Tanks DLC Feedback

[Vasily.B 529]

3 hours ago, silentghoust said:

Too be honest, crew bailing on a mobility kill is just a general purpose behavior.  I.E if you get hit by a tank round and have no location of the tank, would you stay in basically a none-moving deathbox knowing the next round will hit?

I tested it very deep, they baiil out if they know enemy position (and can respond with fire) and if enemy location is unknown. Knowing how enemy detection in Arma 3 works, i would keep crew in vehicles even if they dont know enemy position, beacuse sometimes they dont see enemy vehicle standing 100M in front of them. Leaving tank that can be easly fixed is irractional, it gives no chance to this crew to survive as they bail out even when surrounded by grenadiers without AT weapon (under barrel grenade launchers only).
It definetly need change. Also, the best option to somehow simulate tank crew is to make driver an enginer - so he could get off immobilised tank (tank would not drive out after repair) and fix tracks/wheels/engine). Off course all is in my addon, may people have helped me creating it, and its very flexible, developers can improve it a lot.

[R3vo 2654]

39 minutes ago, Vasily.B said:

Also, the best option to somehow simulate tank crew is to make driver an enginer

Ah yes, this is a big issue. Even if a tank would have a tookit in its inventory the crew members wouldn't be able to pick it up. So either the size of the toolkit has to be smaller or tank crews need to have backpacks. (Maybe a toolkit backpack which allows repairing but can't carry anything else?). Also I agree. Crew members should be engineers.

[Leopard20 813]

Improving the commander would be nice too, with better response from the driver and gunner. And please do something about the endless chatter: "Fast", "Slow", "Left", "Right",...

It's kinda annoying.

As long as these annoying stuff exist, people are not gonna enjoy the experience, no matter how many new features are added!

[solentis 10]

What about a "priority control" for tank commander? It's an actual feature for most of modern mbt that a commander can force the gunner turret to automatically turn on is own line of sight to designate and prioritize target, like a launcher carrier or an enemy vehicle targeting the tank. To make it simple, it's like the commander telling the gunner "it's just there! Fire!". I think its a must have if you want to improve tank crew synchronicity.

[Vasily.B 529]

6 hours ago, solentis said:

What about a "priority control" for tank commander? It's an actual feature for most of modern mbt that a commander can force the gunner turret to automatically turn on is own line of sight to designate and prioritize target, like a launcher carrier or an enemy vehicle targeting the tank. To make it simple, it's like the commander telling the gunner "it's just there! Fire!". I think its a must have if you want to improve tank crew synchronicity.

You can allways force gunner to fire - push ctr + left mouse button. If you are talking about "dual mode" then i'm signing under this idea.

[solentis 10]

The feature is not to force the fire, is it to force his exact sight as a gunner to yours as a crew commander. The term seems to be "tank commander override" as depicted in the link below : 

https://books.google.fr/books?id=S6igCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=tank+commander+override&source=bl&ots=gVpgONeXV8&sig=L4Inl6gT034In-tze6M6WX3WL7w&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWypjRur7YAhUlIMAKHdDCAZIQ6AEIQjAE#v=onepage&q=tank commander override&f=false

If you are spotting a direct threat as a commander and your gunner is busy targetting another (less dangerous) target, you can force is turret alignment to your view for priority destruction. 

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

On 28.12.2017 at 6:02 PM, CyclonicTuna said:

 

Uhm, no that's not what I meant. I just want them  to turn up the contrast a little bit on the enviroment, and turn down the brightness a tad on people and vehicles. Its just a texture they use. It shouldn't take 10 years. It shouldn't even really take 10 weeks really. 

They already have the system in place, it just needs to be tweaked. 

 

So if it is not the detailed simulation of the bandwidth of surface temperatures and their presentation in todays IR systems but just some changed texturing - then it should be a quick tweak.

 

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

On 29.12.2017 at 12:27 PM, R3vo said:

The problem is that the crew will die anyway because they move away from the vehicle too slowly. Furthermore I believe before bailing out, the commander should use smoke to conceil the crew (if available).

 

All in all, there's alot to tweak when it comes to that behaviour.

 

 

It is a combined design fuckup by BIS in place since OFP: crew bails out simply when vehicle received a certain damage...and before the crew can escape, the vehicle explodes in a cineastic explosion and kills the crew that just escaped.

Then, for the few cases when the vehiclke did NOT explode, the crew, just excaped out of the vehicle - maybe injured too, is able to kill the AT gunner with an short AK74 with iron sight on 100m+ distance with one single shot.

