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Vehicles are a type of unit which can be driven by bipeds. They are dynamic objects with mass-point physics. While most examples of vehicles are fairly obvious, some more esoteric ones include the cryopods in a10, lifepods and longswords despite only being used in cinematics, and even the Halo ring seen outside the autumn's bridge.

Structure and fields

FieldTypeComments
vehicle flagsbitfield
FlagMaskComments
speed wakes physics0x1
turn wakes physics0x2
driver power wakes physics0x4
gunner power wakes physics0x8
control opposite speed sets brake0x10
slide wakes physics0x20
kills riders at terminal velocity0x40
causes collision damage0x80

Makes the vehicle damage actors when colliding with them, using vehicle_collision_damage from globals.

ai weapon cannot rotate0x100
ai does not require driver0x200
ai unused0x400
ai driver enable0x800
ai driver flying0x1000
ai driver can sidestep0x2000
ai driver hovering0x4000
vehicle typeenum
OptionValueComments
human tank0x0
human jeep0x1
human boat0x2
human plane0x3
alien scout0x4
alien fighter0x5
turret0x6
maximum forward speedfloat
maximum reverse speedfloat
speed accelerationfloat
speed decelerationfloat
maximum left turnfloat
maximum right turnfloat
wheel circumferencefloat
turn ratefloat
blur speedfloat

The minimum speed where the vehicle's gbxmodel blur permutation is used for fake motion blur. An example is the Warthog's tires.

vehicle a inenum
OptionValueComments
none0x0
speed absolute0x1
speed forward0x2
speed backward0x3
slide absolute0x4
slide left0x5
slide right0x6
speed slide maximum0x7
turn absolute0x8
turn left0x9
turn right0xA
crouch0xB
jump0xC
walk0xD
velocity air0xE
velocity water0xF
velocity ground0x10
velocity forward0x11
velocity left0x12
velocity up0x13
left tread position0x14
right tread position0x15
left tread velocity0x16
right tread velocity0x17
front left tire position0x18
front right tire position0x19
back left tire position0x1A
back right tire position0x1B
front left tire velocity0x1C
front right tire velocity0x1D
back left tire velocity0x1E
back right tire velocity0x1F
wingtip contrail0x20
hover0x21
thrust0x22
engine hack0x23
wingtip contrail new0x24
vehicle b inenum?
vehicle c inenum?
vehicle d inenum?
maximum left slidefloat
maximum right slidefloat
slide accelerationfloat
slide decelerationfloat
minimum flipping angular velocityfloat
  • Default: 0.2
maximum flipping angular velocityfloat
  • Default: 0.75
fixed gun yawfloat
fixed gun pitchfloat
ai sideslip distancefloat

For floating vehicles, maximum distance for free movement under AI control.

ai destination radiusfloat

How close to a destination the pilot will go before searching for another one.

ai avoidance distancefloat

How far the pilot tries to stay away from other units.

ai pathfinding radiusfloat

How far the pilot tries to stay away from pathfinding markers.

ai charge repeat timeoutfloat

Minimum time between charge attempts.

ai strafing abort rangefloat

Pilot aborts a charge when this close to the target.

ai oversteering boundsBounds

When AI pilot's steering angle is between these bounds, use oversteering AI behaviour.

FieldTypeComments
minfloat
maxfloat
ai steering maximumfloat

The maximum angle AI pilots can steer at under normal circumstances.

ai throttle maximumfloat

How fast the pilot can attempt to drive their vehicle, as a fraction of the vehicle's max speed. 0 uses max speed.

ai move position timefloat
suspension soundTagDependency: sound
crash soundTagDependency: sound
material effectsTagDependency: material_effects
effectTagDependency: effect

Used for hover/jet thruster effects.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following individuals for their research or contributions to this topic:

  • Galap (Finding use of effect field)
  • Kavawuvi (Invader tag definitions)
  • MosesOfEgypt (Tag structure research)
  • Vennobennu (Field documentation)