Separate landing safe spots for planes and GVs

[Butcher]

The idea bears some mulling over, but my thought is to see what the upcoming update does to what is now primarily defensive GV gameplay.  Most GV'ers won't roll off of their own concrete to fight, let alone roll to an enemy field to attack.  

It's because most people have no clue how to use vehicles, same with aircraft - most fly a P51D or Fw190d9 because they know no better, or have any ACM period, same with upping a king Tiger they feel secure sitting on concrete and not moving, this should be changed. However adding a time limit to landing wouldn't be one of them, what if you are in a rush to land due to unforseen circumstances?

[MK-84]

most friendly gv's I see are off headed to the spawn, to camp.


I am one of the only ones who sits back at the base usually.

So if you attack an enemy Vbase, you're saying that there are almost never defenders?

[waystin2]

It's because most people have no clue how to use vehicles, same with aircraft - most fly a P51D or Fw190d9 because they know no better, or have any ACM period, same with upping a king Tiger they feel secure sitting on concrete and not moving, this should be changed. However adding a time limit to landing wouldn't be one of them, what if you are in a rush to land due to unforseen circumstances?

Honestly Butcher you'd surprised at the perk vehicles and planes that I have bailed out of.  My philosophy is always if you can't afford to lose the perkies, don't up it.  Of course I understand that others do not want to give up those perkies.  I am cool with that as each can play the game how they see fit.  I said the idea has some merit, but not in it's current form.  Needs some tweeks.  I am all for anything that pushes folks towards an offensive GV mindset.  More fun for everyone I say.

[USAF2010]

most friendly gv's I see are off headed to the spawn, to camp.


I am one of the only ones who sits back at the base usually.

I'm guessing you've never had an air attack then, when 15+ Wirbles sit on the concrete and "land succesfully" when they hear bombs coming their way..... 

[Tank-Ace]

I disagree.  I think that the fact the option to keep them on the concrete is distorting people's expectations.  They have K/D ratios similar to the Me262 and Tempest, and both of those get used and lost.  The biggest problem that needs a solution is that using them offensively is a do or die proposition as, unlike said Me262 or Tempest, they cannot currently withdraw.

They can't 'withdraw' from aircraft either way. At minimum, they'll have a speed deficite of around 90mph, and thats compared to the Storch.

Firefly is killed by aircraft a little under  16% of the time overall
Panther is killed by aircraft a little under 25% of the time overall
Tiger I is killed by aircraft a little under 20% of the time overall
Tiger II is killed by aircraft almost 1/3rd of the time overall

How often do you think people are attacking enemy fields with these vehicles? I would say probably a little under 25% of the time, yet its probably not unreasonable to assume that over 2/3rds of the deaths while attacking a base come from aircraft. We'll have to wait and see how the new view range works, but I would guess it only delays the death of the GV, rather than preventing it.

Beyond that, the Tiger II's relatively high death to aircraft would indicate a lack of a proper counter. We need something like the Nashorn or Jagdpanther to give players a cheap way to kill Tiger II's from reasonable range, so they don't imediatly have to call for air support.

IMO, the idea of a perk tank is that if you're good enough, you won't be killed in the fight except by another perk tank of roughly equal value. The aircraft don't let that happen unless you concrete camp. Stronger AA or it won't change.

[kvuo75]

I'm guessing you've never had an air attack then, when 15+ Wirbles sit on the concrete and "land succesfully" when they hear bombs coming their way.....  

i'm one of them... ostwind tho, not wirb.

if people want easy gv kills, they can go kill gv's off the base, not on concrete... if you want the base, put your bombs on the hangars. thats how I see it at least.  however, I think most people want easy kills by dropping 1000lb eggs on stationary vehicles. thats when I .ef - no soup for you!

I've also spawned 262's on runways where active vulch was going on, watching the horde of vulchers spin around tripping over their own d**** for the easy kill, then .ef .... the challenge for me was waiting till they were close enough to start firing to make em waste some ammo.

