Buttoned up

[El Savior]

Is there any way to keep tank buttoned all the time. It is very annoying to button up tank and my crack crew will open hatch in middle of next turn. If I know there's enemy sniper nearby I want keep my commander alive. Or is the only way to weld that hatch... :confused:

[Big Ron]

If your tank commander feels safe then he'll pop open his hatch. Nothing you can do about it as far as I can tell. Lost a couple of them myself when I've buttoned because I've seen a spotting round land and he's opened the hatch just as the main bombardment arrived!

[El Savior]

Those stupid commanders... :mad:

[Hawtin]

Ahh. Your crack tank commanders feeling too comfortable near my snipers, yes? Nothing's more fun than your Panthers without their commanders... Looking forward to our next battle. Cheers.

[Mud]

The reason they're unbuttoning is that they just can't see worth a damn from inside, especially if the AFV doesn't have a cupola. They figure that maintaining situational awareness is worth the risk, so you're not supposed to be able to keep them buttoned up permanently IIRC.

I suppose you might be able to influence their behavior through area fire nearby, but, er, that'd be wasteful, and depending on what you use, very possibly risky.

[El Savior]

Originally posted by Hawtin:
Ahh. Your crack tank commanders feeling too comfortable near my snipers, yes? Nothing's more fun than your Panthers without their commanders... Looking forward to our next battle. Cheers. Next time I will be better prepared for your über-snipers. Maybe 350 mm shell will do the job... ;)

Hoping for rematch soon. CU.

El Savior

[ February 18, 2003, 12:00 PM: Message edited by: El Savior ]

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Mud:
The reason they're unbuttoning is that they just can't see worth a damn from inside, especially if the AFV doesn't have a cupola. They figure that maintaining situational awareness is worth the risk, so you're not supposed to be able to keep them buttoned up permanently IIRC.

Yeah, that's probably why they open in the middle of mortar barrages for me, or when tanks 10 meter away are he by HE or HE-filled AP.

The code which makes these decisions is underdeveloped to a point where it should be turned off, or some kind of player control should be given.

[jjhays]

When you are buttoned up you are virtually blind. Trust me I have been there. You run into all kinds of things. Your gun tube smacks trees, bushes, and other vehicles ( I hate to admit it). Besides the gunner scanning you virtually have no means of enemy detection except through your tiny vision blocks which get covered in mud or fog up when it is cold or damp out.

[El Savior]

Originally posted by jjhays:
When you are buttoned up you are virtually blind. Trust me I have been there.I agree. But still, I would like to keep my commander alive. When you loose your commander it will cosiderably affect your tank performance. Good 'gamey tactic' is to sneak sniper near a buttoned tank and wait. After couple of quiet turn, commander will pop-up and... *explode*. :eek: Next bring your tank killers and shocked target is history. This works great in multiplayer against human player. This is lame, if you have earlier buttoned up you tank coz' you saw something...

One questions thought. How much actually loosing commander will affect? Spotting decreased, what else? Anyone?

[Redwolf]

I know the tradeoffs of buttoned up and opened. That is exactly why I want to make my own decision and my tank stick to it. The automatic opening of tanks in CMBB seems to have been introduced to support newbies who forget to or do not know about opening tanks when they need to see something.

Just in recent games the code in CMBB opend my tanks in the middle of artillery barrages (not at the beginning of the barrage), when nearby tanks where hit with HE or AP with large HE charge or when machineguns were blazing away all over the place. This is not realistic. We are not only talking about opening up in silence and being nailed by a sharpshooter, which would be realistic.

The decision code is so oversimplified that it should be disabled or as a compromise the tank should only open right at the end of a turn, after all artillery has fallen. That would allow the experienced player to control it without unwanted opening and would still keep newbies from forgetting to open their tanks.

[ February 25, 2003, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[JasonC]

Redwolf is right, it is not realistic. A better solution would be to have any "button" order from the player automatically obeyed for the full following minute. Then if you definitely know they should stay buttoned, you can open and close, and they would unfailingly stay buttoned. If you don't, you've decided to leave it to them and they may open up themselves after a quiet minute.

I've seen TCs open during duels when I knew the thing shooting at them could not penetrate their front armor - e.g. a 20mm flak - and then lose the commander to a ricochet. I've seen them open up during artillery barrages. Under MG fire. Within 100m of enemy infantry positions. These are not times they would realistically open to get better sighting. It would be too much to ask, for the tac AI to always know which was which. But deliberately preventing the player from exercising that judgement does not serve any purpose of realism. It is just annoying as heck, without furthering anything.

[Hat Trick]

From El Savior
Good 'gamey tactic' is to sneak sniper near a buttoned tank and wait. After couple of quiet turn, commander will pop-up and... *explode*. Next bring your tank killers and shocked target is history. Not sure this is gamey. I'm no grog, but weren't tank commanders key targets for snipers in WWII?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Hat Trick:
From El Savior
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Good 'gamey tactic' is to sneak sniper near a buttoned tank and wait. After couple of quiet turn, commander will pop-up and... *explode*. Next bring your tank killers and shocked target is history. Not sure this is gamey. I'm no grog, but weren't tank commanders key targets for snipers in WWII? </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, but they didn't open up in the middle of artillery barrages.

And even in this situation, the gamey part is that you know that it will for sure open up within the next minutes. In real life a sharpshooter would not know that.

[El Savior]

Not sure this is gamey. I'm no grog, but weren't tank commanders key targets for snipers in WWII?I was talking about waiting tank to open hatch and exploit this feature. In CMBB you know the tank will open that hatch soon. In real life, this is not going to happend every time. I think snipers are now little too effective. In multiplayer I could loose 50-70% my commanders because of this feature. I'm totally prepared to loose *some* commanders to enemy sniper fire, but not so many (and only coz' game will auto-open buttoned up tanks). And more about gamey part. Because of this feature, sniper is too common in battles - really bargain for 20-30 points. I'm not 100% if there was so many snipers historically. :D

Annoying yes. Hopefully in future patch we can get more freedom in this matter. I like the idea of opening hatch automatically in the end of turn.

[ February 25, 2003, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: El Savior ]

[jjhays]

If you do lose your TC it will degrade your ability to maneuver the vehicle against the enemy. The loader or radio operator (if equiped) will have to tell the driver where to go. A driver in a tank has very limited vision and almost no peripheral and must rely on the commands of the TC to be succesfull. Take the TC away and loading is degraded or commo is.

[Hat Trick]

From Redwolf:
even in this situation, the gamey part is that you know that it will for sure open up within the next minutes. In real life a sharpshooter would not know that. From El Savior:
I was talking about waiting tank to open hatch and exploit this feature. In CMBB you know the tank will open that hatch soon. In real life, this is not going to happend every time. I think snipers are now little too effective. Well, not having been a tank commander (and certainly not one in WWII), I can't be certain, but a few minutes seems like a long time to remain buttoned up if you haven't been recieving fire, given how limited a tank commander's situational awareness is when buttoned up. As a tank commander, I might be more worried about spotting other tanks or anti-tank guns than I would be about snipers.

Of course, this still doesn't explain why tanks unbutton in the middle of an artilery barrage.