Non-bug Feedback Request

[yurch]

The "green" map is very poor to judge AP performance (and in general, difficulty to hit) off of. It's got an atmospheric density of something like 2.3, which really retards velocity. (Remember, kinetic energy is a square function of velocity, so a naive way to express this is that AP rounds are something like 4 times less effective than in a 1.0 atmosphere)

AP really shines on the ice map (0.7 atm). You can easily punch through the front of apollos and paladins, at range, (edit: closer up, you can punch frontally through the tracks on Thors) and have to lead far less for the HEAT round.

Right now, fuel fires are the predominant method of killing targets, both because it neutralizes the entire vehicle and because it's the only assured way for players to get their kill-point. Second place might be igniting the engine.

I'm somewhat against raising the general effectiveness of any round in light of this. People rarely bother (in comparison to the fuel) to turret kill or mobility kill, though, but either can be effective and in some cases is even easier. 76mm has no problem igniting a Thor turret with a few shots from the side. With 120mm HEAT it's almost trival.

The engine can stand to be a bit weaker(especially on hovercraft), perhaps, but with a wounded pilot and yellow engine, maybe a few tires missing, you are basically stationary anyway. For gameplay's sake, the only subsystems I would want reduced in 'strengh' (vs AP/HEAT) are the crew members.

You might see more players going for other shots if they got points for other things. I'd say a point for removing the ability to shoot (either gunner or ammo feed) and a point for removing the ability to move (either engine, driver, or all 4 tires removed, one point given max). You get both points if you destroy the vehicle via fuel/engine/ammo fire, since technically you've removed both ability to fire and to move.

Hovercraft could probably have thier subsystems rethought. Making each of the support jets individually damageable, like the tires are now, would be the way my sick twisted mind would do it. Shoot out his right front supporting engine (now, he tilts that way...) and watch the fun begin.

[ April 08, 2006, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: yurch ]

[RiflemanIII]

Oh, yeah, yurch. Thanks for shooting the hell out of me when I tried the time-tested "Paladin drive-by" on you. I was beginning to get a little worried about the Thor.

[Kurtz]

Some feedback when requesting resupply would be nice. It seem as if you can't get resupply while someone else is doing the same. IT would be nice with some feedback that "all lines are busy, please try again later"

[aittam]

what about set a resupply point on the map that will pop up on the tactical screen? FARPs (fuel and rearmy point) are commonly used in advaced operations and this could involve some counter manouvers and therefore defence of the FARP point

this way several players could resupply at once but this will limit the attack direction

[Type98]

yurch

The "green" map is very poor to judge AP performance (and in general, difficulty to hit) off of. It's got an atmospheric density of something like 2.3, which really retards velocity. (Remember, kinetic energy is a square function of velocity, so a naive way to express this is that AP rounds are something like 4 times less effective than in a 1.0 atmosphere)

Not sure that DT uses 1/2*m*v*v to compute actual energy for penetration based on the following quote.

ClaytoniousRex

the 2 variables you're talking about are independent. At runtime, as AP projectiles decelerate due to air resistance over time, their penetration decreases. But their initial penetration is independent of their initial velocity as far as the physics engine is concerned. So if you, as the author of a mod, raise the initial velocity of an AP projectile, it would make sense for you to also raise its initial penetration correspondingly. They're independent from the engine's standpoint to maximize flexibility, not to pretend that the 2 aren't related in reality (keeping them independent lets you tweak them relative to one another).

[Kurtz]

Originally posted by aittam:

what about set a resupply point on the map that will pop up on the tactical screen? FARPs (fuel and rearmy point) are commonly used in advaced operations and this could involve some counter manouvers and therefore defence of the FARP point

this way several players could resupply at once but this will limit the attack direction

You can do something like this. When there is a commander only the commander can order resupply. Probably because there are a limited number of Galaxy-class ships available. Only one vehicle can resupply at the time, but 2 or 3 should be able to resupply during the time the Galaxy is stationary on the ground. Just set a waypoint to let your players know where it is.

[yurch]

Originally posted by Type98:

Not sure that DT uses 1/2*m*v*v to compute actual energy for penetration based on the following quote.

He doesn't describe the velocity relationship there, only the way projectiles are defined. You, the "modder" define the maximum penetration and initial velocity in the script; the engine then scales it as it goes downrange accordingly. You should raise the both of them together simply because it doesn't make much sense from a realism point of view to have a low-velocity sabot with an extremely high penetration.

