Non-bug Feedback Request

[yurch]

I think the hermes comments are from pre-patch. I can't consistantly kill thors from the front with it anymore, so yeah, it is a bit worse. It is a 'popular' vehicle, though, simply because it's so useful. I insist on the deployment of one whenever I'm attacking just for the jamming field, and even lone players can find use for a mobile AA umbrella and the ability to sneak up on turrets and unaware players.

I don't think (120mm) HEAT should have any more penetration. It's almost a one hit kill in the right area and I get plenty of shot opportunites for it as it is. At a distance it can be rough to get that good hit in, but having units generally last a bit longer at range gives more time for manuvering tactics and all that jive.

An important thing with the hurricane is that the shell can explode anywhere around you. If the player misses, this is usally somewhere behind you. With the Apollo this is almost assured engine damage, and the Thor turret has the bad tendancy to catch shrapnel. I've been trying to put dropoffs and chasms directly behind me when fighting a hurricane, but this sort of terrain feature isn't usually availible in an area a hurricane would operate in. A direct hit to the thor side or rear will kill it, so don't spend too much time trying to get yourself into position.

With the new sloping modfier, I've noticed that the hurricane is actually fairly well designed with funny slopes all over it. It seems to be deflecting more AP shots than before. I recommend ATGMs, if you can stand the instant vaporization that occurs if you get spotted. You may not want to go for the top shot(full lock) if you think you can get the missile to his rear instead.

On the plus side, more and more players are figuring out that they can take over bot controlled vehicles, making the bot thor piles a tad more threatening...

[Kurtz]

Hurricanes are very powerful against wheeled vehicles. A near miss will almost certainly give at least a mobility kill, and often more damage. It's not unusual to see a burning, but alive, vehicle rolling away from a near miss.

But that's not really a problem.

Availability/pricing will take care of over-use of a certain vehicle.

Another thought that may have been mentioned before:

The drop ships drop straight down, making them easy targets. Couldn't they "spiral" down or make some other kind of evasive manouvering during the descent?

[Imperial Grunt]

Originally posted by RIPper_SVK:

i like to be the commander, and the 20mm on the command vehicle is great in the raid map. there's a lot of places for close combat. btw i met ClaytoniousRex in the game tonight, a pleasant surprise that devs play with us mere mortals

though i don't like that it can penetrate Thor's side. what's the point of a heavy tank if it can be killed by a puny 20mm from the side? Thor's back, engine deck and maybe turret back side should be penetratable by the 20mm. also tracks should be damaged, but only if you hit the part of the tracks that's not covered by the sideskirts.

overall i'm a bit scared by the 20mm's efficiency at close range against the Thor.

if 20mm is so effective, than 120mm would be much more effective. against other vehicles it seems to be just right (maybe it could be a bit more effective against Paladin's or Shrike's front, they're just light wheeled vehicles)

i think a few things would be usefull for the commander. when i call arty, emp, mines or whatnot, a marker with an effective radius should be placed on the map (and on the minimap). so other players from the same team are warned from the arty...maybe play some warning sound too like "artillery incoming" so the player would look on the minimap and see if he's going to the danger zone.

i'd like if the commander (and probably other players) could draw some simple graphics on the map and send them to others. something like this (Steelbeasts game):

(the red "arrows" were made in the planning phase in that game and they can be sent to other players)...i think that even just drawing lines of various colors would be great

though the graphics would be less usefull in Drop Team than in steelbeasts, because the game is much more "fluid". because of dropships the attack directions change quickly. but a very simple tool for drawing something might be usefull.

Something like this would be great for the game. Especially to encourage team play. I think it would be a good feature in the game for non-team play players to get a very limited view of the overall battlefield. I guess I like grand manuevers too much. No way to do that "left hook" when the enemy sees it coming. I suppose a commander can string out jammers ahead of the manuever force, but coordinating that in the current command structure appears difficult. I have not had a chance to play in the command role yet, got to upgrade.

One thing that I would change overall is the whole sensor ID thing. While the sensor jammers do mitigate this to a degree, having the exact location of nearly every opponent on the battlefield seems to make it more of shooting game than a tactical game.

