Tanks at Finnish VirtualPilots!

[JG1_Wittmann]

Initially yesterday  it was  not one I wanted to  play on as there seemed to be only 1 front area,   2 tank spawns  ( troops and artillery )  in one sector only  and the airfields seemed to be minimal.     I just looked today and  it looks like the  mission has gone back to 2 sectors  as  it had been.   I have been enjoying  Tanks on this server and  it has been fun.

 

I only wish that  some of the better tanks could be brought into the rotation  much sooner  than they are.  The Russian side gets a heavy hitter in the SU122  in set 4.  German get Panther ( much less effective vs non-armour targets ) in Set 5,   Russian KV1 .   Set 6  Su152,   Set 7  Tiger, Set 8  Ferdinand.  So out of 9 sets,  Germans only get a heavy hitter for 3 of them.    I would argue in favor of bringing in all of the heavies in Set 3  using your  allocation of 2 per type at the artillery spawn.  From Set 4 on the # available  would progressively grow by 1 vehicle per type  at the arty spawn.  In set 7 8 9  there would be  2, then 3, then 4  of each type of heavy available at the troop spawn.   So by set 9, there would be 8 of each type of heavy at the arty spawn available.    Now   these  bigger tanks are worth more points, so if you lose a large # of them your team takes a much larger hit  in points from that loss.   There  is no reason IMHO  for the Russian to get SU-122  in set 4   when it is quite capable of taking out the Tiger,  and any other German Tank using the HEAT round that is not affected by range.   To answer skeptics,   yes,  I have used the SU122  online  and taken out Tigers, and Ferdinand's  so I know it can be done  effectively.   

 

The Pilot  to Tankmen  ratio   is  @- 12-1       Why not allow us to have more utilization of the better tanks at a higher #  and earlier  as the effect on the overall campaign will  be much smaller  and will  allow us to have more variety.  I know the Sets are not based on Historical dates,   etc,   but the reality is all of these Tanks were in use for June 43,   much sooner than their AC counterparts we get to see.  Why not let us use them earlier, and have more of them ?

 

A question for LL,   can the number of heavies (  now at 2 )   be increased by the paratroop drops ?    If no1  is using a Panther,   will the number avail go to 4 after a successful drop ?

[LLv34_Temuri]

13 hours ago, JG1_Wittmann said:

Initially yesterday  it was  not one I wanted to  play on as there seemed to be only 1 front area,   2 tank spawns  ( troops and artillery )  in one sector only  and the airfields seemed to be minimal.     I just looked today and  it looks like the  mission has gone back to 2 sectors  as  it had been.

I had initially forgotten the setting to the one I use on the test server, so there was only one sector.

 

13 hours ago, JG1_Wittmann said:

If no1  is using a Panther,   will the number avail go to 4 after a successful drop ?

I suppose we could have the better tanks come in a set or two earlier. Increasing numbers could be done, but I'd rather just have the paradrops replenish the tank numbers (like it was some time ago). To me, increasing the total/maximum number would be needlessly complex on the mission logic side, and it most likely would need a change to the campaign application too.

[LLv34_Temuri]

 

[L1A1]

Quote

The tank spawns have indestructible AAA as protection. Out of those, the heavy AAA is set to engage ground targets at a distance of 1000 m.

Ah, I see, that’s makes sense then, there is no need to “capture “ the point either, a good idea.

[LLv34_Temuri]

The tank spawn AAA was reverted to be destructible again.

[LLv34_Temuri]

Since the free tanks seem to be receiving attention from the devs, I added them to the server. Effective next mission rotation.

[SYN_Ricky]

Having some really nice tanks fights on the Kuban map, playing cat and mouse with Panzers in villages makes up for some really tense missions!

Edited January 5 by SYN_Ricky

[LLv34_Temuri]

 

[LLv34_Temuri]

We might focus a bit more into the tank side on the server, now that the airplane side is quite fleshed out.

 

One idea that came to my mind is to map possible areas for those Control Points into cities/towns, so that if the frontline fight is "near enough" to a mapped CP, we'd place the Control Point there instead of just between the frontline groups.

 

Another idea is to perhaps add one control point per side per sector behind the frontline troops, and capturing the enemy's frontline would give you more + on the frontline advance.

