Damage model issues

[104th_IronMike]

Hate to give negative feedback about this title, I love it a lot, but I do hope it is constructive:

- the enemy tanks are sometimes almost invulenarable, regardles of ammunition type and distance. You can sometimes hit a sherman from point blank in his rear with HEAT or APHE from a Tiger more than 20 times, and nothing will happen. (I actually expended once all 40 something rounds on a t34 iirc)

- the smaller player tanks however seem to suffer sometimes the opposite: even if hit by smaller tanks from max distance head on into the thick of the armor they can explode at once. This happens to me especially in PzKpfw III Ausf.M and L. Not always, sometimes in the same mission you take a hit at the same spot and you get normal damage, sometimes you get one-shot. While I think being one-shot is ok, say in a small tank by a Tiger etc etc in your rear, in this case it seems like a bug.

- the repair times are in my opinion far too long. 10 min for the gearbox is excessive beyond reason I would say carefully. I could understand the logic behind it for multiplayer (and even then), but in SP it makes not much sense. Waiting, like in real, does not immerse in a game. Having to deal with the issue, yes. Just plain waiting, no. On top of that repairs stack. So say you have engine repair 5 min, track repair 5 min, gearbox repair 10 min, that is 20 minutes of sitting there doing nothing. 100% of the time will I rather replay even 60 minutes of gameplay than sit around even 10 minutes staring at a static screen with some background noise. Thus for SP imo most items should be reduced to 1 minute with the exception of some items taking maximum 3 minutes.

Thanks again for all the great work, feeling wise it is the best in tanks we have for sure.

Edited November 11, 2019 by 104th_IronMike

[104th_IronMike]

Does no one else experience this?

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

15 hours ago, 104th_IronMike said:

- the enemy tanks are sometimes almost invulenarable, regardles of ammunition type and distance. You can sometimes hit a sherman from point blank in his rear with HEAT or APHE from a Tiger more than 20 times, and nothing will happen. (I actually expended once all 40 something rounds on a t34 iirc)

 

With damage model problems, it helps if you provide a track or video, or at least describe the situation (MP, quick mission, campaign...). Otherwise, others can't really comment unless they happen to have had the same experience. We can't tell if it's a mission design problem or an actual bug in the game.

 

15 hours ago, 104th_IronMike said:

- the smaller player tanks however seem to suffer sometimes the opposite: even if hit by smaller tanks from max distance head on into the thick of the armor they can explode at once. This happens to me especially in PzKpfw III Ausf.M and L. Not always, sometimes in the same mission you take a hit at the same spot and you get normal damage, sometimes you get one-shot. While I think being one-shot is ok, say in a small tank by a Tiger etc etc in your rear, in this case it seems like a bug.

 

The Panzer IIIs have armour that can be penetrated from most aspects by Soviet 76 mm guns at common combat ranges. The front is protected by 50 to 70 mm total thickness, well within the penetration capabilities of those guns.

The varying damage is due to the complexity of the damage model; some penetrating hits will not cause much damage while others will kill the crew or cause a catastrophic ammunition explosion. Again, tracks or videos help here.

 

15 hours ago, 104th_IronMike said:

- the repair times are in my opinion far too long. 10 min for the gearbox is excessive beyond reason I would say carefully.

 

The repairs are already orders of magnitude faster than they would be in reality. Certain repairs such as those requiring a transmission replacement would not even be possible without specialized equipment like a crane. I think that damaged tanks are intended to be out of action at least until the end of the immediate engagement. Otherwise, much of the authenticity is lost.

 

In SP, you can use time compression to speed up the process. Even if 2x is the most you can achieve, repairs should rarely take more than a few minutes.

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Mitthrawnuruodo

[104th_IronMike]

1 hour ago, Mitthrawnuruodo said:

 

With damage model problems, it helps if you provide a track or video, or at least describe the situation (MP, quick mission, campaign...). Otherwise, others can't really comment unless they happen to have had the same experience. We can't tell if it's a mission design problem or an actual bug in the game.

 

 

The Panzer IIIs have armour that can be penetrated from most aspects by Soviet 76 mm guns at common combat ranges. The front is protected by 50 to 70 mm total thickness, well within the penetration capabilities of those guns.

The varying damage is due to the complexity of the damage model; some penetrating hits will not cause much damage while others will kill the crew or cause a catastrophic ammunition explosion. Again, tracks or videos help here.

 

 

The repair times are already orders of magnitude faster than they would be in reality. In fact, certain repairs such as replacing transmissions would not even be possible in the field without specialized equipment like a crane. I think that damaged tanks are intended to be out of action at least until the end of the immediate engagement. Otherwise, much of the authenticity is lost.

