Trees in Steel Beasts

[Asid]

Trees in SB.....

Ok. Many of us have had a collision with a tree and killed a driver or damaged a tank which rendered it immobile. There does not seem to be a pattern to this as some trees you can knock down while others will knock you down.

Will a 60+ ton tank really be affected in such a way?

Here is a video of a real tank knocking down trees.
M1A1 tank vs. Australian trees


Heres a screens of another sim and how it handles trees.
Approaching a tree.....


Collision..


We are unhurt...


Trees?


What trees???


Oh... The ones below me?


What do you think?

Regards

[assassin7]

Agreed trees should be able to be taken down by a 70ton tank. I could understand if the tank hit the tree going 40 miles per hour that it would possibly hurt one of the crewmembers. But going slow speed and just a tiny bump. Would not hurt any of the crewmembers.

[Lumituisku]

The thing is...  I deal with trees nearly everyday. Especially at the work. And yes.. I have rammed trees occasionally while reversing or when machine has slide so that tires are between trees. 20 ton machine is able to make quite big tree to fall down. it of course depends if...  ground is hard. like frozen or soft like at swamp. And quality of tree as well. On hard ground tree is likely to cut from strike, or be literally crushed. Ending to fall over machine like on video. On soft ground, tree fells to front of tank or machine and tanks and likely makes machine or tank stuck. Depends of size of course. Neither case is ideal to tank nor machine. As I do it on these case at the work. I try to make tree fall away from path and re-position machines tracks so that it wont get stuck. Of course this is easy for me as I can at times use crane as well when I get tree to cranes reach. But tank doesn't have this ability.

Steelbeast is realistic in the manner that small trees can be felled. Those are not trouble to tank. But bigger ones...  even if there would not be trouble on real life to grewmembers there would be trouble with three either laying over tank.. breaking external things.. like machine guns. Or under tank.. making tank to be stuck as tree carries tank from belly. So we do not want to drive to "big" trees, or if we do, that is out of battle.

As for grew getting injured...  if grew is outside of tank... for sure. Those branches, even small ones are hazardous. Believe me I know   and when... even smaller tree fells over machine or tank.. you do feel and hear it.

Hatches closed there should not be trouble for grew, but to external stuff like smoke chargers, machine gun, and equipment carried outside of tank.


As for tanks gun barrel and trees...  there should be little trouble with... lets say medium sized trees. Large ones, especially on hard ground would be "potentially" dangerous for gun barrel but not always.

There was case with leopard 2A4 at the Niinisalo where gunner was too slow to keep turret at tanks front while it was manouvering on small road bordered with large pine trees. More sturdy ones than adult man. What happened was.. that tree that was hit by barrel by sideways.. fell. Not entirely but 60-70 degrees from original. And gun barrel was still operational. The thing to notice is that it was sand ground... so its "soft" what means that entire tree with it roots will be falling.

So yeah...  these are my experiences of trees.

sincerely ~ Lumi.

[Cougar11]

I am in between. SB is deadly, and it seems that it is random. Sometimes small trees, and sometimes big trees will mess your tank up. What I would like to see is medium to small tress no damage or injuries. Large trees only if you are doing over 20-25 MPH, and damage only to outside items, or at most a track, and repair time for track hit from tree less than combat damage time of 30 mins plus. I have personally pushed over a trees that was about 6 inches in diameter. No issues doing it at 10 mph, and barely felt it inside the tank. SB has too many trees. I would like to see areas that were more dense and therefore not able to drive certain vehicles through, and other areas that were for any and all vehicles. If we are to make it more realistic, you would not be able to scan while moving through trees to keep from the possible gun damage you could get. The AI navmesh for bushes, and trees needs to be fixed as vehicles swing back and forth, slow down, and take entirely too long to go from one place to another. I do not think that we should be able to push over tree after tree, but there should be a way to not kill your tank if you do hit one. IMHO.

[Lumituisku]

Tree branches are harmfull and can be deably if your out of hatch while driving on fast speed close to tree. It is not a joke why logger with chainsaw has to wear helmet. Beside that...  I do not know.

Awkward stop while hitting tree... big enought. Im talking now something like 60cm diameter or more that stands firmly on ground can and will cause affect where driver, and grew will hit their faces to optics or so for sure. is it deadly?!...  I do not think so.  but black eye for sure, and sore neck maybe. Even if tree stands firmly and would not break... tank would probably make it partly fall and try to climb up along it, continuing its path.

I do agree with Cougar about random damage. Its way too random to my taste and I really hate it when random grew member... usually driver dies cause of hasty driving. (especially since player is driving while looking elsewhere.) I think that game should be a little more forgiving with damage to grew. Trowing track of... doesn't sound bad either, but maybe that's still too much. Damage to external items should be more frequent to balance this I think. It would not ruin entire game play but would still make players to avoid trees. 

[Cougar11]

Agreed Lumi.

From my experience in a tank in wooded training areas of northern Minnesota and Ft. Knox Kentucky, I found that you could go 20-30 MPH with the TC, and loader watching for things, or just the Loader, or just the TC. It is very easy for the loader to jump down prior to firing, and a skilled crew will know where everyone is at at all times. Branches are dangerous to crew outside of the hatch, but as a loader and commander, not once did get hurt, or come close to being hurt by branches. I have had crew hurt at full speed, and the story is below.

