Are AA3 players tank shy?

[pooroldspike 129]

Sure, or you could play with 24 tank commanders and AI the rest. If tank simulation is improved 12v12 should be rather nice. AI can be frustrating sometimes but mostly you can make use of them.

 

Yes, or even 3 human vs 3 human would be okay, we only need about 6 human tank commanders..:)

[war_lord 934]

Tanks in Arma 3 work well enough to be playable as support for a combined force, which is about what I'd expect from a game that focuses on Infantry simulation and modern combat. The fact is, the golden age of Tank Warfare was World War 2. The rise of asymmetrical warfare, and the ease of obtaining Anti-Tank weapons in a post-Soviet environment means that armored spearheads just don't happen anymore.      

[silentghoust 132]

I loved the tank fighting in Arma 2/AO. But since they didn't import the AI behavior for heavy armor into 3. Which limited what you can do greatly with AI. I honestly was hoping some modder would simply take the vanilla assets and tone them down a bit. Give us a commanders 50.cal instead of the remote one, reserve range finding to the commander. Adding interiors would certainly be nice, since playing strictly in first person can be super boring with the muffled sound effects all the time.

[JojoTheSlayer 35]

The problem with armor is two fold in most missions.

Ether AT lock on is so common you cant drive a tank 2m at the front before getting hit by a "fire and forget" system or the tank is camping 1,5km away from infantry and shelling them like artillery.

[Janez 531]

The problem with armor is two fold in most missions.

Ether AT lock on is so common you cant drive a tank 2m at the front before getting hit by a "fire and forget" system or the tank is camping 1,5km away from infantry and shelling them like artillery.

 

I'm not sure if this is still a thing but smoke that you can deploy, acts as a countermeasure against missiles. Some time ago I was trying out some attack helicopters and AI tank was deploying smoke like 50% of the time which did confuse my missiles.

[pooroldspike 129]

The problem with armor is two fold in most missions.

Ether AT lock on is so common you cant drive a tank 2m at the front before getting hit by a "fire and forget" system or the tank is camping 1,5km away from infantry and shelling them like artillery.

 

1- I can't speak for other servers but I play on the King of the Hill servers and we usually get a "You are being targetted by an AT weapon" warning message when one locks up our tank, so we have just enough time to hit the 'C' (countermeasures) key to pop smoke, and the smoke cloud makes the missile veer off 99% of the time.

If we've run out of smoke grenades and the lock-on warning comes up, we can slam into reverse to get back off the ridgeline, or slam forward to dive behind a house or something. On average it takes a missile about 5 seconds to reach you, so if you're quick off the mark you'll be gone when it arrives.

When I'm a Titan AT missileman I prefer to fire UN-locked so the enemy tank gets no warning (hehe), use the thermal sights to make the tank glow hot and hit the zoom key to enlarge it, then simply keep the crosshairs on the tank and the missile will fly down the crosshairs..:)

 

2- If a tank is shelling your infantry he's a sitting duck so clobber him with a couple of AT missiles, problem solved..:)

[silentghoust 132]

I actually enjoy driving a MBT around quiet often, both in PvP and PvE environments. I think most people get put off by armor due to the wider availability of ATGM weapon systems. If you plan your routes, learn to re position often, and be patient. You can have some fantastic tank on tank fights.

[peegee 118]

As a very long time A3 player I gotta say, armor and vehicles in general are underwhelming.

I rarely jump in anyway for vehicle gameplay because of the shaky disorienting fixed camera angle in first person view.

 

Then added to that, tank/vehicle gunner and commander optics have way too much zoom by default, making problem mentioned above worse.
But that isn't enough, there is no gun stabilization present in any vehicle.

 

For some reason we can use countermeasures two-three times in most vehicles. Why use all countermeasures at once?
With all that plus the driving model that feels like there is no suspension, horsepower or torque. Even just seeing a MBT fire its main cannon there is little visual feedback. The barrel moves back and the tank just shakes a bit.

 

Not to mention that driving a gentle slope at 5km/h is not fun. Nor is getting stuck at some little pebble. Last time I drove a Kuma in MP, a friendly offroad accidentally rammed the side of our tracks, flipping over the MBT.


So yeah, until stuff gets fixed, I will stay away from using tanks.

[acealive 8]

I cannot say anything about being a gunner or commander in an Arma 3 Tank, but I play as tank driver every now and then in Milsim events, using wheel and pedals. (Yes, some tanks in reality do have a steering wheel)

I can remember one event where I actually fell asleep, as the tank did not have to move for an hour and all I saw was a bit of grass out of the small tank window. While the gunner and commander where having lots of action. The event lasted for almost 5 hours.

 

Yet, it can ben fun and immersive, I have videos of such events on my channel. But it definately lacks a lot, the ground on which the tank is driving has no real influence on how it drives for example. There is no interioir. Just blackness around the tiny window.

 

Same unrealistic driving approach goes for all other ground vehicles in Arma, it's a bit disappointing for somebody who used to be into racing-sims.

