Developer Diary 212 - Discussion

[BlackSix]

1 minute ago, BlackSix said:

212

Hello everybody,

Today we'd like to dedicate our Dev Blog to the tank part of our sim. We attempt not only to create the authentic visual models of the tanks and model their movement, armament, and damage realistically. We also want to create an interesting gameplay, based on historical events, as usual, that will not only entertain you for some time but let you experience what a real tank warfare in a meeting engagement situation was like.

...................................

 

Full news - here is a full text and visual materials

[sevenless]

Fantastic news!

[Chief_Mouser]

Excellent - thankyou!

[303_Bies]

Great work, as always. Thanks!

Edited November 30, 2018 by Bies

[Pajeka]

Fantastic! Many thanks.

[catchthefoxes]

THIS SIM IS TOO IMMERSIVE, ITS TOO REAL ?️?️

Edited November 30, 2018 by catchthefoxes

[=gRiJ=Roman-]

Thanks!!!!

Question: what's the difference between the T34 already in the sim and the new one being developed?

Will the map be a future ... The Battle of Kursk expansion?

Edited November 30, 2018 by 15[Span.]/JG51Spartan

[LuftManu]

Thanks! 3D Models look fantastic

[Taxman]

I don't have have this yet, but I might tempted!!!

[Voidhunger]

Excellent!, but please Panther campaign, even a short one!

[Juri_JS]

Two questions:

 

1. Will the skirts (Schürzen) on the Panzer IV be a modification?

2. Which airfields are located on the Prokhorovka map?

[Han]

2 minutes ago, Juri_JS said:

Two questions:

 

1. Will the skirts (Schürzen) on the Panzer IV be a modification?

2. Which airfields are located on the Prokhorovka map?

 

1 - yes

2 - please be patient, soon we will note these details

[rodgerdavies]

I'll be completely honest; I'm here for the pics of the map and I am NOT disappointed. Great work!

[sevenless]

4 hours ago, Voidhunger said:

Excellent!, but please Panther campaign, even a short one!

 

LOL. They all burned. That will be a firebrigade campaign.

 

The Panther made its operational debut on 5 July 1943 during Citadel, in which the High Command expected the 200 Panthers to contribute decisively to the stunning victory it expected to secure. 
Citadel involved a double-pronged German attack from the northern and southern shoulders of a large Soviet salient that jutted west into the German lines around Kursk. The Soviets, however, had detected the German preparations and had built up awesome defensive strength to resist the attack. This build-up did little to perturb German confidence; after all, given the widespread German belief in the combat power of the Panther tank, they simply reckoned that the greater the Soviet force deployed against them, the greater the victory they would achieve once their double pincers had linked up at Kursk to form the largest encirclement yet achieved in the war. 
The Panther units employed in Citadel - the 51st and 52nd Panzer Battalions - each fielded four companies of 22 Panthers, plus a further eight Model D tanks, to make a total unit strength 96 Panthers each. The two battalions came under the control of General von Lauchert's improvised brigade staff, itself equipped with eight Panthers, which fought alongside the Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutschland as part of the southern prong of the attack.
Major problems, however, dogged the contribution made by the Panthers even before the offensive began. Because the two Panther-equipped tank battalions were deployed in the East just a few days before Citadel commenced, the units had little time for acclimatisation training in situ. Moreover, 16 tanks broke down on the short journey between disembarking from their transportation trains and reaching the front. Things went little better once the offensive began. In the face of fanatical Soviet resistance, large numbers of Panthers fell by the wayside. By 7 July 1943, the third day of the offensive, just 40 of the 184 Panthers that started Citadel were still operational, while by 10 July just 10 of them remained in front-line service. 
Of the remaining 174 Panthers that had begun Citadel, 23 had been lost due to 'brewing up' after enemy hits on their relatively vulnerable side armour, while two had burned after engine fires before combat had even been joined. Another 44 Panthers were being repaired after mechanical failure and a further 56 because of damage caused by enemy fire or anti-tank mines. German workshops had already repaired a further 40 Panthers with minor damage or mechanical problems, but these were still on the way to rejoin the brigade. The remaining nine tanks, which had been abandoned on the battlefield after sustaining damage, had still to be recovered.

