Observations and disagreements with recent command changes

[sakura_chan 9]

If as a commander you had better control of the driving commands (left, right, forward etc.) there would be no situation where it made sense to command from the driver seat. In Steel Beasts, the driver is almost unnecessary because you can drive the tank perfectly from the commander position. The only thing the AI driver does differently is follow roads and move to waypoints. If you could remove the tank driver's AI collision avoidance when given a manual move command, reduce the steering lag, and remove the audible radio commands (replacing with a visual indicator like Steel Beasts) it would be more logical, less annoying and much more fun.

[Beagle 684]

gettign A.I. to manouver tanks right is no problem at all...When done on armoured ehicle suitable terrain...Takistan montains is a bad terrain for tanks. all you can do there is stick to roads and passes....trying to pass rocky terrain results in problem for good reasons. The direct commands for driver work good, you just have to keep the key pushed ad preplan a route that A.I. can manage. behavior is also a factor, on road safe and aware works best, in terrain offroad the vehicle works best in danger mode. Formations order do also affect driving and gunner scan direction. Whenever you order "line formation" and back to formation the gunner will swing the gun around to front of the vehicle. There are a lot of undocumented factors that affect armoured vehicles behaviour and in fct itis often down to the human commander if the vehicle can perform or not. Don't be lazy with commands and know what combat status and what formation works best in what situation. Ans simply stay away from close build up areas...armoured vehicles are not made for this and also in RL drivrs have problem here due to the bd vision a drivr has in armoured vehicles. I wittnesed once that Leo II crunched a wrong parked BMW in the technical area of our barracks simply because the driver did not see it in a turn. For that reason tanks in barracks are only allowed to do walking speed (7km/h) and needs a banksman. Regarding convoys, driving in military convoys is usually done at a maximum of 60km/h. settign medium speed in waypoints usually tends to make A.I. vehicle cohesion better compared to full speed (= 80 km/h)

Edited January 19, 2012 by Beagle

[PlacidBox 10]

Unfortunately it's still a massive pain to give movement orders when you're in a wheeled vehicle (although it is much better in the latest patch.)

Still, it's very disappointing that the tab lock change is being reverted. Tanks being kill-everything machines with little effort isn't very rewarding to play as, even in SP :(

[On_Sabbatical 11]

I made a ticket to remove TAB lock for tanks,but it got removed and judged in few hours (weird ??? i can make 10 accounts on dev-heaven and get 20 votes for my tickets too).

Nevermind,the TAB lock is the real problem,solutions we have here are just temporary and i'm sure people will find ways to exploit it again to make it as effective as previous system ...

[Beagle 684]

I made a ticket to remove TAB lock for tanks,but it got removed and judged in few hours (weird ??? i can make 10 accounts on dev-heaven and get 20 votes for my tickets too).

Nevermind,the TAB lock is the real problem,solutions we have here are just temporary and i'm sure people will find ways to exploit it again to make it as effective as previous system ...

Well in that case it's better to quit pvp with anything ore than a AKM. I'm anyway at that point to see that serious simulation of combined operations can't be done on public warfare servers...this mode is too much of a MW2 mod anyway. PvP with the arcade hight tech weapons is in no way rewarding. I get less kills but fire more missiles even in LockOn multiplayer. On the opposite an enemy pilot often has to waste 5 R-27EM at me to get a hit. In every serious simulation the main problem is to find the target, get and hold the lock, not to fire the missile.

Usual PvP MP mission endurance with Su-25 in LocKOn: 40minutes 2 kills. ArmA II. 5 minutes 5 kills.

PvP is really a no go at the point when the imbalance of ground vs. air shows up.

Btw modern tanks can target helicopters with FCS and with a high hit probability up to 2000m

Against A.I. only all works pretty well by the book...A.I. does not know how to exploit airplanes or tanks.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Beagle

[OMAC 254]

AI is not going berserk. The AI gunner only engages targets automatically now (by default).

You can order him to stop do so by "cease fire" as tank/vehicle commander or "hold fire" as group leader (except the bug for this one).

Has AI gunner auto-fire been disabled now in 88279? It looks that way, as an AI tank gunner under "engage at will" orders will no longer engage at will autonomously when player switches to driver seat, as was the case a few betas back. Player as tank commander can manual fire, or select a target (right click or use 2 key) and choose lcrtl+fire to command AI gunner to fire, as before. Driver can select target using 2 key or tab and choose lclick or lclick+lctrl to command AI gunner to fire. Have the recent changes been reverted as Suma suggested here?

