It only spins out when trying to do a 90 degree turn at 45mph/72kmp off road. That's pretty impressive!
I drive farm equipment roughly the size of the SRV, and doing any type of turn at that speed (actually slower because none of it can go that fast) here on a 1g planet would most likely result in my death.
Side note: I was on a slippery high G planet (yellow) a few days back and it was like bowling on ice. Couldn't climb hardly any grade slope, was a blast!
Sure, it gets stuck on and takes damage from 'little rocks' if you hit them at a 'moderate speed', but you do have to be reasonable about the scale of those terms.
The SRV will move at about 140km/h over a boulder field with half-meter tall boulders weighing a metric tonne each. If you try to drive at 140km/h over a two-tonne boulder that's waist-high, you might lose a couple of points of hull. Find me a land vehicle (even a super-expensive military vehicle) that can go that fast over a two-tonne, waist-high rock without having a catastrophic, rapid unplanned disassembly of the vehicle and occupants, and I'll maybe agree with people who call the SRV too slow and fragile.
It's worth noting that the SRV weighs very little (a double bay and two vehicles is just 10T total) and has a jetpack, and a weapons turret and cargo space for two tonnes. At 140km/h over a field of half-meter boulders.
I'm a mouse-user and I find that the drive-assist off is much nicer and easier to use. My only wish is that when in turret mode the turret would turn with the vehicle. Presently it seems to be utterly independent and it's hard to see which way the vehicle is facing in relation to the turret
Using a HOTAS here (twist for steering), I've noticed that there's no partial steer, it's either full, or nothing.
Is there a setting to override this? Twist a little for small turns, etc.
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Hmm. I thought partial steer would be possible if you had a proper joystick twist. I couldn't tell, my X-56 is the third one i have, thanks to its quality issues, and i am glad that having to set a massive deadzone (enough to make it basically a digital input device) it the only problem my current one has.
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At a speed of 20 meters per second (45 mph or 72kph) on a low grav rock, I expect the SRV to handle like a wet noodle, tbh it should always handle like a wet noodle with speeds above 3 meter per second.
At a speed of 20 meters per second (45 mph or 72kph) on a low grav rock, I expect the SRV to handle like a wet noodle, tbh it should always handle like a wet noodle with speeds above 3 meter per second.
A military Humvee can traverse rough terrain at 60mph, which google tells me is 26.8 m/s. I sure hope humanity doesn't take that massive a step back in vehicle design in over a thousand years.
It only spins out when trying to do a 90 degree turn at 45mph/72kmp off road. That's pretty impressive!
I drive farm equipment roughly the size of the SRV, and doing any type of turn at that speed (actually slower because none of it can go that fast) here on a 1g planet would most likely result in my death.
Side note: I was on a slippery high G planet (yellow) a few days back and it was like bowling on ice. Couldn't climb hardly any grade slope, was a blast!
No thrusters or vertical take off of any sort. Some of it does have GPS and the ability to drive to an inputted coordinate though.
I can drive an SRV at full throttle and do slight turns, depending on conditions. If I am going full throttle and anticipate losing control, the thrusters and VTO you brought up can certainly prevent it.
Does google reveal anything about how difficult (or uncomfortable) driving that hummer would be? Plus the Hummer driver isn't using digital controls & a mouse, or even a joystick. They are using a wheel & pedals within the ultimate force feedback VR experience
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Hmm. I thought partial steer would be possible if you had a proper joystick twist. I couldn't tell, my X-56 is the third one i have, thanks to its quality issues, and i am glad that having to set a massive deadzone (enough to make it basically a digital input device) it the only problem my current one has.
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Having flown attack choppers in ARMA for years (since original release through ARMA3), twist grip for rudder using Saitek gear never allowed precise yaw tracking for cannons or dumbfires, especially for moving targets or side strafing a town on the edge of missile range. Switching to rudder pedals, which are pure analog, made the difference in aligning targets. Think the same is happening in ED; twist grips are mapped digitally(?). Now using a TM Warthog stick/throttle so cannot test, but would be curious to read what the raw data looks like when calibrating a twist grip.
Really good to see the SRV (and farming equipment) get some well-deserved props.
This is probably more appropriate for the "Stupidest thing lately' thread, but since we're talkin' SRVs . . . : Landed the 'Vette, deployed SRV, and got a signal behind craft. Picked up raws, and then turned to another signal in front. Zoomed forward and prepared for a hero's jump over a huge boulder, only to realize at the last second that my thrusters had stored due to ship proximity. The result was a cliff splat that would have made Wile E. Coyote proud.
but impacts take damage directly to SRV hull, and not the shield.
something clearly isnt working,
and unless fdevs confirm this is the way it was intended,
i just want to make them aware that this is really, annoying.
forget about the bad steering mechanics,
why does impacts to surfaces not take directly from the sheild first?
Again, that's by design. The shield only protects over the top half of your SRV (like a mushroom cap), so that the wheels can make physical contact with the ground. This is why the SRV always takes damage from underneath.
I wonder though... do the passive hub thrusters swivel like a gimbal to compensate on high G planets? To push up and soften the blow when landing from a height...that would actually be a very cool mechanic if it worked as the suspension on the srv isnt even half as good as a modern sand buggy...
