Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Malorn

That word does not mean what you think it means.

Rivaling is trying to be better, but it doesn't, it doesn't bring its own armour. It would have to be three times better than the main gun to be worthwhile. And that's not what it is, because it's worse than the Lightning.

ie. on paper it sounds nice, in practice, it'll be a nice piece of decoration on your tank.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Figment

Rivaling is trying to be better, but it doesn't, it doesn't bring its own armour. It would have to be three times better than the main gun to be worthwhile. And that's not what it is, because it's worse than the Lightning.

ie. on paper it sounds nice, in practice, it'll be a nice piece of decoration on your tank.

Dictionary.com is your friend. Rival means a competitor, an equal. If something fell short of being competitive then it would by definition not be a rival.

Also where do you get your information that the secondary gun is worse than the lightning?

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Dictionary.com is your friend. Rival means a competitor, an equal. If something fell short of being competitive then it would by definition not be a rival.

Read very carefully: It. Does. Not. Bring. It's. Own. Endurance. It is NOT an equal unless it is two times more powerful.Two times, because that's how much damage it has to put out to equal two tanks with two main guns of "equal" strength.

Check the maths thread I made earlier for the why (probably page two now). It has to do with the opposition only firing at one tank at a time, meaning the "secondary" gun (on the other tank) can fire freely for "two" lives (the one of the other tank and his own). In contrast, if they were on one tank, they can fire at two tanks yes, but only for the lifespan of one tank.

Also where do you get your information that the secondary gun is worse than the lightning?

Vehicle webcast.

[Malorn]

Your broken sentence didn't make your message any more comprehensible.

Also please link the webcast.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Your broken sentence didn't make your message any more comprehensible.

Come on Malorn, you know what hitpoints are don't you? You can figure it out!

Also please link the webcast.

Somewhere in the bit about the Lightning.

[Figment]

Alright, let's say Gun 1 (driver) does damage (D1) and Gun 2 (gunner) does damage (D2). Now, I'm not going to bother with firing modes. Tank has a total of armour (Arm) that provides endurance. Alright? For the sake of argument, I'm going to equate Arm to endurance directly (depends in reality on gun firing at it, normally the attrition would determine just how fast it dies, but that's irrelevant right now since I'm only going to adress the same tanks being used against eachother).

So, damage dealt by one tank is Arm * (D1*rof + D2*rof). So let's assume D1 and D2 put out equal damage over time. Then total damage potential is 2Arm*D1*rof, for one tank with two gunners of "equal" strength.

Now, if we bring two tanks, things are different. And then I'm not even talking about bonus to damage dealing time by outmaneuvring an enemy (getting behind their turrets, rotation speed and angles).

Just looking at endurance and firepower, two tanks have 2Arm * 2(D1*rof), not counting any gunners that might jump in along the way by accident. So, we got 4Arm*D1*rof, which is twice as much firepower-endurance.

That means that with one opponent, with two crew in both situations, you only need to wear down ONE lifespan worth of armour when facing a tank with two people in it. On the other hand, two tanks are two lifespans and you can only kill one in the time they need to kill you since both the single tank and two tanks have equal firepower.

So although it'll be equally fast at killing one single tank (2D1*rof), it will not win as its guns are mere equals (or less) between the crews. Simply because it has to deal twice as much damage in the same time. One of your opponents will not have taken damage at all in the time it took for you to kill the other, it will get another full lifetime to hit on you, so in total you are basically fighting "three lifetimes" worth of tank. You can't possibly win that with equal guns.

So to compensate, you need a much, MUCH stronger secondary weapon to bring down the total TTK to a half of the original in the case of AV. Hence it needs to be at least twice as strong as the main gun seeing as you are fighting three lifespans of tanks vs your one.



In any case, by the time it kills one tank, it itself is already dead or limping. I don't understand why this isn't obvious?



Having the ability to fire at different angles like mortars will only make it harder to hit, IMO, that'd be a weakness over two straight or almost straight firing weapons. Mortars are after all very situational weapons. In fact, given the experience we had with the Aurora, I'd say it's a severe weakness, more so at range.