 

In SP, you can use time compression to speed up the process. Even if 2x is the most you can achieve, repairs should rarely take more than a few minutes.

 

@point one: happens in any missions, quickstart, SP missions (for example by Thad), and the campaigns. Some enemy tanks occasionally seem resistant to damage, even if the rest of their platoon gets destroyed just fine, 1 tank might just gobble up 50 rounds to no effect. Happened to me at least once with each enemy tank type on both sides. I don't think this is mission related at all, more like a bug where damage does not get registered for a certain tank for some reason. A video would show you exatcly what I described: firing with a tiger point blank into the rear of a sherman or t34, etc with absolutely zero effect.

@point two: I get that, but what I experience is that sometimes every shot, from any angle, will be a kill shot, while in the same mission another time it seems more diverse. No matter where it is hit, the tank just explodes. I'll see if I can gather some video evidence, but I figure a hit to the turret or to the tracks should not always explode it, even if it is a light tank.

@point three: I simply disagree. Yes realism yadyada, but it is still a game. And no, like I said, get engine, track and gear box damage and it is 20 minutes, not just couple minutes. Agreed, in real life the tank should be done for etc etc, but then why offer it all. There is absolutely ZERO immersion in staring at your screen for 20 min or even 10 minutes (the maximum I could agree on would be 5 minutes) than self torture. If that is what constitutes realism for you, fine, for me it doesn't. Like, equally I do not want to die for real, when I get hit, you know. [Or: ever pressed "E" to start your engines in IL2? So much about realism...] The repair time is exaggerated in tank crew, a lot, in my opinion, with absolutely zero added value to gameplay or immersion. Like I said: having to deal with damage immerses, yes, and if you gave me a toolbox and track parts and I would have to sit there and fiddle in a minigame for 20 minutes with the tracks - I would not complain. But staring at a screen without anything happening for 20 minutes is not realism, it's just plain stupid. Most simmers are middle aged working ppl and have limited time, which is why in most sims any loading, repair and refueling processes are by a multitude faster than in real life. Realism has nothing to do with that, and btw can never be achieved fully anyway. Yes one should strive for it, but where it makes sense. Here, it doesn't. Even if you reduced all three above mentioned damages to 3 min each, it would mean 12 minutes waiting around. 100% and 10/10 I would always just restart the mission, and in Multiplayer, respawn. It's a waste of time in my opinion and nothing more.

Edited November 12, 2019 by 104th_IronMike

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

1 hour ago, 104th_IronMike said:

Some enemy tanks occasionally seem resistant to damage, even if the rest of their platoon gets destroyed just fine, 1 tank might just gobble up 50 rounds to no effect. Happened to me at least once with each enemy tank type on both sides. I don't think this is mission related at all, more like a bug where damage does not get registered for a certain tank for some reason.

 

I have not experienced anything like this. If you can show a video or track, it'll probably be a significant discovery as nobody else seems to be reporting anything similar.

 

1 hour ago, 104th_IronMike said:

I get that, but what I experience is that sometimes every shot, from any angle, will be a kill shot, while in the same mission another time it seems more diverse. No matter where it is hit, the tank just explodes.

 

The front of a Panzer III is quite complex with many plates of different thicknesses and angles. Small changes in the location, direction, and velocity of impacts will determine whether rounds stop harmlessly or penetrate and do damage. If rounds do penetrate, the effects are wildly unpredictable. Sadly, catastrophic ammunition fires and explosions were common dangers faced by real tankers. This is precisely the experience that the game strives to recreate. The description on the store page is accurate - "One carefully placed round is all it takes to decimate your crew and destroy your tank!"

 

1 hour ago, 104th_IronMike said:

There is absolutely ZERO immersion in staring at your screen for 20 min or even 10 minutes (the maximum I could agree on would be 5 minutes) than self torture. If that is what constitutes realism for you, fine, for me it doesn't.

 

Have you tried time compression in SP? I've never needed to wait anywhere near that long.

 

The realism aspect is that getting hit has serious consequences. In the air, players accept that there are no repairs and that damage leads to a long flight home followed by a repeated trip to the target.

 

In MP, significant repair times are needed for the damage models to have any impact. If you seriously damage an enemy tank, it shouldn't become fully effective in a matter of seconds and shoot back at you or drive away. That would only lead to frustrating reversals and unfinished kills.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Mitthrawnuruodo

[104th_IronMike]

2 minutes ago, Mitthrawnuruodo said:

In MP, significant repair times are needed for the damage models to have any impact. If you seriously damage an enemy tank, it shouldn't become fully effective in a matter of seconds and shoot back at you or drive away. That would only lead to frustrating reversals and unfinished kills.

