Kingtiger Mantlet and Coax MG problem, and an attempted 3D model Fix

[Baneman]

So, you are basically saying Jenz is incorrect and Vanir is incorrect but CM's version is right?! What sources are Charles working off of? I just wonder and hope it's not TLAR. 

He said that CM used Jentz' values, but they look to have been "averaged" and a closer look at the precise numbers is needed.

I don't know what TLAR is - is that a website or different game ?

[Skwabie]

He said that CM used Jentz' values, but they look to have been "averaged" and a closer look at the precise numbers is needed.

I don't know what TLAR is - is that a website or different game ?

^Numbers are generalized. The pighead mantlet is of complex shape, so if a number just says 150mm at 13deg, it certainly is generalized. There would need pictures and detailed measurements. We have not seen those detailed numbers and even pictures are scarce. The Jentz book does have cutoff drawings, but I suppose they can just say "that is also not correct" as well.

TLAR is... "That Looks About Right"

[Baneman]

...

TLAR is... "That Looks About Right"

So despite everything you know about how BFC work, you "hope" they're not just making stuff up.

That's pretty insulting in my opinion.

[Skwabie]

^They have not yet presented hard facts, only word of the mouth. It is and has always been good PR work from a business, but still just words. So sorry that I do not share the "blind trust" of you CM fanatics. And as this thread has shown, trust is a little thin on the internet. Also my doubt does not only come from here, but also past tests by others that reveals a few of the hidden data points. And at the basic level I do not like opaque systems.

Another point. You seem to think a game can just copy whatever the real life value to put it into the game. Well such is easy for armor thickness. But how about the soft factors? Say, armor hardness factors, vehicle turn rates, bogging chances etc. that may or may not be written in stone? How about mostly subjective matters like spotting chances, optics quality, shot accuracy. I ask what other standard can you put to it except the slang TLAR.

[Baneman]

Another point. You seem to think a game can just copy whatever the real life value to put it into the game. Well such is easy for armor thickness. But how about the soft factors?

Well, we were talking specifically about armour thickness.

Soft factors is a different argument. 

[Skwabie]

Well, we were talking specifically about armour thickness.

Soft factors is a different argument. 

 

We.. sigh. Obviously in this case, even armor thickness is not as straightforward.

[A Canadian Cat]

Well that got "interseting" fast. I read @ChrisND's post and then @battlefront's and I thought: cool things have worked as they should - yet again. Someone found something that slipped through the cracks of testing and it was noticed, reported and a fix is in the works. Dude this is a win. I am totally dumfounded as to why your being recognized as finding an issue that will be fix is suddenly a bad thing.

Colour me confused.

[Battlefront.com]

So, you are basically saying Jenz is incorrect and Vanir is incorrect but CM's version is right?! 

Er, no.  You appear to be confusing two issues.  Though I'm not sure why because I think they've been pretty clearly spelled out.  However, let me try again.

You found a game result that seemed at odds with how things worked in reality.  Though that is often times hard to quantify, you did make a pretty solid case that something is indeed wrong within the game.  This is a good thing and I think everybody here, including us, thank you for taking the time to make a compelling case that "something is wrong".

All good so far.

You developed a hypothesis of what might be causing the problem.  Specifically that there's turret armor missing and therefore the shot that penetrates the mantlet has an incorrect chance of KO'ing the tank because it should be stopped by the turret armor we neglected to put in.

Still no problem with what you've done.

However, we have found that this is the step that customers very often get wrong.  Most often because they don't understand some important part of the game mechanics or because they have an incorrect understanding of the facts.  Or both   In your case you have an incorrect understanding of the facts.  And the fact is that there is indeed a big "hole" behind the mantlet and therefore a round which penetrates the mantlet should have a good chance of knocking out the tank.

To recap, you correctly identified a problem but incorrectly diagnosed its cause.