IMO, nobody owes anyone a kill.  you might as well force people to spawn at a camped hangar or spawn, or up a plane on a vulched runway.  if towering out was no longer available, I wouldn't up. so where does that leave everyone. I refuse to reward what I personally consider lame play.

[Karnak]

They can't 'withdraw' from aircraft either way. At minimum, they'll have a speed deficite of around 90mph, and thats compared to the Storch.

Firefly is killed by aircraft a little under  16% of the time overall
Panther is killed by aircraft a little under 25% of the time overall
Tiger I is killed by aircraft a little under 20% of the time overall
Tiger II is killed by aircraft almost 1/3rd of the time overall

How often do you think people are attacking enemy fields with these vehicles? I would say probably a little under 25% of the time, yet its probably not unreasonable to assume that over 2/3rds of the deaths while attacking a base come from aircraft. We'll have to wait and see how the new view range works, but I would guess it only delays the death of the GV, rather than preventing it.

Beyond that, the Tiger II's relatively high death to aircraft would indicate a lack of a proper counter. We need something like the Nashorn or Jagdpanther to give players a cheap way to kill Tiger II's from reasonable range, so they don't imediatly have to call for air support.

IMO, the idea of a perk tank is that if you're good enough, you won't be killed in the fight except by another perk tank of roughly equal value. The aircraft don't let that happen unless you concrete camp. Stronger AA or it won't change.

Notice how the harder a tank is to kill by other tanks the higher the percentage of losses it has to aircraft.  I don't think your stats are saying what you think they are.  I think they are saying some tanks are so hard to kill with other tanks that aircraft make up a larger percentage of their killers. All your conclusions that follow your first misreading of the data are therefor erroneous.

i'm one of them... ostwind tho, not wirb.

if people want easy gv kills, they can go kill gv's off the base, not on concrete... if you want the base, put your bombs on the hangars. thats how I see it at least.  however, I think most people want easy kills by dropping 1000lb eggs on stationary vehicles. thats when I .ef - no soup for you!

I've also spawned 262's on runways where active vulch was going on, watching the horde of vulchers spin around tripping over their own d**** for the easy kill, then .ef .... the challenge for me was waiting till they were close enough to start firing to make em waste some ammo.

IMO, nobody owes anyone a kill.  you might as well force people to spawn at a camped hangar or spawn, or up a plane on a vulched runway.  if towering out was no longer available, I wouldn't up. so where does that leave everyone. I refuse to reward what I personally consider lame play.

You are in error.  Using an AA vehicle to kill fighters involved in an air-to-air fight and then .efing the moment you are in danger of actually losing is total cheese and is a pathetic behavior.

[Tank-Ace]

Not nessicarily. The Firefly isn't really a good indicator since they're both rare and soft. Any GV but the M4(75) can kill it if not easily than at least without undue difficulty. I'm sure if they lived longer, or were more prevelent, we would see increased losses to aircraft. Same with the Tiger I and Panther, that one was a bit supprising to me. Sure the Panther has better armor on the glacis, but it has more weak spots, and can't use angling to increase its armor. Tiger I has a higher potential, but just takes more to squeeze that preformance out IMO.

Of course thats from the perspective of an expierenced tanker.

And bear in mind that these are TOTAL numbers, not just on offensive opperations. For the KT, its probably up closer to 75% of deaths to A/C, Tiger I is probably closer to 60%, panther maybe up near 70%, and the firefly.... well the firefly is probably up around 40-50%.

Without the data for 'tanks killed in enemy territory' we can't even accurately say which tanks are killed by aircraft most often in which circumstances, all we will see is the total numbers, which of course will lead us to a skewed conclusion if we use them.

[Karnak]

You rather missed my point.