Kurtz: The FSER in the lower left stands for Fire/Smoke/EMP/Resupply. If R isn't there, a resupply isn't availible.

[yurch]

Also, I don't believe attackers need any more static items slowing them down. Defenders can recall and redrop damn well anywhere they need to (as can attackers) - defense of a long-term rearming post is going to require many attackers to NOT be attacking, or the resupply is just going to get neglected and destroyed.

It's hard enough not to be completely hunted down like a dog when trying to defend a flank with the command track. Once they find where you are, players will sometimes drop again and again in every crack of your air defense. If you fail to slow them down, they're going to be all over the rear of your attacking force, if they're dumb enough/forced to all attack from the same side.

I'm finding this game is far too fluid to attempt to draw lines in the sand and expect them to mean anything. It's easy to pick out the best defenders - they're the ones dropping behind you. For a more... well, strategic game, you'd need to limit drop capability far more, like that big missile tower in the ice map. I'd like to see a map with maybe four of those, each coupled with an antiprojectile tower so you can't just shrug them off with a Thor mortar. Attackers could capture a few of those (you can't expect to defend 'em all) for some breathing room for the central objective. The standard AA turrets attacking commanders can drop are fairly pitiful; placing them in (jammed, obviously) areas not easily spotted by roving mortars or ion cannons or just plain bots often limits thier coverage even further.

So, erm, back to the original topic, a 'rearming post' or other such attacker position of interest would need massive AA coverage and enough point defense to not get immediately snuffed out.

[RIPper_SVK]

i also think that maps with more AA towers like the one in the ice map would be interesting. it would limit the attacker's ability to drop anywhere, and it would require more planned and tactical movement.

[aittam]

I enjoyed a hinghly populated game yesterday, kurtz was there as wall as tipsi and other (8/9 total) and i got the impression that defenders would always win 'cause they can limit too much the enemy DZs, either slowing them down by forcing them to take out all the turrets ehither forcing them in narrow way points where they can throw all their fire, so basically wouldn't be better to limit the DZ for the defendets during deployment only close to the base?

[RIPper_SVK]

yesterday i found the 120mm HEAT to be VERY effective against dropships. in the raid map, if you take a Thor on the hill near the north AA tower, you can cover north and south DZ....with a bit of practice you can hit dropships at 5kms without much prolems. hitting a dropship with HEAT takes it down most of the time.

now take this a bit to the extreme. the defenders could cover a sustantial portion of the map with turrets. the remaining killzone would be covered by mines and 120mm vehicles. the defenders wouln't drop in the base (maybe one of them for backup), but all around the map, especially near DZs....i think this would slow down the attackers a lot, and probably kill many of their valuable vehicles while dropping.

so i think limiting defenders DZ at the start would be usefull too.

[aittam]

so i think limiting defenders DZ at the start would be usefull too. [/QB]

yep I think that should really be done in deploy phase, 'cause it's too easy to confine the op for and 30 minutes are not enough to get out of a well prepared terrain and start to score points

[Drusus]

If the defender can secure a drop zone, then extract & use up your Hurricanes. When the attacker has gotten rid of those, major portions of their inventory will be used up. I don't know how much there has been testing about abusive styles of gameplay?

I just tried, for fun, to set up a really nasty AA defence in the Ice map. Result: 39 dropships shooten down before the bots managed to secure a landing zone. The AA turrets werent even placed as well as possible, so it should be possible to get even better results. And the AA turrets weren't jammed. If they were and if you would be the commander and gave drop orders to the bots, then they would just continue to drop on that hidden AA turret until they would be out of the inventory item. I have done that once myself, caused an unhandled exception in my head... Now I think I got rid of the nasty 120mm Thors and propably ATGMs too. Not too bad a start for the defender...

[Kurtz]

Originally posted by aittam:

i got the impression that defenders would always win 'cause they can limit too much the enemy DZs, either slowing them down by forcing them to take out all the turrets ehither forcing them in narrow way points where they can throw all their fire, so basically wouldn't be better to limit the DZ for the defendets during deployment only close to the base?

The defender and attacker have equal strength in tems of vehicles. Add the defender's time (OK, only a few minutes) to do some preparation (turrets, jammers, mines, entrenchments) and the attacker's task is even harder.