You went further than most guys in that you hacked the model to add armor to a place where armor should not be.  If your hypothesis was correct then so too would your solution.  But your hypothesis is incorrect and therefore so is your solution.  The fact that you saw a reduction in the problem is coincidental.  Therefore, it is not a valid fix and, in fact, is probably overall harmful even if it is helpful to this one particular situation.  I say this because you have basically incorrectly up-armored the King Tiger based on a flawed concept, which means if it were applied to other models you could very well cause a legitimate turret penetration to fail due to fictitious armor being added where it should not be.

Which means that not only did you misdiagnosis the problem, but you proposed a fix which most likely causes currently correct things to become incorrect.  At the very least that possibility exists.

OK, what then is actually causing the problem?

Charles made an over simplification of the mantlet's armor treatment based on an over simplified number provided by Jenz.  Which is to say that both Jenz' numbers *and* Combat Mission are incorrect.  This sort of situation *might* apply to other very oddly shaped mantlets, such as the Saukopf on StuGIIIs, but it may not.  For that to be the case the game's current treatment must be "meaningfully flawed".  Which is to say, both wrong and wrong in a way that matters.  Very often the theoretical flaws in CM have no practical impact on game outcome because the window where the flaw matters simply isn't likely to happen or even possible.  Theoretical vs. reality is always something which as to be kept in mind.

Therefore, the correct fix to this problem is for Charles to adjust the armor ratings of the King Tiger (H) mantlet.

To over simplify this even further:

1.  Currently there is a problem with the way the King Tiger (H)'s mantlet armor is treated in the game.  This will be fixed.

2.  There is no problem with the way turret armor is handled as hypothesized in this thread.

3.  There are no cases made, yet at least, which show this to be a problem affecting other models.

 

I was happier however by using my makeshift mod.

Sure, but it's not a good fix because it's not the right solution to the problem.

^They have not yet presented hard facts, only word of the mouth. It is and has always been good PR work from a business, but still just words. So sorry that I do not share the "blind trust" of you CM fanatics. And as this thread has shown, trust is a little thin on the internet.

I think it's more accurate to say "baseless pessimism and paranoia are thick on the Internet"   We have nearly two decades of proving that when there's a problem we fix it, yet in your mind it's as if we don't.  That says far more about you than it does us.

 

Also my doubt does not only come from here, but also past tests by others that reveals a few of the hidden data points. And at the basic level I do not like opaque systems.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I find that people who are more interested in the data are actually less interested in good results.  I say this because CM might be more opaque and less editable than other wargames, but it's outcomes are vastly more realistic and robust than any other game of its type.  In fact, only a few games even attempt realism in the first place.

 

Another point. You seem to think a game can just copy whatever the real life value to put it into the game. Well such is easy for armor thickness. But how about the soft factors? Say, armor hardness factors, vehicle turn rates, bogging chances etc. that may or may not be written in stone? How about mostly subjective matters like spotting chances, optics quality, shot accuracy. I ask what other standard can you put to it except the slang TLAR.

For sure we there's tons of stuff in Combat Mission that do not have real world data points to base our modeling on.  Lucky for you guys we're actually very good at doing that   We're also very willing to make changes when people point out that our modeling has rough spots.  Which is why there isn't a tactical simulation on this Earth that comes even remotely close to Combat Mission's ability to depict tactical combat in a realistic way.  And I include massive defense industry simulations in this too, as users and developers of those sims have verified.

Since being perfect isn't a realistic possibility, we're quite happy to be the best by far.

Steve

Edited December 22, 2015 by Battlefront.com

[Skwabie]

   And the fact is that there is indeed a big "hole" behind the mantlet

I am saying there isn't. I am not saying there isn't because of what I say. I have presented pictures from credible sources. You are saying there is a hole. You are saying this is because of what you say. You are saying credible sources are incorrect and you have not presented other credible sources except your word of mouth. The CM fanatics will believe those but I think there is a limit.

Re: my mod. I don't consider it "realistic" either. But I'm happy to use it, that's all. And I certainly ain't justifying it to others. Maybe some will find it useful or acceptable, some will find it rejectable. I don't mind either way. Such is the way of mod.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I find that people who are more interested in the data are actually less interested in good results.

While a fair assessment, over generalization for sure. Just as you have seen one side, there are opposite sides.