The fact that the Firefly is rare only means the statistics on it have a greater margin of error.  If all tanks were equally killable, their death percentages to aircraft would all be close to the same, varying tour to tour.  The fact that the comparatively squishy Firefly has such a low comparative loss rate to aircraft means it must be losing more elsewhere, particularly when you factor in that it is easier to kill with aircraft.

The reason the Tigers and Panther, particularly the Tiger II, have such a high death percentage to aircraft is because they have such a low death percentage to tanks.  It isn't that aircraft are killing them in droves and driving up the percentage that die to aircraft it is that tanks are failing to kill them in droves and thus by their lack of success, making the deaths to aircraft a comparatively higher percentage of the total deaths for the Tigers and Panther. Your error is to see those percentages and interpret them as an indication that aircraft are killing them in droves.

Tour 142:
Tiger II: Kills: 3411 Deaths: 362 K/D Ratio: 9.40
Panther G: Kills: 18155 Deaths: 3977 K/D Ratio: 4.56
Tiger I: Kills: 3910 Deaths: 1205 K/D Ratio: 3.24

As a comparison, the best aircraft results:
Me262: Kills: 3199 Deaths: 485 K/D Ratio: 6.58
Tempest Mk V: Kills: 1949 Deaths: 329 K/D Ratio: 5.91

Nothing is killing any of those five units in droves, particularly not the Tiger II.

The wildcard here is, of course, the concrete sitting and what effect that has on K/D ratios.

[Tank-Ace]

Thats sorta my point with the 'lack of offensive action stats' thing. Really, the only way to ensure they aren't camping the spawn or concrete camping is if they're attacking, so we would want to use the 'killed on enemy territory' numbers if such stats were available.

I guarantee you the vast majority of Tiger II's killed by GV's are killed while in a TT fight, or at a busy spawn fight, not while they're being used as anchors for a defense line, or concrete camping, or even when they're attacking. In all those instances, the Tiger II is (or should be) part of a coordinated group that would make flanking it out (the only way to do it) much more difficult.


But regardless, our GV's shouldn't be physicly incapable of making an attack on an enemy base without 6 wirbles for every 1 tank of theirs (even then the wirbs don't even stand a good chance at preventing someone from bombing, let alone forcibly stoping a bomb attack. All they do is stop straffers and make the bombers think twice).

Thats my point with the need for better AA (as of the most recent patch at any rate, we'll still have to see how the new view ranges affect things). For GV's to have potential as offensive weapons without the need for the field to be incapable of even trying to stop them, we need something like a spawnable, player controlled FlaK 36. It wouldn't even be all that unbalancing, since it will  (or should) be easily killed by even a D3A, difficult to hit a manuvering target. Also, no proxy shells, you'll have to set the range by hand.

[Karnak]

I think you are grossly exaggerating the situation.  If it were as you say tanks would be killed far more often by aircraft than they are.  They are going to be harder to kill in the next version.

Basically, you seem to want GVs to be immune to aircraft while being able to swat them at will.

[Tank-Ace]

To quote one of my favorite sardonic BBS members, 'I think you are grossly exaggerating the situation'.

Since this is a game, and couldn't be called historicaly accurate by any strech of the imagination, tanks should have a 50/50 chance of making it to the target if theres AA present, even if that wasn't the case in WWII. Whats the point of using a tank if you'll just get bombed after firing off maybe 1/2 a dozen rounds if you're lucky? And the '88 would hardly be as a great broom, sweeping all aircraft from the sky. Even manned 5" (which has proxy fuzes, and over twice the bursting charge of an 88mm round, IIRC) isn't all that effective against targets much above 7k, and I say that from the possition of flying into it.

You seem to have no first hand expierence of how difficult it can be to keep a perk tank alive when attacking an airfield. Infact, its impossible at times. You yourself have absoluetly ZERO controll over whether you live or die when it comes to air attack. None, zero, zip. It all comes down to how good the flackers are, how well the pilot aims his bomb, and if he releases before the wirbs get him.