I can see that, abosultely, especially if units are limited per side, this does add value and gameplay, as it forces you to take care of your assetts, agreed 100%. In Singleplayer however this added value is absent. And even in Multiplayer I would argue to balance repairs so that the possible longest chain of repairs takes around 10 minutes maximum. Time is the most valuable commodity in life and we fail to realize it so often, you know, or like Seneca said: we ask for someone's time with the biggest ease of all that we ask for, yet it is the only thing that we cannot ever return. Time lost can never be recovered, unfortunately. Say in above example (and I did sit through it), with twice the time acceleration would be still 10 minutes, which again, in SP in my opinion does not add much. Already I would say, for example the annimation of an engineer hopping about (much like arma has them), would add something, if time does not get reduced. But even then: if it takes that long, in my opinion the times is still better spent replaying the mission, as at least you have fun while doing it, experience something, etc etc for all the reasons we actually play this sim/game.

I will try and record videos of the above mentioned issues. I am a bit baffled that no one else seems to report that (issue #1), it happens to me quite regularly, I would say at least 1 tank every 3 missions I play.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Ideally, the solution would probably be to have repair times controlled by either a difficulty setting or a parameter adjusted in the mission. That way, everyone could choose a setting that works for the particular scenario.

[104th_IronMike]

2 hours ago, Mitthrawnuruodo said:

Ideally, the solution would probably be to have repair times controlled by either a difficulty setting or a parameter adjusted in the mission. That way, everyone could choose a setting that works for the particular scenario.

 

Agreed. I mean, I do not understand it, but that does not mean no one would have fun waiting for repairs for so long, you never know. However it is most likely a very small minority that is that "hardcore".

In regards what I suppose most of us want to get out of the gameplay (tanking by any means), a simpler solution could also entail just 5 different stacks, minor repairs 1 minute, and so on, with the largest possible one 5 minutes. If you break it down, staring 5 minutes at a static screen is already questionable in Singleplayer, but otoh also an acceptable "punishment" for what is general feedback to your actions.

Additionally this could be solved via a commander menu repair item. For example, you could select full repairs stacking like above (or similar, I am sure there could be more realistically scaled solutions) or just select the most important item (forget about the visors, tracks and lets move away from here), etc. This would then make repairs and when you repair and what you repair part of your tactical decision making.

 

Another thing I would like to add for damage model: it would be nice to see penetration holes from shells on the tanks. Not sure how much that is possible, but looking at some of the great damage animations as they are right now, it does not seem impossible. The reason for this is that sometimes when you hit a tank several times, you have not really an indication whether it went through or bounced off etc... at closer ranges with the gun sight imo this would be visible, and could be accompanied by some sparks or other inter-damage effects. Partial flames, partial smoke, etc... or none, depending on damage of course.

Edited November 12, 2019 by 104th_IronMike

[Yogiflight]

3 hours ago, Mitthrawnuruodo said:

The Panzer IIIs have armour that can be penetrated from most aspects by Soviet 76 mm guns at common combat ranges. The front is protected by 50 to 70 mm total thickness, well within the penetration capabilities of those guns.

This is not quite correct. The Panzer III L/M had 57mm front armor plus a 20mm distance armor. This is much better than just 77mm of armor, because the distance armor makes the projectile start tumbling, what causes a high loss of armor piercing effectivity. To destroy it from the front, they needed to hit it from short distance or through an opening in the distance armor or below.

[SCG_SchleiferGER]

1 hour ago, Yogiflight said:

This is not quite correct. The Panzer III L/M had 57mm front armor plus a 20mm distance armor. This is much better than just 77mm of armor, because the distance armor makes the projectile start tumbling, what causes a high loss of armor piercing effectivity. To destroy it from the front, they needed to hit it from short distance or through an opening in the distance armor or below.

Weren't the 20mm plates also face hardened? This should increase the performance against soviet shells with insufficient heat treating even more.

 

[Buggeredsteel823]

The gearbox taking along to fix would be about right for the german  tanks less so for Sherman, KV, T34 because for the likes of tiger they had to take the turret off that was like a day or two  job but you need to keep in mind was just a couple on bolts that need removing

[Voidhunger]

On 11/11/2019 at 2:39 PM, 104th_IronMike said:

Hate to give negative feedback about this title, I love it a lot, but I do hope it is constructive:

- the enemy tanks are sometimes almost invulenarable, regardles of ammunition type and distance. You can sometimes hit a sherman from point blank in his rear with HEAT or APHE from a Tiger more than 20 times, and nothing will happen. (I actually expended once all 40 something rounds on a t34 iirc)

- the smaller player tanks however seem to suffer sometimes the opposite: even if hit by smaller tanks from max distance head on into the thick of the armor they can explode at once. This happens to me especially in PzKpfw III Ausf.M and L. Not always, sometimes in the same mission you take a hit at the same spot and you get normal damage, sometimes you get one-shot. While I think being one-shot is ok, say in a small tank by a Tiger etc etc in your rear, in this case it seems like a bug.

