Changing Vehicle Weapons?

Hey community,

a general question here with a specific example to it.

Recently Relic has added the Flammpanzer Hetzer. A rather rare modification of the original Hetzer, that I'd love to see in the game as part of a current project. I was suprised to find that Relic actually worked on a JPz Hetzer for some time. The Attribute editor shows several signs of that, most significantly a 75mm Hetzer Main Gun in the weapons section and the projectile for it in the entity section.

So I tried to add that stuff to the Hetzer and remove the Koebe Flamethrower, even if I had to accept that the barrel would still burn at the end. Unfortunatly, that didn't work out.
The projectile would just spawn and hit while the tank stands there without showing recoil or giving a shot sound.

So I wonder: Is there any solid information as to how the weapons of a vehicle are controlled?
Does the weapon, referred to in the combat_ext of a vehicle entity only configure the damage and which projectile is being fired?
Is everything else - Recoil Physics, Barrel Animation, Shot SFX, Shot FX - really hardcoded in the vehicles model file - immune to modification (the .abp shows no sign of it)?

Or is there a way to change this?

There is only the Flammpanzer 38(t), meaning no animations for anything else.

Also, handy tip for this kind of stuff:

Open World Builder. Create a new Single Player Map. Click on the NIS Mode button. Click on the NIS File menu button and select New (and hit Ok). Find the .abp at the bottom right (under armies for units). Then, click on the "Place on right-click" toggle button above. Right-click to spawn the actor. Select the actor with left-click. Click on the Timeline button at the top right. Expand your actor until you see animation. Now, click on the cell in the first column of the highlighted row and hit the insert key on your keyboard. There, you will see a pull down menu for State, allowing you to preview all of the actor's animation states (use the play and rewind buttons at the top right to preview them once they've been added/updated).

I can make a video tutorial if that's not clear enough, but it should help you determine animation states in the future.

Thanks. So all the weapon-related animation and sfx is hardcoded. Not much of a surprise, actually. I just keep hitting walls :/

Good to know that the animations are viewable. Haven't messed with the World Builder yet. I can work with that instruction, but I guess a tutorial would help some people.

I can make a video tutorial if that's not clear enough, but it should help you determine animation states in the future.

Yes ! Mr Eliw00d Me and the rest of the comunity, we will really apreciate this tutorial

Thank you in advance

Nice ! Thank you Eliw00d. Go to my favorites for sure