Tank/plane switching is spreading (multiplayer)

[stupor-mundi]

A thing which has always annoyed me, and struck me as unsporting, is switching between flying and tanking, multiple times, during a map (in multiplayer). By which I don't mean the situation when one side is in need for a plane or more planes, and a tanker decides to switch to fill that need. Or the reverse case.

 

Rather, a trend I recently observe, is that some players have begun to do this as a technique. Fly a bit, as a means of recon, and then, with the superior awareness of the battlefield thus gained, spawn as a tank at the opportune moment to ambush the opposing tankers. Maybe switch back and forth, 4, 5 times, on a single map.

 

As a bit of context, I should point out that usually the online player numbers on a map are very low, you're often looking at 3 vs 3 and such numbers. The maps/terrains are large, and tanking, as much as it's about things like good aim, is really a game of hide-and-seek.

 

The counter argument no doubt will be, what does it matter, planes always act as recon for planes, or at least should. However, I'm convinced in practice a lot of precision is lost trying to communicate to a team member where exactly an enemy tank is. To overcome this, planes often strafe enemy tanks as a method of precisely marking their location. But when you were strafed in this way, you are aware of it, and can work from the assumption that your location is now known.

 

While this behavior isn't new, I'm seeing it spread recently, and fear that it has a contageous element. At some point you'll start doing it yourself, since those who use this 'technique' have a strong advantage.

 

I believe IL-2 currently has no mechanism to control this. But I don't create missions myself, so I'm not 100% sure.

I think it would be a valuable feature for IL-2 to have a time penalty for this switching, controllable by the mission designer.

 

 

[LLv34_Temuri]

8 hours ago, stupor-mundi said:

I believe IL-2 currently has no mechanism to control this. But I don't create missions myself, so I'm not 100% sure.

I think it would be a valuable feature for IL-2 to have a time penalty for this switching, controllable by the mission designer.

Currently, the only mechanism to control this would be to use COOP mission type.

 

I agree, an adjustable time penalty would be good to have.

[40plus]

I fail to see the issue. As you mentioned tankers receive intel from his airborne brethren. That's how war works.

This behavior increases historical accuracy more than it reduces it. . . . . . . .now, if we could do something about kamikaze pilots.......

[stupor-mundi]

2 hours ago, pfrances said:

I fail to see the issue. As you mentioned tankers receive intel from his airborne brethren. That's how war works.

This behavior increases historical accuracy more than it reduces it. . . . . . . .now, if we could do something about kamikaze pilots.......

 

I think there is quite a big practical difference.

 

The location discriptions you encounter in practice aren't that amazing usually, and many pilots can't be bothered at all to give them. Quite often I'm on maps with 4, 5 friendly pilots and no such descriptions come through at all. Most location calls actually come from other tankers, not pilots.

 

So the big difference in practice isn't only the difficulty of being accurate, it's also the motivation. Some of the gamers are mainly motivated by achieving a high score for themselves, rather than helping their teammates much.

 

So, when I see a player switch like this within one map: plane-tank-plane-tank-plane-tank-plane-tank-plane-tank, I just know that the motivation for flying is to gain recon for self-use. And once you realise that, the suspicion of course arises that such a player probably takes screenshots as well. That part is of course speculation.

 

Now compare that to the kind of description I might be able to give on chat: "blue tank in the field NE of Povo." which is about as precise as I'm usually able to give. That's a huge difference.

[40plus]

6 minutes ago, stupor-mundi said:

 

I think there is quite a big practical difference.

 

The location discriptions you encounter in practice aren't that amazing usually, and many pilots can't be bothered at all to give them. Quite often I'm on maps with 4, 5 friendly pilots and no such descriptions come through at all. Most location calls actually come from other tankers, not pilots.

 

So the big difference in practice isn't only the difficulty of being accurate, it's also the motivation. Some of the gamers are mainly motivated by achieving a high score for themselves, rather than helping their teammates much.

 

So, when I see a player switch like this within one map: plane-tank-plane-tank-plane-tank-plane-tank-plane-tank, I just know that the motivation for flying is to gain recon for self-use. And once you realise that, the suspicion of course arises that such a player probably takes screenshots as well. That part is of course speculation.