Yes, the hub thrusters are gimbaled and used for attitude control in mid-air, can't say for sure if they really give that slight push down to accelerate them to the ground (they seem to shut down when not giving any input during a free fall), but they surely are used to dampen/compensate landings and rolls. The strange part is that they could easily be used also for yaw control while in flight, but that seems a feature disabled on purpose.
(silly video, but it shows a couple of practical examples of that behaviour)
Of course personal opinions on the SRV handling may vary from "zomg best thing evah" to "I loathe the very essence of this unbearable contraption", that's perfectly fine and reasonable, but the physics under the hood are pretty spot on and a good approximation of how the thing should behave. Of course it's no Assetto Corsa as I've said more than once, you can't expect not even near the same levels of precision for the tires, suspensions, ground friction and weight transfers simulation, but what has been implemented is good enough to actually appear plausible. To the point of being a little too plausible, thus highlighting some glaring faults in the actual SRV design: as has already been pointed out multiple times, the 4-wheels steering is optimal for very tight manoeuvering at low speeds, but it should really get disabled above a certain threshold, or even better the rear wheels should steer slightly in the same direction of the front ones to add to the general stability on hard and prolonged turns (as it happens in the newest Renault Talisman, to give the first example that comes to my mind). Also consider that in a normal vehicle this means that all wheels are turning, while in the case of the SRV there's also a central fixed axis that probably adds to the general stiffness and twitchiness of the SRV steering.
Also, again as already pointed out by someone, having four driving and steering wheels on the front and only two in the rear leads to a vehicle prone to oversteering and sudden loss of control even at relatively moderate speeds, more or less as it happens in the game.
A last thing that is to be considered is that we have no clue about what (if any) kind of differential steering is applied to the entire thing. By the looks and feel of it, it almost appears as if the SRV drives on a permanently locked differential (it'd be funny stuff, considering it doesn't even have proper axis!), great for getting out of messy situations but a total shamble for high speed driving/turning. Whatever it is, there's something definitely funky in the SRV's differential behaviour.
In short, that the SRV behaves somewhat unpredictably at high speeds is more or less a given fact (even if not as badly as perceived by someone, but that can easily be attributed to differences in control methods, analog/digital inputs and such, so I don't think there's anyone actually wrong on what he/she feels of the driving experience), but attributing this to the lack of good physics is a totally undeserved bashing of a game that actually has a rather good system in place, especially considering we are talking about a "side activity" compared to the game's focus.
Just to give a practical example of the level of detail of Elite's ground physics, I'll leave with an exhilarating classic, courtesy of Alec Turner:
Love the SRV, wish I could customize it a bit so that particular SRV meant something to me instead of being a carbon copy of another. It's odd they are so cheap, something like that should cost millions.
I was on a 2.5G planet, couldn't climb a decent hill but not because of slippage. I suppose the cart doesn't have the torque to get there. Carrying an additional 1.5x it's Earth weight is a bit taxing, but as most here know, farming mats on a high G planet is the way to go, no driving around for the fragments, although boosting and catching a fragment in mid flight is pretty cool.
At a speed of 20 meters per second (45 mph or 72kph) on a low grav rock, I expect the SRV to handle like a wet noodle, tbh it should always handle like a wet noodle with speeds above 3 meter per second.
A military Humvee can traverse rough terrain at 60mph, which google tells me is 26.8 m/s. I sure hope humanity doesn't take that massive a step back in vehicle design in over a thousand years.
It's all about weight, mass and gravity.
On Earth the weight of a Humvee would roughly be 25000 Newton while on the Moon with its lower gravity it only weighs 4167 Newton, yup, it also would handle like a wet noodle on a low gravity rock somewhere in space.
Flat out when the scenery is rushing past at an alarming rate, you mean to tell me that it's only 38kph?
Your judgement is way off. Usain Bolt can run at 45kph.
But ignoring your judgement, all speeds in the game are measured in m/s or C. Why do you think FDev would go to special effort to use a completely different unit just for the SRV?
The SRV does have a hull like tissue paper, and a suspension made by Ikea. I can only imagine a new planetary vehicle hanger comes stocked with like 50 spare tie rods and axles.
Agree with both your points. It gets hull damage upon hitting a rock taller than a wheel despite shields not broken ... so, don't believe it will withstand more than one hit from a Thargoid Scout or one of their swarms.
Do you use keyboard and mouse? If so, the default X-Axis mouse movement is the problem - it doesn't re-centre the mouse (steering wheel) automatically, so it always oversteers by default.
Change your 'Relative Mouse X-Axis Steer' to 'ON' - this will help prevent oversteer dramatically, especially on Icy bodies.
But ignoring your judgement, all speeds in the game are measured in m/s or C. Why do you think FDev would go to special effort to use a completely different unit just for the SRV?
Aside from anything else, a bit of simple math's confirms that speed is measured in m/sec.
If you target something that is, say, 1km away and then drive toward it at a speed of "20" you'll arrive in roughly 1 minute.
If speed was measured in km/h, that'd take 3 minutes.
Aside from anything else, a bit of simple math's confirms that speed is measured in m/sec.
If you target something that is, say, 1km away and then drive toward it at a speed of "20" you'll arrive in roughly 1 minute.
If speed was measured in km/h, that'd take 3 minutes.
