.8, 1.9, 1.5, 1.3 and 6, therefore gives five forward gears with a reverse ratio of 6.0. The Humvee’s list ends in 3.6, which is its reverse, so it also has five forward gears. The tracked vehicles’ gear lists were not checked this way.

The data does not store a 0 to top speed time, so acceleration is shown here only through the torque and first gear numbers. The actual acceleration time is not yet known.

Steering

Each wheeled axle has a steering angle in degrees, and the front wheels steer. The steering curves in the data limit how far the wheel can turn as speed changes. The curves page reads these as less steering lock at higher speed. That reading is an inference from the curve shapes, not a confirmed rule.

Tracked vehicles do not steer with wheels. They have a steering input response (how quickly the steer input rises and falls), which is the same on every tracked vehicle in the data.

Driving input tuning

Each wheeled vehicle has its own input settings, which shape how the controls respond before the physics runs. The game does not label their units, so the figures are shown as stored.

  • Steering sensitivity scales the steer input: 2.5 on the Humvee, 1.3 on the Bobcat and 1.25 on the Dune Buggy. The Kodiak, Ural and Wolf-110 store none, so they use the game default of 5.0 (see Game defaults below).
  • Steer input gravity is how fast the steering returns to centre when you release it. It is 1 on the Bobcat, 2.6 on the Wolf-110 and 2 on the Humvee, Dune Buggy, Ural and Kodiak.
  • Steering deadzone and steering assist are stored only for the Bobcat (a deadzone of 0.05 and an assist of 20). The other wheeled vehicles store no dead zone, so they use the game default of 0.01 and no assist.
  • Throttle and brake sensitivity shape the pedals. Throttle is 2 on the Humvee and Bobcat, 1.75 on the Dune Buggy, 1.5 on the Wolf-110 and 1 on the Ural. Brake is 6.5 on the Humvee and Wolf-110, the highest values stored, 1.25 on the Dune Buggy and 1 on the Bobcat.
  • Steer speed and steer limit curves make steering lighter at speed. On every wheeled vehicle that stores them the steer-speed multiplier falls as the input rises. On the Bobcat it stays at 2.5 up to 41.5 and falls to 1 by 75, and its steering limit falls from 100 to 80. The input unit is not stated.
  • Engagement curves map pedal travel to throttle, brake and clutch. On most vehicles these are straight lines over the full travel, with the clutch held at zero for the first tenth of travel. On the Humvee and Wolf-110 the brake is already at full by a tenth of travel.

The tracked, rotary and airplane controls store only input mapping and prompt lists, so the data has no tuning numbers for them.

(Source: round 41 data, see Vehicle inputs and explosive effects, section 1.)

Braking

  • Brake torque is set per axle, front and rear. A higher number brakes harder on that axle.
  • Hand brake is a separate value for the parking brake.
  • ABS and ASR (traction control) are stored for the wheeled vehicles. They are the anti-lock and wheel-spin assists. What each does in detail is not decoded.
  • Brake force is stored for some tracked vehicles. Tracked vehicles also have a brake curve that ties braking to speed, which reaches its top value at 800.

Maximum incline

Only tracked vehicles store a maximum incline in the handling data, at 50 degrees for each of them. The wheeled vehicles and helicopters have no maximum incline in the handling tables, so the data stores none for them.

Torque split

On wheeled vehicles, the torque split sets how much of the engine’s pull goes to the front axle and how much to the rear. The Dune Buggy sends 85% to the rear, and the Humvee sends 60% to the rear. Some vehicles do not store a split; for those the game default is 0.5 to the front and 0.5 to the rear.

Game defaults

When an asset does not store a field, the game uses the value its class constructor writes. A missing field is the default, not zero. The defaults that matter for the blank cells in this article are below. They are the game’s values, not stored in each vehicle’s data.

Field Game default Used by
Idle RPM 1,000 All three Kodiak versions
Torque scale 1.0 Bobcat, Humvee
Steering sensitivity 5.0 Kodiak, Ural, Wolf-110
Steer dead zone 0.01 Wheeled vehicles that store none
Axle torque share 0.5 front, 0.5 rear Kodiak, Ural
Track mass 600 Tracked vehicles
Sprocket mass 64 Tracked vehicles

The boost switch is off in the defaults and in every asset. The boost value is stored, but no boost effect is claimed here because the boost path was not traced.

Driving and flight assists

Arcade assists correct the vehicle on its own. The data stores their settings, and the values below are shown as stored.

  • Humvee and Wolf-110. The two share the same assist settings: anti-roll 40 on both axles and a full-recovery speed of 120.
  • Kodiak. A drift assist with 5 at the front and 60 at the rear, and a full-recovery speed of 200.
  • Ural. Drift values of 2.5 at the front and 30 at the rear.
  • Dune Buggy. Lean up to 15 degrees and pitch up to 20 degrees, with drift values of 1 at the front and 1 at the rear.
  • Helicopters. All three helicopters (Havoc, MH-6 family and Z20 Lakota) limit their climb rate to 36 km/h, hold a hover when the collective is released, and set the collective to minus 1 on the ground. The Havoc alone also levels pitch and roll at low speed and resets pitch and roll to zero on the ground.
  • Havoc switched-off assists. Four Havoc assists are stored as disabled: the sink-rate limit, the yaw reset on the ground, the roll drag-overshoot prevention and the roll input damping.
  • Tyre models. The Bobcat, the Kodiak (and Pickup) and the Ural name a simple tyre model in the data. The Humvee, Dune Buggy and Wolf-110 name none.