Edited January 13 by LLv34_Temuri

[Wolfpack345]

The number of tankers has really been rising on this server recently. Just tonight there were over 30 tankers on! Really great to see. 

 

I am sure this has been talked about before but the amount of invisible walls and trees on the Velikiye Luki map is really an issue for tankers. During the last two campaigns on Kuban and Stalingrad I think I hit one of these walls. On Velikiye Luki it happens multiple times every sortie. One guy in our group hit 3 in a 5 minute period. I think it may be worth considering removing this map from rotation. Especially with so many new players coming to the sim. 

 

I am happy to hear other proposals or counter arguments. I figured I would just mention it here. 

Edited January 24 by Wolfpack345

[murkz]

Agreed it is very off putting. They will damage the tank but will also injure the crew which makes the mission more or less a restart to regain your sight.

[LLv34_Temuri]

Yeah. In addition, the amount of rivers on the Velikie Luki map cause situations where it’s impossible to drive to the enemy front. For this we might be able to devise a solution, but the invisible obstacles would still be there.

[GusGT]

Hi!
I'm new around WWII stuff but love to play on your server as pilot and latellty as tanker as well (I still using only the free ones).
I want to say that play tanks against others and also airplanes all around is a very nice and fun experience.

 

I want to bring up some points to discuss in a attempt to help the server admins and mission makers to have material (information) to work with and maybe help them to improove the server playing experience.
I'm aware about the last update on tank battles layout and I love it, I do belive you guys did a good improvment on it.  

 

1-  I would love to have some farms (or small destroyed villages) on the fields or even near some roads to have more elements of hide and ambush, something easy to make and that will create an nicier and more realistic battle field insted of only roads, villages and forests to use.  Some houses along the roads should be an interesting add too.

 

2- I don't like much having 2 sectors so apart on the map at same time, that make harder to have players on same sector to fight against, considering that once started, you have no way to know if you have players in your sector or not, sometimes the ones you see leave the battle and let you in an search and ambush literally hours and there's no one in the opposite side, what is part of the game, but something very frustraint too.

 

3- Name the control points with same label in 2 different sectors causes an mess of comunication between players, we play several times changing the sectors and is easy to forget each one you are in at the time. My suggestion is to use unique CP names on the same map as CP1, CP2, CP3, CP4, CP5, CP6 and so on not mattering with sector it belong.

 

4- An estrategic element that can be use is add some temporary tank spaw points near front lines too.
Initialy desabled with no side determined, these should be associeted with an flag point (CP) it can be conquered and used  by the team who owns the CP. to conquer the right of spawn tanks there the opposite team must battle and dominate the CP with their own flag to have it.
beem an mission builder myself I know this can be done.

 

5- Bridges, an annoying issue is to travel thru an road leading to the battle zone and once arraving to the crossing river point the bridge is destroyed by some smart pilot just playing around for fun.
I have see some nice battles lost because this event, so I suggest to put some logic to rebuilt the bridge after it gets destroyed to keep possible for opposite tankers to engaged the battle. (some times there's no others way than the bridge, once gone no more battles)
The bridge repair can be by time only or perhaps when an tank stop and still on it unitl it gets reparing, what may be an nice element of tatics for ambush engagements.

 

6- Spawn point far from roads, run by the field should be an choice for the tanker, considering some tanks are very slow and the time for play are short, making it easy for the players to reach straight to the battle zone is one plus for gaming experience, of course, that not always is the best tatic for the battle, but leave that for the players to discover.

 

Sorry for long post but I'm trying to contribute to improve even more the game experience on your server.
thanks
Gus

Edited April 3 by GusGT

[Billy_the_Baker]

10 hours ago, GusGT said:

5- Bridges, an annoying issue is to travel thru an road leading to the battle zone and once arraving to the crossing river point the bridge is destroyed by some smart pilot just playing around for fun.
I have see some nice battles lost because this event, so I suggest to put some logic to rebuilt the bridge after it gets destroyed to keep possible for opposite tankers to engaged the battle. (some times there's no others way than the bridge, once gone no more battles)
The bridge repair can be by time only or perhaps when an tank stop and still on it unitl it gets reparing, what may be an nice element of tatics for ambush engagements.

