Driver/Gunners... NO! - Page 27

vVRedOctoberVv · 2012-07-12, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by SgtExo

But what I mean is that when I want to fight in the front lines I want a big tank and when I want to be a fast moving raider, I will take a Lightning. But allot of ppl have been saying that if you want a tank and be solo, go for the lightning. But I do not consider does two as filling the same role and just because I will want to play alone sometimes that I should be locked out of a vital role on the battlefield.

But what I wouldn't mind seeing in game is something even bigger than the MBTs. Something that the driver could maybe a small fixed gun of his choice up front and then a really big main gun and then one or two extra turrets up top for AA or AI weapons. Having a rolling fortress would be cool in this game because we actually have the population for it to be effective.

What? Like a Maus? There's a lot of reasons that sort of stuff doesn't exist in real life and why tanks pretty much leveled out at the 60 ton range. The 1944 King Tiger II was 65 tons, believe it or not, the same size roughly as a modern M1 Abrams (also 65 tons). Russian T-72/80/90 all are in the 40-45 ton range (basically trading armor for increased mobility, they can go over a bridge/overpass that would collapse under an M1).

Giant 150 ton tanks with three turrets and five or six people in them don't exist because they're infeasible. I know this a video game and they aren't actually confined by the realities of physics, but the gist most people are leaning toward who oppose some of the design choices is not that they want "the real world" (this is a sci-fi video game, imagination is a given) but they want more realism than not.

Actually, when I re-read what you said, you weren't necessarily describing something that large. Sounds more like an equivalent to the old Prowler 3 seater, I'm not really sure, though. I'm sure as time goes on, and they add additional vehicles, we'll probably get "gaps" in the current lineup/roles filled in, and probably will end up with some more heavy armor of some sort. That's basically what they were going for with BFRs, but apparently screwed the pooch with their implementation :P

Regarding tank design, I am baffled by the Prowler having dual guns in the first place, and now they're offset. From an engineering perspective, this would cause horrible recoil... And somebody implied it might have a cert for TWO MORE guns on the other side to balance it out? I like guns. TR likes guns... But FOUR guns on one tank??? Gawd. Imagine the smoke/debris spam from something like that. NOBODY'S gonna be able to see :P

TheDAWinz · 2012-07-12, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by vVRedOctoberVv

What? Like a Maus? There's a lot of reasons that sort of stuff doesn't exist in real life and why tanks pretty much leveled out at the 60 ton range. The 1944 King Tiger II was 65 tons, believe it or not, the same size roughly as a modern M1 Abrams (also 65 tons). Russian T-72/80/90 all are in the 40-45 ton range (basically trading armor for increased mobility, they can go over a bridge/overpass that would collapse under an M1).

Giant 150 ton tanks with three turrets and five or six people in them don't exist because they're infeasible. I know this a video game and they aren't actually confined by the realities of physics, but the gist most people are leaning toward who oppose some of the design choices is not that they want "the real world" (this is a sci-fi video game, imagination is a given) but they want more realism than not.

Actually, when I re-read what you said, you weren't necessarily describing something that large. Sounds more like an equivalent to the old Prowler 3 seater, I'm not really sure, though. I'm sure as time goes on, and they add additional vehicles, we'll probably get "gaps" in the current lineup/roles filled in, and probably will end up with some more heavy armor of some sort. That's basically what they were going for with BFRs, but apparently screwed the pooch with their implementation :P

Regarding tank design, I am baffled by the Prowler having dual guns in the first place, and now they're offset. From an engineering perspective, this would cause horrible recoil... And somebody implied it might have a cert for TWO MORE guns on the other side to balance it out? I like guns. TR likes guns... But FOUR guns on one tank??? Gawd. Imagine the smoke/debris spam from something like that. NOBODY'S gonna be able to see :P

Well, the t-72/80/90 Are all crappy tanks that fall apart constantly. The M1A2 TUSK is 70 tons with the choblam and or reactive armor on it and it would easily punch through a column of Crap-90's

SgtExo · 2012-07-12, 04:21 PM

1 tank with the two guns could easily beat 2 tanks with 1 gun each if they are good enough and know how to use their armor and terrain to their advantage. But the same can be said from the other side. Do you prefer to have a more effective single point, or do you want to use numbers to pin down and flank the opposition.