 

Now compare that to the kind of description I might be able to give on chat: "blue tank in the field NE of Povo." which is about as precise as I'm usually able to give. That's a huge difference.

 

fair enough though I still don't see it as a significant loophole worth expending effort to close.

I do not partake in the specific behavior you describe but I have been known to swap from plane to tank or vice versa due to boredom or because someone FINALLY spawned in a tank and I can enjoy some ground game.

 

For me, the time lag between swaps is significant because I pilot in VR from a flight seat but Tank at my desk on the flat screen. Log out/in required so minimum time is ~5 minutes. In that time the spotted tank has had plenty of time to move on.

[stupor-mundi]

On 12/17/2019 at 7:18 PM, pfrances said:

For me, the time lag between swaps is significant

For me it's the same, even without any such procedures, I just take a long time to land and get everything wrapped up. Probably due to lack of practice.

Since I observe those goings-on from a tank perspective, I don't exactly know how the people in question wrap up their flight missions. Whether they land properly, or just ditch somewhere in friendly territory.

 

In the meantime however, I've stumbled across something that makes my point almost academic and makes me feel quite naiive. I used Tacview for the first time, when flying, and when I examined the track, I saw a ground vehicle in the area. Then I checked what the outcome would be if I recorded while tanking (multiplayer), and found that it was possible and that the tanks were indeed recorded.

 

That realisation then shed an ugly light upon something which had been puzzling me for a while: until recently, I think the release before the last, the sound bug had been extremely prevalent, and thus (I believed) it had been standard practice for nearly all the online tankers to exit the server (and presumably restarting Il-2) to decrease the chances of sudden sound bug in the next mission. Since, for me at least, the sound bug was now a thing of the past, I found it curious why still so many players exit everytime they are killed, and show up a minute or two later. Which is what you'd have to do if you wanted to check a recorded track, because Tacview prevents doing this while the game is running.

 

Of course people have to go to the loo, and do other IRL things, so there's that. But still, the (average) timing is suspicious in my view.

 

It will seem quite petty and paranoid how I go on about this point, but I prefer driving the fast, but not-so-well-armed, and not-so-well-armored tank, T34. And awareness of other tank locations favours the lumbering strong tank with the big gun (Pz6). You only have to look at the tanking situation on servers with normal settings (like EU official), i.e. with gps, where basically just Tigers tank, and you'd have to be nuts to tank in a T34.

 

Thus, for me, the hide-and-seek aspect of tanking is everything. Others may feel it's all about good gunnery and so on, but for me it's about using the terrain, driving through ravines, that sort of thing. So, if the platform sort of inherently reveals my location, without people having to, in-game, recoinnoiter me, the whole thing is compromised and becomes pointless.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2019 by stupor-mundi

[72AGk_Maiskiy_Juk]

Stupor. Maybe someone is really playing so dishonestly(Tacview). But in any case, you are exaggerating the problem. When I run out of ammunition and return to the airfield, returning in a few minutes to the same place, I will not find you. You are very fast and agile, and you change positions quickly. A player who decides to find you through Tacview (or through a tank-plane-tank shift) will most likely fail.

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by Pz.J.St./JG51Zommer

[stupor-mundi]

2 hours ago, Pz.J.St./JG51Zommer said:

Stupor. Maybe someone is really playing so dishonestly(Tacview). But in any case, you are exaggerating the problem. When I run out of ammunition and return to the airfield, returning in a few minutes to the same place, I will not find you. You are very fast and agile, and you change positions quickly. A player who decides to find you through Tacview (or through a tank-plane-tank shift) will most likely fail.

 

Yes. when you return to the airfield and it takes minutes, it won't have a tactical effect. The people I was referring to were somehow very fast to return as tanks.

However, I wrote my first post, about tank-plane switching, *before* I realised the thing about Tacview. Those who presumably are using Tacview, are not necessarily engaged in plane-tank switching. They may just be using tanks. That's why I wrote that my initial concern about tank-plane switching is probably academic.