It seems to me that a platoon of conventional vehicles, with a mix ATGMs and guns would be very deadly on the battlefield, since the only way to find them would be for the enemy to spot them with Mark I eyeballs through direct line of sight and then have to positively ID them as enemy, while they get to see 90% of the enemy anywhere on the map and spotted units have that little icon above them in the HUD. (I sure wish we had that little identifier for enemy forces in Iraq). For the span of a typical engagement, the tactical advantage of not being detected automatically as compared to the magic engines that run forever but emit the all revealing signal would be decisive. Especially since the resupply ship can just drop on them and re-fuel them and there are no LOCs to secure.

On that note, how come every vehicle does not have some kind of jammer? That could be a critical component, that if taken out, would put the vehicle at a serious disadvantage. Or why are there not any "stealth" vehicles with jammers. You could make them have to turn off the jammers to fire accurately, maybe the jammer interferes with the targeting computer or somthing like that.

Lastly, there should be a way to camoflague vehicles. With a jammer in place, you can set up a fire-sac, but it would help alot if vehicles could be dug-in and camoflaged. Same for turrets. A few turrets placed in a treeline overwatching an avenue of approach, camoflagued, with jammers, would be a great defensive asset. And things like that will give the future infantry something to do...

[ClaytoniousRex]

Yes, some diagramming tools on the tac display are definitely on our list.

One thing to keep in mind, LtCol, is that the Hermes is, in fact, a mobile sensor jammer just as you described. Attaching one of these to a platoon is *the* way to do that surprise left hook you're talking about. The Hermes (called Paladin EWV in your Drop Window) provides sensor jamming to nearby friendlies as well as air defense. These nearby friendlies:

1. Do not show up on the enemy's minimap or tac display

2. Do not have those damnable red pippers above them in the enemy's HUD

In private beta testing, Harv's Golden Rule was that everyone be under Hermes cover - ALWAYS, but we're not all quite that draconian.

One really useful tactic is to have part of your team engage the enemy frontally (but from a comfortable distance) with Thors while a seperate group attacks from a flank or the rear with Hermes cover. The enemy will usually focus on the Thors and be completely blindsided by the encroaching group that's jammed. People really become surprisingly dependent on those red pippers in the HUD.

We couldn't agree with you more that tactics is the way to have fun - not just driving and shooting.

This all makes your idea of camouflaging vehicles and turrets even better.

[yurch]

Browsing through the armor values is a real eye opener. One particular one I take issue with is the command vehicle - right now it has a frontal armor value of 100 - which is comparable to the side armor (HEAT ROUNDS!#@%) of a good percentage of units, including the paladin. It may not be a frontline vehicle, but I think this is a tad low. In-game analyisis seems to support this, I am very commonly killed from the front at surprising ranges on the ice map, where there often is little option to leave cover.

This is a battlefield where units can drop in from anywhere, and the tracks on the vehicle certainly aren't much of a speed advantage. I think it would make a little bit of engineering sense to give it a tad more frontal armor - at least to match the paladin!

In game, using the vehicle, I usally try to stick somewhat behind teammates to aid the assault if necessary - dropping turrets, jammers, as well as firing the 20mm on targets that may unexpectedly pop up very close. And I mean close - I have no problem holding fire if the target hasn't noticed me sitting in jammer cover. If he's firing on teammates, it might be another story.

However, I'm starting to reconsider this in favor of the far less exciting but far more popular "hide in the corner of the map long enough to drop something" routine. I'm a bit torn, though. In an assault, you need every human player you can get to help out with the direct approach, it's kind of a shame to sit out if your team wants proper turret/support cover.

Oh, and I just thought I'd put it out there: ground turret fire unaffected by gravity is wierd.

[RiflemanIII]

After some more play, MBTs have a new designation:

Massive, Bloated, Target.

Those things are practically trivial to defeat with even the comparitavely lumbering Paladin-EW. It'll be common for me to run down and kill 3 or more of the things before I get nailed by the occasional Tempest. Apollos are easy kills too, considering that the 20mm has frontal penetration against their armor.

[yurch]

I'm noticing many players don't seem to realize the hermes has a jamming field. Perhaps that yellow circle should be attached to the vehicle in the tac map?

[ClaytoniousRex]

MBT's are only easy to kill when being incompetently played. But in that case, anything's easy to kill. A MBT that keeps its front armor facing you, holds a good position, and uses the right kind of ammo on you, is definitely going to defeat your Paladin-EW 100% of the time. The only way you're going to beat it is to coordinate with your team to force it to expose its flank to one of you. In that case, you've earned the kill.

[Imperial Grunt]

Originally posted by ClaytoniousRex:

Yes, some diagramming tools on the tac display are definitely on our list.

