Turrets, Guns and MGs

[Sgt Fury]

Hi Guys,

I wanted to start a topic on the many ways that turrets, guns and mgs are being used in the game. One thing ive noticed is that you can't change the cone of sight, unless you change the facing of the front hull, so that makes rotating turrets less effective. The game rotates the turret for auto-target and changes the facing for targeted fire. It should also have an order to rotate turret imho. This would allow the use of rear mounted MGs as well as expanding the cone of sight. Hull mounted MGs not being used seems a bit restrictive as well. All of this adds up to nerfing the tank vs. infantry and soft targets.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Sgt Fury
Hi Guys,
I wanted to start a topic on the many ways that turrets, guns and mgs are being used in the game. One thing ive noticed is that you can't change the cone of sight, unless you change the facing of the front hull, so that makes rotating turrets less effective.

I believe there are two cone of sights. They are the front hull and the front turret. Usually they overlap but if you change the direction of the front turret it will change with it.

ORIGINAL: Sgt Fury
The game rotates the turret for auto-target and changes the facing for targeted fire. It should also have an order to rotate turret imho.

I wish there were an order to rotate the turret. Right now you can do it by selecting a ground target off at the edge of the cone of sight and firing at it. Then the next phase order the gun to fire more the way around. So eventually you get the turret facing to the rear.

ORIGINAL: Sgt Fury
This would allow the use of rear mounted MGs as well as expanding the cone of sight.

You might get into some problems with "who is watching the front and sides' when you do this. I don't have an idea on how the game could handle this right now.

ORIGINAL: Sgt Fury
Hull mounted MGs not being used seems a bit restrictive as well. All of this adds up to nerfing the tank vs. infantry and soft targets.

Do you mean the rigid hull mounted remote fired MGs like on the KV-85? I don't think they were very effective and may just be a place to keep a spare MG. If you mean the ball mount MG that were actually aimed by a tanker then these are included in the machinegun fire power.

[thewood1]

Does sighting account for cupolas, periscopes, etc. when buttoned?

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: thewood1
Does sighting account for cupolas, periscopes, etc. when buttoned?

Yes.

[Sgt Fury]

Mobius thanks for making Panzer War Micro Armor Rules. You can see alot of the PW rules made it into PCK. However there seems to be alot more abstraction in PCK. Im guessing the PCK designers wanted a to create a fun game and decided to leave out some of the more fine details. Im sure there were alot of reasons for this.
 
The sighting Modifier is +2 for button-up with cupola. pg 47 PCK.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Sgt Fury
However there seems to be alot more abstraction in PCK. Im guessing the PCK designers wanted a to create a fun game and decided to leave out some of the more fine details. Im sure there were alot of reasons for this.

Yes, quite a bit. But as PW must be played by at least two humans there is no AI nor AI rules. AI stuff had be invented for the computer game.
Stuff like what should tanks do if they take fire from out of arc? Humans might turn one or two of their tank turrets or SPs to look to the rear. AI might require a host of parameters on what to do under various circumstances.

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Sgt Fury
This would allow the use of rear mounted MGs as well as expanding the cone of sight.

ORIGINAL: Mobius
You might get into some problems with "who is watching the front and sides' when you do this. I don't have an idea on how the game could handle this right now.

This could be done for an AFV by :

- 1) Divide the AFV into two seperate units ... hull/turret.
- 2) Assign ONE sight ray only for each part ... Lower Ray = Hull , Upper Ray = Turret.
- 3) Assign cone arc for each unit (part) ... ie 90 degrees for Hull, 360 degrees for Turret.
- 4) Apply modifiers (cone of sight reduction) to the Turret based on it's activity.

Remember my old screen shot months ago .... RED = hull ... BLUE = turret ... base sighting range.
In this example ... the turret + hull sighting range (factor) is cumulitive based on turret position.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Mraah
This could be done for an AFV by :
In this example ... the turret + hull sighting range (factor) is cumulitive based on turret position.

