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RIPper_SVK

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Everything posted by RIPper_SVK

  1. i'm starting to like the ions. i use the ion thor for armor and stability on slopes (and it cannot shoot in it's upper hull front with the ion like the apollo). the ion seems to be very powerfull, especially on the raid map on one of the hills (the western high hill is a good place). the enemies cannot do much against me sniping them with the ion (at big distance AP won't penetrate and the probability of HEAT hitting a weak spot is very low). the only thing that seemed usefull against me was ATGM...even mortar or hurricane didn't cause much trouble for me, because they had big problems hitting me from that distance. but it's very annoying to have to hit the fire button so often with the ion. it's pretty hard on the hand after some time. please make it auto fire. if you think it would make the ion too strong, then make it weaker. also the ion beam makes a big flash on the screen at bigger zoom levels. that makes it hard to target the enemy and see whether i hit him. the ion seems to be totally devastating agaisnt shrikes and turrets. the turrets are hard to hit with HEAT or HE, but hitting and killing them with ion is a piece of cake.
  2. i repeat, the suggestion to make HEAT a bit better (just a little bit) was to overcome the "too strong sloped armor" problem which is mostly seen on Thor hull side, and sometimes on paladin side. if the penetration would be just a little bit better thor hull side could be penetrated with HEAT from maybe more than 60 degrees. so if you make a nice ambush, you penetrate. but shots from about 45 degrees wouldn't penetrate. now the situation with Thor is that it's hull side is HEAT resistant a bit above the ground, then it gets vulnerable to HEAT in the middle of hull, and then it's resistant to it again at the top of the hull....i don't think that's on purpose, that's a sideeffect of "the same armor thickness for the whole side of a vehicle" and armor slope. actually it wouldn't be a problem for me if Thor would be invulnerable from HEAT at the sides. but make it consistent (not like now where you have a "horizontal strip" which is vulnerable to HEAT, but it's surroundings aren't). but i don't think the important problem is HEAT penetration against thor side. if it would be consistent on the side, it would be OK. the HEAT problems just shows the issue with the armor model that has all armor on some side have the same thickness without regard to the armor slope. i think this has some ugly side effects. otherwise i think HEAT is spot on with it's performance. yep i said that...if AP component damage was better than now, you would use AP to shoot at thor's side because it can penetrate from lower angles and it's easier to hit. but if the distance would be too big to penetrate with AP (the distance depends on air density), and the thor would be stationary (otherwise it's hard to hit with HEAT at long distances), you could use HEAT. i highlight the word "could". you wouldn't want to use HEAT at usuall situations against thor (even against it's sides). but if the distance would be too big for AP to penetrate, you could try shooting some HEAT at the thor's side. at what range do you murder them? i've done tests with Drusus, and even at 2kms it took at least 2 shots for 1 penetration. you need 2 penetrations usually to kill, but for this you need at least 4 hits usually .... we tried this on the ice map, against a stationary thor. agree, HEAT should do more damage. all my talk about giving HEAT a bit more penetration was because of the inconsistent Thor side armor (and Paladin too). maybe HEAT shouldn't penetrate Thor's side at all, that's not a too big problem for me....but make it consistent, and not dependent on lucky hit on a vertical piece of armor. yes it should be an act of desperation, AP should be the preferred anti tank weapon. the desperate situation would be too big range for AP. and you would have to be lucky to hit him. agree. i think i missunderstood you before. my "hitting-components-twice challenge" at 1.5 km vs moving target is a problem with AP ammo. you don't need to hit the same components twice with HEAT, there's no problem in that. it's a problem with AP ammo because AP ammo has very low frag damage, so you need to hit the same component several times (usually 2-3). this is why i want the AP to do more damage to components. yeah sorry i shouldn't bring the discussion about light vehicles here...but i really think that the high mobility of lighter vehicles isn't as usefull as it could be. i think i got into minor arguments and noone will want to read it, so i'll sum it up: 1) AP does too little component damage. because of this HEAT is used much more than AP, even against tanks. 2) the fact that armor has the same thickness on one side without regard to sloping makes some ugly side effects. It creates tough spots of armor where i think they shouldn't be, like the lowerhull side of thor. i hope devs don't think i want to bash the game. i really love it. i'd really like to see their opinion on the last 2 points, maybe i'm just smoking crack....
