Non-bug Feedback Request

[Balzac]

IRT Iceman: Think 1920's for the starting point of tank suspension.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie_suspension

When I was talking about feel you need to understand modern armor. I think the devs and anyone interested should check this out. It's a good starting point to the M1 MBT and gives some insight to modern armor and were it's going.

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/abrams.htm

The scary thing is that the thickest armor on the M1A2 is rated at 960mm RHAe against kinetic attack and the sabot round at 2000m and a 60deg angle will penetrate 960mm RHAe. Now I understand that this is a game and and the devs have a universe in mind, but they did ask for improvements/suggestions.

Also a good read is at the bottom of the M1 page called "Lessons Learned - Operation Iraq Freedom 2003" It's the report of battle damage that the M1 took With lots of Pic's and improvements in mind.

Another thing that I have not seen that would be nice is when you zoom in and have the cross hairs on a target, that you could hit a key and let your team know what target your shooting at so you can coordinate fire.

[ March 23, 2006, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: Balzac ]

[inktomi19d]

1) Is there an option to invert the Y axis for mouse aiming? I couldn't find one. It's hard to train myself out of "push down, pull up" now.

2) "Tab" should switch between text fields in the lobby.

3) There should be a way to run the game in windowed mode, or to switch out to another program -- at least in the lobby if not in the actual game. Mostly it would be nice to look things up from the manual PDF without quitting the game.

4) Is it possible to allow some control of our vehicles while lagged out? I understand that for the sake of precision we can't really expect to work normally while lagged and then have the server catch up, but I've lagged off of too many mountains. Would it be possible to let an AI drive (not gun) our vehicles while lagged to at least apply the brakes before plunging off a near-vertical drop?

5) Wheels are too fragile. It doesn't bother me so much that they are easily damaged, but having one wheel destroyed virtually immobilizes the vehicle, and it's too easy for the wheels to be destroyed. Tactical wheeled vehicles are designed to operate with one wheel gone; not perfect, but they can move slowly and even steer with a front wheel gone if the driver is careful. Having a back wheel destroyed isn't so bad, but if one front wheel is lost you can't even limp away the way the game currently is. Most tactical vehicles are designed for wheels to break away if they're damaged enough that they might immobilize the vehicle.

Also I think the threshold for destroying wheels needs to be a bit higher. Damaging a tire is easy, damaging the wheel rim takes a bit more but still just limits the vehicle's speed. Damage which would lock a wheel in place or disable steering would need to hit components which are a lot better protected even on unarmored vehicles. Land mines can do it, but most anything else will damage a wheel enough to separate it from the vehicle before damaging the suspension, steering, and drive train.

I think the game would be more realistic and fun if more substantial damage was required to destroy a wheel than to simply damage it, and if destroyed wheels fell off. Any real world tactical wheeled vehicle is designed to at least limp with major damage to at least one wheel, and some can drag themselves in low gear with two wheels gone.

6) The 75mm gun needs to be more useful. I can understand if it's less effective than the 20mm against heavy armor since the 20mm can spray and find holes that the 75mm can't. But there shouldn't be much difference between hitting a light vehicle with the 75mm or the 120mm; both should cut right through light armor. I'm having a hard time figuring out a role that the 75mm fills well. Of course in the real world mid-calibre cannons have fallen to disuse; larger low-pressure guns which rely on HEAT to pierce armor are more common on vehicles which can't support a high-velocity large-bore gun. Maybe a low-pressure gun would be a better fit? Something with similar HE and HEAT damage to the 120mm, but with slower projectiles, a shorter range (mostly due to the projectile's speed), and no APDS capability.

[makaera]

I second the idea for showing minefield coverage on the minimap. Particularly as a way of warning teammates where the mines are. Otherwise commanders have to resort to vauge sorts of "don't go over there" messages.

[Pirate Bill]

All in all, everything feels far too "light". Tanks turning at speed will regularly go into a Super-Mario-Kart-esque power slide, and driving up a ramp without slowing down at the top will almost certainly send you flying, even in heavy armor. Just seems like units this size ought to stick to the ground a little more.