In either case, tank-plane switching, or, using Tacview, the tactical advantage is only conceivable in a defensive situation, because any knowledge about the battlefield further from the spawnpoint would indeed be outdated by the time the player spawns, and, manages to drive to that area.

If the use of Tacview for this purpose among tankers isn't widespread, then why do I constantly, constantly, see this sequence:

Player x is killed

Player x left the server

Player x connected

(within 1, 2 minutes)

Are some still suffering from sound bug? I highly doubt it, because, in the times of sound bug, you could constantly see people in the chat complaining about it, and now nobody does.

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by stupor-mundi

[RIVALDO]

2 hours ago, stupor-mundi said:

 

Player x is killed

Player x left the server

Player x connected

(within 1, 2 minutes)

Are some still suffering from sound bug? I highly doubt it, because, in the times of sound bug, you could constantly see people in the chat complaining about it, and now nobody does.

 

Stupor,sometimes ,when my tank or plane blows up,the game freezes. And the only way to finish it is to close the game down. Doesn't happen alot.Maybe once or twice a month. But i noticed a lot of players after being killed,the message appears about some data loss,and a few seconds later they're either kicked or leave the server. But i know exactly what you are saying. 

[stupor-mundi]

1 hour ago, RIVALDO said:

Stupor,sometimes ,when my tank or plane blows up,the game freezes. And the only way to finish it is to close the game down. Doesn't happen alot.Maybe once or twice a month. But i noticed a lot of players after being killed,the message appears about some data loss,and a few seconds later they're either kicked or leave the server. But i know exactly what you are saying. 

 

Has happened to me as well, also not very often. Of course it's possible that it happens to some players more often. But I think when that sort of thing happens the message is different, I suspect it will be the 'no data from player' message.

And then there is the variant where your tank is on fire, and you get kicked due to bad ping. In that case there will be the 'player kicked' message.

So I would hope that the message 'player left the server' indicates the situation where no crash has happened and the player intentionally left the server.

 

[72AGk_Maiskiy_Juk]

16 minutes ago, stupor-mundi said:

 

Has happened to me as well, also not very often. Of course it's possible that it happens to some players more often. But I think when that sort of thing happens the message is different, I suspect it will be the 'no data from player' message.

And then there is the variant where your tank is on fire, and you get kicked due to bad ping. In that case there will be the 'player kicked' message.

So I would hope that the message 'player left the server' indicates the situation where no crash has happened and the player intentionally left the server.

 

it is extremely difficult to catch such players, and it is impossible to punish them.
I think it is enough to know such players.
If such a player came out, entered, it is a signal for an urgent change of tactics and location. It's nice to calculate and beat these  cheaters.

[stupor-mundi]

Zommer, I completely agree. Catching or punishing players can't be the goal here. I don't think there's even an official rule against it.

Clearly, we can't ask for people to not leave the server and then return, after all, sometimes you want to go to the toilet, or fetch a drink ?

However, it's possible to disable Tacview on the server, that's why I have asked about that on the EFront thread.

 

[=EXPEND=Tripwire]

I think that you might be making a mountain out of a mole hill regarding your Tacview suspicions, but there should be an ability to set a delay in Tacview on the server. This fixes this type of issue so that if someone want to look at the ACMI playback immediately, it will be missing the delay timeframe unless they wait for the delay before exiting. Set it to something like 20 minutes and you would likely have relocated by the time they can pinpoint your exact location.

Edited December 31, 2019 by =EXPEND=Tripwire

[stupor-mundi]

14 hours ago, =EXPEND=Tripwire said:

but there should be an ability to set a delay in Tacview on the server.

 

That would be a good solution to the issue. Not sure whether technically that can work, considering the client/server interaction. Another solution would be if it were possible to not show tanks in Tacview.

I understand that Tacview is a useful tool when flying, but in a tanking situation I don't see all that much of a learning/training benefit.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2020 by stupor-mundi

[=EXPEND=Tripwire]

It works that way in DCS right now. Most servers run 10 minutes delay to avoid cheating issues.

I'm not sure about the options available to server operators of IL2.