I think it's more accurate to say "baseless pessimism and paranoia are thick on the Internet"   We have nearly two decades of proving that when there's a problem we fix it, yet in your mind it's as if we don't.  That says far more about you than it does us.

This is closing to the line. But wait, since this is your line, it doesn't matter, right. As to the point, I certainly am not accusing CM of not fixing bugs for 20 years. In fact, I think CM has survived 2 economic recessions and outlived most of the indie game companies several times over. On this aspect I must congratulate the CM team for a business well run and very successful careers. In the business - customer relationship, by not making your game more transparent, you're assuming the customers are a, politely put, "beer and pretzels" crowd. Put bluntly, you think most of your customers are stupid. You hinges on their consumerism to buy good looking products without caring what exactly it is they're getting. So the consumers just bury their heads in the sand and buy more stuff. In the rule maker - player ecosystem, you are the rule maker, the dictator, the mini- Stalin, Mao, Hitler, the emperor, generalissimo, the MAN. You may talk the talk and appear to be quite easy going to foster popularity, but to the MAN I say F*CK YOU.

[ASL Veteran]

Wow, that's quite the rant ... there are a few things in life that could get me worked up that much but I don't think I would count the thickness of King Tiger Mantlet armor amongst them.  I mean, realistically there has to be a hole in the turret or the gun barrel wouldn't be able to poke out of it ... right?  Maybe that's just me.  Seriously though, if someone is getting this worked up about King Tiger Mantlet armor I have to begin wondering what they do for a living and what they have invested in King Tiger armor values or why it matters this much.  Yes, we all want the game to be using the correct figures and we want the game to be doing things right.  Just because BFC's solution doesn't match someone's perceived solution doesn't mean BFC's solution is the incorrect one.  BFC knows the code and knows how to apply things in the game and people unfamiliar with the code don't know how things get applied in the game.  Maybe a better approach to ranting and raving would be to wait for the next patch and see what the results are of BFC's fix.  At that point if the fix doesn't seem right then a new complaint can be lodged.  Bursting a blood vessel in an argument about whether BFC is doing it 'right' or not isn't going to advance the issue one bit.

[George MC]

Must be something to do with the full moon, or the water or summfink. High bampot and bing bong quota on the forum at the moment. 

[c3k]

Well, as I've stated earlier, it's great to have a possible shortcoming/flaw discovered. And, now it seems like BFC is implementing a fix. Wow. That's great.

Okay, the fix isn't what Skwabie wants. Hmm... Is the fix closer to Skwabie's ideal than what the current model has? Umm...yes.

I will add on more question/idea: I wonder what effect the barrel has on protection values for penetrations on the mantlet? Would edge effects really be present if the edge is buttressed by a barrel? Could a shell penetrate a hole if the barrel plugged that hole? That diagram of the turret front armor opening is great...but that hole is mostly filled with barrel. Perhaps that should be looked at?

Meantime, I can't help but think this type of response from BFC is what any customer would want. (And saying BFC models for the "beer and pretzel" crowd is so far from the truth that a statement like that is no doubt due to frustration, not rational analysis.)

Ken

[ASL Veteran]

I think it would be better to assume that turrets are modeled in the game the same way for every vehicle.  I don't know that for a fact, but I also have doubts that every vehicle model is entirely unique in the way the game treats it when something is firing on it.  Some turrets have a mantlet that is backed by a lot of open space and some probably don't.  For example I don't think there is much, if any, turret armor behind the mantlet of the Pz III or the Pz IV.  If you made the assumption that every mantlet was backed by turret armor then there would be a lot of needlessly uparmored turrets in the game so an across the board fix in the manner being requested probably isn't feasible or warranted.  Maybe it works in this specific circumstance, but if the game doesn't know the difference then the proposed solution is still the wrong one for the game even if it can be argued that it would be the right solution per the individual vehicle specifications.  Certainly you wouldn't want to make an across the board fix that just made things wrong the other way around for every other vehicle in the game in order to 'fix' one individual vehicle.   