[Moon]

Pirate Bill, keep in mind that gravity is simulated. We tend to compare things to our known 1 gravo surrounding.

Martin

[Balzac]

IRT Moon: The weight thing goes back to what I stated in earlyer post. If you have a 68ton object in normal earth gravity (Average weight of a MBT) you reduce the the gravity to 1/3 of earth you now have around a 22ton object. I guess im not sure how much the tanks in the game weigh, but things just seem to light.

[RiflemanIII]

Originally posted by Iceman[uSA]:

and IRT Rifleman- I was on the recieving end of a EMP attack today. Good lord those are a pain. Locked up my entire team.. we got slaughtered

EMP is actually the best fort-buster, in my experience, not the HE mission. I find those best for CTF games where they enemy has bunkered up their flag with the deployable turrets.

[Neutrino 123]

Hello, here are my suggestions.

One should be able to continuously fire the 10mm ion cannon without repeatedly clicking the mouse button. Holding down the mouse mutton should probably give continuous firing for all weapons.

In all scenarios except capture-the-flag where no flags are captured, it seems that kills are not very important. The other points make the usefulness of kills small, except when depriving opponents of certain vehicles, usually the 120mm tank or the direct fire artillery unit. The points for kills should probably be increased to roughly 10 for light vehicles and 20 for heavy or otherwise important vehicles (the kills for turrets can remain the same).

Armor penetration, armor and damage should be completely rebalanced. Penetrating hits should usually cause some sort of damage, and a handful should almost gurantee a kill. The 120mm should be able to kill or heavily damage with any hit except the front turret of the tank (I am assuming fairly small angles here). The 76mm should be able to penetrate all but the front of the tank and maybe its side turret at close range. The 20mm should only be able to penetrate the rear of the tank, sides or rear of the heavy hover unit, and maybe not the front armor of the light tracked vehicle. The 20mm should be able to penetrate the wheeled vehicle in the front, but this penetration should not be guranteed, even at low angles. Maybe a 50% chance each round penetrates at zero angle and short-medium range.

Edit: I think the playable maps have gravity greater then that of Earth.

[pipilongbeard]

Here is my 2 cents:

1.) Some type of unit targeting, for tracking units, not for fire control. If you can see them on the mini-map then I think you should be able to target them. This way you would automatically get range info, speed and a compass bearing all in one shot.

2.) Some type of hit identification would be nice, like with combat mission. Maybe a scrolling log on the side of the screen to track hits instead of having it be over the vehicle itself that way if you do not want it you can turn it off

and it will not get in the way or compromise screen real estate.

3.) Not sure this was left out, but how about a volume control for sound and music?

4.) I know the trend today is for Internet play,

but I really like th eidea of starting up a server and throwing in some AI bots, and being able to play. The reason I say this is this afternoon I got into the game and there was no one playing. So now I could not play. Why not then be able to start my own server throw in some bots and have at it. Then if others want to join they can come in, but the game will always be playable.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

If the AI bots could wait just a little longer before killing themselves, I might have a chance to rack up some decent scores. Or failing that, give credit for the kill to the one who dealt the first crippling shot.

Because the way it is now I'm disabling a LOT of AI vehicles with the Hurricane or 20mm vehicles without getting credit for it because the bot blows himself up. Humans tend to be less quick doing this giving a fair chance of a score.

And the resupply dropships are really annoying. Their effective defences interfere with battles overly much with some cheeky positioning. And they are impossible to kill once on the ground.

And please, please, please keep the slow turning of tanks in. It's what keeps light AFVs alive if they manage to get close. It's such a joy circling towards the rear of the tank at full speed, with the hull and turret rotation of the tank just a smidgen too late to save it. If a near impervious heavy hitter let's me get that close it deserves everything it gets!

[Balzac]

Things I would like to see changed on the Engineering Tank the "Cutter".

