Possible to destroy abandoned vehicles?

Jompa · Post by **Jompa** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 1:02 pm

Salute!

Is there a way to destroy abandoned enemy vehicles using guns and not infantry???
I know that enter the same hex with infantry and wait a turn works, but can it be don "at distance"?

Pack Rat · Post by **Pack Rat** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 6:11 pm

In a word no. This is the first I've heard of infantry being able to do it. Could someone enlighten me?

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 6:21 pm

Infnatry that end the turn with an abandoned enemy vehicel will "destroy" it for combat purposes. The idea being that tankers will worry about the live ones and you have to "take the ground" with grunts to ensure you deny the enemy ability to recover and repair it.

The best we can do becasue dead things don;t exist in the game shoot at - they are just an icon on the map...

Jompa · Post by **Jompa** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 12:41 am

Rgr.

Thanks for the reply!

Flashfyre · Post by **Flashfyre** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 9:21 am

Now all we need is the ability to "appropriate" those abandoned tracks for our own....

During my battle that featured Sgt. Brors (see post), I was forced to destroy the following abandoned tracks: a StuGIII, 2 GE halftracks, and a Jagdpanther. I coulda cried when my "boys" dropped a satchel charge down that 'panther's hatch.

Sure woulda liked to put that monster in my lineup.

Tortfeasor · Post by **Tortfeasor** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 9:29 am

the aibility to destroy abandoned enemy vehicles with tanks, has this been fixd in the 5.0 version.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 6:27 pm

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
...
The best we can do becasue dead things don;t exist in the game shoot at - they are just an icon on the map...

But the original crew can still reoccupy it so there must be some entry for the vehicle in the database/whatever. Can't this abandoned entry be switched with an imobilized vehicle with no gun kind of thing that can be shot at. then can't the flag for abandoned be changed to destroyed after being hit enough.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 6:55 pm

No - an abandoned vehicle still has to be destroyed by Grunts. Be carefull what you wish for! If this 'gets fixed' You will have a much tougher time knowing what is an active shooting enemy and what is an abandoned hulk

Resisti · Post by **Resisti** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 6:56 pm

Originally posted by Larry Holt:

But the original crew can still reoccupy it...[/QB]

Hmm,always questioning myself on how game engine handle this feature:

is there a morale/experience test to pass ?

can the vehicle be reoccupied by a crew which is not the one who abandoned the vehicle ?

can a crew reoccupy a vehicle even if it has suffered casualties ?

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 7:13 pm

The crew that originally occupied a vehicle can recrew it if is ready and in the same hex. DO not try to "load" the unit with L key or they sit on top instead of getting inside.

The database can keep tack of either the vehicle or the crew, so the crew IS he vehicle until it just remembers where it "left the tank" and will "turn into" the tank if it returns there.

The abondoned vehicle routine does some sligh of hand, but since the abandoned vehicle doesn't really exist as a unit in the game (just a graphic placeholder), you can't shot at it or recrew it or capture it or anything.

We would have to change the way the game defines units and completely redo teh data structures to fix this.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 7:15 pm

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
No - an abandoned vehicle still has to be destroyed by Grunts. Be carefull what you wish for! If this 'gets fixed' You will have a much tougher time knowing what is an active shooting enemy and what is an abandoned hulk

I understand. I've played previous versions where it was hard to tell them apart (actually I think it was destroyed but not burning tanks still had a + on them). However in real life it is hard. IRL, tank crews do worry about wasting shells on already dead tanks (at least they did in my armor battalion, they planned to put a shell in each vehicle they passed that was not catistrophically destroyed). In the game I would have to pay attention to which vehicles had crews suddenly appear in their hex to know if they are abandoned.

john g · Post by **john g** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 10:32 pm

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
The crew that originally occupied a vehicle can recrew it if is ready and in the same hex. DO not try to "load" the unit with L key or they sit on top instead of getting inside.

The database can keep tack of either the vehicle or the crew, so the crew IS he vehicle until it just remembers where it "left the tank" and will "turn into" the tank if it returns there.

The abondoned vehicle routine does some sligh of hand, but since the abandoned vehicle doesn't really exist as a unit in the game (just a graphic placeholder), you can't shot at it or recrew it or capture it or anything.

We would have to change the way the game defines units and completely redo teh data structures to fix this.

To me this isn't something that needs to be fixed. When a tank crew bails it becomes a target for my artillery or infantry, or those extra mg shots that most tanks have after they use up their main gun shots.

Something I would like to have, would be allowing a player in a campaign to upgrade their vehicles to some of the abandoned vehicles in the immediately previous battle.

Since I still run v4.3b something that the game still didn't do then was count abandoned vehicles as killed in the post battle report. I assume it does something about it in either 4.5 or 5.0?

Another nice trick was shooting a tank, getting the crew to abandon, earning one kill for the firing unit, have that crew reenter their vehicle and get another kill for destroying the tank again. Then killing the remaining crew for yet another kill notation.
thanks, John.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Fri Apr 27, 2001 10:59 pm

I think that decreasing the player information is a good thing, and definately makes it "more realistic" not to have a giant neon sign over every vehicel that says "nobody home"! We have to balance the "micromanager" who want to chose type of round fired, with those who complain that its not even realistic to chose the target exactly!

Abandoned vehicles never have been targetable, in SP3 anyway, but occasionally in the past you would get a "fake crew" to bail and the vehicle would remain with a "ghost crew". I don't think it let you shoot at a vehicle that had no crew? We think we got rid of most ofthat but lantency can casue it in online games occasionally, in which case the 'extra crew is some stragglers that they had picked up along the way

kao16 · Post by **kao16** » Sat Apr 28, 2001 6:49 am

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
No - an abandoned vehicle still has to be destroyed by Grunts. Be carefull what you wish for! If this 'gets fixed' You will have a much tougher time knowing what is an active shooting enemy and what is an abandoned hulk

If this was "fixed" then you would have the case where players could fire at a vehicle until it is ko'd.

I would like to have this option as it seems more realistic that tankers have the option to continue shooting at a tank until they know it is destroyed, than the "gamey" feature where a player can deliberately save a vehicle by volunteerly abandoning it, or save ammo by only firing at occuppied tanks.

p.s. in earlier discussions about this Paul indicated that the programming to allow killing abandoned tanks was "difficult" - has this changed (say, now "doable"), or the concept still only a glimmer in somebody's eye

[ April 27, 2001: Message edited by: kao16 ]