[Battlefront.com]

Skwabie,

You have a choice to make.  You can either have a reasoned and factual discussion with me or you can rant.  You can not do both.  Or more exactly, I will not engage with you any further if you are going to ignore rational discourse in favor of rants.  It's your decision to make.

Either way, we're still going to fix the problem because this isn't personal.  You found a problem and we'll fix it.  That's what we do.

 

I am saying there isn't. I am not saying there isn't because of what I say. I have presented pictures from credible sources. You are saying there is a hole. You are saying this is because of what you say. You are saying credible sources are incorrect and you have not presented other credible sources except your word of mouth. The CM fanatics will believe those but I think there is a limit.

I am totally puzzled here.  You pointed out there is a problem with the game's outcome.  You made a case for it.  We AGREE WITH YOU that there is a problem.  You don't seem to interested in acknowledging that.

It's just that you've not correctly diagnosed what that problem is.  And yes, I know it might come as a shock to you... but even experts like Jenz make mistakes and/or portray information in a way that can be misinterpreted.  Nobody is perfect.  So yes, we are saying that Jenz' data is overly generalized.  Now that we look at it, it is very obvious.  One only has to look at a cut away of the mantlet and do some measurements to confirm that Jenz' data is a generalized average.  An average which makes a big difference and absolutely corresponds with the problem you identified.

Scientific method states that when you test hypotheses the one which conforms to the facts the most is generally the correct one.  The problem you found and the more detailed analysis Charles did are solidly linked.  The fix he'll implement will be correct because it is designed to solve the actual problem.  Yours is demonstrably incorrect, which means your fix is also incorrect.

So, now let's talk about sources.  Besides a rather obvious and easily done comparison of Jenz' values vs. a measured cut-away of the mantlet (i.e. his measurements are not reproduceable), there is this top view of the turret from Spielberger’s “Tiger & King Tiger Tanks and their Variants”:

You can see very clearly that there's very little overlap of the mantlet and the turret front armor.  Which is confirmed by this picture from a few days ago:

Re: my mod. I don't consider it "realistic" either. But I'm happy to use it, that's all. And I certainly ain't justifying it to others. Maybe some will find it useful or acceptable, some will find it rejectable. I don't mind either way. Such is the way of mod.

Which is EXACTLY why we don't allow/condone modding.  You have a flawed understanding of the modeling of this tank, you have made a flawed fix that you personally are happy with, and you don't care one iota if it's wrong because you like it.  It doesn't take many people with that attitude to ruin the integrity of Combat Mission's simulation characteristics.

You said your "fix" addresses an engine wide "bug" that's been around since Shock Force.  But there is no engine wide bug at all, nor engine wide deficiency.  There is a specific problem with the King Tiger (H) model.  Could there be similar problems with some other vehicle?  Perhaps, but that's not been established.  And if there are problems with specific vehicles, then we will address them specifically. 

 

This is closing to the line. But wait, since this is your line, it doesn't matter, right.

Yup, I set the line at personal attacks and abuse.  You keep staying on the wrong side of that line, yet I've not banned you for it.

As to the point, I certainly am not accusing CM of not fixing bugs for 20 years. In fact, I think CM has survived 2 economic recessions and outlived most of the indie game companies several times over. On this aspect I must congratulate the CM team for a business well run and very successful careers.

Yet you continue to pursue a line of abuse which boils down to "talk is cheap and you can't be trusted to deliver".  Question for the audience... anybody else see the contradiction here?

 

In the business - customer relationship, by not making your game more transparent, you're assuming the customers are a, politely put, "beer and pretzels" crowd.

Not at all.  We think the data is too complicated for even the most hardened grognard.  Only a few have the skills and the materials sufficient enough to know what to do with this data.  And you are proving that point very well, I might add, since you're not only wrong but you seem to think that being abusive rather than scientific will get your point made.  The last thing anybody needs is more of this sort of "discussion".

 

Put bluntly, you think most of your customers are stupid. You hinges on their consumerism to buy good looking products without caring what exactly it is they're getting. So the consumers just bury their heads in the sand and buy more stuff. In the rule maker - player ecosystem, you are the rule maker, the dictator, the mini- Stalin, Mao, Hitler, the emperor, generalissimo, the MAN. You may talk the talk and appear to be quite easy going to foster popularity, but to the MAN I say F*CK YOU.

