Tank commanders, are these spawn points good?

[Brooke]

There will be a tank battle (near Kursk on the blksea map) in the June Scenario.

You GV experts out there, is this a good spawn-point layout?

The spawns are about 2 miles from each other at closest approach, and there are lots of trees in the terrain (so isn't possible to spawn and immediately have the other spawn under fire).

The layout:



What the terrain looks like:

[Brooke]

This is the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps (part of Hoth's 4. Panzerarmee at Kursk) vs. the 4th Guards Tank Corps ("Kantemirovskaya" -- an elite Soviet tank division).

[bangsbox]

1.5 or even a mile separation would be fine in that kind of terrain. 

[captain1ma]

looks good unless they camp both spawns. close is always good, too close and it  gets ugly. 2 miles is great! might want to get someone to test it between now and then? I can always load it up in the AVA and we can test it out for you. what terrain is it? ill try it this Thursday night.

[Brooke]

looks good unless they camp both spawns. close is always good, too close and it  gets ugly. 2 miles is great! might want to get someone to test it between now and then? I can always load it up in the AVA and we can test it out for you. what terrain is it? ill try it this Thursday night.

Many thanks!

There is a bug in the spawns that needs to be fixed first, though -- only one of the two spawns for each base is working at the moment.

Also, this is AH3 beta terrain (not current AH2).

It is the blksea terrain.

[captain1ma]

Brooke, I will test it out this Thursday night in the AH3 AVA at 8pm EST. I will test those actual bases and get the guys to come back and give feedback in here.  feel free to join us if you like. we had 12 guys in there last week, It was a hoot!

[Chilli]

Jaeger has promised to stand still wearing only camouflage yoga pants, at each spawn point for anyone to take steady aim..... 

See you there!

[Brooke]

Many thanks.

All four spawn points are now available -- GD fixed them up.

 

[captain1ma]

Jaeger has promised to stand still wearing only camouflage yoga pants, at each spawn point for anyone to take steady aim..... 

See you there!

HEY!!!!!!   

[DarkHawk]

was testing spawn points landed  in a group of trees, was unable to move in any direction, just be warned.
only happened once was unable recreate

[rpm]

This map sucked. WAY too many trees. The trees are made of steel with limbs that grab tanks. Leaves that stop AP rounds, ect. It needs about 1/3 of the trees and the hardness of the trees needs to be turned way down.

We had 3 tanks within 30yds of each other can could not get a round through. Leaves were stopping AP rounds. You could hardly drive from spawn to the fight because the tree limbs would grab the tanks and you could not get out.

It was absolutely horrible.

I liked the tank map we have been running in AvA MUCH better. It just needs to be spread out a little more.

[715]

Way too many trees.  The dense forests make it very difficult for tanks to find other tanks, even when they are less than a couple hundred yards away.  Sometimes tanks that are virtually on top of each other can't find each other.  And when you do find the target you can't get a shot because in AH3 it appears you can't fire between branches, or at least the collision zone for trees vs shells is larger.  In addition, the sound localization in AH3 is much more vague (or in many cases just flat out wrong*) that you are looking for enemy tanks in the wrong direction.

A check of Google satellite view of the area around Kursk shows it does not have nearly so many trees.  It is mostly open farmland with trees limited to drainage areas between fields.  Better texture tile choices would have been 16, 18, or 19 or perhaps 7 or 8 (counting from 0 on the lower left).

(*an enemy tank approached me from my 3 o'clock yet the sound of his engine was clearly at my 12 o'clock.)

[Brooke]

Guys, thank you VERY MUCH for the test and for your feedback.  It is enormously useful for the next scenario.

Based on your feedback, I am selecting new spawn points for the tank battle as follows.

These points are farther apart.  It takes 7-8 minutes to drive a T-34 from one spawn point half way to the nearest enemy spawn point (i.e., an estimated 8 minutes to drive to the battle, or 4 miles from spawn to the estimated battle location since the nearest spawn points are 8 miles apart).  But I think that is much better than the frustration you describe above.

Here are the new spawn points:


Here is what the area looks like:

[rpm]

That terrain looks much better than what we had tonight.

[Brooke]

Along the way from one spawn toward the enemy one, there is a field of beautiful red flowers or perhaps tomatoes.

I wonder if the battle should give extra points to whichever side holds this field at the end?