Request 1: Change the shape of the ground cut from the "V" that it is currently, to a cut that is the width of the blade. Making gun pits and obstructions more effective would be a good thing, Also nothing is more annoying then when you are making gun pits/obstructions and all the sudden you tip over.

Request 2: Adding a Breech Charge (similar to the rocket propelled line charge of today) for clearing mine fields. Enough said.

Request 3: Make the armor thicker all around. There supposed to be able to go out and do there jobs in all conditions even under fire.

I think most the armor just needs a little fine tunning and they all will be valuable assets and fit a roll nicely.

[Redcon-5]

Originally posted by ClaytoniousRex:

If it doesn't require a full sound studio I could give it a try (does it have to be a grown female voice? Got a daughter to give it a try J.K.)Send me the details, please.

[Abidubi]

I'd like to see the turret rotation speed revised. From personal experiance, I know that at least light vehicals with smaller guns can at least keep up with and in some cases exceed their turning speed.

Why, well uh simple. Every single time I'm in a tempist for instance, I have to stop to actually stand a chance at killing something. Which means I can only effectively use it at long ranges, which defeates the purpose of having good speed. It's got a great rate of fire, but when your close in (not to mention you have to often rotate 90 degrees + to change direction at all) the rate of fire becomes less than a third because the damn turret can't keep up. All the vehicals are like that, but less noticible. Anything with a light gun, or that has a light turret, should be able to atleast match their turning speed.

Mortars and ATGMs don't matter, but the rest is really wrong.

[DrWoood]

Some comments on the game so far:

The most fun part of the game is looking at a game from an operational perspective; working out what needs to be done to wain a game, doing it, and (hopefully) winning the game.

The most operationally powerful unit seems to be the Hermes, the combination of AA, EW and 20mm is quite devastating. The fast reload speed of the 20mm means you usually get a kill if you aim for the right space on most units. Perhaps the 75mm (and maybe even 120mm) should have their reload times shortened a bit. Getting one of these into an objective and keeping it there seems to be the best way to win, if it gets killed, then getting another one in quickly often will suffice. HAving some other units with AA or EW (but not both) would be interesting.

The other operationally powerful unit is the Hurricane, especially in the ice world. I think making it able to move sideways may make it too powerful. Its controls are tricky to master and that is the way it should be. It is good for getting rid of air defences and units when attacking. It is good for hunting with when defending in order to break up the enemys attack. The ATGM units are good for this purpose too.

I once changed sides from Defence to Attack during the setup phase after placing some turrets, after I did this, some of the turrets belonged to Attack!

AI's shouldn't necessarily suicide straight away if damaged. Sometimes when defending it makes my job easier when AI units in the objective suicide straight away and I can concentrate on the next one. I have often stayed in the objective when Attacking with a severely damaged unit because it is getting points for my team.

I'm not sure if DU is pyrophoric enough.

Having a heavily armoured cutter may be good for realism, I noticed the Israelis seem to do this with their bulldozers. It would be cool to have a choice between a fast light one and a heavy slow one.

I did once notice a smaller unit pushing a heavy tank. I don't know how friction is modelled, but surfaces should perhaps have a higher coefficient of static friction (compared to coefficient of kinetc friction).

It would be interesting to see some different weapons platforms on the shrike and tempest vehicles.

[Redcon-5]

Originally posted by DrWoood:

1)Having a heavily armoured cutter may be good for realism, I noticed the Israelis seem to do this with their bulldozers. It would be cool to have a choice between a fast light one and a heavy slow one.

2)It would be interesting to see some different weapons platforms on the shrike and tempest vehicles.

DrWood brings up some great ideas that made me slap my head and wonder why I didn't think of them first, so if I may add my endorsement.

1)A fast light cutter, say a shrike, would be a nice option, and just for balance give it only a auto AA gun.

2) I would love to see a Tempest with a 76mm or even a 120mm. It would be a definative Tank Killer, big gun, high speed, little armor. Of course it would also be an art form to drive and shoot, as the recoil should start pushig you in all sorts of directions.

I did that with an Apollo stuck on the ice. I aimed at the gun in front of me and shot off HE. About four shots later I had enough momentum to get of the ice. Ah the tactics of desperation.

