Work-In-Progress: Regenerative Steering — Should We Add It? Try It & Leave Your Feedback!

Official News, Development Blogs and Updates
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We’re working on regenerative steering for tanks and want to hear your opinion!

Video recorded in the Arcade Mode

Hey everyone! As you may have noticed, we’ve launched limited testing of a new control mechanic for tracked vehicles on the Dev server. Specifically, regenerative steering! Currently, this mechanic is implemented for the Leopard 2 families, along with the Type 10 and Type 90 series of tanks.

What is Regenerative Steering?

So, what exactly is it and how does it work? Currently, most tanks in the game turn by disengaging the clutch and braking the inner track, essentially locking one side of the chassis, causing a loss of speed and power. Regenerative steering preserves power by redistributing it between the tracks: one speeds up while the other slows down. As a result, the tank loses far less energy during a turn and maintains speed while maneuvering.

This mechanism does have a downside however. In most kinematic configurations that use regenerative steering, there are no side-mounted friction clutches, which means the left and right tracks cannot brake independently, and the minimum turning radius becomes fixed for each gear. The higher the gear, the larger the radius. While the tank turns more sharply at lower speeds, high-speed turns are gradual and wide. For instance, with rare exceptions, modern main battle tanks have a minimum turning radius of nearly 30 meters when moving in the highest gear!

Test This New Mechanic & Let Us Know Your Thoughts!

Here’s the most important part! We aren’t yet certain that regenerative steering should be permanent, so we’re rolling it out for open testing as part of the Sky Odyssey major update on the Dev server. We’d like you to try out this new mechanic for yourselves and decide whether it should stay in the game. Your feedback will be the deciding factor. So jump into battle, test the new regenerative steering mechanic, and share your thoughts in the comments on the forums, social media, website, Steam and wherever else you like to be social. Let’s decide if we should add this mechanic or not!

How to join the Open Dev Server

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36 Likes
2

It should be toggleable imo.

56 Likes
3

Yeah, as toggle: On/Off mechanic

49 Likes
4

On/Off or delete

17 Likes
5

It should be added, but as a toggleable option.

Then we can have the best of both worlds.

8 Likes
6

This should stay in the game but should be toggled.

3 Likes
7

I love the current implementation.

I just wish if we stopped pressing W, and only press A/D, we would start turning like normal.

But holding W alongside A/D should keep regenerative steering going.

44 Likes
8

toggle or not at all

3 Likes
9

Add a key to brake instantly and “drift”.

10

Toggleable or that.

11

Hi @Stona_WT
I have made a feedback thread for this feature, discussed some modelling bugs too!

7 Likes
12

On but with handbrake/drift option
Edit: Or a mechanic where you hold S more than 0.5 seconds to 1 second regenerative steering moves back to old one so it acts like a handbrake and it shifts down in gears

4 Likes
13

1 Like
14

I absolutely love it

I just wish we could kick a gear down without going into manual gearbox like we used to, would help a lot with getting a tighter radius

This would help so many of the shortfalls in the Centurion and Chieftain mobility, and allow light tanks to remain fast, rather than a turn causing it to slow to a crawl

also that video does a terrible job at showcasing regenerative steering

If it is toggleable, i reckon it should work off of the “Driver’s assist” button, by making that a toggle

11 Likes
15

Two options really

A. Make it a toggle, the most straightforward option that everyone would like.

B. Remove it, since it compromises maneuverability on CQC maps way too much and makes playing on them a headache for rather modest real world gains on massive maps.

3 Likes
16

A) Toggle on/off

B) Don’t release it until it’ll be implemented for all relevant vehicles

2 Likes
17

You’re absolutely right, since regenerative steering is mainly needed to make steering corrections without losing too much speed, so you’ll always be holding down the W button while turning in one direction. However, if you want to make a tight turn, you release the W button.

3 Likes
18

Concept is good, but I don’t think that will fit well with COD-size maps.

2 Likes
19

Another idea:

To avoid the hassle of a toggle keybind that may be annoying it can be made so that when holding down W to accelerate and steering at the same time, steering is regenerative.

But when letting go of W and only steering, the tank clutch brakes.

14 Likes
20

yes!!!

1 Like