I really like this game. It's by far the best Air sim I've ever played. That said, my favorite aspect of the game is Air-to-Ground attacks and Ground-to-Air defense. There are a handful of changes that could be made to the Ground Vehicle aspects of the game that would push it to the top, in my opinion.
In No Particular Order....
#1 ~ SCORING/DITCHING. Scoring in GV's is overly tilted towards defendes because GV's defending near their own fields can simply click "Tower" once their guns/tracks/engines/etc are gone and they have, for all intents and purpose, lost a battle. Allowing a defending GV to ditch with zero penalty/loss whatsoever is really unfair. If a GV has taken fatal damage (Gun out, Engine out, tracks off) then as soon as they click "Tower" the person who did the damage should get a victory. If the vehicle is on a runway or in its hangar, then maybe that's ok. But allowing people to do it too far from there is too much.
#2 ~ TREES CAUSING VEHICLES TO EXPLODE. It is really unfortunate that trees were added to the game in their current form. The Trees, the steel pylons on the beaches and near bases, should under NO circumstances cause ground vehicles to explode on contact. First off, a heavy armor unit could push over a tree. If it hit it going too fast, then maybe it would throw a tread or take some hull damage. If trees are a must, then at least make them fatal only if you hit them going full speed. I'm sick of losing ground vehicles because I was spawned ON TOP of a tree/pylon, or because i brush it going 1 mph. How about they just stop the vehicle? Something reasonable?
#3 ~ DAMAGE DONE SHOULD NOT BE ERASED UPON DEATH ~ When some plane comes in on you, releasing bombs, rockets and MG fire knowing it is in a Kamakaze, and you happen to explode before the plane does, that the plane gets a victory but you do not. Even though you explode, once the plane crashes, even if its 5 minutes later, you should get the kill/assist.
#4 ~ VEHICLES SHOULD NOT START ON UPHILL GRADES ~ One of the most frustrating part of ground assaults is NOT climbing hills (though too much of that really does make the game boring) it STARTING ON HILLS. You begin rolling backwards before you even have control of your vehicle. The game should place you at the top of whatever grade it places you on. Otherwise, maybe this could be solved by starting you in 1st gear instead of neutral. Even then though, there are some grades you get started on that some of the vehicles cant climb no matter what. That has to be fixed.
#5 ~ ACK RANGE SHOULD BE DISPLAYED. Due to graphics errors/bugs, sometimes it is impossible to land shells/fire on ack targets. For example, if you are 1200 yards out and trying to take out ack with a tank shell, but the ack is positioned behind some hittable objects and in front of some hittable object, it can be impossible to hit the ack. Having the distance to the ack read out for you might really help fix this problem.
#6 ~ MAPS NEED TO BE PROOFED IN DETAIL to make sure that GV assaults are consistent and logical. Too often, a GV hangar does not allow assault on one target that is CLOSER than another base which can be reached from that Hangar. Every single current map has some of these problems. Additionally, the close-quarters hilly 3-pronged map has HORRIBLE GV features. The bases are extremely close together, yet you cannot attack with GV's on the vast majority of the map.
#7 ~ GRAPHICS BUG SHOOTING VEHICLE HANGARS
If you are attacking a Vehicle Hangar from the side, you usually dont have much trouble hitting the hangar (as long as you are hitting one of its walls). However, if your shells are landing on the roof, they do not do damage, the damage the dirt beneath. That needs to be fixed. If you are attacking a hangar from the front or back, it is practically impossible to hit the hangar at all. Your shells just sail right through it. That is pretty lame.
#8 ~ VEHICLE HANGAR GRAPHICS BUGS ~ Can shoot in, can't shoot out. It is unfair for the defender GV's that enemies can shoot vehicles inside a hangar, but the vehicles inside cannot shoot out because their shells get stopped by shooting the walls.
#9 ~ VEHICLES NEED COLOR OPTIONS ~ It's odd that Panzers are desert yellow but 99% of the terrain is forest green. This is an advantage to Planes, who often have a much harder time spotting M3's, M8's, etc. It would be great if you could pick dester/forest skins. Winter skins would also kick ass, but we have no winter maps so no big deal i guess.
#10 ~ LONG DISTANCE SPOTTING OF GV's too easy. When planes are passing overhead, at altitudes that are simply way too high to so easily spot GV's, the GV will register as a couple black pixels. This is not realistic and gives way too much advantage to the air pilots. I really don't believe that pilots at 15,000 feet in the air above a tank would so easily be able to spot a tank or m3. Given that the natural terrain gives ZERO help for hiding, that you arent even able to deploy field camoflauge for ambush attacks, this Freebie for spotting GV's at long distances should be porked.
