Some ideas to make GVing better...

[BnZs]

1. A clock-like indicator to show the orientation of your turret in relation to your hull.

2. The ability to brake from positions other than driver, say with spacebar.

3. A "commander with binoculars" view, comparable to the zoom available on the maingun view, but rotating faster than the turret without chancing pointing your gun in the wrong direction.

Few little things to make handling the tank easier, in light of the fact that one player is doing the work of several crewmen in the things. Would get rid of some of the frustrations involved in GVing and add enjoyment IMO.

[PewterC5]

1. A clock-like indicator to show the orientation of your turret in relation to your hull.

2. The ability to brake from positions other than driver, say with spacebar.

3. A "commander with binoculars" view, comparable to the zoom available on the maingun view, but rotating faster than the turret without chancing pointing your gun in the wrong direction.

Few little things to make handling the tank easier, in light of the fact that one player is doing the work of several crewmen in the things. Would get rid of some of the frustrations involved in GVing and add enjoyment IMO.

1. i like the idea but its just as easy to jump in your pintle gun and see where your turret is. Also is it really that hard to remember the position you left the turret in? I am not a great GVer but this is really not a problem for me.

2. I like this idea as well but for now I just drop it in a lower gear to move slow while looking where I am going from pintle gun position. When i get close to where i want to be I jump into the drivers seat apply the brakes and shut down the engine.

3. its already there. get in your pintle gun and press z to zoom. It rotates faster than the main gun and also sits higher to give you a better view down field.

[BnZs]

1. i like the idea but its just as easy to jump in your pintle gun and see where your turret is. Also is it really that hard to remember the position you left the turret in? I am not a great GVer but this is really not a problem for me.

No, sometimes it is not really easy to see main gun orientation, and doing this to see requires leaving your main gun, or the drivers seat, etc. Trying to get your main gun pointed back towards the front can be a process of rotate, jump out and look, rotate some more, blehhh. Alot of time and complication for something that should be simple.

2. I like this idea as well but for now I just drop it in a lower gear to move slow while looking where I am going from pintle gun position. When i get close to where i want to be I jump into the drivers seat apply the brakes and shut down the engine.

Yeah, half the time I end up jumping back into the turret instead and cranking the main gun to the sky when I pull the stick back to "brake". Once again, extra, complicated step for something that should be simple.

3. its already there. get in your pintle gun and press z to zoom. It rotates faster than the main gun and also sits higher to give you a better view down field.

Does not give you the amount zoom you get in MG. Tanks within effective main gun range can be barely visible little specs even at max zoom in the pintle.

IMO, it is these frustrations involved in driving and especially trying to look around you that makes tanking in AHII a mixed blessing. The airplanes in AHII have certain compromises to let the players concentrate on fighting, why not GVs?

EDIT: One of the major factors that tends to make GV battles static in AHII is that the guy sitting still has SO much advantage over the guy moving. These suggestions would tend to make these advantages less overwhelming.

[PewterC5]

No, sometimes it is not really easy to see main gun orientation, and doing this to see requires leaving your main gun, or the drivers seat, etc. Trying to get your main gun pointed back front can be a process of rotate, jump out and look, rotate some more, blehhh

You can also use the clipboard. Get into the main gun and rotate it. If I remember correctly your icon on the map will rotate with the gun. I still fail to see the reason to know where your gun is orientated because I generally point it in the direction of the enemy and make minor adjustments from there. I have yet to go "hmm i wonder where my turret is in correlation to the rest of the tank." It just isn't important in the heat of battle. When I move spots I will get the tank rolling and jump into the turret and watch the scenery go by. I reset the turret to the front using the direction of the scenery.

Yeah, half the time I end up jumping back into the turret instead and cranking the main gun to the sky when I pull the stick back to "brake". Once again, extra, complicated step.

This is only a problem for you I guess. Learn where your #1 and #2 key is located on your keyboard and learn what each position looks like. I have never mistaken the turret for the drivers seat. Remember round hole to view = turret, rectangle hole = drivers seat. Not complicated at all. Practice

Does not give you the sort of zoom you get in MG. Tanks within effective guns range can be barely visible little specs even at max zoom in the pintle.

I don't know what to tell you here as i have no problem spotting tanks from the pintle zoomed in. i don't know how far you are firing from though. Maybe get a little closer to the battle.