The much vaunted debut of the Panther had proven to be a debacle. Admittedly the Germans could discern a few glimmers of hope from this serious setback. Post-combat reports from the fighting experienced at Kursk confirmed the anticipated combat power of the 7.5cm Panther gun; this weapon had accounted for many T-34 tanks, often at ranges of 1500m or more. In addition, the Panther's two machine guns had proven to be very reliable, with a very low incidence of jamming. However, most of the other aspects of the Panther mentioned in post-combat reports proved unfavourable. Troops observed, for example, that the Panther's turret grenade launchers soon became inoperative due to enemy small-arms fire, that its engine regularly broke down, that its over-stressed transmission often failed, and that its road wheels sometimes fractured. In addition, crews complained about fuel pump leaks that often led to dangerous fires starting inside the tank, the dangerous build-up of gun exhaust gases inside the turret, and the problems caused when driving rain entered the turret through the mantlet binocular periscope. Further modifications were needed, the Germans concluded, before the Panther realised the potential it clearly possessed to be a potent tank on the future battlefield.

Edited November 30, 2018 by sevenless

[DD_Arthur]

Great update BlackSix.

[=FEW=Hauggy]

Interesting.

Any chance to see a T-34 with the UZTM turret?

[RavN_Alienzo]

Nice update!

 

2 questions

1. Are you planning to improve and incrase maximum number of available players slots on servers? (It will good for mixed battles especially for tanks)

2. Are you planning to add the ability to see the body of a pilot in a first-person view when creating new pilot models? (Perfect for VR, good for rest)

[E4GLEyE]

Amazing stuff! Cant wait! the upgraded damage model already made tank gameplay more enjoyable by a huge margin  

[FlyingNutcase]

My main concern is that after flying ground pounding missions on the new map, it will be difficult to go back to the larger maps. ?

 

Stunning crew models - they will look great up close as crewman.

 

Really looking forward to this!

[TG-55Panthercules]

Looking really good so far - actually looking forward to this one almost as much as to Flying Circus

[HagarTheHorrible]

Will the player body be visible to the player ?

 

When looking through optics will the outside of the tank be visible  in a later update ?

 

Looking really good so far.

[mpdugas]

1C/777 Studios are quickly becoming the Premier simulation producers of the modern world...no one else comes even remotely close to the quality of their many products.

[Jason_Williams]

41 minutes ago, AlienAlienzo said:

Nice update!

 

2 questions

1. Are you planning to improve and incrase maximum number of available players slots on servers? (It will good for mixed battles especially for tanks)

2. Are you planning to add the ability to see the body of a pilot in a first-person view when creating new pilot models? (Perfect for VR, good for rest)

 

It's unlikely we can increase the number for MP slots. We hope to improve MP with the 84 players limit we have now. That would be a good step. We recently made some changes to MP code to try and improve things. 

 

We want to eventually include the pilot body for VR, but it takes a fair amount of work due to the animations. Luckily we now have an on staff animator, but he is busy with other work at the moment. There is a mod that does a rudimentary job of that now though. Check the Mods section.

 

Jason

[RAY-EU]

Thanks a lot ! Very Good Progress( in VR as well)

Edited November 30, 2018 by RAY-EU

[TheBlackPenguin]

Wow, coming along well! Sobering thought about the likelihood of surviving through multiple battle, do we know the longest surviving personnel from both sides along that front?

[LukeFF]

9 minutes ago, TheBlackPenguin said:

Wow, coming along well! Sobering thought about the likelihood of surviving through multiple battle, do we know the longest surviving personnel from both sides along that front?

 

Otto Carius was in the East (with some breaks in action, naturally) from 1941-44, starting off as a loader in Panzer 38(t)s and ending as a Tiger commander. Quite the jump. 

[Beazil]

The animator is busy hmm?  That sounds like good news in and of itself.

[Freycinet]

Tanks a lot!

[Jade_Monkey]

Nice looking map and models!

