Non-bug Feedback Request

[ClaytoniousRex]

Now that we've all had a little time to learn how to flip our vehicles over, we would love to hear some of your overall impressions of the game so far. Aside from technical issues, what's fun and what's not? With respect to gameplay and useability, what are the main things you would like to see changed and, just as importantly, what are the things we should NOT change as we go forward?

We'll probably need to revisit this topic again once the initial "learning" stage has passed and more competent players are online (it's a little hard to have a truly tactical match out there with everyone learning the basics right now), but we would still love your feedback even at this early stage.

I would also like to say THANK YOU to everyone for all of the help identifying and fixing issues so far!

[RIPper_SVK]

looks like very promising game after playing for a few hours. i had lotsa fun. i play some steelbeasts, so i'm probably a bit biased here.

things i like:

1) dropships in general....i just like the idea

2) ctrl+m for easier arty

3) the damage model, e.g. no hitpoints

4) asymetric scenarios. it's better than totally symmetric scenarios where both sides have to take an objective in the middle with the same forces

some problems:

1) the vehicle movement is a bit strange, like slow or unresponsive. it's hard to explain, but to me it seems it's hard to control the vehicles. this is even when i make a server, so it's not ping issue....e.g. it's ok for the heavy tank to be slower, but it shouldn't turn so slowly, or have problems with going forward and turn at the same time (and this isn't a problem only with the heavy tank). i don't want totally arcade movement, but just a bit more responsive and easier.

2) having to keep forward/backward pressed to move in that direction. it's quite exahusting after some time...the same with having to keep "E" pressed to zoom. it would be enough to have several speeds forward and backward, and the buttons would switch the speeds...e.g. like in steelbeasts, 3 speeds forward, stop, 1 speed backward.

3) the hovercraft are too hard to control

4) cannot control more vehicles at the same time. it would be great to be able to "own" several vehicles and give them commands, while being able to directly control any of them (see steelbeasts).

5) no automatic lead computation, like in modern tanks (e.g. computer calculates not only the elevation, but also the lead needed to hit a moving target). this was probably an intentional decision, but for me it's a bit annoying....with this the game would focus more on tactics than on gunnery, because easier gunnery would severely punish you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

6) too hard to damage anything. it's not uncommon that i need several hits (AP or HEAT) to kill a light vehicle...also too many side hits are needed to kill the heavy tank. it's ok if the heavy tanks can shoot at each other front turrets almost without fear, but flank shots should kill very quickly.

that's all i can remember now...anyway a great job!

[Bnej]

See my thread about missiles and effects

I agree about vehicle movement, could stand to be more fluid. I've heard this from others who have tried the game too.

I actually don't mind the low-lethality, it makes sense from the way the vehicles are described, and I've killed the heavy tank with 20mm twice so it's not too bad.

[Cameroon]

RIPper_SVK, you can tell the bots to escort or move with you. I think that would pretty much be the equivalent of controlling multiple vehicles at once. Given that there is the command aspect, it would be nice if the commander could assign bots to a particular player. That player could then do as he or she wished with the bots.

My own list of likes/dislikes/wishlist is coming

[leemajors]

I agree about movement of the vehicles needs to be "cleaner", movement is not responsive even with the smaller vehicles. Vehicles seem to get hung up on open terrain, I'm not sure why that is.

Also, at long ranges, vehicles seem to clip through terrain. You can see the vehicles but you cannot shoot them because the terrain is in the way

[Redcon-5]

First of all thankyou for the public beta, yeah!! The game is beautiful.

Now for the gripes...

1) Please give hovercrafts a strafing movement(sideways). As they stand now they are hard to control.

2) It took me 3 shots at 850m into the rear of a Thor with a 120mm loades with AP to kill it. This made me very unhappy . I was hoping for a one shot one kill at that range and angle.

[Cameroon]

I took out more than one MBT with the 20mm on the engineering vehicle by being close and shooting the turret side. The lethality is ok to my mind since it leaves room for mistakes.