Also if you have an engineer in the second gun and the battle is pretty static, the engineer could always get out, take cover behind the tank and repair it at the same time, while the others cannot. That is another good examples of teamwork.

Raymac · 2012-07-12, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Raymac, just read the edit above.

You somehow assume that the nerf cancels out the buff. And yes that's a retarded assumption because it's not just baseless, experience and maths tell otherwise.

Yeah, caught the edit later, so check my edit responding to your edit

I don't think there can be a direct mathmatical answer because of all the intangibles i.e. terrain, fog of war, emotional reactions, etc. I can feel your teeth grinding at me already, sorry. Obviously math is an important component, but it's not the end all be all answer.

Figment · 2012-07-12, 04:28 PM

Originally Posted by SgtExo

1 tank with the two guns could easily beat 2 tanks with 1 gun each if they are good enough and know how to use their armor and terrain to their advantage. But the same can be said from the other side. Do you prefer to have a more effective single point, or do you want to use numbers to pin down and flank the opposition.

Also if you have an engineer in the second gun and the battle is pretty static, the engineer could always get out, take cover behind the tank and repair it at the same time, while the others cannot. That is another good examples of teamwork.

I was writing this up for raymac, but you could do with it as well. Two tanks is always better than one of the same frame if the total firepower is the same. By default. You don't have to know specifics beyond that because it's irrelevant.

This is a very simplistic representation and only meant to illustrate how something can cancel something else out:

Imagine driving efficiency of 1.0 being the performance of a player in a multicrew, driver only tank (regarding his driving skills and impact on the battle). His gunner also has an efficiency of 1.0. Alright? Together they have 200% and their tank is a single tank, so it's a modifier of 1.0. So 2.0 total.

Now imagine they both get their own tanks and have to gun. This reduces both player's efficiency by 40% to 0.6. together, they now have an efficiency of 120%, rather than 200%. So that's worse right? Wrong. The modifier for the armour of two tanks is 2.0. That means that their efficiency now is 2.4

That's a whole .4 points higher despite both being much worse on their own.

THEN we add the advantage of circling. Which enhances the efficiency of both solo players further, because you add turret rotation issues to the equation. So the actual efficiency of two solo players can be even greater!

Add some more modifier advantages like better situational awareness from not both having the same perspective and being able to tag team for repairs and you can easily reach an efficiency of what... 3?

Even if on an individual basis, they're significantly worse off in one vehicle than in two. Of course the above is a simplification, but it illustrates well that people are dumb to assume being a worse driver cancels out any additional advantage separate vehicles gives you.

Basically, it's killing teamwork gameplay to make everything solowhorable.

Goldeh · 2012-07-12, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by Raymac

Yeah, caught the edit later, so check my edit responding to your edit

I don't think there can be a direct mathmatical answer because of all the intangibles i.e. terrain, fog of war, emotional reactions, etc. I can feel your teeth grinding at me already, sorry. Obviously math is an important component, but it's not the end all be all answer.

You're also forgeting the blessings of Satan needs to be taken into account when discussing battle outcomes.

Flaropri · 2012-07-12, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Because to get a gunner to be more useful than getting a tank of its own, it has to be WAY BETTER than the main gun!

Or make it prohibitively expensive for everyone to get their own MBTs all the time, and make being a gunner slightly more useful than being in a Lightning (which can be accomplished via intangibles really, especially since being a gunner doesn't require any certs into tanks or resource expenditure).

DO THE MATHS. PLEASE DO SOME @#*@*$****$^#*$ MATHS FOR ONCE.

There are no hard numbers with which to do math.

There's speculative numbers, numbers based on E3 (game not in a balanced state), and there's basing it all in PS1 stats (aka: slightly better educated speculation). But that's all we got.

If a single multi-crew MBT is going against 2 MBTs with only one crew each, then it has an HP disadvantage, but not a weapons disadvantage. Further more, it could use tight spaces to it's advantage, or attempt to manuever so that there's one enemy tank between the other. Ultimately, I think it's reasonable to think that it could at least take out one of the enemies before being trashed itself, pending skill of the players involved and chosen weaponry. In some rare situations, it might be able to take out the second one later.

I think it's reasonable that the second single-crew MBT is able to survive and move on, simply because more resources were spent on that side. Likewise, if the driver for the first single-crew is able to get in than that's the fault of the multi-crew not killing the character or otherwise cutting them off from their ally.

