We’re working on regenerative steering for tanks and want to hear your opinion!

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