BMP-2 BOOMS!!!

[TSe419E]

I have noticed with 4.023 that BMP-2s and BRDMs are blowing up like early T-72s.  Was this intentional?

[Ssnake]

No.

[Volcano]

The long answer:

 

It was a new feature to allow non-turret popping vehicles to be able to explode "like a T-72" (but without the flying turret) when hit in certain areas (like fuel tanks on trucks, or ammo container MAN 10t supply truck), but it seems that some unintended side effects have come with it. The unintended side effect is that all vehicles will now "cook off", either roman candle or explosion type while burning, which is NOT intentional. (I misunderstood the question when asked last Friday during a game).

 

Anyway, we are looking into the issue...

[Nike-Ajax]

Boom is good. I for one appreciate a good explosion.

[Gibsonm]

56 minutes ago, Nike-Ajax said:

Boom is good. I for one appreciate a good explosion.

 

Sure, but the explosion needs to be commensurate with the vehicle. Often they don't blow up catastrophically and looking for the thin column of smoke that doesn't show up in TI or the depressed barrel is useful instead of the "pillar of fire" visible from several km.

[Bond_Villian]

Too much burning shit is bad for framerates too

[Rotareneg]

I think it's accurate, I've read that BRDM-2 crews often carry a large supply of fireworks, just in case.

[Nike-Ajax]

5 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

 

Sure, but the explosion needs to be commensurate with the vehicle. Often they don't blow up catastrophically and looking for the thin column of smoke that doesn't show up in TI or the depressed barrel is useful instead of the "pillar of fire" visible from several km.

I agree Mark. But do we have data on what the average hits does to vehicles - because sometimes I wonder if the thin column might be understating it a bit?

 

5 hours ago, Bond_Villian said:

Too much burning shit is bad for framerates too

OK - good argument there. I personally have never ever had any problems with that not even in the big games or singleplayer. But with the new terrain patch that is coming out, then I am unsure if that might change?

 

1 hour ago, Rotareneg said:

I think it's accurate, I've read that BRDM-2 crews often carry a large supply of fireworks, just in case.

The BRDM is a deathtrap, no matter how you cut it.  

 

 

But in another direction, then perhaps a pious and humble wish is that we could get more damage features. Nitot critical in any sense but just good for immersion and realism.

Edited January 12, 2018 by Nike-Ajax

[Gibsonm]

43 minutes ago, Nike-Ajax said:

I agree Mark. But do we have data on what the average hits does to vehicles - because sometimes I wonder if the thin column might be understating it a bit?

 

Welll pretty sure 500 rounds of 14.5mm and 2000 of 7.62mm doesn't create the same fire as 44 rounds of 125mm, 300 rounds of 12.7mm, 1700 rounds of 7.62mm, smoke grenades plus about three times as much fuel.

[Nike-Ajax]

True that.

 

I however have seen different vehicles go up in flames from accidents etc. And even though they havent been hit with say a HEAT round, there is a lot of smoke and whatnot.

 

And that is without ammo.

[Ssnake]

Well, the basic message of Steel Beasts is that there can be variations in how obviously a vehicle is killed. Looking exclusively for a raging fire is not the training goal that we're after.

[Nike-Ajax]

On ‎13‎-‎01‎-‎2018 at 9:37 AM, Ssnake said:

Well, the basic message of Steel Beasts is that there can be variations in how obviously a vehicle is killed. Looking exclusively for a raging fire is not the training goal that we're after.

That is fine, and I agree with that. What is less fine is that its hard to tell if a vehicle has been engaged and destroyed, there are innumerable examples where enemy vehicles have been engaged again and again because people in the session cant see anything wrong with the enemy vehicle. And have looked in Thermal as well as daylight sight.

 

I am not looking for a huge explosion or some fancy 3D bloom effect or anything radical really: I am simply looking for something consistent with a vehicle that has been hit with a Sabot/Heat/HE rounds.

I could have wasted a lot of space here with videos from engaged and destroyed vehicles. 

 

But I would calmly claim that its easy to see in real life...

And dare anyone to just look at the totally unscientific art of Youtube watching. 

 

Or better yet prove me wrong by pointing to actual factual sources.

 

On ‎12‎-‎01‎-‎2018 at 2:05 PM, Bond_Villian said:

Too much burning shit is bad for framerates too

 

Well ... sorry to hear that.