One thing to keep in mind, LtCol, is that the Hermes is, in fact, a mobile sensor jammer just as you described. Attaching one of these to a platoon is *the* way to do that surprise left hook you're talking about. The Hermes (called Paladin EWV in your Drop Window) provides sensor jamming to nearby friendlies as well as air defense. These nearby friendlies:

1. Do not show up on the enemy's minimap or tac display

2. Do not have those damnable red pippers above them in the enemy's HUD

In private beta testing, Harv's Golden Rule was that everyone be under Hermes cover - ALWAYS, but we're not all quite that draconian.

One really useful tactic is to have part of your team engage the enemy frontally (but from a comfortable distance) with Thors while a seperate group attacks from a flank or the rear with Hermes cover. The enemy will usually focus on the Thors and be completely blindsided by the encroaching group that's jammed. People really become surprisingly dependent on those red pippers in the HUD.

We couldn't agree with you more that tactics is the way to have fun - not just driving and shooting.

This all makes your idea of camouflaging vehicles and turrets even better.

Ahh, so that is what that vehicle does. Unfortunately, my current computer cant hack the game in order for me to explore it fully, so I guess I was just firing from the hip.

Harv's Golden Rule is a very good one.

[RiflemanIII]

Also, though related to blasting MBTs with the EW, but not quite, I do think that it's awesome that the vee schematics aren't just fluff.

[Imperial Grunt]

Since there has been so much flak about ATGMs, how about a countermeasure like this?

Trophy Anti RPG system

[Type98]

It is already in the game as the Hermes (automatic cannon mounted on the rear of the vehicle).

[RiflemanIII]

The Hermes cannon can shoot down dropships, artillery, and missiles, but not regular projectiles like the ion towers can.

[yurch]

I've seen it attempt to shoot down slow, high flying projectiles, like 20mm fired from extreme distance. Don't know how sucessful it is at this, though.

[aittam]

two things noticed yesterday night:

1) i got in game almost half way through and i noticed that we were siegeing the enemy base but from far away, i had to pick a command vehicle and order artillery+jamming and only at this point we were able to close range and get a lot of kills; i think those options are not so immediate to all the players

2) when we close in it took me at least five burst from the closest possible range, with the 20mm, to destroy the ATGM launcher on an enemy vehicle, isn't it a little too much?

3) automatic turrets shouldn't be able to intercept 20mm fire or any firearm fire......

[RIPper_SVK]

i got to play again after some time and i noticed a few things (i only played commander today so it's only from his perspective)

1) the 20mm seems to be weaker against light vehicles. i had serious problems destroying the shrike from the side (i aimed at the center) at very close distance...i still could destroy thors from the side, which i don't like. i wasn't able to kill the heavy mortar from the side even from very close distance and after shooting a lot of ammo (i didn't try it more times so it could be just bad luck).

i think the 20mm shouldn't have problems killing light vehicles (paladins form all directions, apollos from the side), but it should NOT be able to kill a thor from the side.

2) it's almost impossible to win the attack without the commander dropping jammers and AA turrets on the way to the objective...usually noone is the commander when i join, so i take him (i'd like to play thor if he was more powerfull, but now i get too annoyed from the low power of the 120mm).

3) defenders on the ice map usually forget to have AA turrets in the base (and some in the reserve). a good attacking tactic is killing the missile AA tower and quickly drop inside the base. then if i (the commander of attackers) keep jammers and AA turrets in the base, the defenders have great problems reclaiming the base (though they usually forget to use arty).

[yurch]

The shrike has an 'empty region' of useless space from the side. Try aiming futher to the rear for the ammo or lower down and towards the front for the fuel cell/engine. As the shrike also has virtually no armor at all, HE shells are an option.

Going by the online schematic here it appears that the launcher on the shrike is not actually a targetable subsystem... is this correct?

Paladins have surprising amount of frontal armor, but there's a lip underneath the engine (that I think counts as 'bottom armor') you can use to knock out it's fuel cells from the front. A burst to each front wheel also assures it won't be very useful even if you don't manage to kill it.

In general, 20mm is very easy to kill with close up (apollos from the front!!%) once you know where the more volitile subsystems are.