Guess here's my list as I see it right now.

Wish List:

1) I don't mind that hovercraft aren't as simple to move, but they need to be able to side-slip. I realize that would throw in another set of keys for them, but it's agonizing trying to maneuver them.

2) Being able to set a rally point for the AI so they don't just drop randomly on the map. Ideally we could create multiple rally points and assign bots to particular ones, so that we could construct better attacks that included bots.

3) Edge scrolling in the tactical map.

4) 'E' toggles gunnery mode (or can toggle, could be a pref). Especially since if you're trying to move forward, turn left and target you quickly run out of fingers to coordinate your actions.

5) Track and hover damage similar to wheeled vehicles in that you can lose one track or take damage to a quadrant of the skirt. If you suffer skirt damage (or just lift damage, if they don't have skirts), it would be cool to list towards that quadrant.

6) Similar to the "Buddies", a "Favorite Servers" would be nice.

7) Tabbing between fields, automatically putting the text entry into the first available (or logical) field, and return == default button

8) Slightly faster engineering vehicle? Even if the speed while digging wasn't changed (or changed much), it seems that it's as slow as the Thor which makes getting to somewhere useful (to capture, dig or remove mines) very difficult.

9) A variant or two of the Shrike. It's extremely fun to drive, but the ATGM is in very limited supply. Although, if you put a 20mm gun on it, it might become extremely deadly since it could probably out-flank the turret speed of many of the tanks.

10) Placing turrets on walls (e.g. Ice Fields)

11) Some sort of visual scarring for non-fatal hits. This seems especially important for the Ion guns. It would make them more lethal, since multiple shooters could see to target the same spot AND would mean that someone could later take advantage of the weak spot.

12) Make the 'accelerator' keys for issuing orders to the bots work without the Option key. If you've got one hand on the mouse, opt-m becomes difficult to manage (especially with a split keyboard).

13) Teach the AI about the Extract command and when its ok to use. Even a "Try it once, if your DS gets shot down then suicide" might be fine. Especially important if changes are made to make a suicide less convenient for players.

14) Does the AI understand that it should stay near the EWV?

15) Allow the commander to assign control of a bot or bots to other players.

16) More substantial looking tree trunks?

17) Targetting map auto-exits when you die or extract

18) Definitely wishlist, but... Shrike with 20mm and lasing ability for the mortar vehicles to guide munitions in. Ideally the lasing (or is that lazing?) would be boresight so you could be hulldown. I don't know if that would be too powerful, but I want it

Things I like:

1) The game

2) The smoke effects ROCK! They are visually appealing and definitely affect combat capability. Does the AI have trouble seeing through smoke as well? Seeing an incoming missile is definitely an "oh s..." moment

3) EWV - I like that it rewards "thoughtful" gameplay, since it can have a large impact against players that dismiss it for the small gun.

4) Hovercraft acrobatics. Get up to full speed running straight at the walls in Ice Field. WEEEEE!

5) Dragging a DropShip around like a hat when someone shoots it down over my vehicle. I've wondered if it provides extra armor...

6) Deformable terrain. It has yet to get old to see the ground collapse out from under a Thor due to artillery or to watch trees collapse from large rounds or artillery.

7) Armor penetration and damage modeling rather than hitpoints. I really like that a 20mm cannon can give a Thor a bad day if you're close and firing at a vulnerable point.

8) The Paladin 76mm. If it were just a little faster, it'd probably be my favorite non-direct-fire-artillery vehicle It's just quick enough, potent enough and manueverable enough to make itself a nuisance.

9) The Hurricane (who doesn't love that!)