  3. my main proposal is to make AP better to make it more usefull. at this time i don't use it (unless i'm testing it). i don't want to give it better penetration, but to give it more direct damage to components (and a bit more frag damage to components). the reason i suggested a bit better penetration for HEAT (it's component damage is OK), is to get arround the annoying "sloped armor has the same thickness as the vertical one". that problem makes very tough spots of armor on places where i think the designers didn't want them to be (on various vehicles, not just thor). i think the designers wanted the thor hull side (not turret side) to be vulnerable to HEAT. HEAT penetration would really be OK if the sloped armor problem wouldn't be there, but if it's not possible to fix that (because it's not an easy problem), i suggest a bit better HEAT penetration. do some tests with it. if you see the HEAT explode, then it didn't penetrate. try shooting from longer range on thor's side (from 90 degrees), and you'll see how hard is it to penetrate the hull side (unless you're lucky to hit the vertical armor). me too, and i think that indicates some problem in the damage (and armor) model i don't mean THAT random. i'll make an example (i'll forget about AP frag damage for simplicity). and don't take the numbers too seriously, it's just an example: AP direct hit does 30-45 HP direct damage engine has 40 HP that means that if you hit engine directly, you have 30% change of destroying the engine on first hit. you will definitely destroy it on 2nd hit (that is a 2nd perfect direct hit, only possible at short range, and with a lof of luck on moving targets at longer range). compare to the current situation, where 2 direct hits with AP don't detroy an engine (i tried this many times, i shot at thor's back from point blank range). now add some reasonable frag damage to the example, and you get this: 1) if you hit a component, you have some change to destroy it with 1st hit...not a big change, but it's there 2) 2 direct hits to a component definitely destroy it. but this can be only done at close distance. you need lots of luck for 2 direct hits to a component of a moving target in longer distance (more than 1.5 km) 3) with good tweaking of the frag damage, you would usually need 2-3 penetrations to make the target combat innefective (immobile, burning ammo etc). these penetration would NOT have to hit the same component. that was a short example ... the exact numbers are up for some debate, but i hope it explained what i want to do to make AP usefull (but not too usefull) several components get frag damage from a side AP penetration, but the frag damage is too low. well short range gunnery should definitely be more effective than long range. now when you see people play tanks, they don't use the terrain very well. one reason is the low acceleration, so it's hard to do berm drills with the tanks. the other reason is that there's no big need, the tank can take a punch. the problem with paladin if it had less armor is generally the problem of light vehicles in this game. light vehicles' biggest advantage is their mobility. but you don't need the mobility in this game that much. dropships provide mobility. or there's some central target to assault where you don't have to rush so you can take heavier stuff. only usefull light vehicles is the hermes and ATGM ones. you don't need others because you won't use their mobility. what would enforce more use of lighter vehicles is if there would be better AA cover (but less deployable AA turrets so the attackers can make a DZ), and more objectives. so that you would know that with speed you could take some side objectives, and you'd use light vehicles. now we've seen only 2 maps, i don't know how are the others. but in these 2 maps, you don't need the mobility of light vehicles that much.
  4. the AP damage should be lower than in real life for gameplay reasons, and i agree with that. HEAT would be effective enough against lighter targets if it didn't have the problem to penetrate the sloped armor. if HEAT penetrates, it's very effective (i'm talking about the game of course). HESH wouldn't be really effective against heavy armored vehicles sides, because the armor is not plain rolled homogenous armor. in real life it could damage sights, but sights aren't modelled in the game.
