Version 9.14: Improved Vehicle Movement Physics and Sounds
Commanders,
Version 9.14 is right around the corner, and with it comes some important changes to how your vehicles behave on the battlefield, as well as the quality of sounds. Here's a handy summary of how it will work:
Improved Vehicle Movement Physics
As part of the version 9.14 Common Test, players will have access to the final version of the improved vehicle movement physics. Since the last testing phase, some changes have been made that not only make the handling of the vehicle incredibly realistic, they also made vehicle handling comply with gameplay requirements.
Now, vehicle suspension operates more realistically. The top speed will also change—this will help to prevent issues whereby a vehicle could glitch through objects. Vehicles behave more realistically when standing on inclined terrain, and vehicle hulls now sway when on the move, which does not affect the behaviour of the reticle.
New Features
| Vehicle hull rocking | The hull can now be rocked back and forth, thereby altering the vehicle's scaled armour value by changing the vehicle's hull inclination. This ability depends on the vehicle's speed and the manoeuvres it performs.
Important: hull rocking does not affect the behaviour of the reticle. |
| Vehicle dynamics while turning | When making a turn, while holding down the W button, vehicles now lose much less speed. |
| Fix for issues with stuck vehicles | Vehicles now lose much less speed thanks to their improved suspension. Also, vehicles now behave more naturally when driving over small terrain irregularities. |
| Fix for issues with getting stuck when trying to climb a hill | When driving across a hill, vehicles do not lose linear velocity. At a certain angle, vehicles start to slip off the hill. |
| New movement effects | Added a new graphical effect for the track's interaction with the terrain—skidding and sliding, which are displayed at certain conditions that are calculated on the server. |
New Manoeuvres
| Turning radius control | Due to a change in driving speed (by pressing or releasing the W button), you can now control the turning radius. In this way, the radius and time required to complete a turn will be less than that at high speed. The player can better control the vehicle's behaviour when manoeuvring by holding down the W button. |
| Sharp manoeuvres that change the direction of movement | Locking the tracks while on the move allows you to perform controlled drifting and make sharp turns. Pressing the SPACE bar locks both tracks and the vehicle performs sharp braking. Pressing the SPACE bar and a directional button simultaneously locks out a track and allows you to perform a sharp turn with a loss of speed.
Important: locking out the tracks is only available to light, medium, and heavy tanks. |
Controlling the turning radius during movement
Flipping over the enemy tank via ramming
Changing direction swiftly during forward movement
Sharp switching of the facing direction
Improved Sounds
Upon version 9.14's release, the sound in the game will be significantly reworked. Thanks to the transfer to the Audiokinetic WWise sound platform, sounds became more informational, realistic, and atmospheric.
A preview of the new sound ambiance in World of Tanks will be available to all players who participate in the Common Test of Version 9.14.
Changes in sounds compared with previous testing versions
- Reduced the number of sound events: sounds of hits on vehicles that are more than 100 m away are no longer played.
- Changed sound events upon crew injury, when a tank is destroyed, and when receiving serious damage.
- Reworked the sounds of high-calibre guns.
Battle ambiance
Battle ambiance will change considerably, through an overhaul of all existing sound effects, as well as the introduction of new ones. Owing to its modular architecture, each game event will have its own distinct sound: now, each sound effect is made up of between 10 and 30 distinct sound sources. In this way, the highly diverse sounds make every gameplay event unique and distinct. Moreover, the new sounds were recorded with the use of authentic vehicles at a real proving ground.
- The number of different engine sounds has increased threefold. Gasoline and diesel engines now have different sounds.
- Added sound events for gears shifting, operation of the suspension and the transmission.
- When your vehicle is driving at a high speed, the sound of wind becomes louder.
- New shot sounds are more detailed and realistic.
- Added new sounds of ricochets and tracers (passing by shells).
- Added a new sound environment for the Garage.
- Added new movement sounds that change depending on the surface that the vehicle is driving on.
Informational sound component
The information component of sound will be improved: sound ambiance will relay important information that concerns the combat ambiance to the player. You will be able to follow the course of battle guided not only by the minimap and view range, but also by the informative sound events. This will help you to take better decisions on the battlefield.
- Unlike in previous sound tests, sounds of hits on vehicles that are more than 100 m away from the player's vehicle are not played.
- Added more distinction to sounds of hits by different shell types (HE, AP, HEAT).
- Added sound events upon activation of Consumables.
- Added sound events upon critical hits to modules.
- On non-penetrations, or a shell passing by, it is now possible to approximately determine the shell's calibre.
- Reviewed SPG damage sound events in Artillery Aim: now, when the tank is damaged, a player hears this from inside the cabin.
Sound component optimisation
- Optimised the consumption of resources by the sound component. Transfer to the new Audiokinetic WWise technology allowed us to move sound calculations to a secondary CPU core, thus having improved the performance of the game client.
- Advanced sound effects settings are now available to players, which allow them to further fine-tune the performance of their game by tweaking these options.
- Added the ability to fully disable sound, thus increasing performance by 30% on single-core computers. On multi-core computers the increase will be by 5%.
- Introduced sound presets for different types of audio equipment: a preset for speakers with limited dynamic range (as in laptop speakers) and a preset for speakers with wide dynamic range are available.
Results:
The vehicle movement physics and sound environment are now close to their final versions. The development team has carefully studied feedback received from players after previous testing phases and adjusted certain elements of the feature based on that feedback.
The updated physical model provides for new tactical possibilities in close quarter combat, as well as allowing for more realistic vehicle handling while retaining the vehicle behaviour that players are used to. Gameplay continuity is one of the most important factors when deciding whether a new feature is well-received by players.
While working on the new sound system, we aimed at increasing the informational component of sound events, thus making combat more atmospheric. Moreover, great emphasis was placed on optimising the consumption of the resources that are spent on calculating sound.
Would you like to check out these features yourself? Join the public test of Version 9.14:
Please, feel free to share your feedback on these innovations: together, we will make the game better!