10) Extraction and Resupply

11) Indirect fire via the targetting map

[konstantine]

The game is great. Many of my own suggestions are similar to those above, especially re. hovercrafts and general movement capability--more fluidity would be nice. My 2 cents:

1) How about a "jump" option when you get stuck (for wheeled vehicles, since tracks and HCs are probably too heavy)? I could see wheeled combat vehicles of the future have a small booster attached to the undercarriage to allow for small jumps when they are in rough terrain, or even to dodge some projectiles. Puh-leeze!!

2) an "incoming" signal, like fighter pilots have, when an ATGM is headed your way.

[Drusus]

Originally posted by RIPper_SVK:

1) the vehicle movement is a bit strange, like slow or unresponsive. it's hard to explain, but to me it seems it's hard to control the vehicles. this is even when i make a server, so it's not ping issue....e.g. it's ok for the heavy tank to be slower, but it shouldn't turn so slowly, or have problems with going forward and turn at the same time (and this isn't a problem only with the heavy tank). i don't want totally arcade movement, but just a bit more responsive and easier.

I also have a problem with turning when moving forward with the tracked vehicles. I tought it was my keyboard. I have learned how to use the system, but it should be more easy to use. There really isn't any good reason why it should be as it is now with advanced computers and all.

2) having to keep forward/backward pressed to move in that direction. it's quite exahusting after some time...the same with having to keep "E" pressed to zoom. it would be enough to have several speeds forward and backward, and the buttons would switch the speeds...e.g. like in steelbeasts, 3 speeds forward, stop, 1 speed backward.

I have no problems with this.

3) the hovercraft are too hard to control

Have you ever tried to control one in real life? It is _not_ easy. Actually, it is _really_ hard. I have no problem with this. What I have a problem with is the ice fields. Who has ever seen no friction ice? Ice _is_ slippery but you _can_ drive on it.

4) cannot control more vehicles at the same time. it would be great to be able to "own" several vehicles and give them commands, while being able to directly control any of them (see steelbeasts).

Yes, a command for the team leader to assign AI units to other players would be great.

5) no automatic lead computation, like in modern tanks (e.g. computer calculates not only the elevation, but also the lead needed to hit a moving target). this was probably an intentional decision, but for me it's a bit annoying....with this the game would focus more on tactics than on gunnery, because easier gunnery would severely punish you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I understand why this isn't there. Ofcourse it is hard to explain why the AA gun is able to shoot missiles of the air while the gun can't do lead computation, must be electronical warfare or something like that... But still I think the system for direct fire weapons is quite good. Maybe the aiming rectangle should have something to show how much you need to take into account for the given range. There is aiming helpers for the most basic AT weapons even today. Still, hitting moving targets is actually quite easy. I have gotten 6000+m hits.

6) too hard to damage anything. it's not uncommon that i need several hits (AP or HEAT) to kill a light vehicle...also too many side hits are needed to kill the heavy tank. it's ok if the heavy tanks can shoot at each other front turrets almost without fear, but flank shots should kill very quickly.

I could not agree more. AT missiles and artillery are really too powerful. They do kill with the frist hit. Especially the Hurricane. Maybe the idea is that the Hurricane is the rare but really powerful vehicle. But as it is, there is no reason to go with Thor or Apollo. Both require multiple hits to kill _anything_ from any angle. Ever seen the ridiculous battles between Paladins and Thors, where both fire for 30 seconds before the other is killed. I think it should be nearly 100% kill with 120mm HEAT (center of mass hit) against anything except the most heavily armored vehicles front. And the Hurricane is able to kill anything with first shot. And it has good speed and good armor. The basic mission on the servers goes fine as long as the AI has Thors to use, but after that the ATGMs ruins everything. I think that there should be smoke to block the view of the launcher and no "locked in" mode. As it is now, if you see a missile fired to your direction, you can try to fire back, but you are propably going to die anyways. And fix the 90 degree instant turns. No future technology is able to do that.

And attacking is too hard. To me it seems that the scenarios aren't really balanced as it is now, there isn't any advantage for the attacker but the defender has buildings. Maybe this is just beacuse of the multiplayer test?