Wow.  I don't even know what to do with this, other than to conclude that you've obviously got some "issues" which go far beyond this topic.  Which is the primary problem with the Internet.  People bring to these conversations all kinds of baggage instead of focusing on what really matters:

1.  There is a problem in the game

2.  It was brought to our attention

3.  We listened to the arguments with an open mind

4.  We agreed that the arguments that there is something wrong with the game

5.  We examined the inner guts of the simulation and compared it against the best sources available

6.  We identified the actual problem and can confirm it is what is causing the sub optimal game result

7.  We have fixed it internally and have promised to deliver that fix to our customers

8.  Because we have nearly two decades of delivering on what we promise our "word" has meaning.  And if we don't deliver, then we cause ourselves harm

Honestly, I fail to see where the problem is with this.  I mean, a REAL problem, not some sort of general "I don't like that I can't mod the data" complaint.

Steve

Edited December 23, 2015 by Battlefront.com

[Battlefront.com]

BTW, Charles just emailed me and he said the fix is already applied and working in the game.  With this more realistic assessment of the mantlet thickness it's pretty much a non-starter to get a penetration with a mantlet hit.

Steve

[Bud Backer]

Steve, just a heads up

http://www.battlefront.com/images/forum/misc/KT Turret.jpg

gives error 404 when one clicks on it. Maybe it's the space in the name? 

 

Feel free to delete this post once you've read it.

 

Edited December 23, 2015 by Bud_B

[Skwabie]

Battlefront.com,

Now that you've posted your sources, everybody can see exactly how much overlap there is. Cutout? Empty? Unless I am blind.

Yes I have issues, with the Man. Everywhere. Some ppl like to cater head over heels for authority but I don't feel that way. Unless this game becomes more transparent and open, I'll always have a problem with it. This thread has taken 5 pages so far. There have been plenty of 20 pagers before. What happens next time someone else finds something?

As to my own fix, it is of course half-assed, because there are no tools for making proper fixes. Suppose there are, and it's still not correct, and you don't like it. - Grab the tools and fix it yourself, simple. That's instead of spending another 5 pages on the forums. No, your real concern is open modding being financially harmful. What if modders have already created a Bulge game addon? Same as your veto for a game database viewer: distracting for development and time is money. So please keep pumping out new games that have less and less innovation in them.

It is interesting that I can still post. I was literally requesting for it, but thank you for extending the courtesy. Now I am saying it straightforward, be noted this is my own request: Please delete my account. I am not happy here and do not wish to spend more time on it.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Skwabie

[Battlefront.com]

Steve, just a heads up

http://www.battlefront.com/images/forum/misc/KT Turret.jpg

gives error 404 when one clicks on it. Maybe it's the space in the name? 

 

Feel free to delete this post once you've read it.

 

Fixed!  It gave me a bear of a time because the Forum insisted on butchering the link.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Battlefront.com,

Now that you've posted your sources, everybody can see exactly how much overlap there is. Cutout? Empty? Unless I am blind.

The mantlet edges are where you need to focus on.  It clearly shows that the overlap between the mantlet edges and the frontal armor overlap only a very small bit.  The Soviet test range picture can be compared against the diagram for clarification of where the hole is if you don't see it in the diagram.

 

Yes I have issues, with the Man. Everywhere. Some ppl like to cater head over heels for authority but I don't feel that way. Unless this game becomes more transparent and open, I'll always have a problem with it. This thread has taken 5 pages so far. There have been plenty of 20 pagers before. What happens next time someone else finds something?

If the poster doesn't have a huge chip on his shoulder, then it probably would have taken only 2 pages.  But for the last two pages I've been repeatedly explaining the same thing over and over again.