[klunker]

The TacView issue is news to me, but I do wish to address your initial issue.

 

I am just the kind of guy you're addressing in your initial comments.  I've only recently ventured into the tanking portion of this game and until reading this post, thought nothing of going back and forth between tanks and planes.  I see your point and understand your concern but have to say that the better solution would be for servers to have TANKS ONLY and no planes.  

 

I wouldn't mind playing in a tank only game, and would in fact welcome it because when I do choose to drive tanks, I don't like the distraction of an air threat either.  I often play online with a teammate and we sometimes work as an air ground team.  The rationale for that is generally when we are unfamiliar with the map and are getting killed by hidden anti tank guns one of us will take to the air in an attempt to find their locations.  Maybe that wouldn't be necessary if they didn't shoot through buildings and could be seen without air reconnaissance.  When a map is new to me I find it necessary to fly around in order to discern where the flag is located as the icons on the map are not specific.  Also, it's necessary to switch to the air rapidly in order to combat an air threat since there's no decent anti air capability with the tanks. 

 

Regarding spotting from the air.  I don't find it that easy either.  Sometimes the arty is almost impossible to spot, and tanks that aren't moving are also incredibly hard to spot.  Maybe it's my not so hot system at fault, but I often have to have my teammate launch a flair in order to find him when he's tanking inside a town, and that's even after I know his general location.  So, unless you're speeding down a road in a tank trying to get to a capture flag, I don't think the air threat is as great as you're portraying if you're using the normal cover to mask your movements. 

 

Although my teammate and I play both Red and Blue, we often have been compelled on some maps to switch to the air in order to combat Tigers when driving Red tanks.  In one map, I even had a Tiger player complaining that the map was designed for tanks only and I should hop into a T-34 to do battle with him and his other Tiger teammate.  Although new to tanking, I know enough to know that's a one sided battle, and just as in the actual war,  the best way to combat the Tiger is to attack it from the air.  So, my feeling is that if a map is really meant for tanks only, then there shouldn't be any air available and also, it should be a fair matchup.  

 

Regarding the Tigers, there should be some restrictions on them as they completely dominate tank play so that in a tank only map, it's a very uneven match up with the current Red inventory. Maybe experienced T-34 tank players know how to kill them without getting knocked out first, but I don't.  So, now days when my teammate and I join a server, we look to see if there are Tigers, and then go to that side and grab a Tiger in order to avoid getting the crap shot out of us when we are skulking about trying to take out enemy arty and capture a flag

 

Also, often even when driving a Tiger we still get shot up by the unseen Arty and find it necessary to stop tanking and grab a plane to locate and destroy the arty.  On more than one map there are ridiculously accurate artillery that spots and shoots tanks no matter where one is trying to hide or how fast they are travelling. Need a plane for those situations.

 

To conclude:  It would be best if there were maps dedicated to ONLY TANK WARFARE and the maps were designed with a fairness and balance in mind. Until the developers get the AI anti tank guns conform to actual line of sight and no shooting through buildings, the map maker need to set arty in positions that can be fairly combated against.  I don't know the requirements for the long range howitzer field of fire, and accuracy, but do suspect that hitting a Tiger moving at 45 kph is highly unlikely.  That kind of arty is no fun in my opinion. So, a carefully crafted map with tanks only and a fair balance of play would make for more fun for people who just want to do tanking.

[JG27_Steini]

35 minutes ago, klunker said:

The TacView issue is news to me, but I do wish to address your initial issue.

 

I am just the kind of guy you're addressing in your initial comments.  I've only recently ventured into the tanking portion of this game and until reading this post, thought nothing of going back and forth between tanks and planes.  I see your point and understand your concern but have to say that the better solution would be for servers to have TANKS ONLY and no planes.  

 

I wouldn't mind playing in a tank only game, and would in fact welcome it because when I do choose to drive tanks, I don't like the distraction of an air threat either.  I often play online with a teammate and we sometimes work as an air ground team.  The rationale for that is generally when we are unfamiliar with the map and are getting killed by hidden anti tank guns one of us will take to the air in an attempt to find their locations.  Maybe that wouldn't be necessary if they didn't shoot through buildings and could be seen without air reconnaissance.  When a map is new to me I find it necessary to fly around in order to discern where the flag is located as the icons on the map are not specific.  Also, it's necessary to switch to the air rapidly in order to combat an air threat since there's no decent anti air capability with the tanks. 