I think there already might be something like this implemented. I was playing a few nights ago and there was a bridge destroyed. I don't remember how much time passed, but when I came upon it again, the bridge was repaired.

[ickylevel]

Hello, 

I'd like to inform you that you have too many objectives for tankers, there should be only one at once, or two maximum.

Your flags need to be next to a road, otherwise it's impossible to find them without the 'gps' (which you dont have activated on your server).

Tanks spawns need to be next to a road or a landmark, or it's impossible to know where to go.

Please reduce the distance between spawns and flags, sometimes it can take an hour of driving (if you don't get lost)!

The 2d map and the 3d map don't match exactly (tree lines, roads) so it can be very confusing to navigate from the ground.

Edited April 3 by ickylevel

[LLv34_Temuri]

11 hours ago, GusGT said:

I would love to have some farms (or small destroyed villages) on the fields or even near some roads to have more elements of hide and ambush, something easy to make and that will create an nicier and more realistic battle field insted of only roads, villages and forests to use.  Some houses along the roads should be an interesting add too.

Hmm. Perhaps not houses or farms, as those might look out of place, but destroyed vehicles might be nice.

 

12 hours ago, GusGT said:

I don't like much having 2 sectors so apart on the map at same time

Having them apart helps netcode issues. Currently, the missions are generated with 20 km as the minimum distance.

 

12 hours ago, GusGT said:

3- Name the control points with same label in 2 different sectors causes an mess of comunication between players

Good idea.

 

12 hours ago, GusGT said:

An estrategic element that can be use is add some temporary tank spaw points near front lines too.

Maybe. Need to think about consequences.

 

12 hours ago, GusGT said:

put some logic to rebuilt the bridge after it gets destroyed

This should already be there. There’s a delay, so repairing a bridge is not instant.

 

12 hours ago, GusGT said:

Spawn point far from roads

The feedback has been that tank spawn points should be close to roads.

 

Thank you for the feedback

1 hour ago, ickylevel said:

The 2d map and the 3d map don't match exactly (tree lines, roads) so it can be very confusing to navigate from the ground.

Perhaps it would be nice to try and employ a spotter in an airplane.

 

Spawns are placed by algorithm, so the distances vary some.

[GusGT]

12 hours ago, LLv34_Temuri said:

On 4/2/2021 at 7:22 PM, GusGT said:

Spawn point far from roads

The feedback has been that tank spawn points should be close to roads.

 

yes that was what I meant. I was just not clear enough. I was point the problem instead to say what I like to have.
thanks for your attention good luck.

Edited April 3 by GusGT
gramar error

[ickylevel]

2 hours ago, LLv34_Temuri said:

 

Thank you for the feedback

Perhaps it would be nice to try and employ a spotter in an airplane.

 

Spawns are placed by algorithm, so the distances vary some.

 

So when a player joins the server and spawns, he needs to ask for a plane to take the time to locate him (difficult since he doesn't know where he is himself), and tell him where to go? This is fantasist. Even if he could, the maps are so big that a deviation by a small amount would make the tank miss the direction. To be honest enabling the gps would be a reasonable solution, unless all your spawns and objectives are very close to a road, i.e on a road.

 

[LLv34_Temuri]

2 hours ago, ickylevel said:

So when a player joins the server and spawns, he needs to ask for a plane to take the time to locate him (difficult since he doesn't know where he is himself),

How on earth do you not know where you spawn in? You literally pick your spawn point on the map.

 

Edit: That being said, the mission generation logic tries to put the CPs into town whenever there is a town suitably situated. Out of my head, I can't now remember if there's was supposed to be some logic that tries to put the CPs close to a road when there isn't a town where to put them. Something like this could be added though.

Edited April 3 by LLv34_Temuri

[ickylevel]

53 minutes ago, LLv34_Temuri said:

How on earth do you not know where you spawn in? You literally pick your spawn point on the map.

 

Edit: That being said, the mission generation logic tries to put the CPs into town whenever there is a town suitably situated. Out of my head, I can't now remember if there's was supposed to be some logic that tries to put the CPs close to a road when there isn't a town where to put them. Something like this could be added though.