Obviously, if resources just pour out of the rocks (that players fly into trying to mine the resources) then this is moot, and the game overall will be imbalanced anyway.

That's just my view on it. I don't have any WoT experience, so a lot of the conversation involving that game means very little to me.

SgtExo · 2012-07-12, 04:38 PM

Making cost more, meaning you want to have a gunner for more bang for your buck, then having to have a second person shooting for you. And I do believe that tactics and teamwork will be more important than numbers in the game.

Azren · 2012-07-12, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by Flaropri

There are no hard numbers with which to do math.

There's speculative numbers, numbers based on E3 (game not in a balanced state), and there's basing it all in PS1 stats (aka: slightly better educated speculation). But that's all we got.

You have got to be kidding. What kind of numbers do you need?

armor of tank = x
damage of main weapon = y
damage of secondary weapon = y - z

for argument's sake, lets make z = 0

so a tank does 2*y damage with a gunner
two tanks do 2*y damage too, with no gunner

the diffrence is, the tank with two occupants has x armor, while the two tanks have 2*x armor

So who do you think would win? And I was being very generous by giving the secondary gun the same damage as the main one. Not to mention the "small" details that for example one of the two tanks could swrill around and attack the double manned tank's rear or side for extra damage.

Figment · 2012-07-12, 04:52 PM

@Flapropi.

Algebra doesn't require accurate numbers. It just requires a subtitute A, B, C, etc. for whatever number you might want to fill in and you can quickly derive ratios and come to conclusions for different scenarios.

Simply base the maths on:

A - Amount of gunners (1xA, 2xA, etc).
B - Firepower of gun 1 (damage per shot)
C - Firepower of gun 2 (damage per shot)
D - Rate of fire
E - Endurance of tank (hitpoints)
etc.

Loading times, clipsizes, you name it, you can work them all into algebra and customize any value you get to know.

Then add some efficiencies you find acceptable. For example, hit ratio efficiency, driving skill. However, assuming those efficiencies as 1.0 simplifies the maths greatly and is pretty accurate, because it gives you a top performance idea and you already know that everything else that would be a lowering factor would negatively impact the performance in combat.

If you want, use ranges of efficiency modifications. I would however, assume standard combat situations on flat terrain, since terrain can be to the advantage of both players, though is usualy in favour of a group of units.

People who say "but we don't know the situation" are just avoiding and don't actually think about ways to bypass or calculate for the unknowns without avoiding them. But you can always just assume equality as a basis and work from there.

I've done it before, doesn't take too long. When you're comparing two tanks of the same frame, LOADS of factors start cancelling out. It's very simple mathematics.

Just calculate a TTK expressed in algebra for the two tanks and for the single tank to kill both tanks.

You'll find the single tank with more gunners is always screwed.

That means that the single tank with more gunners is the worse option to pick.

But yes, Flapropi. The scenario you suggested is about right according to the maths (see how hard it is to make a basic assesment?). In principal ONE of the solo tanks should probably die on an equal skill basis. The other would probably take barely any damage. However, you say this is fair because of resources spend.

I don't think any player in game will feel it that way and their response will be something other than "oh well, again". Why? Because they want to perform and thus they learned a lesson: play with two tanks, not one, to be efficient. More costly? Depends. Over time it's probably less costly if you survive more often.

EDIT: And Azren does make a good point. The two units are going to take advantage of directional damage which will be in PS2, so don't forget to add damage mitigation/increasing modifiers. Note that it seems just a few hits in the rear can already take out a tank at this time. So being able to flank (which is incredibly easy with two vs one), is going to be a huge modifier to the situation.

vVRedOctoberVv · 2012-07-12, 04:52 PM

Originally Posted by TheDAWinz

Well, the t-72/80/90 Are all crappy tanks that fall apart constantly. The M1A2 TUSK is 70 tons with the choblam and or reactive armor on it and it would easily punch through a column of Crap-90's

No, the poorly maintained second hand tanks used by the Iraqis and Afghans are crap tanks that fall apart constantly. Also, budget shortfall and improper maintenance has more to do with these issues than the actual designs of the vehicles. As the US continues to bankrupt, you'll see Abrams, F-16s, etc, become afflicted with the same problems...
The modern T-72/80/90s incorporate a lot of the same technology any other modern battle tank does, including reactive armor. They have a couple interesting prototypes in the work, too, using stuff intended to baffle missiles (or at least give the crew a headsup that they're being lazed). Basically, one person comes up with a good idea, everybody else starts doing it, too.
They all do the same things, or variations thereof, more or less. The USA doesn't have a monopoly on stealth fighters anymore, either, several other countries either have or are working on their own versions.