 

And I fully respect your position. But my Graphics card, RAM and processor are all old ... and I have had zero problems .... and that goes fro Multiplayer sessions as well 

[Gibsonm]

15 minutes ago, Nike-Ajax said:

That is fine, and I agree with that. What is less fine is that its hard to tell if a vehicle has been engaged and destroyed, there are innumerable examples where enemy vehicles have been engaged again and again because people in the session cant see anything wrong with the enemy vehicle. And have looked in Thermal as well as daylight sight.

 

That correlates with a lot of real life experiences too.

 

Sometimes you can see indicators such as "barrel droop" (the hydraulics fail, the barrel is no longer supported and it depresses due to gravity), or it no longer moves - or I guess most obviously its no longer shooting at you.

 

Using Thermals wont necessarily help, after all a hot spot from an engine is still going to remain hot if its only just stopped running (assuming the hit caused it to stop). It will take quite a while for the engine to cool to the point where the hot spot goes away (vehicle dependent).

 

Whilst not necessarily a help in a multi crewed vehicle (with a human Crew Commander) a AI Commander will tell a human Gunner to cease fire once its killed - assuming the Gunner is listening of course.

 

Another issue though maybe the engagement ranges - one of the reasons why you wait until say 2,500 - 3,000m is so you can see the effects of your shooting. If you are shooting at extreme ranges then determining the effectiveness becomes more difficult.

 

There is a reason though why you normally shoot until its burning - one is the obvious indicator that its dead. The other is the intense heat generated tends to ruin the vehicle (components, armour integrity, etc.) and therefore even if recovered it wont be easily repairable. As opposed to an APFSDS round, which could be as simple as, plug the hole, wash it out, re-crew and send back into the fight.

 

The other solution / work around is to activate the "remove killed" option when creating / editing the scenario. Dead vehicles then disappear within a few seconds of being destroyed.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Gibsonm
Removed superflous word.

[Nike-Ajax]

4 minutes ago, Gibsonm said:

 

That correlates with a lot of real life experiences too.

 

Sometimes you can see indicators such as "barrel droop" (the hydraulics fail, the barrel is no longer supported and it depresses due to gravity), or it no longer moves - or I guess most obviously its no longer shooting at you.

 

Using Thermals wont necessarily help, after all a hot spot from an engine is still going to remain hot if its only just stopped running (assuming the hit caused it to stop). It will take quite a while for the engine to cool to the point where the hot spot goes away (vehicle dependent).

 

Whilst not necessarily a help in a multi crewed vehicle (with a human Crew Commander) a AI Commander will tell a human Gunner to cease fire once its killed - assuming the Gunner is listening of course.

 

There is a reason though why you normally shoot until its burning - one is the obvious indicator that its dead. The other is the intense heat generated tends to ruin the vehicle (components, armour integrity, etc.) and therefore even if recovered it wont be easily repairable. As opposed to an APFSDS round, which could be as simple as, plug the hole, wash it out, re-crew and send back into the fight.

 

The other solution / work around is to activate the "remove killed" option when creating / editing the scenario. Dead vehicles then disappear within a few seconds of being destroyed.

 

 

Very good points and I agree with most.

 

In action then it is my experience that I often dont have a full picture of the ENY vehicle, so hard to see a drooping gun. Moreover then I would tend to go for a total kill rather than what potentially amounts to a mobility kill. 

 

I would argue though that the enemy vehicle looking pristine if it has been hit with a 120/125 mm SABOT, is not the norm. 

 

Another challenge can be if you are engaging in a target rich environment where there are multiple destroyed vehicles mixed with ones that are alive. So a visual indicator in line with what will happen in real life would be nice. The AI commander telling you by that a target is dead (Cease fire) is good, but usually I get that message after I have engaged an already dead vehicle.

 

For a number of reasons, including immersion and realism, then I am personally not a fan of removing dead vehicles.

[Gibsonm]

9 minutes ago, Nike-Ajax said:

So a visual indicator in line with what will happen in real life would be nice.

Well that is pretty much what you are getting.

 

It is meant to be "challenging" and you are meant to wait for your Crew Commander's fire order before firing again - its his / her job to control the fire from the vehicle after all.