 

Well even though in theory you know where you spawn, on certain spawn it's still very difficult to find any landmark to navigate to the objective, so you are technically lost at the second you spawn.

 

For example certain textures on the ground look like road but they aren't when you get close, some tree lines are not shown on the map. Some buildings as well. You spawn and you are immediately confused as to where to go because things don't look like the 2d map. If you try to navigate by going in one direction then stopping at a landmark on the 2d map to go in another , you might fail to spot that landamrk when you reach it, because a slight deviation in angle will cause you to miss your location a couple kilometers later.

Edited April 3 by ickylevel

[Alexander9822]

I see there are 2 Finnish virtual pilot server, is there a difference between the two?

[LLv34_Temuri]

21 hours ago, Alexander9822 said:

I see there are 2 Finnish virtual pilot server, is there a difference between the two?

They are running same system, but maps and plane/tanksets are not in sync.

Stats for the Loose Deuce server: http://loose-deuce.org:8000/en/

[ickylevel]

Do you guys experience stuttering on this server? I guess not since it doesn't have moving AI land vehicules. But I'm just checking my theory.

[RIVALDO]

Temuri,let them practice offline for a month or two how to navigate the map without the GPS...Then,perhaps they can make 30 requests in one message! This is funny 😆😆🤣...

You open the map,zoom in or zoom out,depending on your situation. Close the map,look around yourself. Open the map again, look at it again....and so on...

[US93_Low]

On 4/7/2021 at 1:22 PM, RIVALDO said:

Temuri,let them practice offline for a month or two how to navigate the map without the GPS...Then,perhaps they can make 30 requests in one message! This is funny 😆😆🤣...

You open the map,zoom in or zoom out,depending on your situation. Close the map,look around yourself. Open the map again, look at it again....and so on...

No disrespect but I don’t know if you actually read his issues, which are exactly what i experienced when loading in as a tanker last night. You pick your spawn point but you can’t be certain where exactly in that point you are located, and zooming in the map doesn’t help much because as the poster stated the map isn’t accurate. It doesn’t accurately match the tree lines and roads at times.

 

I grant that I’m new to multiplayer as well as land navigation in tank crew but it seemed like I was navigating bad information and design more than the land. The  blue and grey smoke perhaps could have assisted my navigation if I knew what it was lol.

 

I did enjoy my time driving around lost but I felt like I was lost because I couldn’t verify where exactly I started. I drove in the direction of a road to get my bearings and never found that road
 

 

[RIVALDO]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

No disrespect but I don’t know if you actually read his issues, which are exactly what i experienced when loading in as a tanker last night. You pick your spawn point but you can’t be certain where exactly in that point you are located, and zooming in the map doesn’t help much because as the poster stated the map isn’t accurate. It doesn’t accurately match the tree lines and roads at times.

 

I grant that I’m new to multiplayer as well as land navigation in tank crew but it seemed like I was navigating bad information and design more than the land. The  blue and grey smoke perhaps could have assisted my navigation if I knew what it was lol.

 

I did enjoy my time driving around lost but I felt like I was lost because I couldn’t verify where exactly I started. I drove in the direction of a road to get my bearings and never found that road
 

 

I read his issue alright 😀. Usually the spawns are somewhat close to the road. So when you spawn- look around, you should be able to spot the road or the tree line along it. If not, then on the map you can see which direction the road is in relation to your spawn,start your engine, turn in the desired direction, start driving. You will hit the road if you stay on course.  Sometimes you're next to a village or a town, which makes it even easier.  Smoke helps a lot. I like when they put it on maps!

[US93_Low]

Had a ton of fun getting in tank battles this evening on the server. I think soviets had 3 T-34s and 3 shermans at least. And the shermans were teamed up working very well together. 

 

As to the above poster, I did improve my land nav. It's not easy in the winter map. But I got better!

 

Still I agree with the comment about making the drive time shorter to CPs. It really is something like 30 minutes to drive from spawn to CP. 

[KoN_]

Is there still bugs in tank crews . Tried to drive into wood-line and some thing stopped me ,Invisible object .  

Also driving through thick woods my commander was killed But was not in any battle . Any ideas . No track sorry . ? 