[Drusus]

The 20mm is the most powerful gun when you know where to shoot at. 120mm HEAT is comparable, but maybe not as good. Slower rate of fire means that where you have only 1 shot with 120mm, you can fire 5 bursts with 20mm. And 2 bursts is enough to kill. But when firing with the kinetic energy weapons, it is important to understand that if you aren't hitting anything important, you are doing almoust no damage. This is propably one thing that new players don't understand, and claim that the system is broken. I would like to see the 120mm AP do a bit more damage to the target even when you don't hit directly at any component. Maybe based on how much you did penetrate. I just have a feeling that it must be so in real life. Based on nothing ofcourse.

A kinetic penetration system I have been thinking about is something like this: You get fragmentation based on the amount of armor you penetrated and how much power you have still left after the penetration. Maybe add in the function the weight of the shell. This would result in AP shots going through the lighter targets without doing much damage, but you would get a lot of fragmentation damage with 120mm AP shot against heavily armored targets. I understand that this is how things are in real life. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find good books or other sources about armor penetration. So, my feeling isn't based on anything... Links needed.

[RIPper_SVK]

the AP damage is a good idea Drusus. generally i think if the 120mm AP hits any component it should destroy it. at this moment i think the components can survive a hit from 120mm (they don't get destroyed immediately, but turn "yellow").

one problem with having to hit important components to kill with 120mm AP (and even HEAT to some extent) is that this can be done at close range (hundreds of meters), but not at longer ranges. this makes long range shooting pretty pointless, because you have to be really lucky to hit something important (and you usually need to hit it several times) and thus need many shots (and without automatic lead calculation, hitting moving targets at long ranges is pretty hard)....120mm should be a serious killer at longer ranges (2-3 kms), you shouldn't have to hit critical components so many times.....more blast damage from HEAT (and from AP depending how much armor does did it penetrate) and more component damage from AP should do the trick. there's no point in having a great engine where you can see to great distances, if your tanks cannot effectively engage targets at 2-3 kms.

that would encourage using HEAT for long range gunnery against lightly armored vehicles (like in real life), because with AP you might miss a component and just make a neat hole. HEAT would have much better chance of destroying the target at long distances (even though it's harder to hit with HEAT). on close range AP would be very usefull even against light vehicles, because you could aim for components.

[ April 08, 2006, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: RIPper_SVK ]

[RIPper_SVK]

i forgot to add that some components could survive a direct hit by AP or HEAT (with some luck). it depends on the component structure. for example the batteries are many connected smaller batteries (at least that's how it looks like on the vehicle schematics). i can imagine that if a few of them would get detroyed by a direct hit, others would still work (maybe internal fire could destroy them later if you're unlucky).

but a partially damaged engine (or ammo storage with lots of 120mm rounds) doesn't really make sense to me, unless it's a very strange engine. if you destroy a part of the engine, it's dead. it should either be OK or destroyed i think....but of course this could have some serious gameplay influence. of course if the engine is very exotic and can function somehow even if part of it is destroyed, then my argument is useless....

[Drusus]

If I remember correctly the components can survive one hit always. 2nd hit has about 50% chance of destroying the component and with 3rd you have a sure kill. With HEAT you have really good chance of 1st shot kill. BTW this same applies to the driver as well. 2 to 3 _direct_ hits with 120mm AP to kill him off...

The 2 to 3 hits is the reason that the Hurricane is so great. It is really, really hard to hit the fast moving Hurricane with HEAT. Only hard with AP. If you hit, no matter, it wont do much damage, and usually to different components. This all while the Hurricane has a great chance of first shot kill, except against Thor. To balance this out, I have suggested that the engine of the Hurricane should be made weaker and also bigger. If you hit it with 120mmAP, you will have a good chance of making the vehicle to stop (get "grounded"). If the Hurricane isn't moving, then it should be easy to finish it off with HEAT.

Other thing is that I just happen to have a feeling that the Paladin and the Shrike should take more damage when hit with HEAT. I mean fragmentation based damage, not direct hit to component based damage. But they should take less damage when hit with AP, again talking about fragmentation. Maybe the fragmentation damage of the HEAT shell should be based only on the amount of penetration left after armor, while the AP should take also into account how much armor penetrated? This way HEAT would be better than it is now against the light vehicles. But they are fast, not so easy to hit them with the slow velocity HEAT... AP would be better against the heavy vehicles. Just ideas, feel free to shoot them down.