 

This forum and it's ancient predesessor is full with complaints about this chain of brain farts - but it was never really solved.

 

The only cure is https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/allowCrewInImmobile

...but then the crew stays no matter what. So it needs a more sophisticated approach where (at low resource consumption) a few more parameter are considered to calc the bail-out-decision:

 

- enemies around?

- am I able to detect enemies?

- is my vehicle burning?

- am I able to fight?

 

all togehter might result in a more realistic bail out behavior of AI.

Then, the reception of injuries inside an impacted vehicle and the general capabilities of an AI beeing injured needs to be tweeked.

Usually humans with destroyed eardrum, severe burns and injured lung are not able to place headshots 0.87 seconds after bail-out.

[Vasily.B 529]

allowcrewinimmobile keep crew in immobilised vehicle - if its damage reach critical level (vehicle gonna explode) crew is disembarking.
Addon of mine (and community) is checking if there is enemy in distance setted in config (now the hardest part - for tank battles best distance for check would be 1500M, but for normal fights - infantry mostly - 400M is enough - hard to find compromise, specially with "sniper militias").
Also when there is clear around, driver is disembarking and start repairing broken parts, but in resoult whole vehicle is fixed (dont know how to set only tracks/wheels/engine to be fixed) - BIS with its motion capture studio could record finally some goot repairing animation, instead 4 years old tire changing animation that need to be looped, which sometimes in this game is not working (also phrone with launcher animation by the way please ;) )

[solentis 10]

A disabled tank crew will surely not try to fix it on the field. At best the tank is completely out of service they will sabotage it with thermal charge and flee if it's safe outside. If tracks are out they will try to fight back and if the turret is out they while flee backward at full speed.
They will call repairing support when situation will be safe to fix or evacuate the damaged vehicle.

The problem is that the way tanks fight ingame is very unrealistic as they normaly stay hidden exposing only optics, search target, reveal the turret when ready to make a kill, fire twice at best (in case the fight other tanks) and roll back to cover, most of the time changing position (as the observer crew mounted in light vehicle have spotted 4 or 5 suitable firing position before). 

Actually they just go forward until they spot a target, then open fire until it's destroyed or they get destroyed totally uncovered. Even infantry AI got a better self preservation behavior.

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

21 hours ago, solentis said:

A disabled tank crew will surely not try to fix it on the field. At best the tank is completely out of service they will sabotage it with thermal charge and flee if it's safe outside. If tracks are out they will try to fight back and if the turret is out they while flee backward at full speed.
They will call repairing support when situation will be safe to fix or evacuate the damaged vehicle.

The problem is that the way tanks fight ingame is very unrealistic as they normaly stay hidden exposing only optics, search target, reveal the turret when ready to make a kill, fire twice at best (in case the fight other tanks) and roll back to cover, most of the time changing position (as the observer crew mounted in light vehicle have spotted 4 or 5 suitable firing position before). 

Actually they just go forward until they spot a target, then open fire until it's destroyed or they get destroyed totally uncovered. Even infantry AI got a better self preservation behavior.

 

Yeah, AI tactics for vehicles are non-sense in ArmA, all flying staff is using anything like German Stuka, all rolling tries to roll as close as possible and do not stop at optimal range.

Humans are indeed not better then AI in many cases :-)

[Vasily.B 529]

On 4.01.2018 at 10:13 PM, solentis said:

A disabled tank crew will surely not try to fix it on the field. At best the tank is completely out of service they will sabotage it with thermal charge and flee if it's safe outside. If tracks are out they will try to fight back and if the turret is out they while flee backward at full speed.
They will call repairing support when situation will be safe to fix or evacuate the damaged vehicle.

The problem is that the way tanks fight ingame is very unrealistic as they normaly stay hidden exposing only optics, search target, reveal the turret when ready to make a kill, fire twice at best (in case the fight other tanks) and roll back to cover, most of the time changing position (as the observer crew mounted in light vehicle have spotted 4 or 5 suitable firing position before). 

Actually they just go forward until they spot a target, then open fire until it's destroyed or they get destroyed totally uncovered. Even infantry AI got a better self preservation behavior.

