Vehicular combat plays a large role in Nuclear Dawn's extensive environments. Walking around in a fully powered up Exo suit, lugging your weapons from one end of the level to the other, hoping you get there before all the excitement ends... is just not cool. If your enemies end up driving in circles around your carcass with their chariots of war, then that just adds insult to injury.
Vehicles are produced at your faction's war factory which, for a modest amount of resources, will process metals and nanites to manufacture the finely tuned, heavily armoured answers to the hazards of military personnel transport in the desolate landscapes of the Nuclear Dawn universe.
There is more to vehicles in Nuclear Dawn than just driving around to score chicks, though. Each vehicle type performs a specific, tactically significant role that both Commanders and players must bear in mind when planning their strategy for the coming battles. Let's take a look at each in turn.
The Support Vehicle. When speed and mobility are the keys to victory, no vehicle performs better than the support buggy. A lightweight chassis and powerful suspension allow for high speeds, even higher maneuverability, and supreme drifting.
This lightweight speed demon is manned by a driver and the lucky machine gunner, who gets to use the high calibre machine gun to fire shot after shot into his enemies, as the vehicle swerves, skids and jumps off obstacles. Players and Commanders alike should be mindful, though, of the low rate of buggy survival against direct anti-armour weapon hits.
The Transport Vehicle. If you prefer several steel plates between your enemies' rockets and your skin, and don't mind a little company, the transport vehicle really shines. Designed to carry up to four soldiers across the field of battle, the transport vehicle lacks the speed of the buggy, but makes up for it with superior armour.
The transport vehicle carries one driver and three passengers, each of which can wield their gun out their window, and unleash mayhem on the go. While transports are the only vehicles without additional armaments, they do allow its passengers to defend themselves in the heat of battle.
The Attack Vehicle. There are unfortunate times where you just can't be friends. When such an irreparable breach of diplomacy rears its ugly head, it's time to break the tanks out.
Armed with a powerful cannon, and a blazing fast mounted machine gun, the tank in Nuclear Dawn delivers the dread that infantry has come to know through the ages - that of the fire-spitting steel behemoth that will just not die. Unless some of the infantry happen to be Exo Destroyers or Assault Anti-Armours, who will have their own little party with any vehicle.
Nuclear Dawn's vehicles deliver realistic handling and behaviours in line with the expectations of the most demanding modern gamers. With full, custom implementations of traction, engine, suspension and wheel physics, along with advanced visual effects such as suspensions and tank tracks that realistically model themselves to the terrain, they represent the most advanced custom vehicle implementation in a Source game to date.
Igor Raffaele, Game Designer
For more information on our vehicles, their role in gameplay and their full function, we invite you to drop us a line on the Steam forums. And remember... for the latest news, including blogs, media and feature updates, keep your eye on www.nucleardawnthegame.com!
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I like these vehicles
looking forward to trying them out
This game... Is going to ******* epic. Nice job guys, nice job.
Whoa. Sounds awesome.
I hope you guys figured out the physics right. I hear Source is notorious for making vehicle physics a living hell from the Empires guys.
Many of sources apparent difficulties are just niggles that snowballed or people struggling because it wasn't completely written for them already.
In reference to any actual vehicle problems the Empires team are on a mod license, not commercial: So Interwave have the advantage of more (full?) engine access, more support from Valve. And as a commercial entity they probably have more manpower and possibly more experience.
Our vehicle system is completely independent from the main engine, and valves physics interface. The main problem most other teams have is the prediction and networking of the vehicles, the physics is the easy part ;)
Awesome, there's gonna be more vehicle designs for other factions right?
Yep! The set you see here are the Empire Support, Consortium Transport and Consortium Attack vehicles. There are of course a Consortium Support, Empire Transport and Empire Attack vehicles- the likes of which we have yet to show off :)