  5. well i'm on a posting spree, hopefully the devs don't get angry on me no i don't want first shot kills, not at all. i want to cause some serious damage after not more than 2-3 AP penetrations. notice the "penetrations". that means that thor would be very tough from the front against AP, and other vehicles would be hard to penetrate at longer range (depends on air density). by serious damage i don't necesarilly mean destroyed. i mean at least a mobility kill, or expoded ammo, or some crewmembers dead. basically i want to to be combat innefective. as it is now, after 3 AP penetrations he will most likely only be a bit slower, but able to fight. i still need several more AP shots. now you need too many penetrations with AP to cause serious damage. HEAT damage is OK, but it has a problem to penetrate because of it's quite low penetration and that the sloped armor is very thick. the damage is too low. after 3 AP (if you don't luckilly score 3 perfect direct hits to 1 component) penetrations, usually most vehicles can still move (tough slower) and fire. no you didn't understand me. i really love that you can damage components etc. but when after 3 AP penetrations (that don't hit the exact same component) the enemy (any vehicle, not just thor) can still move (though a bit slower) and fight, i say that AP is innefective. [ April 13, 2006, 03:05 AM: Message edited by: RIPper_SVK ]
  6. no i'm asking for more damage to components that are directly hit by AP, and a more fragmentation damage from AP if it passes through a lot of armor. nope that's not true, see one of my previous posts. tungsten or depleted uranium are definitely softer than steel. for example diamond is much tougher than tungsten, but it's much less dense (just look into some chemical tables). they do produce fragmentation by spalling. that means when they penetrate, they tear out bit of armor from the inside of the armor. the problems is that even direct hits with AP are pretty innefective. in the test i described in my first post in this thread, i was shooting to the back side of thor's hull from point blank range. even after 2 direct hits to engine and fuel cells, they were pretty ok and the tank could still move...that's quite wierd that you have 2 120mm AP penetrators going through the engine and fuell cells and still be combat effective. no i don't think that penetration should always equal a dead tank. on the ice map i can hit a Thor's hull side (from 90 degrees) from 3kms with HEAT or AP repeatadly. but it's not effective. HEAT usually doesn't penetrate (because it hits the sloped parts mostly). AP penetrates more, but because i cannot hit the same component several times (because of gun dispersion and because the target is moving), i have to penetrate him with AP at least 5 times.
  7. the penalty for using AP round would be that it's penetration ability decreases with range (especially in denser atmospheres), a bit lower component damage than HEAT, and if the fragmentation model would be like Drusus said (more fragmentation after passing through more armor) then it would be less effective against light targets than against heavy armored targets. for the player it would be better to use AP against heavy targets until medium range (in earth atmosphere), and in longer ranges he'd use HEAT against the heavy targets (though it would be unable to penetrate heavy armored parts, like thor front turret and hull, and side turret) i think i already wrote somewhere about this that the crew compartments are too small, no way a human would fit there. for example the gunner's compartment should protrude into the hull. alse the driver's compartment should be much bigger. if you compare the compartment's size with the gun size, the gun would have to be some gigantic naval gun. yes, i was talking about HEAT. i wouldn't have a problem with it if there would be some random factor in the internal damage (only internal!). you cannot model the internal damage in big detail, so you have to use abstractions. and i don't think that hitpoints and penetrations with always the same internal damage are a good abstraction. what effect i'd like to see is that if i directly hit the engine (of any vehicle) with AP, it has at least 50% change to be destroyed. second hit should almost always destroy the engine. the AP would also do more fragmentation damage than it does now. this could be achieved by a combination of component hitpoints and some slight random variation of direct and fragmentation internal damage. this would make mobility kills and mission kills (e.g. dead gunner, blown up ammo etc) more likely. you'd see tanks that are innefective in battle (but still somehow alive) after about 2 (3 if they're lucky) penetrations (notice i said pentrations, not just hit, so you have to attack from a position where you can shoot at vulnerable side...but you'd need to aim just for the whole vulnerable side, not some tiny component and need to hit it several times). they'd have to extract or suicide. this would make longer range gunnery effective. i think that paladin has too much armor. it's a light armored wheeled vehicle, isn't it? the non penetrating HEAT hits were to the side, which isn'totally vertical, but neither it's too sloped. but probably even that bit of slope stopped the HEAT from penetrating.
