Turret tracking and AI unit selection

[roirraw]

Let's say I have a tank behind a hedgerow(I have recon in the hedge row seeing the enemy tanks). On the other side of the hedgerow is a group of enemy vehicles and tanks. The closest tank to the point where my tank starts to come into view of the enemy formation is a Panzer 4, there is another King Tiger, that won't be in line of sight to the engagement with the Panzer 4 but it's techincally in range but out of line of sight. The turret on my tank will follow the King Tiger because it is the higher threat, but the actual high threat vehicle is the Panzer 4 that's right infront of me. If issuing a Q move to start the fight, I will lose out on some valuable time where the hull of the tank will traverse the opposite direction the turret needs to traverse( because the AI is trying to put the frontal armor forward ), until the aim timer starts and those crucial moments are what usually win/lose an engagement.

This is the main problem with the M10 Wolverine and Panzer 4, or any tank with slow turret traverse.

Can there be a function for the player to "right click" the primary target so the tank can keep itself aligned to your selected threat? Instead of letting the AI determine what the threat is off your recon, and when you actually engage what is in line of sight, the AI changes target to what it can actually hit and now making adjustments to the hull and turret while the fight is on.

It works the same way with AT guns, you lose out on valuable time when they're turn to face another target that you really didn't want it to face in the first place.

 

[Protosszocker]

yeah a rework of this mechanic would be good, than they could also lower the overall speed of traversing, as it is much to fast. A king tiger can make 90 decrease in 1 sec so your first side hit allways has to hit or your will never make it. that sucks.

 

[Ktonos]

So how does the armor AI prioritize to which direction it put's it's frontal armor? Highest AP threat, movement direction? Because from what I've played tanks use to place their frontal armor to the direction of their target. So for example there is a spotted AT tank in range and the tank has it's frontal armor against it, but if & when I give the order to shoot at another target I would expect that the tank would turn the turret to the new targewt and keep tit's facing towards the AT. But I am under the impression that in most times it turns the hull and revealing it's side to the highest threat.

 

[roirraw]

Yes, this is after issuing a Q command, to attack move. If my tank is stationary in the above situation, the hull of my tank will turn after stopping movement to face the King Tiger. The same with the turret, it will track the King Tiger while stationary. The armor will only turn to face another threat when it actually comes into line of sight. You can manually counter this if you just use the reverse key to face your front armor to the attack you want to avoid, but you can't fire like this.

 

[Ktonos]

I think this is something that programmer's can easily fix.

Armor units should be like two entities regarding AI: hull and turret should be programmed to have different priorities (as long as the player doesn't manualy change them). Turret's facing priority should be the target and the hull's the highest visible threat. I think it would be also easy to implement and expand the "visible" threat to include potential AT's in threatening range that have been recently spotted but went into hide again.

 

[roirraw]

Yeah, it would be nice to have some control over what the tank choses to do when I want to. 95% of the time the way the game works is fine, it's when the above situation happens and I'm trying to fight my own unit AI so I can get a shot on a vehicle in front if me.

 

[Gilmund]

Damn roirraw, i'm just telling myself i'll have to do one thousand games more to get your 1300 to figure things like that. Impressive, i've never noticed.

I suppose there is some hidden mechanism where the turret is supposed to be turned against the highest visible threat when you want yourself it to be turned against the most immediate threat ? Something like that ?

 

[roirraw]

The tank will always turn it's armor/turret to the highest threat IN RANGE and VISIBLE(just recon seeing it, not in actual line of sight to the main gun). If you're moving, it will turn the turret to face the same set of conditions. Only when the threat of something actually in LINE OF SIGHT comes in to view, will the tank start to turn it's hull and turret away from the other high threat unit that's still within it's 1200m range bubble. This is often why the M10 gets wrecked by minor tanks in anything but 1v1's where the AI only has to track 1 unit in range.


If I could set the target that I want my tank to track with it's turret, manually, it would get rid of this problem because I can already tell it what direction to travel. Just not aim.

This whole situation is about how the fight starts and it actually promotes even better recon placement. Since you can spot and engage a tank that might not see you coming.

 

[roirraw]

Damn roirraw, i'm just telling myself i'll have to do one thousand games more to get your 1300 to figure things like that. Impressive, i've never noticed.

I suppose there is some hidden mechanism where the turret is supposed to be turned against the highest visible threat when you want yourself it to be turned against the most immediate threat ? Something like that ?

This game is pretty much the only game I ever wanted to play. It's 3D Close Combat with a Wargame feel. Really hope to help this game along and be proactive.