cleong

And ten years more! Some recent private discussions with some forum members have led me to search the annals of RCUniverse to see if anything/what has changed in the past 10 years (has it really been so long?)

heavyaslead

Yes the debate will continue...

And we have not even touched on the changing of different ammo types for specific purposes like AP, HEAT, HESH, HE rounds for example

Modeling those would be complex

Rad_Schuhart

Those functions and others exist in the RCTA products for almost a decade.
Piercing rounds, explosive rounds, machine gun combat, set how many rounds the tank carries, friend or foe system, loads of vehicle clases (till 100 lives in case you have a RC bismark) blackbox recording everything and more...

Crius

But Rad, getting a hold of an asp is damn near impossible. Will the Mako give you those functions? I don't think I would want to use that anyway since it has to hook up to an RX 18. If rcta ever produces any more ASP boards I'll be all over them because like you say, they have all those features and more. The problem is, I don't think they've been offered for sale for about 2 years now.

tankme

As far as I knew the ASP project is dead. They did a very limited run of the ASP2 boards in like 2016 with promises of more boards and a 2.5 version in 2017. Then nothing. I was very interested in the ASP, but never bought one since they were never available when I went looking to buy. His forum has had no one post in three years.

Rad_Schuhart

I believe the makos have almost the same IR functions. I'd never use a Rx18 but if I had interest in battling, Id try wiring one of those Makos with any other board together or just with plain ESCs and benedini soundboard.

But wait, as far as I know, RCTA is developing new products as we talk! Their new first boards will be simplier, but this might bring the funds for better boards.

Crius

You know, I used to correspond with Kevin on a fairly regular basis, but over the last year or two we seem to have lost touch. Sounds like a good time to re-establish contact and see what he has planned for the asp. I'll send him an email when I get home from work tonight and we'll see what happens.

heavyaslead

For a platform we can all gather-round the seller, production, price-point and longevity in the hobby has to be spot on

Really only Tamiya and HL seem to satisfy all those

just sayin...

cleong

For the thread starter, it seems YHR has left the hobby. Perhaps predictably so when it seems like there's no change imminent.

But Tamiya did sneak in a small update to their tanks in two recent releases - a fan ban.

Most of Tamiya's current system has remained unchanged since the Tiger I was first released, the weight classes, hit points and reload times.

The first change came with the release of the Leopard 2A6, with superior speed and some suggest increased IR hitting range (debatable). Tamiya gave it a mobility nerf that it would freeze upon firing, or getting hit.

The next noticeable change was that some tanks introduced momentum, most noticeably the KV-series.

And then the mentioned fan-ban above was quietly applied to the Type 10 and Abrams boards. What's that you may ask? These two tanks did not have the freezing behaviour of the Leopard 2A6, and they are able to run and gun. However we discovered that it is easier to hit one of these tanks with any of the older tanks, and harder for them to hit an opponent. We suspect this has something to do with its coding where the frequency or length of the IR code transmission has been changed. We tested this out some time ago, by having a Type 10 do a fan shot against an arc of tanks alternating between WW2 and Type 10, and only the Type 10 lit up. Similarly when a WW2 tank did a fan shot to the same arc of tanks, only the Type 10 lit up. We probably should repeat the test soon, now that we have the Abrams as well.

But the net result is that the Type 10 and Abrams aren't overpowered on the field - in fact, they aren't as combat-capable as some other tanks, and require a whole new playstyle that rely on mobility and keeping the target "lit" longer when you do fire. It has come to a point where we've thought of having a Abrams/Type10-only battle where all tanks are set to light and its just a furball of running and gunning. But with the virus hanging about, we've not had a chance to try this out yet.

Crius

I'm pretty sure Dan (YHR) went over to slot cars.

