Couple of questions

[fireship4]

1: why cant tanks smash through walls and crush obstacles such as telephone poles/street lamps. Its silly to see an M1 move around trying to avoid one of these, exposing his sides.

2: I am of the opinion that dust clouds from vehicles (or the parts of them that are out of view) should be invisible if the vehicle is not spotted. Currently they give you a precise fix on where an enermy vehicle is wherever it is on the map, even if it is obscured by tall builings.

[fireship4]

bump

[Hawkmek]

1: Logically, yes this should be how it is. An M1 could roll over whatever it wants excluding buildings. There must be some coding problem with that though. Maybe sometime in the future this will work like Company of Heroes.

2: I think the dust clouds are perfect. Their behavior is very realistic. A fast moving tracked vehicle kicks up an enormous amount of dust. You will see the clouds and hear them long before you see the actual vehicle itself.

[MikeyD]

I think their idea is crashing through a wall or snapping a telephone pole may be way cool but it exponentially increases your chance of throwing a track or damaging some vital widget. Not something you want to happen in the face of the enemy. They may have left it out as being just too 'Hollywood". Already your chances of bogging while crossing a trench or deep mud is great enough that you'd want to avoid it whenever possible.

[Swift]

I think that the dust clouds only show if you can spot them but I am not sure.

[KNac]

1) While may be possible, I doubt this is practiced a lot in RL. Too Hollywood as MikedD said. So not a big deal.

2) I think the cloud are just seen when you have LOS to them as Swift said (there cloud can get high indeed), but don't know for sure.

[SgtMuhammed]

No, you can see dust clouds even if there is no possible way to see the vehicle. I presume that the AI can see yours as well.

I think there should be some way to make them visible but not as precise as they are now. When out of LOS dust will often rise and give you a general idea that something is coming but you shouldn't be able to see the rooster tails that you can now.

[metalbrew]

Vehicle borne dust shows the exact location of a vehicle regardless of LoS. In fact, even the exhaust fumes can be perfectly tracked too for those situations where vehicles are on pavement.

I've had my friendlies 1km away and on a reverse slop and been able to see precisely where the vehicles are located based on dust or exhaust. It's way too accurate for having no LoS.

Regarding tanks smashing through things. I do agree greatly increases the chances of damage. However, if players had a special command and were willing to take the chance I say let them try. As long as there were realistic chances of throwing tracks, drive and road wheel damage, skirt damage, etc... it could be interesting.

For now though vehicles can't hit each other, walls, or buildings. Until that can happen I don't see a very high risk niche tactic being added to the game.

[fireship4]

well its important to be able to move through a lamp-post when going around it will expose your side. Im sure there is little danger of immobilisation in modern tanks - paticularly if you hit the post with the centre not the tracks...

[SgtMuhammed]

I think they should at least put in the collision model from CMx1. Vehicles should be able to push lighter vehicles out of the way.

I will say though that tankers can be real weenies about hitting things with their babies.