- the repair times are in my opinion far too long. 10 min for the gearbox is excessive beyond reason I would say carefully. I could understand the logic behind it for multiplayer (and even then), but in SP it makes not much sense. Waiting, like in real, does not immerse in a game. Having to deal with the issue, yes. Just plain waiting, no. On top of that repairs stack. So say you have engine repair 5 min, track repair 5 min, gearbox repair 10 min, that is 20 minutes of sitting there doing nothing. 100% of the time will I rather replay even 60 minutes of gameplay than sit around even 10 minutes staring at a static screen with some background noise. Thus for SP imo most items should be reduced to 1 minute with the exception of some items taking maximum 3 minutes.

Thanks again for all the great work, feeling wise it is the best in tanks we have for sure.

I have same experience. Thats why we need to know where exactly the round hit the tank.

Im quite surprised with the durability of the front armor of t34/76. Many richochets or non damaging hits.

 

Recently I was hit by single round to the front armor from T34/76 from 800-1000m and my Tiger exploded.

Even when I max slowed time I was unable to find out where exactly the round hit my tank. Maybe to the driver vision slot or the turret ring.

 

 

 

as for the repairs, I have never experienced repair in the game....

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, Voidhunger said:

Maybe to the driver vision slot

I always close the armor block in front of it, since I was hit a few times there

It would be nice, if this could be done in the two or three steps oit looks, it could be done IRL. So if someone plays as driver, he can almost close it and have a small slit to see through.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Yogiflight

[Voidhunger]

1 minute ago, Yogiflight said:

I always close the armor block in front of it, since I was hit a few times there

is it possible? with which key?

[Yogiflight]

12 minutes ago, Voidhunger said:

is it possible? with which key?

Visor open/close.

In the Panzer III , you can see through a two parted periscope, in the Tiger you have very a very small slit, but in the Panzer IV you are blind.

[Voidhunger]

41 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

Visor open/close.

In the Panzer III , you can see through a two parted periscope, in the Tiger you have very a very small slit, but in the Panzer IV you are blind.

yep, thanks i found it. thats nice.

 

another thing I found is when my optic is damaged, I can switch to AI and it continue shooting eventhough it cant see nothing

 

[Yogiflight]

57 minutes ago, Voidhunger said:

another thing I found is when my optic is damaged, I can switch to AI and it continue shooting eventhough it cant see nothing

In the Panzer III and IV, when your optic is damaged, you can go on shooting yourself. They have a substitute visor left of the optic. Open the armor flap in front of it with the key 'Visor open/close' and press the key for the gunsigt a second time. You can see the distance you set below the visor turning when you change the distance setting. But it only reaches up to 800m, it seems and it turns a bit fast.

[Voidhunger]

12 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

In the Panzer III and IV, when your optic is damaged, you can go on shooting yourself. They have a substitute visor left of the optic. Open the armor flap in front of it with the key 'Visor open/close' and press the key for the gunsigt a second time. You can see the distance you set below the visor turning when you change the distance setting. But it only reaches up to 800m, it seems and it turns a bit fast.

Thanks, I didnt know that! damned. Damaged optic was in tiger though

[Yogiflight]

24 minutes ago, Voidhunger said:

Thanks, I didnt know that! damned

I found it by coincidence when I tried if there is any armor flap to open in the gunner position. I had seen the substitute visor a few times before, when I wanted to go from gunsight view back to the default view inside the turret, but had no idea what it was, until this armor flap opened and made it very clear.

28 minutes ago, Voidhunger said:

Damaged optic was in tiger though

OK, then you would have to aim through the gun barrel

[Lofte]

25 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

OK, then you would have to aim through the gun barrel

I read in memories of a soviet WWII veteran about such aiming. But can't remember what it was - AT- or tank gun.. Anyway it was an extremal case..

[40plus]

After pumping several AP and APHE rounds into a panzer from ~20m in my Sherman, I finally disabled him. As I rounded the building he shot me with is coax MG and my crew bailed. We both got a kill credit. How did a MG penetrate my armor so easily? And, more importantly, what the HELL is up with the crew auto-bailout? By the various gods I hate that.