[yurch]

I am finding the Apollo chassis as probably the least survivable in the game. It gets mobility killed VERY frequently. Paladins may have front mounted engines, but at least then there's some armor on it. Not so for the Apollo - any artillery that lands near the thing (hurricanes!@%) has a high chance of damaging or knocking out the engine. 20mm goes through the front of it at even moderate ranges(often, of course, killing the driver), and a player with an ion cannon can burn through the front armor of the Apollo before you can fire the 120mm cannon three times.

The 120mm is the only real reason I use the thing. And what a reason! That cannon is perfect right now. It's not stupidly deadly, but in the right hands you can put out some serious pain with it. HEAT rounds can utterly destroy light vehicles and dropships, and the AP is just enough to take out specific subsystems if you know what you're doing.

Speaking of which, can we get a schematic of the cutter? Right now they seem tougher than the Apollo, and I suspect that's because there is a bunch of empty space we're hitting.

Although, as far as subsystems go, I have extreme difficulty killing gunners. Killing the driver is easy, almost trivial on opposing vehicles like the apollo, but I don't think I've ever intentionally managed to kill the gunner. It seems easier to destroy the whole turret, which doesn't make much sense as the gunner should be the squishier target.

I do think this penetration angle limit that other forumers are talking about, should be relaxed or removed. I'm making some (AP) shots at angles that really look like they should be deflecting off the armor, which is kinda a shame as the gunnery is one of the things that makes this game unique.

I also think you should be allowed to fire even if the turret hasn't met up with the crosshair yet. The turret has the wierd need to 'focus' on targets, and this causes bizzare lengths of time when you can't fire at very close enemies (or while moving), especially if you are lagging. I had someone completely shut down my ability to fire at him simply by parking his (empty)hurricane over my tank. The turret goes crazy, and while still mostly 'pointing' at him, I don't have the ability to fire.

[Allan Wotherspoon]

We have dropships, ion beams, automated air defense guns, hovercraft and EW out the ying yang and no one has figured out how to design a simple lead computing gunsight?

[inktomi19d]

Originally posted by Allan Wotherspoon:

We have dropships, ion beams, automated air defense guns, hovercraft and EW out the ying yang and no one has figured out how to design a simple lead computing gunsight?

Computing lead against a ground target is not that simple. Either the computer needs to be able to pick the target from all the ground clutter and and know that's your intended target, or it needs to know the difference between when you're tracking a target and when you're just traversing the turret.

On ground vehicles it's common to let the computer adjust for range, wind, and the firing vehicle's movement. It's just simple if the gunner adjusts for for the target's movement. It might help if you laze to set range manually, letting the computer auto-adjust is quicker, but it loses the target range when you lead.

[Drusus]

I think the lead computing should not be included. The crosshair should have some lines to help, though.

Yurch, you are having difficulty to kill the gunner, because he is exactly as tough as the ammo! He is smaller and while the ammo is explosive the gunner isn't...

My feelings about what is wrong about the lethality (this seems to change alot...):

1) The angle cap.

2) I think it doesn't matter how much you penetrate.

3) Functional components will stop AP shot 100% of the time. This makes Thor more vulnerable from sides than from rear. Some redesign would do good to the system.

4) 76mm AP. If shooting from far away, the distribution of shots makes it _extremely_ hard to actually kill anything. You will hit different parts, while you would need 3-4 shots to disable one part. And short range, the 20mm is clearly better.

5) ATGMs. Especially when bot controlled. I think that the bot uses manual range when aiming, resulting in the instant turn spin around the target. When locked in (and the bots are excellent at this), you can just say "NOT AGAIN!!!". And then your turret goes up in flames. Especially if you are using Apollo. Really effective short range weapon too. And the EWV isn't the answer, unless you go in first in the EWV.

6) Hurricane. While I think the weapon can be as it is, it would be nice if this one would be still a bit more rare, or a bit more easy to "drop". Not a big problem though. Except for the users of Apollo. But they are screwed anyways.