I think that the 120mm gun and 76mm (76mm seems to be weaker than the 20mm due to slower speed of fire, even when hitting with every shot) gun are way too weak, while the 20mm gun seems to be quite right. The ATGM systems are too powerful as is the Hurricane. The target can't really do anything against missiles, even if he sees the missile launched. He can fire maybe 2 shots, but even if they hit, the propablity to kill is way too small to save the target. And did I mention the Hurricane? It is _really_ too powerful as it is now.

[Redcon-5]

Yeah you've ruined my day with that 20mm a couple of times today And I just thought you were brave for driving around in a engineering vehicle.

[Drusus]

Originally posted by leemajors:

I agree about movement of the vehicles needs to be "cleaner", movement is not responsive even with the smaller vehicles. Vehicles seem to get hung up on open terrain, I'm not sure why that is.

Also, at long ranges, vehicles seem to clip through terrain. You can see the vehicles but you cannot shoot them because the terrain is in the way

This must be because of the view distace. I have played with two systems, one using a 865G intel graphics chipset (way below specs) and the other with NVidia 5900. The system using 865 has the minimum settings for everything, and it shows vehicles floating over hills and other weird stuff. I haven't seen any problems with the 5900 based system. The other reason might be that you are not in the gunnery mode. If you aren't, you can actually see behind some obstacles while you have no direct LOS. I think that somebody else is seeing the unit. See the manual why this is so.

[Mace]

3) the hovercraft are too hard to control

1) Please give hovercrafts a strafing movement(sideways). As they stand now they are hard to control.

The Hurricane is a bit hard to control at first, but with experience you get used to it's foibles and find it far easier to control.

As for strafing? Get your velocity up in the particular direction you want (say perpendicular to your intended target), rotate the hull in the direction you want to fire and fire away. To maintain your initial velocity vector don't accelerate otherwise you'll start moving in the same direction as your current hull facing.

bwt what I'd love to see is a way to adjust the height of the Hurricane from the surface - that way you can execute a 'pop-up' attack with it.

[Redcon-5]

I meant a Side-slip move from stationary, but thank you I'll give that a try too.

Hit your brakes on a hover you'll drop to the ground release and you "pop up"

[Typhon]

bwt what I'd love to see is a way to adjust the height of the Hurricane from the surface - that way you can execute a 'pop-up' attack with it.

You can do that currently. Approach the crest of a hill, see a target, aim and fire, then hit your brakes...drops you down a few feet and can hide you behind a ridge.

[yllamana]

I'll just be brief.

- way too little feedback on weapon impacts. When you're getting hit you can see oh no, frontal crew compartment penetration, some injury, but to whoever shot you it looks pretty much like just another "miss". This also makes it very hard to get the hang of the gunnery when you're just beginning.

- tracked vehicle turning while accelerating seems weird, like if it's traveling at full speed it won't turn.

- vehicles seem to tip very easily on some terrain, e.g. my bulldozer trying to go up the side of a reasonable but smooth incline managed to tip *backwards* and end up sitting on its rear.

- agreed that the bulldozer seems prohibitively slow. Maybe there's a good reason for that, but I don't see it yet.

- agree with the other thread that "end scenario" and "quit game" are very confusing. My reasoning went like this: quit game must quit the game, therefore end scenario means to leave the server. I would suggest relabeling them.

- the bots seem way too accurate when it comes to shooting down dropships. There's just no way a dropship will survive a descent within effective weapons range of a bot, and that just seems wrong. AA guns, fine, battle tanks, no. I know it's not impossible to shoot down the things, but bots are just too good at it.

- maybe there's a way to do this already, but I haven't seen it - it'd be nice to be able to get info on a server, in particular what players are on it. Similarly, it would be great to be able to join a server from the buddy list.

- the server list doesn't seem to query the tracker until you press Refresh List. I'm not sure if this is a feature (it'd be okay if you could join from the buddy screen) but I think it should get the server list when you select that screen.