[RIPper_SVK]

i agree that the HEAT damage (direct and blast) should be based on the ammount of penetration power left after going through the armor.

similar with AP damage. the direct damage of AP should be lower after going through a lot of armor, but blast damage should be higher. but don't take this into the extreme. if the AP has gone through too much armor (still penetrated, but only with a little bit of power left), the blast damage should be lower. so to sum it up, the direct damage power of AP should get lower as it's remaining penetration power gets lower (the more armor it penetrated, the less direct damage can it do). blast damage should at first get higher with more armor penetrated, but eventually it should start to decrease. when the AP round looses too much power during the penetration, the blast damage should get lower (AP round with too little power left will create less internal spalling).

[Drusus]

I like the engine damage as is, maybe not the most realistic way, but really well working ingame. Maybe the engine is many smaller engines... BTW I don't get it why the engine is combustion based while there is antimatter as the energy source. Ofcourse it would be seriously lame if there would be electric engine sound effects for the Thor...

The driver and the gunner should be made a bit more soft. Maybe the heavier tanks should have additional inside armor for them? No frag damage to the driver, and you need a good shot to kill them off. But the Paladin and Shrike drivers wouldn't be so lucky as to have this kind of protection. This is one thing I think isn't as I feel should be, I mean Paladin being internally about as strong as the Thor.

Ofcourse the game is at the 0.9 stage, which means that these kind of major changes aren't propably wise. Not that I would know that the updated system would infact work better. But I refuse to understand this.

[Drusus]

Actually I don't think the direct damage should be much affected by how much energy the shell has left. In reality it propably has plenty against soft targets, anyways. For example if you fire at a modern composite helmet with a rifle, if you penetrate you are virtually guaranteed to have enough energy left to have a high directkillfactor (the term used internally by the game) against the relatively soft skull. Penetrated, but not enough energy left to do serious damage is really, really rare in real life.

[Type98]

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

The 120mm M256 gun of the M1A1 tank fires various types of ammunition, the most known being the M829A1 APFSDS-T ammunition (kinetic energy round with long rod penetrator, made of depleted uranium, with a muzzle velocity of 1,676 m/sec, and a maximum effective range of 3,500 meters

Depleted uranium penetrators have density two and a half times greater than steel and provide high penetration characteristics, and a "pyrophoric" effect. When the DU penetrator hits a tank's armor, both the penetrator and armor partially liquefy under the tremendous pressure. Once the armour has been perforated, that part of the penetrator which has not melted, together with the molten armour and fragments that break away from the interior, ricochet inside the vehicle. This usually causes a fire, and if it reaches stored ammunition inside the tank, leads to catastrophic explosions.

The new 120mm M256 gun, firing the M829A1 APFSDS-T (Armor Piercing, Fin Stabilized Sabot and Tracer) "Silver Bullet" ammunition proved to be extremely successful against Soviet and Chinese made tanks that got in the way of the M1A1 Abrams tanks during Operation Desert Storm. Other rounds include the M829 (an early version of the M829A1, which entered service by 1985), and the M830 High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT, which has a maximum effective range of 3,000 meters). Estimated penetration performance (M829A1): 610 mm at 2000 meters.

The next generation ammunition, called 120mm APFSDS-T M829A2, entered service in 1994, and is the current armor penetrator ammunition being produced by by the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems for the 120mm M256 gun of tanks M1A1 and M1A2. It is a technology improvement over the M829A1, the "Silver Bullet" of Desert Storm fame. The new ammunition's performance gains, while classified, result from several new features. These include the use of a special manufacturing process to improve the structural quality of the depleted uranium penetrator, plus the use of new composites for the sabot, which, together with a new propellant, provide superior penetrator performance. Combined, these features increase the muzzle velocity of the M829A2 approximately 100 m/sec greater than the M829A1 (up to something around 1,776 m/sec), while operating at slightly lower pressure. Estimated penetration performance: 750 mm at 2,000 meters.

The 120mm APFSDS-T M829E3 is the third generation of depleted uranium armor penetrator tank rounds. It will replace the M829A1 and the M829A2 projectiles. Although its armor penetration performance is classified, this round is considered as the most powerful anti-armor ammunition in the world. The E3 round will provide the M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks with greater armor penetration capability than previous generation depleted uranium penetrator rounds, while increasing accuracy. Estimated penetration performance: 960mm at 2,000 meters.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/du.htm

http://www.gd-ots.com/sitepages/dirfire.html

Note: The xml has the AP at 3000 (m/s ?) and the HEAT at 1200 (?). According to another article, at 3000m/s an AP round and the armor will behave as liquid.

Maybe the MBT and Light tanks should have a secondary armament against light vehicles/infantry ?

Or carry something like HESH rounds.