#11 ~ RANDOMIZE VEHICLE INSERTION POINTS ~ People camping vehicle spawns is flat out bad gameplay. Any hope of realism is crushed when you show up at a GV spawn point and some lame bellybutton has got a GV parked there and blows you up instantly. Likewise, the fixed spawning of GV's encourage a litany of unrealistic behavior. Planes will hover over insertion points waiting for someone to spawn. This problem needs to be addressed to allow this game to reach the highest levels of enjoyability and realism. The distance from the target base should be constant, with a factor for uphill slopes taken into account.
#12 ~ MACHINE GUN SWING TIME TOO SLOW ~ People were able to whip around turret machine guns a lot faster than you can now. The pan time for machine guns is just way too slow, especially on the panzer. Please increase the speed.
#13 ~ TURRET POSITIONS NEED TO BE SAVED/MAPPED ~ It is incredibly frustrating that the position of the Turrets, both main gun and machine gun does not stay where it was when you switch between guns. The position of the turret should be relative to the straight-ahead position, and should be saved or at least mappable each time you switch guns/driving-perspective. So if you are in a panzer, you need to switch between driving/main-gunning/machine-gunning you are basically screwed. The enemy wins not because they have set up and executed a better attack, but because you are slowed down from defending and counter-attacking due to unhandy vehicle controls.
#14 ~ VEHICLE RESUPPLY IS A MASSIVE EXPLOIT ~ People are spawning a M3 to resupply their vehicles, then they will sit on the supplies losing gun after gun after engine after tread and just immediately get click resurrection. Its a joke. Vehicle re-supply should replace AMMUNITION and MAYBE TRACKS, but never an entire engine change-out. Otherwise, why doesnt stopping on the reload pads on airstrips do the entire damage fix to your plane as well? Resupply should also decommission your vehicle for 30 seconds just like a plane on the reload pad is out for 30 seconds. This needs to be fixed.
#15 VEHICLE TIME TO TARGET SHOULD BE EQUALIZED. It's really illogical that some attack points are 1 minute away from the target due to placement or a big downhill slope, whereas others are 20 minutes away for the same but opposite reasons. I don't think its calculated, its probably just a map position thats saved because thats the easy thing to do. But that really needs to be fixed. Either the vehicle insertion points need to be randomized, using a formula of distance from target (accounting for uphill grades) or they need to be picked out more diligently. If the calculation formula is just too much, why not save 4 or 5 random insertion points and have all vehicles that depart within 5 minute periods assigned to one of those spots?
#16 OSTY NEEDS SOME FINE-TUNING. In my opinion, the Osty one-shot one-kill against planes is pretty intense. The only reason I think its balanced in its present state is because its so damn easy to take out the top gun on the osty, and because its so damn difficult to hit anyone who isn't coming directly at you. So, I guess im saying dont change ANYTHING unless you compensate the other direction because in its present state, it's pretty balanced. On the other hand, I have video of my Panzer hitting an Osty with at least TEN AP shells, in the rear, from 200-300 yards, and the osty just wouldnt die. The randomized damage done by shells should be vastly increased at close range, because there is just no way in hell, not ever, that an OSTY could have taken 10-15 panzer AP shells at 200 yards.
#17 SCORING NEEDS TO BE DONE AS SOON AS FATAL DAMAGE IS DONE. When a vehicle loses its gun AND engine, its all over. I mean, you cant ram things liek you could in real life, so that's it. The vehicle is just toast. I have received numerous auger/proximity kills simply because I sat around and waited for them. When all the guns are down, and the engine or tracks are gone, the kills should be awarded. The vehicle can sit there, maybe the want to sit and spy or something, but the victory should be awarded. Same goes with planes. Once a plane has lost its gun and engine, or it totally unflyable, the victory should be awarded. You shouldnt lose out on a legit kill just because the other guy takes longer to crash, or some guy kills you before the first guy crashes.
#18 ACK SHOULD NEVER SPAWN UNDER YOU ~ If you have a field suppressed, your vehicle is sitting RIGHT there, it makes no sense for ACK to come up right on you. Very often you cant even defend yourself. IF you have a field dominated, it makes no sense that the enemy could rebuild ack right under your nose. Maybe if it popped up and you had 1 minute before it started shooting or whatever.
I'll edit to add more later.