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=2091665&postcount=46

If so, I don't like it, and I find it hard to believe that such an obvious improvement was reverted so quickly. I see no reason why AI gunner shouldn't fire at will when ordered to do so by commander, at least when player is in driver seat. If such fire is a problem, player can switch to gunner or commander and control the situation in a number of ways. But I am considering SP only here.

If the reversion did occur, I am sure Suma has good reasons to do so, but I am VERY unclear as to what they were. Could someone point me to where they are explained? Did the recent changes really put the game into an "unplayable" state when several of us, including kju, believe the opposite?

With a gunner and/or commander in position, a driver, human or not, should NOT be able to select targets and fire. Period. That is plainly obvious to me. Anything else is preposterous. Open and shut case in my book given my current imperfect knowledge of the situation and the larger ramifications of the now reverted change.

But, as everything is back to where it was before except for the "effective observer" fix to the situation of a player being in the vehicle cargo, this is not a really big deal worth getting into a tizzy about.

Edited January 21, 2012 by OMAC

[Trauma.au 10]

it did not mande tank warfare enjoyable it made it a farce. it made it just another magic tab and can't miss feature while scooting at 130Km/h downhill. thats why player wnt to drive because they can operate a vehicle at insane speeds the A.I. would never use.

What a load of crap, you know full well players drive because AI cant drive to save themselves, also my understanding is that higher speeds decrease accuracy.

---------- Post added at 06:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:02 PM ----------

I'm glad this got changed back in the recent betas, was a terrible way to go about it. But I'm still not going to run the beta as the commander will ignore the cease fire/hold fire still and he just opens up at will but more importantly the gunner does not. Much better.

If as a commander you had better control of the driving commands (left, right, forward etc.) there would be no situation where it made sense to command from the driver seat. In Steel Beasts, the driver is almost unnecessary because you can drive the tank perfectly from the commander position. The only thing the AI driver does differently is follow roads and move to waypoints. If you could remove the tank driver's AI collision avoidance when given a manual move command, reduce the steering lag, and remove the audible radio commands (replacing with a visual indicator like Steel Beasts) it would be more logical, less annoying and much more fun.

Oh hell yes.

As a side note:

The original request of the bug fix that caused this problem was basically to get the AI to enter a free fire, automatic engage mode when the human player was in the vehicle.

Would it be possible to have the Radio Command "Engage At Will" trigger this behaviour when in a vehicle? And have "Disengage" disable the behaviour and revert to standard, current style of control/command.

I would be happy with some thing like that. My main problem with it was loosing the default ability to command the AI from the driver position. An auto AI engage mode could be useful, given the option to enable and disable it (like a combat state) of course.

This would be great, and I would also ask that Disengage would have the AI gunner center the turret. I hate when they get fixated on something somewhere and you can't stop them from looking at it.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Trauma.au

[maddogx 13]

If as a commander you had better control of the driving commands (left, right, forward etc.) there would be no situation where it made sense to command from the driver seat. In Steel Beasts, the driver is almost unnecessary because you can drive the tank perfectly from the commander position. The only thing the AI driver does differently is follow roads and move to waypoints. If you could remove the tank driver's AI collision avoidance when given a manual move command, reduce the steering lag, and remove the audible radio commands (replacing with a visual indicator like Steel Beasts) it would be more logical, less annoying and much more fun.

I support this idea 100%.

[.kju 3245]

You find the tickets here:

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/27985

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/27986

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/27987

[OMAC 254]

This would be great, and I would also ask that Disengage would have the AI gunner center the turret. I hate when they get fixated on something somewhere and you can't stop them from looking at it.

I like this idea very much. Operating as commander can get very problematic when gunner is focused somewhere else when no target is threatening. Lately I have been designating look direction to get the gunner to turn the turret back to straight ahead, which is more of a pain. Another idea is to add a command to the action menu for commanders and gunners like "Center turret." That would help a LOT. :)

And yes, in beta 88279 if Engage at Will is active for subordinates, AI commander will shoot away with his MG, but AI gunner holds fire completely. ??? Wrong.

[dreday 1]

If as a commander you had better control of the driving commands (left, right, forward etc.) there would be no situation where it made sense to command from the driver seat. In Steel Beasts, the driver is almost unnecessary because you can drive the tank perfectly from the commander position. The only thing the AI driver does differently is follow roads and move to waypoints. If you could remove the tank driver's AI collision avoidance when given a manual move command, reduce the steering lag, and remove the audible radio commands (replacing with a visual indicator like Steel Beasts) it would be more logical, less annoying and much more fun.

YES, YES, ad YES!!!! I've been saying this for years. You'd think that there would be nothing simpler than disabling the driver AI when a human player is a commander, or a gunner. Can anyone think of a reason why it doesn't work like that?