Its just Arma man ;) This tactics werent even used in WWII,  undless tankc rew were panic, desperated, or losed self control :D I really wish they could programm tanks pathfinding for searching for "tank cover" (some dith, barrier covering whole hull etc) and standing front to it, so enemy would hit front of uncovered part.... but its arma - tank crews cant see through cover :

With repairing - what i suggested was only suggest, but fixing wheels/tracks/engine could be fine, as complex repair support in arma 3.... is almost impossible. I cant imagine enginering tracked vehicle to come, deploy its footrests and use crain animation to change damaged engine. At last it could only stand by damaged vehicle and repair status could start (just like for now, when you move to repair, refuel or rearm point, and stand next to it). But nothing is impossible - behavior i have subscribed as last is possible as calling support vehicle as taxi just next to your vehicle. All that is needed is damaged vehicle, support repair vehicle, and 2 modules of support in editor. But as we all know pathfinding of tracked vehicles may lead to situation when support vehicle will not stop next to damaged vehicle, will start braking too late and move too far (which is standard for tracked vehicles). So as we all see, long standing bugs is making progress very hard and should be fixed.

 

[sunbud 14]

There are a few things I would like to see changed and added with the tanks DLC; for sake of simplicity I will make some generalisations.

 

Firstly, adding more vehicles with various roles and capabilities is important for a more varied and customisable gameplay. 

 

Following on this point, ARMA, unlike other games does not need to be completely balanced, especially if there are various different tiers of vehicles, which 1 on 1 would not be balanced but balancing can be done by the game/mission creators. 

 

Secondly, following on the previous point, realistic armour behaviour should be applied. A tank like the MBT 52 Kuma (MBT Revolution) or newer 99A Chinese tanks have in excess of 1000mm of KE RHA equivalent protection, in addition the 99A has APS and over 700mm of RHA protection against top-attack CE weapons. Even APFSDS rounds just about coming down the line fired from the L55 120mm have a penetration of around 900mm tops, with current APFSDS fielded by the US having around 600-800mm penetration.

 

An excerpt from a book describing a now old Chinese tank prototype (IRL) testing describes the turret armour holding up after 14x 105mm APFSDS (Slammer UP) and 6x 125mm APFSDS (T100 Varsuk). This tank prototype is already old and newer, current Chinese tanks, let alone any tanks/upgrades that would be fielded by CSAT Pacific in 2035 should have significantly enhanced protection.

 

As such, over a certain distance, the frontal turret armour of the above tanks cannot be penetrated.

This would create a very interesting and varied gameplay dynamic, where some vehicles have significant overmatch capabilities, making mission kills a much bigger part of the game. And removing the damage model and premise of "shoot it enough and it will blow up", whilst that works IRL to an extent, this would be good for a varied gameplay dynamic. KE penetrators should also have reduced damage vs lightly armoured vehicles and MRAPs, and can pass through without doing significant damage, module and crew kills should happen, but not every APFSDS hit on APCs/MRAPs should be catastrophic kills.

 

A guerrilla force equipped with only RPG-7s, would not physically be able to defeat a 99A or MBT 52 Kuma's armour, any further manoeuvres in the course of the battle will now have to take into consideration this mission-killed tank, whose crew is still alive and well, behind your lines, requiring dedication of resources to ensure the crew do not escape and prevent recovery attempts. These considerations will now affect the actions of both sides who have conflicting objectives regarding this valuable asset. 

 

The new interiors will also add another element to a mission killed tank, having gun optics and CITVs being able to be taken out, crews can continue to rely on their periscopes and vision ports to operate the tank until those are also damaged/destroyed. 

The third change I would like to see is the ability to change the types, quantities and proportions of ammunition that can be equipped in armoured vehicles, as well as reload drills that can be carried out dismounted to reload the ATGM launchers on the BTR and Gorgon.

 

As well as better visual effects of fired projectiles, such as the discarded sabots from APFSDS rounds. This would also add the need for crew to think before firing over the heads of friendly infantry.

 

Fourthly, inclusion of countermeasures such as laser jammers, laser warning receivers as well as various had and soft-kill Active Defence systems are almost a must, seeing the game is based in 2035.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sebdspy 14]

On 1/12/2018 at 11:47 PM, sunbud said:

There are a few things I would like to see changed and added with the tanks DLC; for sake of simplicity I will make some generalisations.

 

Firstly, adding more vehicles with various roles and capabilities is important for a more varied and customisable gameplay. 

 

Following on this point, ARMA, unlike other games does not need to be completely balanced, especially if there are various different tiers of vehicles, which 1 on 1 would not be balanced but balancing can be done by the game/mission creators. 