CapnCrunch43

With all the apps and other technologies nowadays, you'd think someone would have come up with a totally different system that works with or without the tanks own electronics.

cleong

There has been various attempts to do so, but the software needs to interface with the hardware, and gain widespread acceptance. That's what's been lacking because a large portion of the organized IR guys are fairly happy working with the basic IR rules and changing other aspects of gameplay, e.g. Rolling Thunder, etc.

heavyaslead

That is awesome news!
The Fan-Ban module that Darkith had made had adjustable 'read' time so a certain "lit time" was needed to score a hit, sounds like Tamiya has incorporated this
The Fan-Ban module is a 'defense-only' product, sounds like the type 10 and Abrams may have an 'attack' limiting protocol as its odd the type 10 fan-shot only hits type 10 and not the WW2 tanks - is that correct?

cleong

As I recall, the Type 10/Abrams doesn’t hit anything if it tries to fan, modern or otherwise.

oldwolf75

I am most interested to see this thread has recently been revisited.

It was all so simple back when I was a kid. Nobody had RC tanks. We would place our model tanks on opposite sides of the yard and throw acorns at them (rocks did too much damage to the models)!

Seriously though, I hope that more realism can be introduced to IR tank combat since I am firmly in the realism over performance camp. One thought I had is the possible use of neutral density filters placed over IR emitters to simulate the different effective weapon ranges. Another possibility is, when using a 4 receiver apple, such as the one Legodei sells on etsy, to place different strength neutral density filters on the apple, to the front, sides and rear of a tank to simulate different armor strengths.

I do find it encouraging to hear that tamiya has made some recent changes to their system.

heavyaslead

So to be clear, the type 10 and Abrams can hit on the move but not a fan-shot 'move' tactic?

Does the coding seem to be hit time, or some kind of stick position like can it hit another tank -while making a turn- that is not a fan shot?

I know its a lot of minutia but would really like to understand how Tamiya implemented this feature

Shagnifico

As it is now IR battling is just a game with little resemblance to any simulated armored combat. With that in mind, it makes the most sense to me just to make all the tank settings equal.

The other reason I’m not particularly enticed by the current state of rc tank battle is the battle fields. When I look at rc tank club’s battlefield on the net, as awesome as they are, they don’t look very conducive to armored warfare. I don’t see tank country, I see big model train type dioramas.

And yes to get IR battle unit ranges anywhere near scale realism it’s necessary to switch out the LED with a laser, which is super cheap and doable on today’s boards. Of course this would necessitate fpv battle. Which in my opinion would be awesome and long overdue. I’ve been putting video cameras in my tanks for 20 years now. Today you can affordably put miniature laser range finders and thermal imagers in your tank. I bet one of you arduino geniuses could even whip up a fire control computer to automatically adjust gun elevation. Would make for some cool fpv airsoft battles.

It’s really an exciting time for rc hobbyists.

oldwolf75

I agree with most of what you have stated. I think the idea that "it's a game so it must be fair" is one of the things that prevents simulation from being a goal. As you point out, as things stand now, might as well just make all the tanks equal value.

Regards using lasers, I have tried replacing replacing the IR led with a small, cheap, red light laser. The current receivers actually are sensitive to a broad enough spectrum that they respond to it. The problem is that it is too precise. We would need to tile the surface of the tank with 100+ receivers.

The current state of "battlefields" is, I think, due to not just the limited range of the IR equipment but also that it is very hard to find a big enough chunk of land that isnt being used. Ground cover doesn't scale well so only arid areas will provide venues; unless IR tank battles suddenly be come so popular that clubs can afford the full time grounds keeping staff of a golf course. Tank country battle grounds are just not going to happen. But, tanks get deployed to plenty of real life situations that are far from ideal. As Donald Rumsfeld said "you fight wars with the army you have not the army you wish you had." No reason we should give up on trying to improve the quality of the simulation just because we cant make it perfect.

I have tried putting fpv cameras in model tanks but pulled them out for two reasons. A. They use a lot of energy, shortening running time and also creating a lot of heat. B. I found them to be too much like a video game. I like scale models because they are not video games and that fpv cameras detracted from my enjoyment of the hobby.

In summary, I would like to see scale tank combat games move more toward simulation and away from becoming more gamey. Maybe it wont be perfect but I think that if we all share ideas we can improve it a lot.