As to my own fix, it is of course half-assed, because there are no tools for making proper fixes. Suppose there are, and it's still not correct, and you don't like it. - Grab the tools and fix it yourself, simple. That's instead of spending another 5 pages on the forums. No, your real concern is open modding being financially harmful. What if modders have already created a Bulge game addon? Same as your veto for a game database viewer: distracting for development and time is money. So please keep pumping out new games that have less and less innovation in them.

You're only 1/2 right.  We are definitely concerned about our ability to make a living being undercut by modding.  But we are very concerned about the integrity of the game's modeling being undermined by people making "half-assed" mods who don't care one bit about the ramifications.  We've put nearly 20 years into making CM a solid and well respected simulation of tactical combat.  We are proud of that achievement and we work VERY hard to continue it.  Letting "half-assed" or (worse) "no-assed" stuff destroy all that we've worked to create doesn't do anybody any good.  Certainly not us, certainly not our customers who place a value on integrity.

It is interesting that I can still post. I was literally requesting for it, but thank you for extending the courtesy. Now I am saying it straightforward, be noted this is my own request: Please delete my account. I am not happy here and do not wish to spend more time on it.

OK, just to be clear.  You have accused us of all kinds of really bad things and yet I've not banned you, deleted/modified your posts, or ignored you.  Instead I challenged you where you needed to be challenged and never once took my eye off the most important thing... fixing a flaw in the game.  You seem to have difficulty in sticking to a straight discussion and it's making you unhappy that acting out is not getting you banned.  You have now explicitly asked for me to ban you, which I will do.  Your account is now locked.

Personally, I find this a shame.  You made a very good observation, you documented it, and you easily convinced us we should spend our time digging into what is going on.  As a result we made a fix and the game has been improved.  It's sad that isn't good enough for you because who knows what other POSITIVE contributions you could have made.

Steve

Edited December 23, 2015 by Battlefront.com

[Battlefront.com]

BTW, in case anybody thinks we view our customers as "stupid" (the accusation has been made above), they would be very wrong to think that.  On the contrary, we view you guys as a pretty darned smart bunch.  However intelligence ≠ capability for a particular given task.  Combat Mission is a combination of extremely advanced physics, real world data, and highly educated guesswork based on decades of doing this sort of thing professionally.  How many of our customers likely have this level of expertise?  Probably none.  Certainly none have that AND the knowledge of how the game is actually coded and why various decisions were made over many years.  Since that is the combination of things needed to successfully tweak/change data within CM to produce a predictably better result than what we already have in the game, there's no value to the customer (in terms of improving the simulation quality) by having the data be open to change by anybody for any reason at any time.  Quite the opposite since uniformed changes are more likely to cause harm than good.  So the game will not be opened up to tinkering by end users for everybody's own good.

Note that this is VERY different than the customer request to have more nitty-gritty data available from an informational standpoint.  That is an argument we are quite sympathetic to and will definitely try to make more information available to those who want it as we move forward.  Unfortunately, development time is limited and such features have traditionally not been a priority for us vs. other customer requests.

Steve

Edited December 23, 2015 by Battlefront.com

[JonS]

The early age of computer gaming. It was the wild west.

The most recent iteration of the HPS PzC engine was released last year.

[76mm]

Boy, that was weird...

[A Canadian Cat]

Boy, that was weird...

Indeed. So far that has been the weirdest moment I have witnessed on these forums.

Edited to add: mind you I don't read the peng threads

 

Edited December 24, 2015 by IanL

[Myles Keogh]

"The MAN?"  The maker of a niche PC game?  Really?  LOL

"I'm not happy here and do not wish to spend anymore time on it."  LOL

We've seen meltdowns on here before, but this one was classic.

Maybe it being Christmastime with possibly time-off from work or school brought-out his inner-child.

[alwaysfish]

 

"The MAN?"  The maker of a niche PC game?  Really?  LOL

"I'm not happy here and do not wish to spend anymore time on it."  LOL

We've seen meltdowns on here before, but this one was classic.

Maybe it being Christmastime with possibly time-off from work or school brought-out his inner-child.

Common Myles, Skwabie found a small bug and made the game better. I respect him for that. I think both parties (skwabie and BFC) could have handled things differently. none of the parties deserve a laugh.