 

Secondly, following on the previous point, realistic armour behaviour should be applied. A tank like the MBT 52 Kuma (MBT Revolution) or newer 99A Chinese tanks have in excess of 1000mm of KE RHA equivalent protection, in addition the 99A has APS and over 700mm of RHA protection against top-attack CE weapons. Even APFSDS rounds just about coming down the line fired from the L55 120mm have a penetration of around 900mm tops, with current APFSDS fielded by the US having around 600-800mm penetration.

 

An excerpt from a book describing a now old Chinese tank prototype (IRL) testing describes the turret armour holding up after 14x 105mm APFSDS (Slammer UP) and 6x 125mm APFSDS (T100 Varsuk). This tank prototype is already old and newer, current Chinese tanks, let alone any tanks/upgrades that would be fielded by CSAT Pacific in 2035 should have significantly enhanced protection.

 

As such, over a certain distance, the frontal turret armour of the above tanks cannot be penetrated.

This would create a very interesting and varied gameplay dynamic, where some vehicles have significant overmatch capabilities, making mission kills a much bigger part of the game. And removing the damage model and premise of "shoot it enough and it will blow up", whilst that works IRL to an extent, this would be good for a varied gameplay dynamic. KE penetrators should also have reduced damage vs lightly armoured vehicles and MRAPs, and can pass through without doing significant damage, module and crew kills should happen, but not every APFSDS hit on APCs/MRAPs should be catastrophic kills.

 

A guerrilla force equipped with only RPG-7s, would not physically be able to defeat a 99A or MBT 52 Kuma's armour, any further manoeuvres in the course of the battle will now have to take into consideration this mission-killed tank, whose crew is still alive and well, behind your lines, requiring dedication of resources to ensure the crew do not escape and prevent recovery attempts. These considerations will now affect the actions of both sides who have conflicting objectives regarding this valuable asset. 

 

The new interiors will also add another element to a mission killed tank, having gun optics and CITVs being able to be taken out, crews can continue to rely on their periscopes and vision ports to operate the tank until those are also damaged/destroyed. 

The third change I would like to see is the ability to change the types, quantities and proportions of ammunition that can be equipped in armoured vehicles, as well as reload drills that can be carried out dismounted to reload the ATGM launchers on the BTR and Gorgon.

 

As well as better visual effects of fired projectiles, such as the discarded sabots from APFSDS rounds. This would also add the need for crew to think before firing over the heads of friendly infantry.

 

Fourthly, inclusion of countermeasures such as laser jammers, laser warning receivers as well as various had and soft-kill Active Defence systems are almost a must, seeing the game is based in 2035.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow,

this has been one of the best groups of ideas I've seen on this topic for a while!

While unfortunately BIS have already said that they probably won't be implementing APS every other idea you've thrown out could be implemented imo and would really soup up armoured vehicle gameplay!

I especially love the idea of just the optics being taken out, and the gunner taking directions from the commander on where to shoot etc.

Would 10/10 love to see what you've suggested implemented in game!

Cheers for the wonderful suggestions

 

[zukov 490]

a prayer for the  T100 to BI devs
the textures transform the tank in a toy,  the wheels are painted e perfectly clean, please made a crude metal with mud!

the same thing for the smoke launcher, 
and put the physx on the lateral and frontal gum skirts like in Merkava.

so add some details, now is very ugly and at least a camo for guerilla

[R3vo 2654]

11 minutes ago, zukov said:

a prayer for the  T100 to BI devs
the textures transform the tank in a toy,  the wheels are painted e perfectly clean, please made a crude metal with mud!

the same thing for the smoke launcher, 
and put the physx on the lateral and frontal gum skirts like in Merkava.

so add some details, now is very ugly and at least a camo for guerilla

Totally agree. It looks too "perfect".

[Beagle 684]

5 hours ago, zukov said:

a prayer for the  T100 to BI devs
the textures transform the tank in a toy,  the wheels are painted e perfectly clean, please made a crude metal with mud!

the same thing for the smoke launcher, 
and put the physx on the lateral and frontal gum skirts like in Merkava.

so add some details, now is very ugly and at least a camo for guerilla

Not only does it look like a plastic tank, the Brown hex camo is also much to bright for Atis. In fact all CSAT vehicles tend to have a glossy paint that shines from certain angles. But then... NATO uses ivory white assault rifes ;)

[jone_kone 158]

14 hours ago, Beagle said:

But then... NATO uses ivory white assault rifes ;)

 

....or mint green rifles in the jungle. ;) Sometimes you got to wonder about certain design choises. :)

[paecmaker 23]

On 1/14/2018 at 11:04 PM, Beagle said:

Not only does it look like a plastic tank, the Brown hex camo is also much to bright for Atis. In fact all CSAT vehicles tend to have a glossy paint that shines from certain angles. But then... NATO uses ivory white assault rifes ;)

 

On 1/15/2018 at 1:49 PM, jone_kone said:

 

....or mint green rifles in the jungle. ;) Sometimes you got to wonder about certain design choises. :)

 

Well the US armed forces did adopt a camo that didn't work for any of the areas they were operating in. So using a strange weapon colour doesn't seen that out of their league.