 

Regarding spotting from the air.  I don't find it that easy either.  Sometimes the arty is almost impossible to spot, and tanks that aren't moving are also incredibly hard to spot.  Maybe it's my not so hot system at fault, but I often have to have my teammate launch a flair in order to find him when he's tanking inside a town, and that's even after I know his general location.  So, unless you're speeding down a road in a tank trying to get to a capture flag, I don't think the air threat is as great as you're portraying if you're using the normal cover to mask your movements. 

 

Although my teammate and I play both Red and Blue, we often have been compelled on some maps to switch to the air in order to combat Tigers when driving Red tanks.  In one map, I even had a Tiger player complaining that the map was designed for tanks only and I should hop into a T-34 to do battle with him and his other Tiger teammate.  Although new to tanking, I know enough to know that's a one sided battle, and just as in the actual war,  the best way to combat the Tiger is to attack it from the air.  So, my feeling is that if a map is really meant for tanks only, then there shouldn't be any air available and also, it should be a fair matchup.  

 

Regarding the Tigers, there should be some restrictions on them as they completely dominate tank play so that in a tank only map, it's a very uneven match up with the current Red inventory. Maybe experienced T-34 tank players know how to kill them without getting knocked out first, but I don't.  So, now days when my teammate and I join a server, we look to see if there are Tigers, and then go to that side and grab a Tiger in order to avoid getting the crap shot out of us when we are skulking about trying to take out enemy arty and capture a flag

 

Also, often even when driving a Tiger we still get shot up by the unseen Arty and find it necessary to stop tanking and grab a plane to locate and destroy the arty.  On more than one map there are ridiculously accurate artillery that spots and shoots tanks no matter where one is trying to hide or how fast they are travelling. Need a plane for those situations.

 

To conclude:  It would be best if there were maps dedicated to ONLY TANK WARFARE and the maps were designed with a fairness and balance in mind. Until the developers get the AI anti tank guns conform to actual line of sight and no shooting through buildings, the map maker need to set arty in positions that can be fairly combated against.  I don't know the requirements for the long range howitzer field of fire, and accuracy, but do suspect that hitting a Tiger moving at 45 kph is highly unlikely.  That kind of arty is no fun in my opinion. So, a carefully crafted map with tanks only and a fair balance of play would make for more fun for people who just want to do tanking.

 

What is fair in your mind? The KV is superior to Pz III or Pz IV. An IL2 currently can kill several Tigers with rockets! You have no chance to stay alive in a Tiger when an IL2 is against you.  The game is not made to be fair. 

[klunker]

To be fair I would say to limit the Heavy tanks and make it a medium tank battle if one is set on just doing tanks.  In an air ground game, all if fair. If the game is not meant to be fair then no one should complain, but the fact is some would like to engage in a tank match that is not unbalanced, like as you suggest a KV1 against medium tanks, or Tigers against all else, or tanks verses air.  Anyway, my point was not to debate the fairness of the game, but to suggest that the map makers can put together a tank only map where there is balanced play.  Accepting the game is unfair is OK too, but if one does accept that, then there's no reason to complain.  I'm not complaining, I only making a suggestion in response to the complaint that started this thread. I agree, that the Tiger is dead against an IL-2 as it will be against the rocket Typhoon's when they are available.  In fact all tanks are dead against air power.

[=AD=uumembwa]

On 1/1/2020 at 10:26 PM, =EXPEND=Tripwire said:

I'm not sure about the options available to server operators of IL2.

Not available. Only on/off tacview. 

 

Time switching adjustable in Dserver, but for both cases: tank to tank or tank to plane. 

So it is like penalty for death or side changing - not all players like it 

[JG1_Wittmann]

Is the damage  model-bugged  T34 still available on this  server ?

Edited January 22, 2020 by JG1_Wittmann