- UI - little niggle, the scroll boxes allow you to scroll down past the end of the list.

- the ATGM manual tracking seems REALLY unrealistic. It looks like the AVRiLs in UT2004, where they can turn instantly. Maybe a gentle curve would be more appropriate? Seeing one of the things do somersaults around a dropship just makes one go "buh?"

- can we have a female voice or two for the macros, please? And if we have it selected could it say herself in the messages (ex. yllamana killed herself) instead of himself? It's a little thing and I'm sure women aren't exactly your target demographic, but still.

- a voice preview option would be great, since as far as I know one of your voices might be female, as I can't hear them previewed.

- just one I noticed launching DropTeam, it doesn't take long to load but a loading bar just to show people it's loading (not just displaying a splash screen) would be great. It's not a big delay, even on my system at the bottom end of your requirements, but it's appreciable.

Just to not list all negatives, I love the drop concept, the armour modeling, the cute backstory, range of vehicles, range of supported play types, that it runs on my computer, the whole extraction/resupply thing... Very cool and enjoyable. And the camouflage on the vehicles changing in the different terrains is a great touch. Oh, and I LOVE the HE fire mission. It's like calling down the hand of God.

[ClaytoniousRex]

it's ok for the heavy tank to be slower, but it shouldn't turn so slowly, or have problems with going forward and turn at the same time

Yes, there seems to be a widespread concensus here.

the hovercraft are too hard to control

They're not hard to control; they are hard to *learn* to control. You must go and study as a Hover Apprentice to Mace for a few days. He will show you the Way of the Shao Lin Hurricane. Problems of controlling momentum with only air resistance to stop you is one of the prices you pay for the benefits of hovering's high mobility. You don't get something for nothing. In a world where a hovercraft is just as easy to use as a wheeled chassis, but with other added benefits to boot, there wouldn't be any more wheeled vehicles...

it would be great to be able to "own" several vehicles and give them commands, while being able to directly control any of them...it would be nice if the commander could assign bots to a particular player.

That is a really great idea. Definitely now on our list! That should have always been there.

Also, at long ranges, vehicles seem to clip through terrain

Yes, if your system specs don't allow you to use high terrain quality then you will see some of this kind of thing. In that case, you need to zoom in to verify what you're seeing. It does not, of course, affect actual LOS or anything else on the simulation side.

It took me 3 shots at 850m into the rear of a Thor with a 120mm loades with AP to kill it.

3 shots to kill it - hmmm - but I'll bet the very first one completely immobilized him. Wacking a target until it is literally flaming is not always worthwhile. We'll talk more about these effects in a few days when we're finishing collecting stats on ALL of the penetrations and their effects in ALL of the games so far.

Being able to set a rally point for the AI so they don't just drop randomly on the map. Ideally we could create multiple rally points and assign bots to particular ones, so that we could construct better attacks that included bots.

You can tell bots where (and what) to drop right now. Select his name in the team list on the left then hit the "Drop" button at the lower left of the tac display. You can do this for human players, too, which will give them a waypoint telling them what and where to drop. Hopefully if you're the commander they will listen to you (if not, you can Vote to Kick on that disobedient dog).

f you suffer skirt damage (or just lift damage, if they don't have skirts), it would be cool to list towards that quadrant.

Very nice, and surprisingly easy to add...

Similar to the "Buddies", a "Favorite Servers" would be nice.

Yes, MadMatt has already instructed us to improve the server list in various such ways or suffer his wrath.

Some sort of visual scarring for non-fatal hits.

I see this as a very important feature, but also a very expensive one. It's going to have to wait a while.

Teach the AI about the Extract command and when its ok to use.

Actually, their failure to extract right now is a bug that Stan has already fixed. It's in the next update.

an "incoming" signal, like fighter pilots have, when an ATGM is headed your way.

This is a popular request, was nearly added to begin with (we've always liked it), and is now on our list.

