Crew subsystems.

[yurch]

I've mentioned this several times in passing, but I think it's about time for it to be considered in detail. And I have pictures!

Our vehicles have a fair amount of empty space in them. Engineering wise, this is pretty wrong. Luckily, I've found something to put in that space.

Crew members!

There was a bit of a debate early on about how big these vehicles were in relative size to the infantry. Now that we have infantry, we can just do a comparison.

Here's an internal diagram of the shrike, to the best of my knowledge of how the internals work:

Now, here's a picture of an infantry unit standing on a shrike:

The yellow-white ball is the pilot. He'd have a hard time fitting, no? Consider the vulnerable instruments, life support, and armoring he'd need to fit alongside with - it just ain't happening.

Here's an internal of the hermes:

The big ball is the engine, yellow is the jammer, and the light blue one is the battery. The red one is the driver.

We all know how hard that battery can be to kill when you're aiming for it. I don't think a shot merely passing through the sphere ensures full damage. That driver subsystem is just as strong as the battery is, at a fraction of the size. Shots that can't overpenetrate, like 76mm and below, will be stopped by the engine before they can even get to the pilot.

As always, I have suggestions.

1: People are squishy. It seems a bit unpractical, even with armoring, that the occupants of a vehicle (that may be in an enviroment without atmosphere) can survive an overpenetrating 120mm AP passing through thier location in the vehicle. A drop in subsystem strength is probably warrented.

2: People need breathing room. A good portion of an AFV is dedicated to housing the crew. (I love that picture) The crew subsystems could certainly stand to be made uniformly larger. I know they're spherical, but some overlap could be dismissed as abstration.

As well as having a lesser amount of shots doing 'nothing', this will cause crew damage to occur more often, which brings me to #3...

3: Have a gunner subsystem in the chassis. It's impractical with the sizings that whoever is firing those guns is residing in the turret, especially small ones like the apollo or paladin varients. These could be considered remote turrets. I recommend a gunner subsystem below each turret, the loss of which causes the turret to stop functioning. The existing gunner subsystem in the turrets can be considered optics or other sighting/control equipment that the gunner cannot operate without, so they don't have to be removed.

4: A vehicle with all crew members dead should probably self destruct and serve as a kill.

Gameplay wise, this will bring out a new layer of lethality to average gunnery, and may solve some issues with problem vehicles like the shrike. This is a complicated game, and the positioning of these new subsystems will continue to give the vehicles more personality.

[yllamana]

I think the passing through makes sense if the damage is to the periphery of the crew compartment, since the compartment has more *around* it than just the crew in the middle (i.e. it's possible to damage the compartment without breaching it, by shearing clear through the hopefully-redundant systems around it). Having said that, it makes no sense for the crew compartment to be so tiny as in the picture.

I would worry that making the crew bigger will change the balance of the game a great deal, though.

You can explain away being able to extract with no crew by saying the liveship dispatches the dropship on its own - we do have full status information for our entire team available at all times.

I'd be very interested to see the results of those changes. And I love that picture too. I have to agree with the sentiment that it's wrong for there to be so much apparent dead space inside the vehicles.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

4: A vehicle with all crew members dead should probably self destruct and serve as a kill.

Not sure I agree with this. As yll says, the dropship is largely autonomous / launched, and its not like we don't know where our own units are. Dispatching for pick-up at leisure should be servicable.

Of course, a crewless vehicle still on the board at scenario end, owned by the losing side, probably should count as a kill.

[adzling]

yeah i think this is a pressing issue.

thanks for the detail yurch

i've plinked upwards of 20 rounds AT A TIME into both paladins and thors AT CLOSE RANGE directly into the lower side armor GETTING PENETRATIONS EACH TIME and still not knocking out the battery or any other internal components to speak of.

bah!

[yurch]

Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams:

Not sure I agree with this. As yll says, the dropship is largely autonomous / launched, and its not like we don't know where our own units are. Dispatching for pick-up at leisure should be servicable.

Well, there are some interesting questions that this raises, such as:

Why we aren't picking up units that are 'killed' otherwise?

why aren't we picking up enemy units for quick and embarrasing capture?

The kill thing is largely a practical concern, not really one of fluff. The scoring is supposed to change soon anyway, 'killing' an inanimate object is a weird concept.

It'd be kinda silly having the flag carrier dead on the ground with no crew, but it's still holding onto that flag...

[dan/california]

Flags are weird, period. :cool:

I posted this somewhere else, but there is an absolute rule of AFV design. There is no empty space, unless it has room for infantry. Anything which can be done to reduce the volume of the vehicle is done. This is because a lower volume gives a lower profile and further more a given weight of armor will provide more protection if it wrapped around a smaller volume. It is a simple surface to volume ratio issue. You can argue for very lightly armored vehicles that an AP round would occasionally leave a small entry hole, a small exit hole, and no other damage other than to the crews shorts.