  8. just a small nitpick, HEAT doesn't create a plasma stream. the metal jet it creates is still solid! but at the speeds (9km/s) and pressures it behaves like fluid....also the armor which is hit by HEAT is pushed away like a fluid. the max temperature of the HEAT jet is about 500 degrees celsius, not enough to melt most metals. the same for APFSDS penetrators. they behave like fluids when they hit the armor, and the armor is pushed away like a fluid. this is why they use dense materials for the penetrators. because both armor and penetrator behave like fluids, the heavier one of the fuilds pushes the other one away more... if you ask if both APFSDS and HEAT behave like fluid then what's the difference? the HEAT jet travels faster than the speed of sound of the material IN the HEAT jet. so only the tip of the HEAT jet "knows" or "feels" the impact, because the shock of the impact travels slower than the jet and thus cannot reach parts of the jet that are more distant from the impact point....APFSDS travels slower than the speed of sound of it's material, so shock of the impact travels through the penetrator, and can causi it to shatter etc of course none of this has to apply in the game. i just wanted to use the chance to dispell the common knowledge that HEAT makes splasma streams, and got carried away
  9. i don't suggest HEAT being able to penetrate Thor front. but i think it's OK for it to penetrate apollo front, it's a light tank after all. i'd like to use AP at heavily armored targets (apollo front, thor any side) until medium range (think earth atmosphere). i'd like to use HEAT at light targets (any range if i can hit it) and at heavy armored targets but at long distances. if in some situation i'll have big problems hitting something with HEAT (e.g. fast light vehicle at 2.5km), i want to use AP against it (even though i know it's less effective against light targets)....i just basically said what Drusus said . and btw it's like this in real life too from my talks with tankers (they use AP (well it called APFSDS in real life against tanks and HEAT against light vehicles). not that i think everything in drop team should be done as in real life, but i like using AP and HEAT this way. usually it doesn't kill a component in a single hit. we tested this a lot of times, Drusus was my target at 2-3kms and i was shooting again and again at him. against Thor HEAT has problems penetrating the side armor as i wrote earlier. and anyway several penetrations were usually needed (i aimed at the center of the hull side) because of the gun's dispersion. several penetrations usually are needed even to kill an Apollo from the side. if you don't hit the fuel cells directly, expect to need at least 3 hits with AP.... and that's 3 hits to the side of a light tank! i had many situations where i hit a light vehicle (paladin) to the hull side with HEAT, and it didn't penetrate. that sure made me angry. i agree, Thor should be quite survivable. not not to the extreme like now. i can ambush a Thor from the side, i make 2 penetrations before he reacts...and he's still ok and shoots back as if nothing happened. Thor should take a beating from the front, but his sides and back shouldn't be that tough...and i repeat, the problem is not just that Thor's sides are tough, the problem is that it's hard to destroy components. and that applies to all vehicles i agree that i'd like to see mobility or mission killed tanks too, not just exploded. but i don't like having to penetrate him 5 times with AP from the side. i know that the green map has denser atmosphere. that's why i tested the 120mm on the ice map a lot too. there i can often shoot at Thors or other vehicles sides from 3kms....to no effect, thor's don't get penetrated with HEAT(unless i'm insanely lucky and hit the vertical side armor), and i need many penetrations with AP to kill anything. i'll repeat after Drusus again . i'm "whining" because i really like the game. i just don't like the "WTF" moments when i think i should waste someone thanks to my good position, but he continues without any problems.
  10. i also don't want this game to be totally realistic. i understand that it's not a simulator, but a game. i'm looking forward on the tactical opportunities of this game, the battlefield can get very fluid with good use of dropships (extracting/deploying somewhere else). but it feels wrong when i penetrate a vehicle's side with 120mm (epsecially with AP) 3 times, and it keeps on going without much trouble. it feels wrong hitting light vehicles with HEAT and not penetrating. and last but not least it feels wrong that longer range gunnery is innefective.
  11. problem with Thor's driver (or any other crew member) is that his compartment is very small. even if i forget the big ammount of armor around him, it's almost impossible to hit him directly because he's just too small....and frag damage from 120mm HEAT or AP isn't very good.