And did I mention the Hurricane? It is _really_ too powerful as it is now.

That's highly dependent on the scenario and the teams. In low gravity, thin air, and/or very rough terrain, the Hurricane can quickly become useless. It's very limited in the inventory, even in those places where it's useful. And in a 1-to-1 fight, I will take a Thor over a Hurricane 100% of the time. The Thor can only lose that fight through incompetence.

To me it seems that the scenarios aren't really balanced as it is now, there isn't any advantage for the attacker but the defender has buildings.

There's another thread on this that explains how the scoring system balances the game. I'm sure the scoring will need to be tuned over time, though.

way too little feedback on weapon impacts

Yes, an earlier thread presented some of our current ideas on this. The bottom line is that you're right; this will help.

e.g. my bulldozer trying to go up the side of a reasonable but smooth incline managed to tip *backwards* and end up sitting on its rear.

Just happened to me today. Fixing...

the bots seem way too accurate when it comes to shooting down dropships

The skill level of the bots is set per-server. I saw some of the non-TBG servers out there with very high bot skill levels. On the TBG servers, the bots do shoot down dropships reasonably well, but not as well as veteran players do (you can hardly land within LOS of many people, which is as it should be).

can we have a female voice or two for the macros, please?

If you're volunteering to record a set, then I'll email you detailed instructions!

These are excellent thoughts, all. Please continue to post your ideas. We're recording them all in flyspray even though I haven't responded to every single one here.

[Bernhardt]

I might make a longer list later but basically:

-I like that you can damage vehicles in so many ways. To me this is quite unique.

-Mortars are fun. *mad grin*

-ATGM is too agile.

-Hurricane is.. well, quite powerful. Might just take some skill to destroy it though. I had half a dozen kills with it, 1 shot 1 kill when I had just started playing *hint* a newbie weapon *hint*.

-Movement is indeed a bit strange. Vehicles don't turn and sometimes make weird jumps, don't know how much different gravity is to blame.

-I'd like to see gears too, like 3 forward, stop and 1 reverse. I have found gears quite handy in other games and think it improves gameplay.

-I like how smoke really hinders your visibility.

-I like how my Hermes drops enemy aircrafts EVERY -SINGLE-TIME, don't know how opposition feels about it though.

-Deformable terrain is a REALLY nice feature, I love it. I can see it as a great tactical weapon in the near future when we pass this newbie phase.

-I think people should lead their shots without AI help, so I hope you keep it that way. It adds need of skill and.. well, makes luck a part of this game too. Gives color so to say.

All in all, this game is fun. Me and my friend had a quite frustrating start when the only server was lagging and we didn't know how to play. People weren't that helpful either.

But now, I've become quite addicted *empty stare* and I find fun features all the time.

Oh and it's good that you have a tutor playing. This Rune-guy has been most helpful, he has enhanced my gameplay.

Keep up the good work guys.

[Netherby]

Ok well a few things I have noticed, I will group them under some headings.. But I would firstly like to say that over all the game seems really fun but quite realistic too! I think the hover vehicles are pretty good how they are now, I mean you CAN control them, it just isn't as linear as controlling something with wheels.. The drop ships though, I'm not entirely sure they can be controlled at all

Movement

Acceleration: Not so keen on the acceleration system, perhaps a better approach would be a throttle.. I mean it's ok but I would sort of like more fine grained control of my speed, rather than just tapping forward and having my vehicle sort of jerk forwards since I can't maintain any speed really except full.. Though I think the hover craft probably work better with the current system.

Turning: As others have been saying, tracked vehicles seem very unresponsive to turning while they are moving, you really have to stop accelerating to turn at all.. Wheeled vehicles don't have this problem though.