In Idaho the tank I was gunning on was retreating at top speed around 40 MPH with the turret over the back left side of the tank looking at targets (Bradley's), as we moved into the low ground and toward our defensive line. The commander was watching over the back of the commanders hatch, which you have to be kinda high out of the hatch to do, and the loader was helping to see targets over the back. The driver went towards what we found out was a dry riverbed, but was filled with sage brush. The sage was a close match to the grass around it, but was totally different from the dirt road that went over it. The commander told him to veer left, and cross on the road. The driver did not listen, and drove right into the riverbed. He slowed down but it was too late, and we hit it at 30 MPH or so. The riverbed was about 10 feet across, and about 4 feet deep. WE hit so hard that the front slop dug into the ground and left almost a foot of dirt on it. Mud flaps bent up, but other than that no damage to the tank. The driver bounced up in the seat and hit his head on the driver hatch, and was knocked out for about 20 seconds. The loader was thrown back into the loaders hatch ring, and bruised his back and ribs. The commander hit hard into the commanders hatch, and only received bruises on his arms, and a sore face, but no cuts. I in the gunners seat, was slammed into the turret wall, hitting my head (we all had helmets on) on the ballistic computer, and then was thrown towards the gun breach. I did not have my helmet strapped, and it flew off my head, and I came within inches of having my head squashed by the breach, as the gun tried to maintain on target going violently up and down. We rolled out the other side of the riverbed, and rolled to a stop till the driver was awake. We moved to our defense position, and then had to send our loader to the hospital for possible broken ribs by helicopter due to the distance from the base.

This happened due to the crew not knowing what was happening or going to happen. There was no warning till it was too late of entering the riverbed, the speed of which we entered, the position of the crew and turret, and the lack of experience or just common sense of a driver. This driver got a beat down for this and one other issue where he was unsafe where he started driving without a command, while people were on the outside of the tank (on top, and hanging on the sides doing maintenance).

With this said I agree there could be some damage to crew and components, but I would say minor ones. Maybe if there was an option to have loader out for 5 or less minutes like the radio, and not stuck getting better if you sit still, but on the move too. If a tank can take a ditch which is almost a tank ditch at around 30 MPH and not be damaged, I am sure we can hit a tree, and not get major damage to vehicle.

[Lumituisku]

Well finally for something concrete. I do agree with you. Driver being knocked out, or loader for X amount of time... like 1-5 minutes would be enough to simulate grew damage from trees. Realistically enough to me.

Great story Cougar! Thanks that you shared it with us.

[Cougar11]

Your welcome. I am glad my experiences can be of help in some form. I can say this much that I always strapped my helmet from that moment on. If my head would have been hit by the breach I am sure I would have been in the hospital for sure, really messed up, or dead from the impact of it.

[Beef]

I went for a "ride-along" with a friend of mine back in the days when Marines were still in the M60A1 (don't think we ever had M60A3s) and my friend told me to bring my flak vest to wear (I was in the loader position--sadly no live-fire that day). Anyway, I found out having the flak vest was for saving my ribs while standing up in the loaders hatch as we moved along the tank trails in the training area.

I had a good laugh when I watched Asid's video link with the M1A1 versus the tree in Australia. I quickly noticed the lack of accents from the off-camera voices and thought "I'll bet those are Marines during a Talisman Saber exercise" and then at 1:40 you can hear "This is why Marines get hurt"...so very true.

"Hey Sir! Watch this!"

[Asid]

I am in between. SB is deadly, and it seems that it is random. Sometimes small trees, and sometimes big trees will mess your tank up. What I would like to see is medium to small tress no damage or injuries. Large trees only if you are doing over 20-25 MPH, and damage only to outside items, or at most a track, and repair time for track hit from tree less than combat damage time of 30 mins plus. I have personally pushed over a trees that was about 6 inches in diameter. No issues doing it at 10 mph, and barely felt it inside the tank. SB has too many trees. I would like to see areas that were more dense and therefore not able to drive certain vehicles through, and other areas that were for any and all vehicles. If we are to make it more realistic, you would not be able to scan while moving through trees to keep from the possible gun damage you could get. The AI navmesh for bushes, and trees needs to be fixed as vehicles swing back and forth, slow down, and take entirely too long to go from one place to another. I do not think that we should be able to push over tree after tree, but there should be a way to not kill your tank if you do hit one. IMHO.

I agree with this Cougar.

[Cougar11]

Here is a video of what a tank can do and not hurt anything on it, and not kill anyone.

 

[Asid]

"These monsters tip the scales at 60 tons and when they are on a mission nothing will stop them"

except a small tree in SB! 

[Cougar11]

Maybe one of our video guys could superimpose a steel beasts tree in front of it in the video and have ti blow up or something. Maybe with a saying like "in real life the tank can knock all this down, and a SB tank well it just cant!!" Would be funny. Maybe some better saying someone else would be able to come up with .

[Lumituisku]

To me part where tank is hitting that concrete pillar... looks like its hitting steelbeast tree. LOL .. and driver is still all conscious.    so whuut?

[Asid]

Is this the interior of an SB vehicle? That would explain why crew die so easily after just "tapping" an object.

 

Picture supplied by Rotar