[SCG_Vonalba]

On 5/3/2021 at 4:05 AM, KoN_ said:

Is there still bugs in tank crews . Tried to drive into wood-line and some thing stopped me ,Invisible object .  

Also driving through thick woods my commander was killed But was not in any battle . Any ideas . No track sorry . ? 

Yes you are correct, there is invisible objects with some maps worse than others, about commander getting killed not shure, be careful in the woods!

[94th_Vernon]

On 5/3/2021 at 4:05 AM, KoN_ said:

Is there still bugs in tank crews . Tried to drive into wood-line and some thing stopped me ,Invisible object .  

Also driving through thick woods my commander was killed But was not in any battle . Any ideas . No track sorry . ? 

Stray bullet from over head dogfight perhaps.

[kampfuboot]

The tank spawns are way too far apart, they are not placed on the roads either. Its not fun to drive 40 minutes to the CP.  Often enough there are rivers and lakes between spawn and CP so that it is entirely impossible for one side to play tanks. There is also usually only one tank spawn per side in CP proximity, which means that if that one is spawn camped one side cannot play unless they drive 40 minutes from half the map away. When bridges get bombed that lead to the CP, it becomes impossible for tankers to play. In short: the current spawn locations and general meta for tankers are terrible, and this is for the most populated tank server ingame.

 

Please admins, take care of the tank side of gameplay. Its not a good experience right now and many tankers on the server have agreed with my conclusion. In my opinion what you need is custom tank spawns/arenas. Why not use the cities and create an interesting tank experience for once? Its disappointing to see that the most played tank server does not seem to care for tankers at all.

Edited June 17 by kampfuboot

[LLv34_Temuri]

13 hours ago, kampfuboot said:

Please admins, take care of the tank side of gameplay. Its not a good experience right now and many tankers on the server have agreed with my conclusion. In my opinion what you need is custom tank spawns/arenas. Why not use the cities and create an interesting tank experience for once? Its disappointing to see that the most played tank server does not seem to care for tankers at all.

Our main focus recently has been on the tank side of things. For example, we implemented logic to place the CPs inside towns when there are suitably located towns between the frontlines. Currently, there isn't very much special handling for placing the spawn points regarding detecting e.g. uncrossable rivers, but we can look into the logic.

 

Also, when a bridge that is located between the frontlines is destroyed, it should already be repaired after a certain amount of time.

[DD_Friar]

Salute,

 

I think it is great work to have the control points in or around cities. It helps the Allies (which due to number imbalances myself and my squad mate DD_FT generally choose) become a bit more savvy to avoid being taken out in one shot from long range by the Panther and Tiger drivers in open ground.

 

As point of interest we actually choose to drive long distances behind enemy lines using it as a navigation exercise to attack the supply depots. Unfortunately we often find that the glorious air force of the motherland has got there before us or gets there whilst we are on route, which is a bit frustrating, but that was our choice.

 

CP points in locations with no bridges can be a problem for one side or the other, we have seen both scenarios, but for the complexity of how these maps are generated I guess it can not be avoided from time to time.

 

I have had many excellent nights (generally Friday evenings from about 20:00 UK time) on the server and the fact that I often struggle to get in due to 84/84 players says something about the server being done right.

[moustache]

in fact I believe that kampfuboot is referring to a situation we had on 06/17 where the German spawn facing the CP was in a totally flat area, without cover, or the allies shoot us like rabbits from the CP with their Su 152 at 2 / 3km distance, when the allied spawn was located behind the city, under cover, about a hundred meters from the CP ... hardly we spawned that we were killed immediately, without the possibility of retaliating...

 

These are situations that are a little disgusting ... but it is true that for the rest, the server is nice, even if the Kuban map may lack cover and relief for the tanks ...

[kampfuboot]

8 hours ago, LLv34_Temuri said:

Our main focus recently has been on the tank side of things. For example, we implemented logic to place the CPs inside towns when there are suitably located towns between the frontlines. Currently, there isn't very much special handling for placing the spawn points regarding detecting e.g. uncrossable rivers, but we can look into the logic.

 

Also, when a bridge that is located between the frontlines is destroyed, it should already be repaired after a certain amount of time.