Terrain: Most terrain is pretty good, but some steep mountains seem to effect vehicles in bizarre ways, for example the Dozer will stand up at a right angle going up a steep hill. Structures seem a bit buggy, I have got sort of "stuck" lots of times where the ramp joins the top of the wall around the little bases on both maps, I can't seem turn properly on that bit.. Dropships also have a lot of trouble around structures, lots of times not being able to recall a vehicle near one or flipping over from hitting into it.. It's also possible to be flipped over when the dropship places you, which is pretty annoying.. Also on the ice map I'v had my vehicle get stuck in holes in the ground, unable to get out and the dropship can't pick it up either though I guess that's sort of realistic, just a bit frustrating. I feel that the tanks also lose too much traction on the ice, being almost uncontrollable, which is fine for wheeled vehicles but the tracked ones should be more in control.

I would also like to suggest that the brakes be slightly more effective and possibly cause wheeled vehicles to slide at high speeds, based on the terrain of course.

Gunnery

Aiming: Holding down a key to use the aiming thing isn't too bad, but perhaps should be an option to make it a toggle instead of a key down/up action.. I don't like the zooming for 2 reasons, there is no zoom out (so you have to cycle through them all) and at high zooms the sensitivity is the same as when not zoomed, so the slightest mouse movement sends rotates the turret by large increments. So it's not really possible to make fine aiming adjustments with the higher zoom levels. I would like to be able to have zoom in/out on the mouse wheel or something like that.. Other than that the aiming system seems fairly good.

Hits: I would like to be able to tell what the effect of my hits are better. Currently I have no idea if they are effective or not until the thing blows up.. Though sometimes you can see them bounce off, most of the time you have no idea, so a different hit effect for penetrations would be nice instead of them looking the same.. I would also like to know when the ion beam is hitting me or not and perhaps a rough gauge of how much armour is being burnt away.. I was certain the beam wasn't hitting me at all since it looked like it was hitting a wall, but then I blew up from it, so often it seems hard to tell where it hits.. A rough gauge showing estimated armour ablation percentage for different areas would be kinda nice for that..

Missiles & Indirect Fire: Firstly missiles seem kinda over powered, since they easily penetrate even the turret on the Thor and are quite hard to evade, the one vehicle that can shoot them down seems to have a bit of trouble with it too, unless its a very long range attack. They also change directions perhaps too quickly. Using indirect fire seems almost too easy, stationary objects like turrets etc stand no chance, but perhaps thats the idea?

Effective ranges & Atmosphere: It would be nice to know what the effective range of AP slugs are at 1.0 density and by how much density change effects that range.. Perhaps the targeting computer could display an estimate of maximum effective range calibrated to the current density? Or is this something we are supposed to have to learn through experience?

Anyway it seems like a very promising game!!!

[yllamana]

Originally posted by Netherby:

Effective ranges & Atmosphere: It would be nice to know what the effective range of AP slugs are at 1.0 density and by how much density change effects that range.. Perhaps the targeting computer could display an estimate of maximum effective range calibrated to the current density? Or is this something we are supposed to have to learn through experience?

For some reason I'm thinking of the CM "data cards" that the vehicles had, showing the armour effectiveness and the armour penetration values. It also occurs that the crosshair could change colour (green/yellow/orange/red) based on the penetration chance for the range you're pointing at for the current ammo type.

Maybe the crosshair thing is a little too much (I don't know what sort of feel you're aiming for exactly), but could the data cards be a good addition? It'd also be nice to have a feel for the relative armour strengths of the different sides of the vehicle, even if that feel isn't entirely accurate on account of the real simulation being more detailed than the card info.

This seems a bit pie-in-the-sky for an idea, but maybe a summary of engagements would be useful. For example, it would be cool if I could pull up a log of what effect my weapons were having during a battle, even if the log was time-delayed or only appeared after the match (to prevent cheating). Then I could see the effect of each of my shots listed in the log.

A couple of other features I'd love:

- please make it so if I control-click while using a targeting mode (drop target, support fire target, etc.) it doesn't take that as my target location. At present, the game will both select the spot as my target and move my view there.

