Capturing enemy tanks

[Moon]

The game is aimed somewhere in the middle between hardcore grognards and the mainstream crowd. Nikolay has stated this repeatedly. It's not the first game to try to do that, but it's the first time somebody pulled it of if you ask me.

If Billy Bob from Missouri decides (ordered by the player) to hop into a tank to save the day, he better be REAL lucky. All soldiers are rated for their skills, and jumping into a tank with no experience at all is going to usually end up with a few shell holes scattered around the map (just nowhere close to an enemy) a burning tank, and a dead Billy Bob.

Can this feature lead to unrealistic situations? Yup, sure can. Just like the ability to e.g. order Billy Bob, the infantry grunt, all alone across 2 miles of map just for the heck of it. He will likely die of course if he runs into enemy, but the game is a game and you can exploit it if you want.

On the other hand, this feature (recrewing tanks and guns, picking up weapons) gives TOW some of its uniqueness and fits perfectly with the design goals of creating a realistic (than others) WW2 real time tactical game at the individual soldier level.

Martin

[RMC]

Originally posted by MeatEtr:

Not trying to be a smartass or anything. But your example of throwing raw recruits into a battle with little to no training is completely different from what we're talking about(ex. 1-5 soldiers from a rifle squad hopping into an enemy tank).

Just pointing out that some armies put untrained soldiers in tanks on purpose and expected them to fight. This combined with the sheer ineffectiveness of the tactic is what makes me not care about having a toggle to disable this "feature." It was possible, however rare, unlikely or ill-advised so I say leave it alone.

Heck, even SL/ASL allows it and I don't recall any great cry from the masses about how bad, unrealistic, and gamey it was/is.

[ww2steel]

I'm glad it's on there, I'm sure it will be fun and I will use it, and I'm sure they will code the gameiness out of it. As Martin has said- it will be fun but most possibly not tactically sound.

Still, Köhler has a point. Why bother coding this feature which is geared more like BF1942, than coding enterable buildings (very important to me), mortars (not so important to me), or working on a much bigger task like a QB generator or an editor.

Even if we won't buy the game because of these oversights, we hang out here because we hope that they will be fixed before release because the game looks really beautiful. I just want it realistic too.

Mike

[RMC]

Originally posted by ww2steel:

Still, Köhler has a point. Why bother coding this feature which is geared more like BF1942, than coding enterable buildings (very important to me), mortars (not so important to me), or working on a much bigger task like a QB generator or an editor.

I think the answer to that is easy. From the beginning these vehicles were created as crewable objects. It was fundamental to the base design. Crews exit vehicles and crews can re-enter them. Making a distinction between friendly and enemy crew was not a priority and so what you've got is pretty much anybody can enter any vehicle (within common sense limits - can't enter a moving vehicle or one occupied by the enemy etc). It's not like they set out at the beginning to make crewing enemy tanks a key feature of the game. It's a byproduct of other design choices.

Those other features are desirable, but I think it is wrong to imply that the team wasted valuable time and effort on making the tanks crewable this way and that the effort was better spent on these other things. They are working on those other things. They just won't be available in the first release.

[stone75]

Just a small query, if tommy jumps in jerry's tank, will tommy number 2 rolling over the ridge in his cromwell attack the jerry tank as he did not see it recrewed by a tommy or in that moment of madness when tommy jumped in and someone told his co who told his hq who sent radio word to cromwell hq who told his tanker that its not jerry no more ?

As for a multiplayer exploit, cant 2 men just agree not to do it ?

Steve

[PseudoSimonds]

I don't get what the big deal is. In single player it's apparently not an issue since the AI doesn't do it. In multiplayer just agree to the rules beforehand with your opponent. It seems pretty simple to me and it'll be pretty obvious if they break the rules, no?

[RMC]

Originally posted by PseudoSimonds:

It seems pretty simple to me and it'll be pretty obvious if they break the rules, no?

"Hi. My name's Doug and I'm a tank recrewer."

"Hi, Doug."

"I just can't stop myself. I like playing the Brits, but I want a Tiger tank so badly."

"We understand, Doug. We'll help you get through this."

"No one wants to play me anymore."

[ComradeP]

Stone75 makes a valid point:

Units that can't see a friendly unit recrewing a tank (or an enemy unit recrewing an empty "friendly" tank) should fire on tanks they think are enemy units.

[M Hofbauer]

my question again:

when using unfamiliar equipment, is the effectiveness penalty the same for first and all subsequent shots?

if so, shouldnt it be much much larger for the first shot and then quickly get smaller ?

[MeatEtr]

It all depends on how much effort/hassle it would be to implement such an option. This could be very easy to include. Would it really hurt the game to see an option like this in the options list?

"Enemy Vehicles Crewable - Yes/No"

Not that this is a must have option or anything.

On that note, anybody know what kind of realism/option settings there are for the game? (have I missed a thread somewhere)

[RMC]

Originally posted by MeatEtr:

On that note, anybody know what kind of realism/option settings there are for the game? (have I missed a thread somewhere)

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=63;t=000142

[MeatEtr]

Ahh ok, thanks alot RMC.

I see another person was hoping for this to be an option as well. But I see Megakill's response and an answer to my question quoted here:

Originally posted by Megakill:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rak:

So, why not add an option for it?

Cause it is not that simple. Not sure that we really can afford another 3-4 months development time to properly do it. </font>

[Sammy_Davis_Jnr]

The idea of capturing an enemy Vechicle is a sticky subject. It would obviously depend on a few things

* What type of vechicle

* Who would capture (type of unit)

* Would it improve gameplay

Firstly What type of vechicle could be captured i.e We could be talking motobikes and cars to a King tiger. Note(im no WW2 historian on tanks) but i wonder if most of hatches locked from the inside? I would say yes. So wouldnt that make it impossible? but on the other hand surely cars, motorbikes and trucks could be captured. They would not be that different or foreign.

Second point who could capture? I tend to think most tank crews would struggle with an enemy tank, maybe an option could have been a certain level of experience is needed to achieve that or maybe the ability to operate the vechilce is drastically reduced eg Less acurate, Vechicle could be prone to stalling and vision impaired.

Thirdly would it improve gameplay. Well i think if there was some tweaks and i suggest it should be a common sense approach maybe the option to is more realistic on some vechiles and not on others.

E.g if for some reason the tank crew bail out of a tank thats in good nick then why couldnt the tank crew of the enemy take the risk. In War there was alot of that. When opportunity knocks open the hatch!

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Hold out baits to entice the enemy.Feign disorder and crush him.

Sun Tze

[citizen]

Can damaged tanks be further shot at to brew them up and avoid this whole mess?

Can I shot at my own abandoned tanks?

If an enemy unit re-crews one of my damaged tanks, will its "ID halo" suddenly turn colors whether or not I have LOS to the tank?

[Moon]

Yes to all three.

Although, with regard to number three: I haven't seen the AI yet crew an enemy tank to be honest (only abandon and then later recrew its own guns) so I am not 100% on the latter, but I assume that in multiplayer for example this would happen if the other human player recrews one of yours.

Martin