[NewSith]

"...And it goes on, and on, and on,
It's Heaven and Hell!..."
Black Sabbath

[Mackenz]

Originally Posted by Figment

Alright, let's say Gun 1 (driver) does damage (D1) and Gun 2 (gunner) does damage (D2). Now, I'm not going to bother with firing modes. Tank has a total of armour (Arm) that provides endurance. Alright? For the sake of argument, I'm going to equate Arm to endurance directly (depends in reality on gun firing at it, normally the attrition would determine just how fast it dies, but that's irrelevant right now since I'm only going to adress the same tanks being used against eachother).

So, damage dealt by one tank is Arm * (D1*rof + D2*rof). So let's assume D1 and D2 put out equal damage over time. Then total damage potential is 2Arm*D1*rof, for one tank with two gunners of "equal" strength.

Now, if we bring two tanks, things are different. And then I'm not even talking about bonus to damage dealing time by outmaneuvring an enemy (getting behind their turrets, rotation speed and angles).

Just looking at endurance and firepower, two tanks have 2Arm * 2(D1*rof), not counting any gunners that might jump in along the way by accident. So, we got 4Arm*D1*rof, which is twice as much firepower-endurance.

That means that with one opponent, with two crew in both situations, you only need to wear down ONE lifespan worth of armour when facing a tank with two people in it. On the other hand, two tanks are two lifespans and you can only kill one in the time they need to kill you since both the single tank and two tanks have equal firepower.

So although it'll be equally fast at killing one single tank (2D1*rof), it will not win as its guns are mere equals (or less) between the crews. Simply because it has to deal twice as much damage in the same time. One of your opponents will not have taken damage at all in the time it took for you to kill the other, it will get another full lifetime to hit on you, so in total you are basically fighting "three lifetimes" worth of tank. You can't possibly win that with equal guns.

So to compensate, you need a much, MUCH stronger secondary weapon to bring down the total TTK to a half of the original in the case of AV. Hence it needs to be at least twice as strong as the main gun seeing as you are fighting three lifespans of tanks vs your one.

In any case, by the time it kills one tank, it itself is already dead or limping. I don't understand why this isn't obvious

Having the ability to fire at different angles like mortars will only make it harder to hit, IMO, that'd be a weakness over two straight or almost straight firing weapons. Mortars are after all very situational weapons. In fact, given the experience we had with the Aurora, I'd say it's a severe weakness, more so at range.

If indirect fire in PS2 is as useless (and direct fire only ever worthwhile) as you are making it out to be, even just indirect AI fire, then it will be a very linear and two-dimensional game. That makes me a sad panda.

On the other hand, jet packs are already in to provide the extra dimension, so I have hope indirect fire will be important, situational and key to good leadership.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Mackenz

If indirect fire in PS2 is as useless (and direct fire only ever worthwhile) as you are making it out to be, even just indirect AI fire, then it will be a very linear and two-dimensional game. That makes me a sad panda.

I'd always put more value on non-arced weapons since dogfighting tanks will happen more than special situations. Most people will opt for the most flexible setup, meaning they could engage completely different types of units. Air is more different than infantry in that sense, thus AA.

On the other hand, jet packs are already in to provide the extra dimension, so I have hope indirect fire will be important, situational and key to good leadership.

Don't really see how jetpacks lead to indirect fire, rather than being more twitchskill and vertical leading demanding. Btw, they won't be able of firing AV I think? So how big will infantry threat be if most classes cannot defend themselves against vehicles in general?

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by NewSith

"...And it goes on, and on, and on,
It's Heaven and Hell!..."
Black Sabbath

This is the thread that never ends
Yes it goes on and on my friend
Some people, started arguing not knowing what it was
And they'll continue arguing forever just because
This is the thread that never ends
...

[Mackenz]

Originally Posted by Figment

I'd always put more value on non-arced weapons since dogfighting tanks will happen more than special situations. Most people will opt for the most flexible setup, meaning they could engage completely different types of units. Air is more different than infantry in that sense, thus AA.

Actually, I quite disagree - terrain height and obstacles can make direct fire useless. But I don't think that is convincing for you. Given a defense that is rounded, your will be useless in tanks.

Originally Posted by Figment

Don't really see how jetpacks lead to indirect fire, rather than being more twitchskill and vertical leading demanding. Btw, they won't be able of firing AV I think? So how big will infantry threat be if most classes cannot defend themselves against vehicles in general?

I meant jetpacks demonstrates the use of dimensionality to PS2, so hence hopeful for that to continue to tank loadout options.

As for AV threat by infantry, if the Phoenix is in PS2, I and my Phoenix buddies will eat your tank lunch hiding behind and using indirect fire. And the rest of my buddies will be covering my butt.