- it'd be really cool if control-clicking on the tactical map would switch to 3d mode facing and nearby the point I clicked (like how it works in the 3d mode). I understand control-click already has a meaning in the tactical map, but perhaps that could be changed (to shift-click or something), so it's consistent. I often find myself wanting a close-up view for things like turret positioning, and that would provide it straight from the map.

- vanilla capture the flag seems really unrealistic and boring. What if the flag was actually returned by a dropship? It could just come down from the sky, pick up the ball and leave (like they do for everything else) and then come down and put the ball back at the return point.

It'd have to have a few caveats, like it'd have to suck the ball up from the ground or teleport it up to prevent obstruction problems, but I think it'd be really interesting. It could also allow the enemy team to shoot down the dropship to prevent its return.

Other possibilities include having to wait around in the ball's vicinity (~50m or so) for a while to call in the dropship, instead of just driving over it. Maybe the requirement of having your own flag at home to cap could be lifted, to counter the added difficulty of the returning. It doesn't make much sense that you need your research data/construction materials/whatever you imagine the ball to represent in order to capture the opponent's, anyway.

I'm still curious about a lot of stuff - especially bot orders and the deployables - so we still have a bit to check out. As Netherby says it looks great so far.

[Netherby]

Originally posted by yllamana:

For some reason I'm thinking of the CM "data cards" that the vehicles had, showing the armour effectiveness and the armour penetration values. It also occurs that the crosshair could change colour (green/yellow/orange/red) based on the penetration chance for the range you're pointing at for the current ammo type.

Maybe the crosshair thing is a little too much (I don't know what sort of feel you're aiming for exactly), but could the data cards be a good addition? It'd also be nice to have a feel for the relative armour strengths of the different sides of the vehicle, even if that feel isn't entirely accurate on account of the real simulation being more detailed than the card info.

I was thinking along the lines of those cards too..

I think the corsshair colour thing might be trivializing it a bit too much.. But I would like to be able to think to myself "Ok, my 120mm AP round is effective against 100mm armour at about 1700 metres with 1.0 density, that Light Tank Im aiming at 2300 metres away only has 80mm armour on the side and the density is only 0.7 so I should be able to penetrate.." Rather than currently just going "Well I blew something up at that range before so I guess it might work"..

[Spanish Bombs]

Had a good time playing the game this weekend. Most of the comments I have already have been made, although I'd add that I don't find the movement to be too unfair or difficult - there is a learning curve but not too steep.

One thing came up the other day, though, that I'm curious about (and maybe the answer is in the PDF, but I've missed it). Anyway, I've enjoyed the sound and fury of the artillery barrages sent from the Command Tracks, and have had some success in killing the enemy with them. However, there was one game where I dropped a Command Track, but was unable to call in smoke or artillery barrages because I was not the commander and I was told that only a commander can call in artillery or smoke. The commander was controlled by the AI, Collins*, I think, and that bastard Collins* didn't call for any artillery. Is there a way to reassign or take over command status? This has only come up once, in other games I haven't had any problems dropping a command track and utilizing its assets.

[Drusus]

You can try to promote yourself in the menus found using Esc key. This will start a voting.

[Bonxa]

Press esc, in the menu at the bottom you have "promote". There you can suggest another commander who then has to pass a vote. So far commanding hasn't been so popular so with anyluck you can get yourself through.

[rune]

The AI and artillery I have bugged already.

Rune

[RIPper_SVK]

few more ideas:

1) some grid on the tactical map. 1km per square would be probably best

2) show remaining time until next arty support becomes available

3) as mentioned, better hit effects. the HEAT explosion should be bigger. if a sabot hits a vehicle, there should be a flash, lots of sparks and a dust cloud (it's looks almost like a bit smaller explosion in real life)

4) there's no need to display components that aren't damaged, they take up valuable space. only display damaged ones, with the damage level.

5) generally i think that the HUD is too big, i mean very big texts and other graphical stuff