For some reason I'm really excited about that Panzer IV.

 

@Jason_Williams, does that mean that there could be some new types of animations for airfield crews down the line?? Perhaps adding them independently to add some more ambiance?

[Thad]

Salutations,

 

Everything looks great  Looking forward to Tank Crew going forward. 

 

Please confirm the Line Of Sight (LOS) will be a built in factor during gameplay. The AI simply can't be able to spot 'through' terrain nor even attempt to fire though same. ?

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

3 hours ago, 15[Span.]/JG51Spartan said:

Thanks!!!!

Question: what's the difference between the T34 already in the sim and the new one being developed?

Will the map be a future ... The Battle of Kursk expansion?

 

This variant of the T-34 has a new "hexagonal" type turret, which has a bit thicker armor, more space for the crew and ammunition, also it has separated hatches for the loader and gunner-commander, although a bigger frontal profile. The Germans nicknamed it "Micky Mouse" because the hatches when open look like round ears above the turret.
 

 

@Han Will there be a commander cuppola as a modification for this T-34? The AI one that came with Battle of Kuban has it.
 

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by -=PHX=-SuperEtendard

[VBF-12_Pequod]

It's gonna be a blast!

[=FEW=Hauggy]

1 hour ago, Jason_Williams said:

 

It's unlikely we can increase the number for MP slots. We hope to improve MP with the 84 players limit we have now. That would be a good step. We recently made some changes to MP code to try and improve things. 

 

We want to eventually include the pilot body for VR, but it takes a fair amount of work due to the animations. Luckily we now have an on staff animator, but he is busy with other work at the moment. There is a mod that does a rudimentary job of that now though. Check the Mods section.

 

Jason

Well to be totally frank server performance got a lot worse since the last 2 updates so something wrong must have been done.

When a server has 80ish players in it, it then start lagging ultra hard and planes litteraly fly in slow-mo.

I have no idea how anyone that plays online regularly can even ask if we'll get more slots when the server performance is already so bad, at this point we might aswell revert to 60 players servers.

Please fix this mess

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by =FEW=Hauggy

[Nil]

I am not into tanks but the more you are putting love into that, the more I get interested.

 

To add more, I had a blast in a MP mission when our Junkers 52 resupplied the human controlled tanks. They were so happy to see us!

Please see here, right in this moment: https://youtu.be/VWeKsFU0w2Y?t=3430 (the barking dogs add a lot of immersion!! great job!)

 

THIS is the new game-play I love. Cooperation and interaction between ground and air units, Team Work!!

Please continue guys! great work! You are the best team ever!!

 

Love you! ❤️❤️

Edited November 30, 2018 by TG1_Nil

[dhillr]

Great News. Thank you!

[Archie]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

Otto Carius was in the East (with some breaks in action, naturally) from 1941-44, starting off as a loader in Panzer 38(t)s and ending as a Tiger commander. Quite the jump. 

And Kurt  Knispel. No where near as famous as other tank aces, but probably more kills than anyone else...

[sevenless]

3 minutes ago, Archie said:

And Kurt  Knispel. No where near as famous as other tank aces, but probably more kills than anyone else...

 

Knispel afaik scored the most kills of the german tank aces. Afaik he was with sPzAbt 503 the entire war until he got killed in czechoslovakia 1945.

[pilotpierre]

The tank side of things hold very little interest to me but I would like to purchase it to boost the teams coffers and it would be a diversion from flying every now and then. Plus, with this latest DD my interest has gone up a notch or two.

 

The only thing holding me back is I only have 20gig left on my hard drive. With BoBP and FC and coming shortly I am concerned there may not be enough space left for the tank battles.

 

Can anyone remember how many Gigs BoK was when it was released?

[Nil]

@pilotpierre As far as I know, everybody has the same amount of gigs. It does not change according to what we paid.

So if you buy TC, no installation needed.

 

To free disk space easily, I highly recommend you this tiny powerful software "Scanner" You can download it for free here: http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/

Edited November 30, 2018 by TG1_Nil

[Giovanni_Giorgio]

Will the infantry be modeled in the game?