Is this a new one?
I don't remember those numbers.
I don't think there is any precedent for adding sighting ranges.

I liked your first diagram better.

[Mraah]

Sorry ... I was editting the post earlier ... Here's the "first" diagram :

Furthermore ... If they had defined "firing/sighting arcs" in the units XML it would help.
My diagrams show 6 arcs for sighting.

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Mobius
I don't think there is any precedent for adding sighting ranges.

Well, I think it's important because most (if not all) of the advanced optics were located in the turret. If the turret was facing away from the front of the vehicle then the front of the vehicle is restricted to "eye-ball" range or two men scanning. Now, we know the squads have 800m base "eye-ball" range but this includes more men looking plus the squad leaders binoculars.

Ok ... now ... let's drop the idea of cumulative sighting :

- What if each "arc" was given the 800m base value BUT it changes over the course of a phase.

For instance, an UN-buttoned AFV would have 360 degree/800m base sighting ... however, over the course of the phase the rear 3 arcs would drop by 300m every 8 seconds ... so it would be 800/500/200/500/800. This represents the chance that something moving in/out of LOS could be missed simply because not everyone is looking behind the tank.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

Sorry ... I was editting the post earlier ... Here's the "first" diagram :
Furthermore ... If they had defined "firing/sighting arcs" in the units XML it would help.
My diagrams show 6 arcs for sighting.

Yeah this is better. I think this was pretty well liked for future development.
If anything more detailed was to be used the hull (driver hull gunner) might have a little less range than the turret where most of the optics are as well as with their height advantage.

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Mobius
Yeah this is better. I think this was pretty well liked for future development.
If anything more detailed was to be used the hull (driver hull gunner) might have a little less range than the turret where most of the optics are as well as with their height advantage.

Ok ... lets go back to the turret now on top of the diagram we like ...

What if we gave the turret's 60 degree forward arc the 800m base. When it rotated it will always have 800 base within 30 degrees left/right of it's pointing axis. The other values will remain the same when the turret isn't "overlaped".

Now, interesting enough comes the T-34 ... I didn't know this but it's optics were located on top of the turret capable of 360 degree rotation. This puts a twist in this idea[&:].

It all goes back to leaving the diagram "static" for the whole tank. Each tank MUST have it's own static sighting parameter instead of having all AFV's with the same base arc and range factor.

[Mraah]

Mobius,

Now ... sorry to get off topic .... lets go back to the rear facing MG.

As you know, when designing the AFV model you have to define the bones for the firingpoint and it's direction of fire.

What if they used these point's to define it's firing arc. Right now it's using the firingpoint01 (main gun) firing point and direction when it rotates the turret and lines up on the target ... ie it won't fire the main gun until it lines up.

So, the game needs the ability of having two target assignments, one for gun1 and for gun2 ... not something new, you mentioned this months ago.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Mraah
As you know, when designing the AFV model you have to define the bones for the firingpoint and it's direction of fire.

In an experiment I rotated the gun bone and all it animations to face the rear of a tank turret model. Running PCK the tank would not fire to the rear as it was not in the covered arc. So the covered arc must be turret facing based not gun based. When firing the smoke and flame came out the gun as it was facing away from the target spot but the shell hit the target.

I don't think the programmers relied on the modellers to get the various bones and points in the right spot. The rays and other mechanics probably are hard coded.

[thewood1]

Make sure I understand...Right now in PCK, there is no difference in spotting ranges between facing front, rear, sides, etc.?

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: thewood1
Make sure I understand...Right now in PCK, there is no difference in spotting ranges between facing front, rear, sides, etc.?

Yes and no. To the rear is 0, no spotting. To the front and sides is same distance.

[Sgt Fury]

Super Heavy Tank, if we ever get two turrets in PCK.

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Sgt Fury

Super Heavy Tank, if we ever get two turrets in PCK.

[:D] ... a mobile 360 degree pillbox ... A programmers nightmare for auto-targeting eh?

I don't think it would know where to face next!