IMO, it is these frustrations involved in driving and especially trying to look around you that makes tanking in AHII a mixed blessing.

I think with more practice you will be fine.

EDIT: One of the major factors that tends to make GV battles static in AHII is that the guy sitting still has SO much advantage over the guy moving. These suggestions would tend to make these advantages less overwhelming.

Get to the camp site first



Maybe Belial will chime in with some help as he is the greatest GVer the game has ever seen, just ask him.

[BnZs]

You can also use the clipboard. Get into the main gun and rotate it. If I remember correctly your icon on the map will rotate with the gun. I still fail to see the reason to know where your gun is orientated because I generally point it in the direction of the enemy and make minor adjustments from there. I have yet to go "hmm i wonder where my turret is in correlation to the rest of the tank." It just isn't important in the heat of battle. When I move spots I will get the tank rolling and jump into the turret and watch the scenery go by. I reset the turret to the front using the direction of the scenery.
This is only a problem for you I guess. Learn where your #1 and #2 key is located on your keyboard and learn what each position looks like. I have never mistaken the turret for the drivers seat. Remember round hole to view = turret, rectangle hole = drivers seat. Not complicated at all. Practice

On the move you I want the gun facing forward so it points where I turn. Need a simple way to diplace the turret, shoot, and quickly re-orient the turret wherever you want it without having to "pintle and look, pintle and look". Even while moving. Most tank sims DO have something like this indicator, so why not?

As far as the braking goes, you are in pintle view, you have to in quick sucession hit the key for drivers seat (loose visual on the offending tank), stop, go into the main gun, or possibly pintle to regain visual then BACK to the main gun...by this time you are often enough shot. Wouldn't be hard at all to make a key settable for breaking...in fact, I don't see why I can't shift gears and gas from positions other than driver as well. Remember, one player is trying to do the work of a crew in a tank, so why are we making it harder than it needs to be? I actually find tanking harder than flying because at least a fighter is pretty much designed to manned by one person and thus you have all the controls you need right at hand in your HOTAS.

When you "switch spots"...that says it all. Tanking is very static right now, I think in no small part because they guy who only has one job (sit in the tank and scan/listen for targets) has such an uncomplicated task compared to the guy who is trying to move.
 

I don't know what to tell you here as i have no problem spotting tanks from the pintle zoomed in. i don't know how far you are firing from though. Maybe get a little closer to the battle.
I think with more practice you will be fine.\

Sorry, even with the pintle at max zooms tanks are often nigh-invisible at ranges where they can effectively fire on you. Depends on the color. (That is something else of course...been asked for a million times and never anything done, *all* tank default skins need to blend in with the typical colors in the MA to make things fair.)

Get to the camp site first

I'm not talking about spawncamping right now, just the advantages tanks in a fixed position have, but yeah, I think these few changes to make seeing-shooting-moving easier for one player to manage simultaneosly would make the game less static.

[OOZ662]

I agree with Hitech in that we need a hotkey to slew the turret to center from other positions...he just never got around to it, I guess.

[AKP]

If you could control the tank completely from the gunner or commanders positions, no one would EVER use the drivers position... which would detract from the realism of driving the tank.  Being able to turn the tank from other positions is a bonus IMO, and makes fighting on the move possible.

Now this is just speculation, but I doubt that the binoculars used by the commander would have been nearly as powerful as the optics for the main gun... and they dont need to be.  All the pintle gun spot needs to do is detect movement, or the shape of a target in the distance, then it falls to the gunner to track to that bearing, confirm target ID, range, and fire.  A good GV'er will be able to spot another GV within firing range from the pintle spot, even if he cant tell what it is.

Shooting on the move in WW2 era tanks is definitely going to be difficult at best.  There were no computer controlled, gyroscopic stabilizers for the main gun back then, and you feel every little bump you drive over.  This gets transferred to the main gun and multiplied when you are zoomed in at long range... every movement of the gun is amplified by the same zoom factor you are using over distance.  So with this in mind, the GV that is set up in a defensive position, and sitting still with engine off, most certainly has a huge advantage over the moving tank.

As for knowing the position of the main turret, I dont usually have an issue with it.  I also line up the turret by noting the direction the scenery is moving as I look through the sight.  And if you are sitting still, it really doesnt matter unless you want to turn and point your heavier front armor to the enemy, in which case you would have to reline up your turret anyway.  Not all tanks (even those of the same type) had position indicators.  Some used markings on the inside of the turret and main hull which just had to be lined up and read off by the loader.   Although, a simple, and single way to just command the turret to return to forward position (not instantly... but at regular speed) is definitely something I am in favor if.

