Things I Wish I Knew about Tank Crew (e.g. Tips for Beginners)

[istari6]

Having just completed the "Breaking Point" campaign, I hope the following list helps other beginners learn Tank Crew more quickly:

 

MOVEMENT

— Autopilot can only be set/turned off from Driver position.  I spent quite a bit of time trying to engage and disengage from the TC position before figuring this out.

— Autopilot will start your driver towards the next yellow waypoint.  This is obvious in hindsight, but was confusing for me when I was trying to fine-tune manual placement, then wanted to switch to Autopilot and give a general command like "advance slowly".  Engaging Autopilot caused the tank to spin around and start moving in a different direction.

 

MAP

— Tanks show on the map as very small chevrons, much smaller and subtler than airplanes.  

 

AI

— The enemy AI does not seem to notice other casualties.  Will continue to keep rolling into an ambush.

 

WEAPONS

— HE shells do not have a tracer.  

— Panoramic sights in Soviet tanks can turn independently of the turret.  Allows you to quickly scan around you and look for flanking threats without needing to unbutton.

— Soviet gunsights can adjust range, making it much easier to do long-range gunnery.  I thought only the German scopes were articulated, and thus I was manually elevating the crosshair over the target and trying to gauge distance with the range marks at the edges.  

— At closer ranges, targeting specific parts of the enemy tank pays off.  For example, aim for side hull where ammunition is stored can regularly cause catastrophic explosions.  

— Coax is very effective to buy time if you miss, particularly against artillery and AT guns.

— It takes time to unlock the gun and get it back onto target when you’ve left the gunner position (Note: this might be fixed in the latest 4.502 patch)

DAMAGE

— Can mouseover the damage diagram (Enter in TC view) to see what it represents

 

VR QUIRKS

— T key restores missing objects in VR (Note: this seems to be largely fixed in the latest 4.502 patch)

 

Any other tips others have learned that would help new players?

Edited November 17, 2020 by istari6