But large caliber heat rounds put enough burning hot gas and metal into the vehicle that it should just die, or at least stop functioning for thirty seconds or so while the crew deals with fire suppression, blown breakers and other unpleasantness. Shooting a paladin three times with a 120 mm more or less in the center of mass is making me crazy.

Personally I think Yurch's theory that the crew space volume should be increased makes perfect sense.

[Dark_au]

in the Hermes one where is the sensor for the AAD and the AAD... if there is enough room in there for the suite then every thor should have one..

[dan/california]

A high velocity round penetrating that accel jelly would hurt the crewman as bad as if it went through him.

[bjarmson]

Nice stuff yurch. I think it proves my point on Paladins; if they're hit squarely, from any side, by a 120mm they should die. There is just too much vunerable stuff in the way. The Shrikes are a different story. Why so much dead space? The design is horrible. They should be constructed so they're only about half as high as they are, only the ATGM launcher and perhaps a driver's periscope needs to stick up in the air. This would have two big advantages: 1) their notorious high center of gravity which causes instability (and some of the most spectacular crashes I've ever seen) would be lowered, 2) they would be much harder to hit, particularly at speed.

[Thomm]

Great post and analysis (as usual), yurch!

Best regards,

Thomm

[aittam]

well and do not forget that crew could suffer inujuries of non penetrating hits, like broken legs for the driver etc

[B0nes]

The 120mm is the biggest direct fire weapon mounted on a vehicle. It takes a bit of skill to use especially trying to hit moving targets at range (as opposed to the Ion, ATGM, Artillery and rapid fire cannon). Too many times I hit an AFV with 120mm AP or HEAT to no visible effect. Today I hit a Paladin 3 or 4 times with HEAT and it still killed me.

Arguably the Ion and ATGM are better at long range. The 76mm better at medium (because of it's rapid ROF) and the 20mm superior close up.

At least the Thor can absorb more damage allowing you more time to finish off opponents.

At the moment I feel that there is no good reason to use the Apollo KC-H (I've never seen anyone use any of the other Apollo variants). The wheeled and hover AFV's are faster. The Paladin is tougher. Therefore the Apollo should have a gun that can reliably take out opponents to make it a viable platform.

The reason you'll still see me in an Apollo KC-H is because it feels very rewarding getting a long range hit on a moving target. Or taking out a Thor from the front because you managed to hit that sweet spot on the track. That's when I enjoy the game the most.

Given that other weapons are much easier to use (IMHO) I feel strongly that good gunnery should be rewarded with a weapon that can reliably kill what it hits.

Anyone agree/disagree?

[dan/california]

I would even take an 8 second reload, I think it is 6 seconds right now, if it got me a higher kill probability.

[aittam]

ehi it's just me or since the demo (beta) it's much harder to kill the enemy gun?

[yurch]

Originally posted by B0nes:

At the moment I feel that there is no good reason to use the Apollo KC-H (I've never seen anyone use any of the other Apollo variants). The wheeled and hover AFV's are faster. The Paladin is tougher. Therefore the Apollo should have a gun that can reliably take out opponents to make it a viable platform.

I wouldn't say so at all. 120mm AP is one of the easiest rounds to score penetration with, and in many situations is the only weapon that can do so. It's sporting a 10% burnfactor, and is one of the few weapons with the overpenetration property, allowing it to do damage to more subsystems at a time. HEAT rounds also have overpenetration, and are fantastic for putting on the pain.

In situations of those often too-necessary close-range attrition battles that involve enemy Thors, I choose the Apollo KC-H. It's faster on the ground, so you get get more units in there in a shorter amount of time. Thor front armor doesn't save it from the 120mm AP round.

The paladin isn't tougher than the Apollo. They have similar armorings and subsystems, but the Apollo has by far one of the better turret protections, smaller subsystems, and no tires to lose.

The Apollo has a turret mounted very far back, and this can be used to your advantage. Put a piece of cover between you and the target, pivot at a slight angle, and reverse until you can just see the target. The enemy won't be able to see anything else but your turret and an awkward glancing shot at your side armor. Multiple teammates firing in this manner from different angles is absolutely lethal.

As good as any weapon is, if your survival depends on killing the opposition first, then you're using the wrong tactics. This is a total mistake. It's too easy to get comfortable in a multiplayer game where the maps are the same every time - don't let it happen.

The 6 second reload time is something you should be accounting for. There is no reason you should be sitting in an Apollo exposed to fire waiting for that cannon to reload.