The ability to drive a multi-ton heavy vehicle with WASD is just ridiculous. The cars for example do not even have gears to shift and so on. It's ok and fun for a round of KOTH on a public server, but not more.
 

I'd love to see an optional (!) realistic approach on driving in Arma, be it tanks or cars or trucks, just like when they added the more realistic helicopter flight model as an option.

[dragon01 902]

I think that at least car/truck "advanced driving" doesn't need to be optional. I believe most of us either have a driver's license or could get it if they wanted (barring any age and money requirements). :) Really, driving a car is so simple that it could be simulated 100% realistically, and trucks aren't that much harder unless you have to park them in a tight spot. Even driving stick isn't too bad, especially if you don't have to worry about traffic or paying for a burnt-out clutch or two (automatic transmission could be a controls option, too, as it is in most racing games). Really, a good VR tutorial is all you'd need even if you never driven a car before.

 

Tanks are another story, but I don't exactly see a way of simplifying their controls. TBH, I think that significantly more complex physics wouldn't translate into harder gameplay. Indeed, realism often makes things easier because things behave like you'd expect them to. We don't have old Soviet designs in ArmA, so we could have modern, streamlined, almost car-like controls for the tanks, even with the underlying physics being at a "sim standard".

[pooroldspike 129]

Thermal imaging has revolutionised modern warfare, making tanks easily spottable.

For example in this AA3 Editor setup I'm eyeballing a tract of landscape and can see zilch enemy units-

 

 

And even zooming in like this reveals nothing-

 

 

Even the Titan AT daylight optics at standard zoom spot nothing that screams "Tank!"-

 

 

But the full zoom view sees something, a Varsuk tank (which I've circled), but even then it's hard to spot as it could be a garden shed or whatever. This is how WW2 doods had to fight wars with eyeballs and binoculars, slowly scanning the landscape hoping to see something- 

 

 

The modern way- a touch of the Titan thermal button on standard zoom makes the tank light up like a neon sign-

 

 

And it looks huge at full zoom-

 

 

I lay the crosshairs on him and fire un-locked, and the missile can be seen homing in on the hairs centre-

 

 

Zappo!-

 

 

The tank doesn't fireball but must be hurt bad because the crew jump out and leg it.  We then have the choice of finishing it off with another missile or two, or leaving it as a useless hulk- 

[lexx 1364]

Now imagine we had the feature to make the tank in thermal look like a cow. :>

[angel24marin 34]

Or that have this:

Merkava have something similar but more technological:

https://youtu.be/2VrAUTP6rTg

PD: AI is coward, they exist the tank if a track is broken. Even if the can use the cannon and the MGs.

[pooroldspike 129]

..PD: AI is coward, they exist the tank if a track is broken.

 

Call me chicken too, but that's exactly what I do in AA3 if my tank gets hit and I'm still alive.. :)

Me and any other surviving crew exit the tank, run fast about 40 yards to get out of the blast zone in case it explodes and dive behind cover, then if no more shells/missiles are clobbering the tank and it's not burning I get back in to check the damage. Sometimes it's hurt but still driveable so I try to pull it back to a repair depot, or do a field repair myself if the server allows it.

[angel24marin 34]

Call me chicken too, but that's exactly what I do in AA3 if my tank gets hit and I'm still alive.. :)

Me and any other surviving crew exit the tank, run fast about 40 yards to get out of the blast zone in case it explodes and dive behind cover, then if no more shells/missiles are clobbering the tank and it's not burning I get back in to check the damage. Sometimes it's hurt but still driveable so I try to pull it back to a repair depot, or do a field repair myself if the server allows it.

If you shot some .50 shots in the track it broke and AI leave...

[froggyluv 2136]

 Vasily B. has mini mod just for this -that being the AI will stay if guns still operable. Its true AI split way too early imo, though what id really like is a bit more role playing in that every unit has Courage and this effects his actions. Then we might see that one lone AI nut wildly shooting his .50 from atop the burning tank while screaming in russian, while cowards run for it early *no offense spike*

[pooroldspike 129]

This is one of the best vids I've seen about tank/infantry cooperation, I know it's Iron Front WW2 but the same excitement level applies when using modern troops and tanks in AA3..:)

 

https://youtu.be/u40GBHnAb3I

[x3kj 1247]

where is the cooperation in that video? They just have the same move order "straight ahead" and that's it.

[angel24marin 34]

Also is inaccurate historically. German didn't use Tigers II (or any tank) as infantry support.

[jone_kone 158]

This is one of the best vids I've seen about tank/infantry cooperation, I know it's Iron Front WW2 but the same excitement level applies when using modern troops and tanks in AA3.. :)

 

https://youtu.be/u40GBHnAb3I

 

Well in our community we just had a battalion vs. company sized tank battle (RHS Abrams vs. T-90:s). So wouldn´t say atleast us being tank shy. :) Was actually pretty fun and a good change to the ordinary infantry dependent games we´ve had. Hope you find a suitable group to play with. :)