[x3kj 1247]

On 14.1.2018 at 11:04 PM, Beagle said:

Not only does it look like a plastic tank, the Brown hex camo is also much to bright for Atis. In fact all CSAT vehicles tend to have a glossy paint that shines from certain angles. But then... NATO uses ivory white assault rifes ;)

I mean... it's not totally out of character for US to choose shiny over camoflage *cough* UCP *cough*

[odie0351 67]

3 hours ago, x3kj said:

I mean... it's not totally out of character for US to choose shiny over camoflage *cough* UCP *cough*

HEY MAN!! It has it's uses mmmkay

Spoiler

https://www.google.com/search?q=soldier+blending+into+couch&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhn4uI2f3YAhVFM6wKHQ4YBZIQ_AUICigB&biw=2560&bih=963#imgrc=JqC4t0sqZOKw3M:

 

[nkenny 1057]

TANKs DLC Hopes and expectations

Bohemia has so far been tight lipped about the features that will make their way into the DLC.  The only thing I have seen is a promise of vehicle interiors, updated handling characteristics and three new MBTs.

 

Going by the current, rather eclectic selection of vehicles in vanilla ARMA3 my expectations aren't great.  The rule of thumb seems to be that CSAT gets the best, most robust and tactically useful assets. See T-100, BTR-K and MSR-3 Marid in contrast to the NATO selection. In fact, pick any category and the trend repeats itself.  I am afraid we will see some weird hybrid unmanned rocket-turret tank for NATO with some odd glass-cannon weaknesses. Where the CSAT will earn themselves yet another sleek companion to the T-100.

It is obviously too late, but my hopes are in fact not only concerning tanks. I would like to see NATO get a proper MBT like a Abrams, Challenger or Leclerc -- not some weird tall passenger carrying Merkava ,  without any of the features which makes it such a formidable tank (including a proper 120mm turret). Next I would love to see Bluefor  get a proper tracked IFV: Cv90, Puma or similar. Finally, give us a useful spread of alternate textures for all current assets.  Simple Olive Drab will do wonderfully.  It would increase the types of scenarios where vanilla assets can be used exponentially.

 

Seems to me that CSAT are currently very well spoken for in terms of armoured assets. As are the AAF. Only NATO (ironically a larger conglomerate of armed forces from many nations) are weirdly limited.

Thanks for reading

[tacticalnuggets 24]

I, among many others I know, will expect both passive and active protection systems (in tanks) to be a standard for their third but unofficially fourth iteration of Arma. And if the tank dlc does not adequately include these protection systems in tanks, I will be extremely disappointed and dock -75% to my rating of it on steam. 

 

This is not operation flashpoint; this is not arma 1 or 2; this is ARMA 3. Its been almost 18 years, almost two decades, since they began making a military simulator game. Electronic warfare and active protection has been more relevant than EVER in this day and age. 

 

If you are worried about balance, make a script command that turns those systems off, so you can keep the missions out there consistent if need be. But I can tell you that the majority of the community wants those systems. Scratch that... NEEDS those systems. Tanks are pathetic right now. They are only slightly better than the IFV's in terms of being effective, and almost exclusively rely on the the absence of competent air power (anything, including pawnees, can obsolete 80's era tanks). To say that air power is always dominant is not an argument,  its an excuse for not putting more effort in the game.

 

Another important point is electronic warfare and protection systems make the game more intellectually stimulating. Tanks have become much more than a low-brow rolling chunk of metal with a cannon on it. Especially in the sense of conventional war. Pure armor is becoming less relevant with the prospect of other rising military powers. Its only natural to recognize its importance for an accurate military simulator.

[zimms 22]

On 20.2.2018 at 8:09 AM, tacticalnuggets said:

I will be extremely disappointed and dock -75% to my rating of it on steam. 

 

*gasp* You wouldn't...

[WastedMike_ 27]

Is there any information on the three new tanks they are adding?