Hi all,

0.2.50 is now stable! Bringing with it the new cost system and a host of transmission changes.

0.2.49.4 has been moved to its own branch - in case you weren't quite done with it.

Cost system

This update introduces a new cost system, completely separated from mass.
It allows higher value to be assigned to expensive materials and complex parts, which has already been a great tool in balancing the new transmission changes (more on that later).

Overall this flattens the cost between light and heavy tanks.
Heavy tanks cost less and should have another tank or two in scenarios.
On the other hand, tankettes will be more expensive and lose one or two.
This should make heavy tanks more viable on the bigger scenarios where weapon count tends to matter more than survivability.

Costs

• Plate structures - Cost scales with material cost (RHA being 2x the cost of structural steel), the number of plate cuts needed and the combined lengths of all welds.
• Crew - A flat cost for recruitment and a flat training cost for each task they perform.
• Engines - A large flat cost for their complexity, the alloy material cost and a cost which scales with the number of cylinders.
• Transmissions - A flat cost for complexity, the alloy material cost, the cost for machining each gear and a flat cost for gear selectors. Having more than one drive/reverse gear will cost much more.
• Suspension assemblies - Higher costs for torsion bars compared to volute and leafspring suspensions due to higher material costs and forging requirements.
• Cannons - Much more expensive now due to material costs and high amounts of machining.

We'll be building on this new system a lot in future!

Transmission realism pass

While balancing the cost system, it became apparent that transmission sizes were far too small.
They've been reworked to be closer to real life, resulting in more of a challenge to build high performance vehicles.
All vehicles accelerate slower and your 25t medium is going to require more skill to get above 45km/h.

Transmission changes

• Transmission gears are now visualized during editing.
• Transmission gear width now scales with engine torque.
• The final drive ratio is now editable in the transmission editor.
• Added multi-stage reductions to let you create ratios by combining multiple smaller gears, adding length instead of width.
Controlled via the "Multi-stage above" field, which defines the ratio above which a gear will be split into multiple stages.
• Added an auxiliary gear option. This lets you double the number of speeds in your transmission at the cost of two extra gear pairs and another gear selector mechanism.
As an example for how this works: A transmission with [5, 1] drive ratios with an auxiliary gear ratio of 2 would result in ratios: [10, 5, 2, 1]. Each gear can be run at 2:1 or 1:1. The auxiliary gears are much bigger as they have to support the maximum torque output of the first transmission.
• Disabled custom control over transmission torque ratings. This didn't have any consequences
for being too low.
• Transmission gear slider soft limits set to [1..10]. You can still go outside of this range by entering values into the input field.
• Made transmission internal shaft diameters more realistic (they were ~7x too small). This resulted in gears getting dramatically bigger.
• Transmission gear count limits: WWI 3->6, Interwar 6->8, Midwar 24->12, Latewar 24->12. These get balanced by the new transmission scaling and can be further increased via auxiliary gears.
• Made transmissions +25% heavier.
• Reworked the transmission gear ratio 'G1 / n' button. It's now 'Smooth' and interpolates the ratios between the first and last using a much more advanced function provided by Colson.

Help! My transmission is huge now

Don't worry! They're realistic and real engineers had to figure out how to get around the scaling problems you're facing.
Up until now, you might have had about 10 gears with your 1st gear around 15 and your last gear around 0.5 to get good performance. These weren't realistic ratios (as you can see by the transmission sizes they create). Most vehicles wouldn't have had more than 4 gears with a 1st gear ratio of ~6 and a final gear at 1:1. If you need more torque, an auxiliary gear ratio of 2 will let you double these ratios without growing your transmission too much.

The 1st gear defines your maximum torque. The last gear defines your top speed. You don't need any more gears between these than what lets you climb from first to last.

The final drive has been opened up to tweaking. Increasing it will increase acceleration at the cost of top speed. You generally want to increase this if you're struggling to max out your top gear. If you're very quickly getting to top speed, decreasing this will raise your top speed.

If you can hit 45km/h in 30 seconds, that's not bad! This is similar performance to most Shermans and Panzers.
Top speed isn't as important as manoeuvrability combat, so remember to test how vehicles feel in scenarios and not chase top speed too much.

8 new parts

All made by Dario:

• DSHkM
• German headlight
• Early Pz V muffler exhaust
• Grate vent
• Short muzzle brake
• Welded muzzle brake
• Wooden crate
• Spoked wheel

Fixes

• Fixed clutch braking not redirecting all engine torque to one track when the other is disconnected.
• Twin transmissions now split torque correctly, resulting in its transmissions only needing to support half the torque.

Other changes

• Ammo rack shells are now spaced 1cm apart.
• Plate structures can now use structural steel, instead of RHA. This halves the cost but halves the armour effectiveness.
• Disabled depth of field in the vehicle editor.
• Driveshafts require a significantly smaller diameter for short sections (Roughly half the size).
• Driveshafts scale up as their length or maximum rotational speed increases, in order to prevent them shaking themselves to pieces.
• Removed the throttle limit for neutral steering. Allowing full engine torque to be used for neutral steering.
• Slightly raised the max rpm of engines above WWI (Up to +10% in latewar).

Mark (the new dev) built this whole cost system while I was working on 0.2.49 and starting the GUI overhaul.
We then switched and I took this update through experimental while Mark continued on with the GUI.

So we can now follow the roadmap while doing these smaller but crucial refinements, which is nice.

I'll be following this update with a further look at movement, focusing on driver behaviour.

- Hamish