Shagnifico

Regarding having to be too precise with a laser. The laser beam doesn't have to be a flat line/dot. It can be as conical as need be. Just depends on the head cap.

oldwolf75

The one I used could be focused and be either a small dot or a spreading cone. The problem I found was that the spreading cone was not really any better than the ir led. But, it was a very cheap device, better quality might give better results.

Tankhobby

I had a large outdoor battlefield for many years in Connecticut, dirt, rocks and small fake Christmas trees. The trick was it was surrounded by large trees, mostly oak so it was shaded from the canopy and really didn't take much upkeep except in the fall when the leaves fell. A backpack blower made that job quick and easy. Thought I would share that in case anyone is thinking about an outdoor battlefield. I also surrounded it with chicken wire fence to keep the dogs out and had a gate. The fence was only 2 feet high and fortunately the dogs respected the fence. Plants didn't really grow because of the shade. It wasn't "flat" so made tank battling fun and because of the shade, the sun would not interfere with the infrared.

heavyaslead

Lasers also come with many restrictions and warnings about exposure, etc

Private use for sure, as any public use of lasers would likely have to use some special licensing, unless the laser is part of a manufactured product (like laser tag) to 'not be dangerous to people'

All laser generating electro-optics that I have seen have some kind of warning on them and need quite a bit of power to get to distances of 100 feet or more

I hope one day we can see a laser system, but let a manufacturer get it through legal requirements

oldwolf75

My thought as well. I think the path to narrow beam, long range, laser based model tank battles is either a dead end or so long waiting for tech developments that it is at least a decade or two away.

I think we should instead look at other ways to improve what we now have.

It strikes me that basically we are looking at simulating the struggle between armor vs projectile and the various tactics to cause one to defeat the other. Essentially the old story of the irresistible force vs immovable object ( in this case impenetrable object). The challenge is that the tank must attempt to succeed at both roles while while being mobile over difficult terrain.

I think the current system of heavy, medium and light tanks that only vary in hits taken (armor, sort of) and rate of fire (projectile size, sort of) was a decent first try, but not the way to go.

I am thinking of experimenting with using neutral density filters over the IR emitter LED to simulate projectile effectiveness or lack thereof. Also, I want to try using various neutral density filters in combination with 4 sensor IR receivers. Darkest filter on the front facing sensor to simulate the best armor, lighter over the side facing sensors, still less over the rear sensor.
I think the concept of different tanks being able to take more or less hits should be dropped. It should be replaced with randomized damage resulting from a successful hit. Something like this:
50% vehicle destroyed, 25% vehicle immobilized, 10% vehicle speed reduced to one quarter, 10% vehicle unable to shoot for X amount of time, 5% vehicle takes no significant damage (you got very lucky).
The above table may seem a bit draconian but remember that neutral density filters simulating armor and lighter calibre guns means a lot less hits are getting through.

In addition to the above, ammunition should be tracked. Powerful weapons usually means less rounds available.

Lastly, model speed should be limited to scale speeds for the actual vehicles.

What would the above accomplish? First it would allow the simulation of lightly armored tank destroyers with powerful guns. Second it would allow the simulation of assault tanks with massive armor but only a moderate gun. Third, on a modern battlefield it would allow for IFVs with negligible armor and just a handful of potentially deadly anti-tank missiles. Fourth it will, hopefully, result in much more interesting and somewhat more realistic battle games.

tankme

We have a pretty small hobby. The clubs are actually relaxing the rules for battling as there are fewer and fewer that battle. As the requirements get more rigid, the number of folks building to those standards falls. Changing the standards or making things too complicated just further decreases the number of folks willing to participate.

oldwolf75

Actually I think of what I am suggesting as a relaxing of the rules. Its long range goal is to make a much wider range of armored vehicle types viable as well as simple for the average modeler to set up.

Of course it mostly depends on how well neutral density filters can simulate different projectiles and armor thicknesses / types. I have some on order and will report back on how testing goes.

Thanks for your feed back.