  12. i've done some tests with Drusus and Sente and others. we were basically testing the damage model. i still think there are some things that just feel wrong. i'll write the things that i think that feel wrong, and post possible solutions....i hope others will post some things that feel wrong and that we find a common solution to them. i think the game is absolutely great, but the damage modelling should be better. 1) 120mm shot into the hull back side of the Thor (point blank range): i needed usually 1 hit to kill the Thor with HEAT, in maybe in 1/4 or 1/3 of the tests i needed 2 shots. this feels quite right, maybe the damage to fuel cells is a little bit too big. the engine should be definitely dead after the 1st hit. with AP, i needed usually 3 shots. looking in the logs, the AP always scored direct hit to the engine and fuel cells and did some frag damage to the driver...this definitely feels wrong, and it shows the problem with low component damage. the engine and fuel cells should be destroyed by the 2nd shot at the latest, otherwise it's really innefective to shoot AP in the weakest part of the tank (the AP round basically goes through the whole tank, but you still need 3 penetrations). what i would like to see is that when i hit a component with AP, it has at least 50% change of being destroyed with the 1st hit. the 2nd hit should destroy it almost always (unless you're very very very lucky). 2) if you hit a thor in the side hull (from 90 degrees) with HEAT you MUST hit the vertical armor to penetrate. this makes longer distance shooting with HEAT innefective. you cannot reliably hit the vertical armor because of the shot dispersion. now what causes this? i think it's because all armor on some side (e.g. front, side, back) etc is equally thick, independently from it's slope. this creates very tough spots in the places where the armor is sloped. this doesn't really make sense to me. in reality the sloped armor on Thor's hull side would be most probably thinner than the vertical one, so that both have the same resulting effectiveness. the thor's side armor looks like this: / | \ it might make sense to have the upper sloped armor with the same thickness as the vertical one, so a partiall hull down position which exposes that part would be well protected. but it doesn't make sense for the lower sloped armor to have the same thickness as the vertical one, because that makes it tougher. so now it's hard to hit a spot on thor's hull side where 120mm HEAT can penetrate at 90 degrees. hit from a lower angle makes penetration even harder. 3) side hits to a paladin (center mass) with 120mm HEAT sometimes don't penetrate. the paladin is a light vehicle, 120mm HEAT should penetrate always. i think it's caused by the same problem as the thor side armor. this also makes paladin's front armor very tough. 4) generally there are many situations when you hit a vehicle in a spot that should be weak with 120mm HEAT, and it doesn't penetrate (you can see the explosion when it doesn't penetrate). i go "WTF?" and get angry because my ambush is innefective. i think 120mm HEAT penetration should be higher (around 300, now it's 240 i think). 5) both HEAT and especially AP do too little damage to components. this makes long range (not extreme range, just more than 1.5 or 2 kms) gunery totally innefective, because you need many hits to the same component which takes many shots because of the shot disperion. i understand that changing damage model or weapon effectiveness is a hard thing, which can unbalance the game. but i don't like ambushes being innefective, and having to hit the same spot many times to kill with the most effective weapon (120mm). you shouldn't be forced to extreme precission shooting into 1 component because this isn't posible at a bit longer ranges. 2 hits (at most) to a vulnerable side (e.g. thor's hull side or back) should do serious damage or kill the enemy without having to hit the same spot. my suggestions to solve it: 1) armor on some part should have the total effectiveness (after calculating the influence of slope) at some value. so for example if Thor's constructors wanted to make it's hull side armor with some effectiveness, they will make the sloped armor less thick, but after calculating in the slope, it will have the same effectivenes as the vertical hull side armor. 2) give HEAT a bit more penetration 3) make it easier to damage components. 120mm HEAT is about right (but it has too little penetration now). give AP more direct damage to components (i think that hitting a component with AP should destroy it in at least 50% cases, probably like in 66%). give AP bit more frag damage well sorry for the long post, i hope it makes sense to someone.....
  13. it takes around 3 hits with AP to get a mobility kill...that's too much for my taste
  14. the 20mm of the command vehicle is pretty good for defense of the bases.
  15. i couldn't find you there...and ircnet sucks, i had big problems finding a server, and then i couldn't connect from my usuall IRC client so i had to use the web client :/ i'll make a #dropteam channel on irc.efnet.net . i'll be almost always there, so see you there
  16. what about an IRC channel? i don't know how many of the players are familiar with IRC, but i think it would be great to be able to discuss many things there....
  17. yesterday i found the 120mm HEAT to be VERY effective against dropships. in the raid map, if you take a Thor on the hill near the north AA tower, you can cover north and south DZ....with a bit of practice you can hit dropships at 5kms without much prolems. hitting a dropship with HEAT takes it down most of the time. now take this a bit to the extreme. the defenders could cover a sustantial portion of the map with turrets. the remaining killzone would be covered by mines and 120mm vehicles. the defenders wouln't drop in the base (maybe one of them for backup), but all around the map, especially near DZs....i think this would slow down the attackers a lot, and probably kill many of their valuable vehicles while dropping. so i think limiting defenders DZ at the start would be usefull too.