These are, as always, IMHO.

There is a server running called Drop Team with a mod called Test. Feel free to try it. Try Apollo with 120mm, should be a bit more agile. Fun to use in hulldown positions. 76mm has been updated. So has 20mm. 76mm is just more powerfull while the 20mm is as powerfull as ever, but with reduced penetration. Don't remember what else I have changed. The values aren't really serious, they are just for testing & comments.

[yurch]

Originally posted by Drusus:

3) Functional components will stop AP shot 100% of the time. This makes Thor more vulnerable from sides than from rear. Some redesign would do good to the system.

This also might help to explain that gunner thing. I figured the front armor was too tough, so I often try to go for the crew slot from the side or rear. Some of these schematics have pretty cluttered turrets, I bet the shots are getting intercepted by all sorts of objects. I'll try going straight in from only the gunner's side, but that's going to be easier said than done, especially after you bounce the first shot off of him.

76mm isn't all that bad, I've been using it a bunch lately. If I can avoid being hurricane-smashed I can get tons of bots to suicide, and it's effective range is just enough to mobility kill and eventually wear out 20mm users. The AP rounds are reasonably accurate. The HE's (on the rare occurance that you want them) are not.

The 76mm is not a terribly effective weapon against drop ships though, I keep getting disabled players that decide to ignore me halfway though my whittling and extract. This, and the bot suicides, makes using it rather thankless.

[Allan Wotherspoon]

Originally posted by inktomi19d:

Computing lead against a ground target is not that simple. Either the computer needs to be able to pick the target from all the ground clutter and and know that's your intended target, or it needs to know the difference between when you're tracking a target and when you're just traversing the turret.

On ground vehicles it's common to let the computer adjust for range, wind, and the firing vehicle's movement. It's just simple if the gunner adjusts for for the target's movement. It might help if you laze to set range manually, letting the computer auto-adjust is quicker, but it loses the target range when you lead. [/QB]

Its not that tough to do, quite simple really. Lase target to determine range, track for a few seconds then hit a button to apply the lead and fire. I'm not talking about computers automatically tracking targets, I'm talking about gunners manually firing at a target.

[inktomi19d]

Originally posted by Allan Wotherspoon:

Its not that tough to do, quite simple really. Lase target to determine range, track for a few seconds then hit a button to apply the lead and fire. I'm not talking about computers automatically tracking targets, I'm talking about gunners manually firing at a target.

I'm sorry, that wasn't what I envisioned. That certainly sounds practical.

[Type98]

Actually, since the sensor package in the game world can place enemy units on a minimap, it already has the data to compute lead. The sensors has real time positioning data needed to place the icon on the HUD minimap. Logically, from there it is just a series of vector calculation to estimate where the unit would be for the next second or two (thats all the weapon system would need anyway). It should be able to do that for all LOS targets so it does not matter which target you pick to shoot at. IMHO it is just one of those overused game design decisions to make FPS supposedly more interesting and nothing to do with real science. It is a Si-fi "game" after all.

[Drusus]

Ok, I can make 76mm feel much better if I turn a flag called "overpenetrates" to True. I thought that it had something to do with overpenetration, ie the shot going through the target without doing damage. How foolish, ofcourse it means that the penetration carries over to the next object inside the vehicle, "penetrates over the engine". This is turned on by default for the 120mm AP, so once again I was telling you something not true...

The 0.942 feels much better. Now if only the AI ATGMs were fixed. There is no way to tell how much I hat the situation where I drive over a crest of a hill, and I know there is a AI controlled ATGM unit. So, I managed to close in with him, should be easy to take him out with my 20mm now. WRONG! The moment I come into the view of the AI he launches the deadly accurate missile. Faster than a human can react in many situations. In human control the missiles are annoying, but in AI control they cause me to quit the game...

[Drusus]

I also have a feeling that the mortar shells are a bit weaker due to the patch. This is because most of the damage is done via fragmentation. Now, because the angle modifier was changed, this means that the fragments are a bit less likely to penetrate.