Peace,

DreDay

[Gremlin 0]

Please vote on the tickets specified in post #84, posted by PvPscene, to encourage any desired change/or no change on each issue. Comments in the forums don't count on the CIT scorecard.

CIT states, "Question: How does BIS prioritize bugfixes/features? (What are the design procedures for picking what to fix or what to include)

Answer: Internally, we usually have a lot of obvious or critical issues to fix or implement.

Between those, selecting order or priorities mostly depends on available resources and also individual preference or interest.

The CIT is often looked at, and we use Votes as good indication of how important a particular fix is for our users."

Edited January 21, 2012 by Gremlin

[OMAC 254]

Tab-lock and lclick for fire by tank driver makes gameplay very, very easy. Feels like MW2 or Battlefield 2. It's significantly easier to play as driver in this way and wipe out multiple targets while moving than as gunner or commander!!! What an exploit! Preposterous! I'm not saying that it can't be fun, though. Just not very ArmA-like.

At least make lctrl+lclick the fire control for driver (as it it is for commander) instead of simply lclick.

[-=seany=- 5]

Tab-lock and lclick for fire by tank driver makes gameplay very, very easy. Feels like MW2 or Battlefield 2. It's significantly easier to play as driver in this way and wipe out multiple targets while moving than as gunner or commander!!! What an exploit! Preposterous! I'm not saying that it can't be fun, though. Just not very ArmA-like.

At least make lctrl+lclick the fire control for driver (as it it is for commander) instead of simply lclick.

OMAC, please try to take the time to think and understand why these controls where put in the game in the first place... and why they have been in the game since the very beginning..OFP 10 years ago.

Your not helping anyone by repeating sensationalist statements like that on every page of this thread.

Non of these tools/ command controls are to do with realism or fun, they are there to make interacting with the AI as seamless and unobstructive as possible. They are there so you are fighting the enemy..not your own AI.

Edited January 21, 2012 by -=seany=-

[OMAC 254]

Ha! Looks like I'll now add about 30 more posts about this in your honor.

[Gremlin 0]

Yes, I used to think that way; when I was five years old.

[sakura_chan 9]

I believe this thread should be locked and any further discussion of tab locking/vehicle targeting should be discussed on the appropriate CIT issues. This subject always ends up in a flame war because everyone seems to have a strong opinion of how it should work. There has to be an understanding that radical changes are usually detrimental to the fanbase regardless of their usefulness.

[max power 21]

Ha! Looks like I'll now add about 30 more posts about this in your honor.

OMAC

The adults are trying to have a discussion. Please refrain from trolling/flame-baiting/spamming or whatever it is you're trying to do here.

ALL

There are many existing topics about tab locking in the suggestions forum. I suggest you do all of your suggesting for tab locking there. If I understand this correctly, this thread is a complaint about the AI becoming more independent when the player is in command of a vehicle and switches to the driver position. This seems not tied to the locking functionality at all. If the topic of discussion has run its course, please move on. If you have any contributions to this avenue of discussion, I'm sure those who are interested in this divisive topic would love to hear your civilly worded, well thought out opinion.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Max Power

[.kju 3245]

The, now reverted, change was also about TAB lock.

The change removed TAB lock from driver seat for vehicles with commander seat

(most/all? with only driver and gunner have no TAB lock for the driver since always AFAIK).

Anyway TAB lock probably should be resolved by other, more global means..

[OMAC 254]

If I understand this correctly, this thread is a complaint about the AI becoming more independent when the player is in command of a vehicle and switches to the driver position. This seems not tied to the locking functionality at all.

Not entirely true. PvPscene is correct. One of the recent changes that have now been reverted in 88279 was that drivers were no longer able to select targets and fire (replaced with gunner auto-fire). Tab locking as driver was thus no longer possible, but has now been revived. That change made sense to some.

I just fired up 88147 just to make sure, and MAN is it a blast to play. No driver tab locking at all, complemented by accurate gunner AI auto fire. However, gunner and commander ignored hold fire commands (in CIT), and AI gunner fired at will even though "Engage At Will" was not ordered. So the implementation was flawed, but still some of the concepts were intriguing and should be addressed later in a more comprehensive way.

But you are correct to note that the thread is moot now that the changes at issue have been reverted, and thus discussion regarding vehicle crew/AI functionality would be best undertaken elsewhere.

For the record, I liked Battlefield 2 as an arcade shooter! :D

[gossamersolid 155]

Anyway TAB lock probably should be resolved by other, more global means..

I doubt anything will ever happen in A2, but let's hope in A3 that we have a better solution.

[On_Sabbatical 11]

BIS should get something like mando missile for us :D