[BnZs]

If you could control the tank completely from the gunner or commanders positions, no one would EVER use the drivers position... which would detract from the realism of driving the tank.  Being able to turn the tank from other positions is a bonus IMO, and makes fighting on the move possible.

Well, the "realism" is that you had a team to drive the thing. IMHO, you should at *least* be able to stop from any position.

Shooting on the move is going to be difficult as you point out, but I think my changes would make it easier to fight in a "stop and go" style as opposed to the utterly dominant "stop and wait for them to come int your field of fire" style.

[AKP]

Actually... after thinking about it some more, the tank commander should be able to tell the gunner position to turn the turret to a specific bearing.  After that, you would need to be in the gunners position to line up the shot exactly and control azimuth.   Maybe a dot command like this:

.turret 35

Where 35 would be the relative bearing in degrees the turret would start moving to.  If you got into the gunners position before it completed moving to that bearing, it would stop, and you would have to turn it yourself at that point.  A command of ".turret 0" would tell the turret to start moving to the forward view of 0 degrees, whils a command of ".turret 180" would tell it to turn to the rear facing position.

That way, we wouldn't need a "hotkey" and could order the turret to turn to any bearing we wanted.  We would still have to manually aim and fire from the gunners view... it just simulates the commander telling the gunner to move the turret to a certain bearing without leaving the commanders view.  The ".turret" command should NOT be able to be used while you are sitting in the main gun position.

[LLogann]

All 3 are reasonable requests and would be fairly important in adding to the ground war. 

+1

[waystin2]

+1 X3

[Sabre]

1. A clock-like indicator to show the orientation of your turret in relation to your hull.

2. The ability to brake from positions other than driver, say with spacebar.

3. A "commander with binoculars" view, comparable to the zoom available on the maingun view, but rotating faster than the turret without chancing pointing your gun in the wrong direction.

Few little things to make handling the tank easier, in light of the fact that one player is doing the work of several crewmen in the things. Would get rid of some of the frustrations involved in GVing and add enjoyment IMO.

Re 1: Yes, I think this is much needed.  I'd also like to see hotkeys that would allow you to slew the turret from other positions (perhaps the "c" and "v" keys).  That way you can stay in the driver seat in tricky terrain, but still slew the turret out on the threat axis.

Re 2: I also agree with this one.  My rationale is as follows: While gunning on a bomber, I still have throttle control, so I should also have throttle control when gunning in my tank.

Re 3: I think it unnecessary, for the reasons already stated.  As far as firing while on the move, this was almost never done as the chances of hitting anything beyond point blank was nil in real life.  One of the breakthroughs in tank warfare was the gun stabilizying system, which did not make its appearance until  the 1980s.  If I recall correctly, the M1 Abrams was the first tank to have a truly effective fire-on-the-move capability (although I may be wrong about that...just what I recall reading somewhere).

For my part, I'd also like to have the ability to temporarily dismount from my tank and scout a short distance on foot.

[BnZs]

hor=Sabre link=topic=274507.msg3439367#msg3439367 date=1253818977]


Re 3: I think it unnecessary, for the reasons already stated.  As far as firing while on the move, this was almost never done as the chances of hitting anything beyond point blank was nil in real life.  One of the breakthroughs in tank warfare was the gun stabilizying system, which did not make its appearance until  the 1980s.  If I recall correctly, the M1 Abrams was the first tank to have a truly effective fire-on-the-move capability (although I may be wrong about that...just what I recall reading somewhere).


[/quote]

Don't think so much of firing on the move, but think of making it easier to stop, line up a shot, and get moving effectively in a short period of time.

As far as the "field glasses" view goes, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I find tanks nigh-invisible blips in the zoomed pintle view when you are already well within the range of their main guns.

[Big Rat]

I agree with BnZ's, especially 1 & 2.  I always do most of my GV'ing from the commanders position as it gives the best field of view, but having to go to the drivers position to stop is a pain, it isn't like the commander can't yell at the driver to stop .

 
BigRat

[BigKev03]

I like the idea of the main gun orientation.  I mean you have that in a similar fazshion when in the ball turret gun of the B-17.  Wouldnt hurt to have it on a GV.