On the other hand, the attacker have more freedom in choosing which route to attack and can redeploy if necessary.

I don't think this is a real problem, It all depends on the players. But I think some restrictions in the defender's deployment may be good. This will also lessen the effect of the artificial map limits somewhat.

[cool breeze]

About problems in battles at over 2 km with 120mm on not soupy atmospher lvls. I think you will have much more success if you try to mobility damage enemies with the easy to aim AP rounds and only swith to heat to finish them off when you know you can hit.

[RIPper_SVK]

it takes around 3 hits with AP to get a mobility kill...that's too much for my taste

[cool breeze]

yeah... but after one or 2 they are likely moving slow enough to hit with heat. I hope they arnt made much more powerful. Anyway, the ion beam on the tires is the best way to kill fast vehicles at long range.

[cool breeze]

And while playing I dont think 3 hits feels like too many, but I could be wrong, I havent tried it with fewer hits killing. I dont mean few than 3 hits, but fewer than we have.

[yurch]

By pure stats you can kill the driver with a single well placed 120mm AP and the engines usually vary from 1 to 2. In some cases the engines are weaker than the driver compartment. I don't know if (penetrating)AP damage drops off at range, but it doesn't really appear so.

Remember on the faster craft the engine is often located in the front.

[RiflemanIII]

Oh, yeah, just so you folks all know, I'm R13 in the actual game.

[DragoonXXIV]

The 120 AP and HEAT are handy but the HE is pretty useless (good for buildings i guess). I was wondering if there will be other maybe more exotic types of ammunition like plasma rounds or incendinary rounds and if it will be possible to choose your ammunition lay-out before you deploy.

[konstantine]

One idea (that may have been mentioned) is to allow indirect fire weapons to scatter mines or bomblets.

[aittam]

Originally posted by konstantine:

One idea (that may have been mentioned) is to allow indirect fire weapons to scatter mines or bomblets.

cool

[Drusus]

Originally posted by yurch:

By pure stats you can kill the driver with a single well placed 120mm AP and the engines usually vary from 1 to 2. In some cases the engines are weaker than the driver compartment. I don't know if (penetrating)AP damage drops off at range, but it doesn't really appear so.

I have found that you can't kill with one hit to the driver. Maybe I am wrong. But I tried a quick setup, and firing at a Shrike, I couldn't kill the driver with one direct hit. First one took only 2 direct hits to kill the driver, second one needed 3. My previous tests have shown that you need 2 to 3 hits to the fuel cells to destroy the vehicle. The driver has as many HPs as the fuel cells.

Also, you don't get fragmentation damage to the component if you hit it directly. Modifying this & modifying fragmentation damage to take into account the amount you have penetration left + the amount of armor penetrated might result in a better experience. Or worse, can't test... Also making the lighter vehicles internally more fragile might result in a feeling of more realism.

Other things. We were testing with RIPper and Sente and some others the armor penetration issue. Some things we found out:

1. The Hermes AA gun is actually harming more than helping against the Hurricane. It can't shoot the shell down if the shell is fired directly at the Hurricane, but it will shoot the shell nicely above the vehicle if the shot is going over the Hermes. This results in wheels gone if nothing worse.

2. Try to send a message containing %d. You'll get an interesting result. If you send %s, you will get even more interesting result (crashes the game).

3. If you TEAMKILL, you will still get a point in the after game screent.

[DragoonXXIV]

Originally posted by Drusus:

I have found that you can't kill with one hit to the driver. Maybe I am wrong. But I tried a quick setup, and firing at a Shrike, I couldn't kill the driver with one direct hit. First one took only 2 direct hits to kill the driver, second one needed 3. My previous tests have shown that you need 2 to 3 hits to the fuel cells to destroy the vehicle. The driver has as many HPs as the fuel cells.

I would say your aiming is a bit off Drusus, i know you can kill the driver in one hit because it's happened to be a dozen times at least. I think the most important thing to consider is the size of the vehicle, the Thor has way too much frontal armor to attempt a driver kill, but the Apollo is perfect for it. The paladin is a bit harder, i recommend a shot from the side into the driver's compartment but I know it's possible (happened to be me before, and done it before). Also it's very possible to take out a Shrike with a single HEAT round.