So explain to my why a 262 should have a better than 50/50 chance of flying to an enemy base that his side is attacking, participate in getting air superiority, and landing unscathed, when a GV of equivilent pricing can't do the same in an equivelent situation. Why should the GV have a tougher time of it? Why should it be HARDER for the GV to be usefull?

[Karnak]

The problem of using a perk tank offensively basically ensuring its loss is a separate issue, and aircraft are not the cause of that.  The cause is the overly difficult conditions needed to "land successfully".  An Me262 or Tempest can quickly be back at a friendly base when they decide it is time to leave and save their perks, a Tiger cannot.  For the Tiger it is a do or die attack and there needs to be a solution to it, but nothing I can think of seems viable or to actually solve that problem.

Options to assist the issue of using perk tanks offensively that I have thought of:

1) Reduce the 6000 yard range to 4500 or 3000 yards, requiring less separation in order to tower out.  Make Fi156s not count at all for the proximity check.
2) Have a location perhaps 1000 yards behind the spawn point that is colored on the map but just looks like terrain on which ground vehicles can "land successfully" regardless of the proximity of an enemy.
3) Have a similar point, but instead have it teleport the tank to the nearest friendly base.  (This is gamier than #2 but would prevent people from fighting from the safe spot.)

The problem is that none of those would work as long as the GV hangar is up.  You'll never been able to turn a Tiger II around and retreat as long as M18s and T-34/85s are after you.  Both can easily kill a Tiger II when shooting it in the ass.

[Tank-Ace]

From my expierence in game, the aircraft pose the bigger problem for withdrawing. If its just GV's, I'll make a fighting retreat, especially in the Tiger II, where I can reverse from cover to cover with absolute impunity from the front (unless theres another Tiger II out, in which case I'm screwed either way by just being overwhelmed while I'm busy killing it).

But if there are aircraft present, I'm essentially guaranteed a quick trip to the tower. I can't do anything about them, and even the people who can do SOMETHING about them can't even give me a 30% chance of surviving if he's hell-bent on killing me.


So yes, a 'landing pad' back of the spawn would help, the GV's are still restricted by their speed. For their speed to become a non-issue, they need to have a reasonable chance of surviving air attack. Thats the only way we could do it without creating issues elsewhere (e.g. campers being able to tower out at a spawn as soon as they see an aircraft coming).

[USAF2010]

But regardless, our GV's shouldn't be physicly incapable of making an attack on an enemy base without 6 wirbles for every 1 tank of theirs (even then the wirbs don't even stand a good chance at preventing someone from bombing, let alone forcibly stoping a bomb attack. All they do is stop straffers and make the bombers think twice).

Thats my point with the need for better AA (as of the most recent patch at any rate, we'll still have to see how the new view ranges affect things). For GV's to have potential as offensive weapons without the need for the field to be incapable of even trying to stop them, we need something like a spawnable, player controlled FlaK 36. It wouldn't even be all that unbalancing, since it will  (or should) be easily killed by even a D3A, difficult to hit a manuvering target. Also, no proxy shells, you'll have to set the range by hand.

This makes me wonder, in all reality during the war, how much mobile AA was usually brought in a typical armored assault. Secondly, the type and efficency of repelling/destroying attacking enemy a/c. It's certainly my understanding that of course many factors play into it such as the capabilities of the AA vs. the capabilities of the attacking A/C, etc etc.

Plus for kicks, throw in a tad of realism, how many battles really had 6 wirbles to one tank? Especially with the highest number of them believed to be built is just over 100. So realistically, you're looking at more smaller-caliber fast firing/ slow-firing larger caliber AA as opposed to the more optimum in both worlds such as the Wirble.

Also exploits a key feature of warfare: Air Superiority. Without control of the skies, the ground battle is going to be severely hampered by the opposition.

So maybe instead of upping that mobile ack and sticking to that armored assault only, make sure you have friendly air support to stop the bomb tards