Thanks for the response. Its nice to hear that the issue of blocking rivers and lakes is being looked into. However I dont agree that having destructible bridges between tank spawn points is a good idea, even if they are only temporarily destroyed. It creates an unnecessary obstacle for tank crew players. IMO any "feature" that prevents people from playing is not a good feature at all. I think therefore that the bridges near CP should be indestructible.

 

I also said that the current single tank spawns are too easy for campers to prey on and suggest to have at least 2 sequential tank spawns (maybe 1km distance) for every cp. What do you think of this?

 

In my mind the ultimate goal of all this should be to ensure that tank players at all times have the opportunity to fight each other on the cp with a maximum of a 10 minute drive there. In the same way that this is already the case for fighter pilots.

 

Since some people have said that they like long drives, one could set it up in a way that there is one sector with a "close combat" CP and one CP with longer drive time. That way each player could decide for themselves which one they prefer.

 

 

 

Edited June 18 by kampfuboot

[Carl_infar]

the decreasing of the distance between the spawns and CPs would only increase (and would make it easier to) the tank spawn camping.

Current distances are ok imo.

[SCG_judgedeath3]

I agree on that, never found any issue with the distance, and its more realistic that way. But im biased on that since Im used to drive and wait to get to operation zone for hours in leopard 2 or apcs etc. Shortening it would make spawncamping easier and get back to it easier if distance is short. The real issue that kampfuboot is onto: the placement of the spawns and objectives: far away from any road or even worse: on an island or on the other side of a river and cant get to the other side, placement of spawns and fortifications and capture zones.

 

bridges idea: why not have dedicated bridge repair unit like we had in tanks in flames tournament? Have the aaa trucks to be able to repair damaged bridges, instead of auto repairs. Would by so make people work together even more. The truck drives near the bridge and turns off engine and after 5 minutes its repaired.  

Edited June 18 by SCG_judgedeath3

[No_Face]

9 hours ago, LLv34_Temuri said:

Also, when a bridge that is located between the frontlines is destroyed, it should already be repaired after a certain amount of time.

Interesting. Yesterday evening we found ourselves in front of a broken bridge. Someone told us in the chat that in principle after a while it will be passable again. We waited a while (at least 20 minutes I think), I ended up thinking that this person was wrong and that the bridges never get fixed. How long does it take between destroying a bridge and refurbishing it?

For my part, it doesn't bother me that bridges are destructible. It's strategic. On the other hand, the thing that I found a bit of a shame is that by ending the mission (with my tank that has ultimately served no), is that this tank was no longer available at the spawn point (it was a tiger). When you bring back a tank in good condition, I think it should go back to the available stock. In this way, the player will not feel guilty about using a "precious" tank for a "short" mission (1h / 1h30). He will be able to have fun with it, then bring it back, without having "deprived" the team of a tank desired by many players.

Regarding the spawn point, I do not want them to be too close to the points of interest (CP / front troops) to precisely avoid, as said above, camping or spawnkill.

Doing a little bit of road doesn't bother me since there is always something to do (look at the sky!) 😄

I can understand that some want fast action, but we are in a simulator and above all, on a "continuous" war server, these are not simple missions that we do without links between them.

EDIT : I forgot a flaw, but I don't know if it can be easily corrected, it is the troops, obstacles (barbed wire, fortifications, etc.) ON the road. Our tanks are forced to make a detour (across fields, so slowly) because they cannot overcome even small obstacles. Would it be possible to keep the road clear?

Edited June 18 by No_Face

[SCG_judgedeath3]

18 minutes ago, No_Face said:

I can understand that some want fast action, but we are in a simulator and above all, on a "continuous" war server, these are not simple missions that we do without links between them.

Want to add to this: there are other servers that are more arcade focused where its short distance to the enemy flag and have AI tanks and close quarter fighting and fast paced, but its all about spawncamping to secure the flag, the base is max 1-2 km away from eachother. So fi one seek fast pace combat with short life expectation, there are such options in the game

[kampfuboot]

Heres an example screenshot of what I mean:

https://ibb.co/6mxCSbm

 

the only red tank spawn for the only CP is set on an island. Unplayable.

Similar stuff happened multiple times in the last few days on Kuban.

 

And this is the most populated tank server ingame, please take care of this admins.

 

 

Edited June 18 by kampfuboot