Season 2 changes

  • Humvee torque share. The front share fell from 0.7 to 0.4, and the rear share rose from 0.3 to 0.6.
  • Humvee torque curve. The curve starts higher, at 1,200 instead of 850, and falls to 400 at 3,750 RPM, down from 650 at 4,000 RPM.
  • Dune Buggy rear brakes. The rear brake torque fell from 16,000 to 13,000 on the first value, and from 12,000 to 9,000 on the second.

Numbers

Wheeled vehicles

Sort by any column with the header.

Vehicle Max speed (as stored) Mass (as stored) Peak torque (at RPM) First gear Torque split front / rear Steer, front (deg) Brake torque front / rear Hand brake Max incline (deg)
Bobcat 75 250 33 at 5,000 4.2 0.6 / 0.4 35 1,800 / 1,250 8 Not stored
Kodiak 154 2,750 475 at 5,500 6.0 0.5 / 0.5 (default) 30 8,000 / 14,000 50 Not stored
Kodiak [Pickup] 154 2,750 475 at 5,500 6.0 0.5 / 0.5 (default) 30 8,000 / 14,000 50 Not stored
Kodiak [M249] 154 2,750 475 at 5,500 6.0 0.5 / 0.5 (default) 30 8,000 / 14,000 50 Not stored
Humvee 113.2 7,250 475 at 5,500 3.6 0.4 / 0.6 35 8,000 / 35,000 80 Not stored
Humvee [Minigun] 113.2 7,250 475 at 5,500 3.6 0.4 / 0.6 35 8,000 / 35,000 80 Not stored
Humvee [M249] 113.2 7,250 475 at 5,500 3.6 0.4 / 0.6 35 8,000 / 35,000 80 Not stored
Dune Buggy 130 550 475 at 5,500 4.8 0.15 / 0.85 40 4,000 / 13,000 50 Not stored
Ural 79 10,000 900 at 1,200 5.62 0.5 / 0.5 (default) 30 20,000 / 38,000 50 Not stored
Ural Defender 79 10,000 900 at 1,200 5.62 0.5 / 0.5 (default) 30 20,000 / 38,000 50 Not stored
Ural Defender [M249] 79 10,000 900 at 1,200 5.62 0.5 / 0.5 (default) 30 20,000 / 38,000 50 Not stored
Wolf-110 129 3,200 1,500 at 1,650 3.7 0.3 / 0.7 35 5,500 / 9,000 80 Not stored
Wolf-110 [M2 Browning] 129 3,200 1,500 at 1,650 3.7 0.3 / 0.7 35 5,500 / 9,000 80 Not stored

The Ural’s brake torque is listed for its three axles, with 38,000 on both the middle and rear axles. The Ural’s torque curve has a scale of 2, so its numbers are larger than the other trucks’ at the same RPM.

Tracked vehicles

Vehicle Max speed (as stored) Peak torque (at RPM) Gear entries (as stored) Brake force Max incline (deg)
M113 APC SV 71 2,500 at 1,200 10 14 50
SPH-2 65 1,800 at 1,400 10 Not set 50
L2A6 65 1,800 at 1,400 10 Not set 50
Flakpanzer Gepard 65 1,800 at 1,400 7 30 50
T-72B3 60 1,800 at 1,400 10 Not set 50

The gear column counts the entries stored for each tracked vehicle. For the wheeled vehicles the last entry is reverse, but the tracked gear lists were not read, so whether their last entry is reverse is not confirmed, and the count may include it.

The tank torque curves are the same for the SPH-2, L2A6, Gepard and T-72B3, and the M113 has its own curve. Tracked vehicles store a second engine curve with a peak of 1,400 at 1,911 RPM, which the data does not say is used alongside the first.

Helicopters

Vehicle Max speed (as stored) Mass (as stored)
Havoc 400 7,500
MH-6 350 722
AH-6M [Miniguns] 350 722
AH-6R [Rockets] 350 722
Z20 Lakota 445 9,500

Helicopters have a drag coefficient of 0.006 on every variant. Their steering, braking and torque values are not in the handling tables. The MH-6’s mass of 722 is far below its collision mass of 1,200, and the data does not label the unit, so the two numbers cannot be compared directly. The vehicle vendor labels top speeds in km/h, so the helicopter speeds above are km/h.

Tips that follow from the numbers

  • The Dune Buggy is the lightest full-size car at 550 mass (only the Bobcat is lighter, at 250) and sends 85% of its torque to the rear. It has the widest front steering angle of the wheeled vehicles at 40 degrees.
  • The Ural has the heaviest mass in the wheeled group at 10,000, a long first gear (5.62, second only to the Kodiak’s 6.0) and a torque peak of 900 at 1,200 RPM, so it has strong pull from low speed.
  • The Wolf-110 has the largest torque peak of the wheeled vehicles, 1,500 at 1,650 RPM, with a top speed of 129.
  • Since Season 2 the Humvee sends 60% of its torque to the rear axle, so its rear wheels do most of the pulling.
  • The tracked vehicles all share a 50 degree maximum incline in the data.

See also

Sources