[bjarmson]

I have a problem with the 120mms ability to kill the less armored AFVs. I regularly have to hit Shrikes, Paladins, and Apollos with 2, 3, or sometimes more shots at close range (shots centered front/back or from the side) before they die. Come on, this is a round almost 5 inches in diameter, with enough recoil to lift the front end of a Thor or Apollo completely off the ground and hitting one of the above vehicles at close range does not even stun the crew for enough time for me to fire a second time (the above usually have the wherewithal when not killed outright to immediately shoot back). I'm a little tired of being killed by one of the above after I've pumped a shot into them. I'm getting totally frustrated when I'm killed by them after I've hit them with several rounds. This just should not be possible. A 120mm round that hits center and doesn't have one shot killing power seems virtually impossible (the AP round should penetrate completely, spewing molten metal and schrapnel everywhere and the HEAT round should incinerate the insides). At ranges of 1000m or less getting hit by a 120mm must be the equivalent of having your head slammed into a concrete wall very hard, it has to temporarily incapacitate if it doesn't kill outright. In a recent game I had 70 hits out of approximately 85 shots, yet just 19 kills. Sure some of this was versus Thors at the start, but the majority was having to hit Shrikes, Paladins, and Apollos 2/3 times before I got a kill.

Speaking of kill ability the 76mm seems anemic. In a CTF game I was playing last night, I had to pump 10-15 rounds (the final 6-8 directly into the fuel cell section from 50 meters after it had stopped all movement) before a flag carrying Apollo would die. Most of the shots were from the sides and I believe one of my 20mm bots got in some shots too. How could this be possible? We're talking 3 inch shells repeatedly hitting lightly armored sides yet not causing enough damage to kill until about 15 shots had been fired, unbelieveable.

The liveships could sure use some German engineers working on their weapons systems. At the end of WWII the German high velocity 76mm could kill ANY Allied tank with a front shot from 1000m, the 88mm could do this at about 2000m. And I can't kill a lightly armored AFV with 10 76mm rounds from 100m. A single good shot from the 120mm M1A1 Abrams tank kills any tank it's ever faced, but I can't kill a Shrike or Paladin with one short-range, centered 120mm round.

One solid 120mm hit or 1 to 3 76mm rounds should kill anything but Thors. If this isn't the case then these weapons systems are seriously flawed (the 76mm in particular is virtually useless). I'm tired of being killed by a Shrike ATGM or Paladin 20mm after I've pumped more than 1 good shot into it.

[ August 09, 2006, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: bjarmson ]

[yurch]

"Kill" is a goofy term. There's plenty of targets the Abrams has shot where the entire crew gets out alive enough to surrender. If the turret is stuck, or the engine is out... that might be it for the crew. There isn't always a spectacular brewup involved, it's just that something breaks.

It seems most problems people have with shooting a target is that it shoots back. Everyone aims for the chassis nowadays because of the battery, but there's nothing in the chassis that can stop the weapon from working at 100% functionality.

This is why I suggest a gunner subsystem in the chassis.

Going to further extremes, units like the apollo or paladin are obviously storing the majority of thier ammo in the chassis. An ammo subsystem, much like the gunner subsystem, should probably be located in the chassis as well. Thor's large turret advantage is that the ammo is located away from the crew...

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Perhaps an alternate approach is to think about extending point gain for more than "Kills." "Disablements" should earn you as much, with more points for more systems disabled.

[bjarmson]

But the problem is that these seriously "disabled" vehicles suddenly kill you. The other night while playing a Territory game, I crested a hill about 1000m from the red territory. Nieville's Apollo was side to me on my right at about 500m, I pumped a 120mm HEAT round into the fuel cell area, he starts smoking, to be safe (though taking fire from other reds) I pump two more AP rounds into his side, pieces flying. He isn't moving or returning fire, surely he's "disabled" and will kill himself in a moment. My attention turns to several other "nondisabled," but less heavily armed, reds, boom "Nieville kills bjarmson's Apollo with a 120mm AP round." WTF. How this can be possible after 3 direct hits from a 120mm is beyond my comprehension. Apparently he was just "playing possum" till my attention was diverted. But this is what is driving me to distraction, if 3 120mm side shots to an Apollo don't kill it, or at the very least shock it for a minute or two, something is screwed up in the game itself.

[yllamana]

But the problem is that these seriously "disabled" vehicles suddenly kill you.

As a general rule, if its turret isn't on fire, it's still capable of shooting. It's very rare for a Drop Team vehicle's gunner to be dead without the turret exploding from the ammo going up. Which is really one of the points of this thread, I guess.