I suspect that that won't sway you to needing indirect fire on a tank though, which is nice for me and my buddies .

[Fenrys]

What was more useful against infantry hiding behind cover in PS1: the NC particle cannon or the VS mortar?

How about Thunderer v. Aurora?

Indirect fire is terrible outside of point-blank range.

[Figment]

Mack, you assume a whole lot of things. Engineer or heavy assault don't have jetpacks. CAN they get up on things? Mortar will be equally useless against cover due to arc not being steep enough.

Originally Posted by Fenrys

What was more useful against infantry hiding behind cover in PS1: the NC particle cannon or the VS mortar?

How about Thunderer v. Aurora?

Indirect fire is terrible outside of point-blank range.

Thunderer.

Don't drive up to them from the front. Drive up from behind. Get twenty one shot kills.

[sylphaen]

Wow, if you say the aurora sucked vs. infantry, you never gunned for one properly.

The aurora gun was the best AI in-game both short, medium and long range. You could accurately hit the same mark at max range by using the single-shot mode.

With both gunners shooting at the same location from max range, the aurora was effectively a field mortar. At short range, it was the real "thresher".

[Malorn]

I think that Figment and I are probably talking about the same thing, but I have a really hard time understanding him.

The webcast was informative, but I didn't see anything in there about the lightning being a superior tank. It had different tradeoffs and was listed as effectively the Skyguard of PS2 so it was the best ground-based AA, but it comes with the price of HP.


As far as equations go you can mathematically determine at what point a secondary gun needs to be better than a main gun in overall effectiveness to justify having it around.

Pure Tank vs Tank scenario:

Lets say tanks have 100 effective hit points.
Lets say tanks have 5 effective dps (to simplify damage, rate of fire, accuracy, etc). So normally a tank would take 20 seconds to destroy another tank, and all things being equal, the tanks would destroy each other in a 1v1 fight.

Now lets take two tanks vs 1 tank, same numbers as above.
The one tank still has 5dps and 100 hp,
the two tanks now have 10dps for the first 100hp, and then 5 dps for the second, assuming the one tank focuses one at a time (which would be dumb if he didn't).

The two tanks will destroy the one tank in 10 seconds. In that time, the one tank will do 50 damage. So the two tanks survive with one of them at half-health and the other full.

Now here's where the equations come in - at what increase in firepower to the one tank does it overpower the benefit of having two tanks and therefore justifying a single gunner?

The answer is right about 17 effective dps. If the one tank had 17 effective dps, it would blow up one tank after 6 seconds (102 damage), and lose 60 of its health in the process (10dps for 6 seconds). Then it would blow up the second tank after another 6 seconds, leaving it with only 10% health left (it took another 5dps for 6 seconds to blow up the second tank, for a total of 30). So our single tank was able to take out two tanks simultaneously and come out barely alive.

This is an ideal situation, assuming both gunner and driver were attacking the same target switched perfectly, and the other tanks were not exploiting vulnerable positions. So even in that ideal situation....

17 effective dps means that the secondary gun added 12 effective anti-tank dps. Relative to the main gun, that is 12/5 = 2.4 times the effective anti-tank dps as the main gun. Lets round to 2.5 to play it safe and to keep the math a little nicer.

So that secondary gun, at the intended role, needs to be vastly superior to the the main gun in order to justify having a gunner over a second tank.

For infantry it's a harder equation, but armor is easy to calculate. I expect a similar number though - the Anti-infantry mortar needs to be overall 2.5 times as effective against infantry in order to justify not having a second tank.


The only way I see them balancing this out is accepting the fact that running two tanks is always going to be the better option, making the secondary gun roughly equal or slightly better than the main gun. To achieve balance they use the resource system.

They do this by making it it much cheaper to have a single tank w/ a gun upgrade than to have two tanks.

Exmaple, suppose a tank cost 100 of some resource, but the AV gunner upgrade only cost 10 of the same resource.

So from a resource perspective it is more efficient to run tanks with gunners over two tanks.

That isn't to say that the secondary gun still isn't 1.5-2x better at its specific role than the main gun, but that combined with resources is where you balance it out by making it prohibitively expensive to spam stock tanks vs upgrading a tank to have an AV gunner and running fewer tanks with more firepower but doing so continuously due to the affordable resource cost.