Why was ground cannon AA nerfed in 1.60?

[StillCantRunUphill 0]

Version 1.60 brought a few nerfs and overhauls to ground AA. Here's what changed in brief:

• APC cannons can no longer lock-on to aircraft.
• AA tank cannons lock-on mechanics changed (no more auto-ranging and auto-shot placement).

1. Pre-1.60, the Kamysh, Gorgon, Mora and Marshall were able to lock-on to aircraft with their main cannon. This was removed, why? This is a MilSim game after all and it is not fiction for such contemporary vehicles' fire control systems to have specific fire modes to target low-flying aircraft.
 
2. Pre-1.60, AA cannon lock-on mechanics worked just like MBTs where shells are artificially dispersed towards locked-on targets. In other words, if you aim at a locked-on moving target using a tank, the cannon itself is pointed directly at where you're aiming and it does not elevate or rotate to account for the various factors required for the right ballistic trajectory e.g. shell velocity, distance to target, target's direction & speed etc. - instead the game automatically adds dispersion to the shell "exiting the cannon" to create the appropriate trajectory.

 

In 1.60, the existing "magic shell" mechanic, for AA tank cannons, has been eschewed for a more realistic approach: shell trajectories now match with where the cannon is pointed and a predictive-reticle is provided which leads the target and tells you where you're supposed to shoot to hit the it based on its movement, your shell trajectory and gun zeroing.

 
In essence, the game no longer does most of the work for you when shooting at aircraft with Tigris and Cheetah cannons. I am in favour of this kind of change since the magically-dispersed-shells method was always irksome.

 

However, I would argue that it is unfair that these new lock-on mechanics would be implemented for ground-to-air cannons instead of tanks. Tank combat is in much greater need of these lock-on mechanics than AA tanks are to raise the skill-ceiling above simply "T-lock and fire APFSDS to win". AA cannons already had a much tougher time hitting aircraft, than tank cannons do against ground vehicles, since aircraft are far more mobile than a ground vehicle is and AA shells travel much slower. Not to mention that lock-on mechanics in the game don't take into account angular velocity of a target - most jets easily dodge AA cannon fire (as long as they're not insanely close) by simply turning, spiraling, diving etc.

[oukej 2911]

Hey and thanks for raising the two points!

Before I get to them - you can find more information about the targeting changes in here: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/189734-targeting-improvements/

 

APC cannons can no longer lock-on to aircraft.

That is deliberate change and was only allowed by the above mentioned tweaks. Prev. behavior was more of a limitation. On the other hand, as some sort of counterbalance, all APC and IFVs with a cannon can now track ground targets and can use an assisted fire control on such targets. Same as the tanks - via the same method that you find irksome.

An ideal state would be that these vehicles can't track targets and use FCS, auto-range/lead, based on manual target tracking. It's something we have in our backlog, but it's not currently planned for any deliverable.

AA tank cannons lock-on mechanics changed (no more auto-ranging and auto-shot placement).

You'll be able to find the same target lead indication (TLI) on gunships and airplanes. It's best used for platforms that deal with higher speed targets. We've tried using it for tanks, but often the TLI stayed too close to the target and it wasn't 100% obvious. So we kept the auto-range/lead, only adjusted the icons a bit (green square when aimed). If we see more people asking for TLI in tanks we can implement it, both of those mechanics are abstractions and not fully accurate representations, so in the end it's up to which one conveys the FCS better.

[Beagle 684]

While APCs and tanks CAN use their weapons against Aircraft, mainly low and slow flying helicopters, it's still just an auxiliary measure. The rangefinders and FCS has problems with targets at high lateral speeds. In most cases the gunner will just fire at an estimated guess. The shorter the range and the slower the target the less estimations since the target will fit in the sight markings.

 

without radar FCS shooting at Air targets is just a stand in measure not much different from WW2.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

The new system is much more interesting

[fareast 20]

since theres no more auto-zeroing with the AA tank i suggest increase the max zeroing to 4km