It boils down more to design philosophies that are in use, more than one being directly "better" than another. Besides, I wasn't referring to quality as much as size in that statement.

-edit

Wow. Now we're breaking it down into algebraic formulae, huh? Sorry, you guys are taking this discussion way past my ability/willingness to follow :P

TheDAWinz · 2012-07-12, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by vVRedOctoberVv

No, the poorly maintained second hand tanks used by the Iraqis and Afghans are crap tanks that fall apart constantly. Also, budget shortfall and improper maintenance has more to do with these issues than the actual designs of the vehicles. As the US continues to bankrupt, you'll see Abrams, F-16s, etc, become afflicted with the same problems...
The modern T-72/80/90s incorporate a lot of the same technology any other modern battle tank does, including reactive armor. They have a couple interesting prototypes in the work, too, using stuff intended to baffle missiles (or at least give the crew a headsup that they're being lazed). Basically, one person comes up with a good idea, everybody else starts doing it, too.
They all do the same things, or variations thereof, more or less. The USA doesn't have a monopoly on stealth fighters anymore, either, several other countries either have or are working on their own versions.

It boils down more to design philosophies that are in use, more than one being directly "better" than another.

Tell that to the russians who fought to the georgians! Е-90 шы еру агслштп цщкые ефтл шт еру утешку цщкдв! its so shitty! After a single rpg it was destroyed.

your under the illusion that america's military might will go down. Wrong. The U.S. has thing 50 years ahead of what they currently show us.

vVRedOctoberVv · 2012-07-12, 04:56 PM

I doubt that, but whatever. Enjoying your 360 degree monovision?

edit-

Actually, the possibility of a tank being taken out by a single round or RPG is very realistic, including an Abrams. Phosphorous rounds are not commonly used because of their extreme expense, but stuff like that almost instantly burns through armor, nearly regardless of thickness or type, and turns the inside into a 4000 degree oven. It's been around since the 40's, but like I said, it's expensive, and so most the rounds a tank carries will be SABOT, with only a couple like this.

TheDAWinz · 2012-07-12, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by vVRedOctoberVv

I doubt that, but whatever. Enjoying your 360 degree monovision?

Yes, why i am. You are envious of being the lesser begin here.

Originally Posted by vVRedOctoberVv

I doubt that, but whatever. Enjoying your 360 degree monovision?

edit-

Actually, the possibility of a tank being taken out by a single round or RPG is very realistic, including an Abrams. Phosphorous rounds are not commonly used because of their extreme expense, but stuff like that almost instantly burns through armor, nearly regardless of thickness or type, and turns the inside into a 4000 degree oven. It's been around since the 40's, but like I said, it's expensive, and so most the rounds a tank carries will be SABOT, with only a couple like this.

Some abrams carry tungsten instead of depleted uranium. I don't see the difference as they are both very dense materials. I love white phosphorous as much as the next guy, but everyone by now has developed countermeasures or at least resistances to it in their armor. At least thats what the challenger 2 and Merkerva tanks do.

Klockan · 2012-07-12, 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

And you know what? Those casual players that play WoT and make up the majority of players, end up leaving the game eventually after they grinded their things.

So much bullshit in this post and this probably takes the cake. Do you really think that the community for WoT would be bigger if they had separated gunner and driver? The community is small because the game sucks with utterly worthless scenarios, almost everyone would stop playing it after ~2 games if they didn't have the grind. Battlefield games are way more solo oriented than WoT but its community is still thriving, mainly because the game is more engaging.

And the thing about how you are a better tank player because you have used a 2 man tank... That is just a ridiculous statement. No, you are a better tank player because you are a more serious player than 99% of the players out there. You know how I know that? Because you played planetside. You payed a monthly fee just to play an fps. No, you aren't a better player because you have done X or played Y, you are a better player since you care more.