  18. i also think that maps with more AA towers like the one in the ice map would be interesting. it would limit the attacker's ability to drop anywhere, and it would require more planned and tactical movement.
  19. i agree that the HEAT damage (direct and blast) should be based on the ammount of penetration power left after going through the armor. similar with AP damage. the direct damage of AP should be lower after going through a lot of armor, but blast damage should be higher. but don't take this into the extreme. if the AP has gone through too much armor (still penetrated, but only with a little bit of power left), the blast damage should be lower. so to sum it up, the direct damage power of AP should get lower as it's remaining penetration power gets lower (the more armor it penetrated, the less direct damage can it do). blast damage should at first get higher with more armor penetrated, but eventually it should start to decrease. when the AP round looses too much power during the penetration, the blast damage should get lower (AP round with too little power left will create less internal spalling).
  20. i forgot to add that some components could survive a direct hit by AP or HEAT (with some luck). it depends on the component structure. for example the batteries are many connected smaller batteries (at least that's how it looks like on the vehicle schematics). i can imagine that if a few of them would get detroyed by a direct hit, others would still work (maybe internal fire could destroy them later if you're unlucky). but a partially damaged engine (or ammo storage with lots of 120mm rounds) doesn't really make sense to me, unless it's a very strange engine. if you destroy a part of the engine, it's dead. it should either be OK or destroyed i think....but of course this could have some serious gameplay influence. of course if the engine is very exotic and can function somehow even if part of it is destroyed, then my argument is useless....
  21. the AP damage is a good idea Drusus. generally i think if the 120mm AP hits any component it should destroy it. at this moment i think the components can survive a hit from 120mm (they don't get destroyed immediately, but turn "yellow"). one problem with having to hit important components to kill with 120mm AP (and even HEAT to some extent) is that this can be done at close range (hundreds of meters), but not at longer ranges. this makes long range shooting pretty pointless, because you have to be really lucky to hit something important (and you usually need to hit it several times) and thus need many shots (and without automatic lead calculation, hitting moving targets at long ranges is pretty hard)....120mm should be a serious killer at longer ranges (2-3 kms), you shouldn't have to hit critical components so many times.....more blast damage from HEAT (and from AP depending how much armor does did it penetrate) and more component damage from AP should do the trick. there's no point in having a great engine where you can see to great distances, if your tanks cannot effectively engage targets at 2-3 kms. that would encourage using HEAT for long range gunnery against lightly armored vehicles (like in real life), because with AP you might miss a component and just make a neat hole. HEAT would have much better chance of destroying the target at long distances (even though it's harder to hit with HEAT). on close range AP would be very usefull even against light vehicles, because you could aim for components. [ April 08, 2006, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: RIPper_SVK ]
  22. it's great that the gun and explosion sounds are more audible now. but i think they should still be even louder (e.g. i almost cannot hear any 20mm shooting except mine).
  23. i got to play again after some time and i noticed a few things (i only played commander today so it's only from his perspective) 1) the 20mm seems to be weaker against light vehicles. i had serious problems destroying the shrike from the side (i aimed at the center) at very close distance...i still could destroy thors from the side, which i don't like. i wasn't able to kill the heavy mortar from the side even from very close distance and after shooting a lot of ammo (i didn't try it more times so it could be just bad luck). i think the 20mm shouldn't have problems killing light vehicles (paladins form all directions, apollos from the side), but it should NOT be able to kill a thor from the side. 2) it's almost impossible to win the attack without the commander dropping jammers and AA turrets on the way to the objective...usually noone is the commander when i join, so i take him (i'd like to play thor if he was more powerfull, but now i get too annoyed from the low power of the 120mm). 3) defenders on the ice map usually forget to have AA turrets in the base (and some in the reserve). a good attacking tactic is killing the missile AA tower and quickly drop inside the base. then if i (the commander of attackers) keep jammers and AA turrets in the base, the defenders have great problems reclaiming the base (though they usually forget to use arty).
  24. yeah i have this problems sometimes too. but today i accidentally found that "n" puts back names on the vehicles
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