Sprocket – Basic Troubleshooting

When designing tanks in sprocket, you can encounter several issues, I will try to cover as many as I can and provide solutions.

Traction

Note: Credit goes to lamp post

Traction works in strange ways in Sprocket, but this does not mean you can make it work for your tank.

Sometimes your tank might not be getting enough purchase on the ground, and this will cause it to move side to side on uneven terrain and can make driving a chore.

So here’s how to fix it!

Usually the cause for this problem is that the tanks suspension is too stiff, and isn’t moving underneath the tank to allow it grip the ground.

Here is a bad suspension set-up:

Notice how the wheels do not follow the terrain, and neither do the tracks? This means you’re getting less purchase on the ground, which gives you less grip.

Here is a good suspension set-up:

Notice how the wheels DO follow the terrain! The tank is now getting so much more purchase on the ground and as a result performs a lot better.

Here’s how we did it:

• The rest angle is set to 45 degrees to prevent the hull catching the ground and getting the tank stuck, you can set this to whatever you like, but personally I’d never set it below 30 degrees.
• Keep the adjust on 0, this just moves the wheels inwards.
• The damper is where it gets difficult, this varies between tank to tank, but I typically don’t go above 10000. Increase the damping settings if the tank is too bouncy, and decrease them if the tank is too solid on the springs.

This part does not apply to bogey suspension.

Torsion bars can be adjusted to adjust the performance of the suspension. When you adjust your torsion bars, you will notice that you are given two numbers measured in kN/m. You want them relatively close together, with the lower one, “Torque” to be slightly higher. (about 0.5-15) see what works best for your tank. As you can see, I have used the lowest diameter setting possible, as this consumes a lot of hull space and usually is just fine at minimum. The length is what you should adjust to get the desired results, put it on maximum, spawn the tank, and take notes on how it performs, then edit it accordingly until the suspension sags to roughly half way down under the tanks own weight. Trial and error is your best friend!

A simpler solution for simpler problems:

If you aren’t having trouble with the tank moving sideways, and only with climbing due to the tracks spinning underneath you, you can simply make the road-wheels thicker in the tracks settings. This will allow the tank to have more traction.

Gun Elevation

Another common problem when building tanks in sprocket is that the tank is unable to elevate its gun, or at least elevate it at a usable rate.

The fix for this is far simpler than suspension, thanks to a visual aid that was not long ago implemented.

This is what the elevation rate should look like if it is not working, it will be a negative value.

The only culprits for this is that the gun is too unbalanced for the elevation motor to lift, or the motor is not strong enough.

Make sure you’re motor is on maximum if you are struggling with elevation before you try anything else.

The guns balance is shown by this blue line.

The shorter the line, the better balanced the gun is, here we have a pretty bad case of the gun being too rear heavy, if the gun is too front heavy, the line would point towards the barrel. In any case, you want that line gone or as small as possible.

We achieve this by balancing the gun with weight in the turret and weight on the barrel. To increase weight on the barrel (do this if the gun is rear heavy) you can either make it or the base longer, or make it or the base thicker, do this until the blue line is gone.

If the gun is front heavy, you can either make the barrel lighter, or you can increase the shell length to add more weight to the rear. Once again, do this until the blue line is gone.

If you did this correctly, and the blue line is gone, your elevation rate should now be a positive value, and the gun should lift correctly.

If the elevation is still painfully slow, then perhaps the gun you are using is too big for the era, it is worth noting that the later the era you are building in, the more powerful turret drives and elevation motors become.

Similar problems:

• Turret not working? Make sure the gunner is in the turret along with the loader! You should also check that you have a gunners sight.
• Driver unresponsive? Make sure you have added a drivers port and make sure there is a driver selected in the crew menu, and that he is based in the hull.

Damage to Engine Caused by Overrev

This is another common one, but is surprisingly easy to fix.

Transmissions are complicated, weird and annoying. They always were and always will be. However, you don’t even need to understand the transmission to fix this problem, it’s simply solved to changing one number.

Here we have a tank that constantly blows its engine up.

To fix it, we add another gear, or edit the existing last gear (your choice) and lower it. To add a gear, press the + icon next to gears.

Once you’ve lowered this gear, take the tank for a test drive, does it still overrev? If it doesn’t, great! But for you folks who still are burning your engine, lower the last gear or the gear you just created again by 0.2. Keep doing this until it stops overreving.

Here is our same tank, but with a new gear that prevents it burning its own engine!

If you’ve done this correctly, the tank should not overrev anymore! Congratulations!

If your tank is also suffering overrev damage in reverse, just do the exact same process for the reverse gears.

Similar problems:

• Tank struggling to move/ accelerating very slowly? Your first few gears might be too low, raise the numbers a little, while maintaining a smooth curve in the slide bars.