[Nike-Ajax]

Yes ... however unless you have an allseeing and allknowing AI Commander, then that is a challenge is all I am saying. An I will leave it at that.

[Lt DeFault]

1 hour ago, Nike-Ajax said:

The AI commander telling you by that a target is dead (Cease fire) is good, but usually I get that message after I have engaged an already dead vehicle.

 

Have you tried hitting the "T" key? IIRC, that simulates the gunner (you) telling the commander that a potential target is in the sights. If the [AI] commander then assesses that the vehicle is already disabled enough to not cause a threat, he will say "Cease fire."

 

Then again, that might depend on the realism setting or it may not be that way at all anymore. It's been a while since I've actually played.

[Nike-Ajax]

17 minutes ago, Lt DeFault said:

 

Have you tried hitting the "T" key? IIRC, that simulates the gunner (you) telling the commander that a potential target is in the sights. If the [AI] commander then assesses that the vehicle is already disabled enough to not cause a threat, he will say "Cease fire."

 

Then again, that might depend on the realism setting or it may not be that way at all anymore. It's been a while since I've actually played.

 

Good point - I will try that. However that still requires an AI Commander. But I willl do the best with what I have.

[Ssnake]

Well, if you have a human commander - problem solved; you'll make the same errors as humans would do in such a situation.

If you are all alone in the turret - you'd have to make that decision all by yourself, anyway.

 

The argument that a still live target that has received hits should have its hair mussed up goes both ways, there would be dead targets with cosmetic damage and live targets with cosmetic damage. Therefore, visualizing cosmetical damages improves immersion but still doesn't give you more clues than you currently have.

 

The visualization in Steel Beasts is far from perfect, I grant you that. The question is, given the limitations we have to work with, is the current system delivering the kind of training result that we're after, and from Mark's comments I gather that it does. Yolu're shooting dead targets with little sign of damage again because either the engagement ranges are very large - which is cool, but that's your tactical choice, and more errors in battle damage assessment simply is the trade-off to being able to kill the enemy early on. Or it is because you don't want to risk being shot by a vehicle that appears dead without actually being dead. Again, that's a reasonable choice but the obvious tradeoff is a higher ammo expenditure, a consequence of your habit to shoot targets rapidly until they show obvious signs of destruction rather than taking chances by taking the time for careful observation.

[Bond_Villian]

 

On 1/13/2018 at 2:16 AM, Nike-Ajax said:

On 1/12/2018 at 9:05 PM, Bond_Villian said:

Too much burning shit is bad for framerates too

OK - good argument there. I personally have never ever had any problems with that not even in the big games or singleplayer. But with the new terrain patch that is coming out, then I am unsure if that might change?

 

5 hours ago, Nike-Ajax said:

On 1/12/2018 at 9:05 PM, Bond_Villian said:

Too much burning shit is bad for framerates too

 

Well ... sorry to hear that.

 

And I fully respect your position. But my Graphics card, RAM and processor are all old ... and I have had zero problems .... and that goes fro Multiplayer sessions as well 

Meh

[TSe419E]

9 hours ago, Nike-Ajax said:

I am not looking for a huge explosion or some fancy 3D bloom effect or anything radical really: I am simply looking for something consistent with a vehicle that has been hit with a Sabot/Heat/HE rounds.

 

 

When you’re engaging a target you could look for the small light gray puff of smoke the rises up when a vehicle is killed.  This is a sure indicator but it doesn’t help when you come across a vehicle that is already destroyed.  For that you will need to ask your TC or evaluate it yourself.  Vehicle exhaust is a good indicator it’s still alive as is any kind of movement.

[Gibsonm]

I think (not trying to put words into Nike's mouth) that these maybe long range engagements (say 3,000m+ and not in a SEP) with a human Crew Commander.

 

Indicators like the small whisp of smoke, barrel drop, exhaust, etc. are harder to detect at those ranges.

 

So unfortunately the AI Crew Commander isn't there to tell them to "Cease Fire" and the human Crew Commander isn't really in a better position to make a determination than the human Gunner (due to optics, experience, etc.).

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Gibsonm

[Nike-Ajax]

23 minutes ago, Gibsonm said:

I think (not trying to put words into Nike's mouth) that these maybe long range engagements (say 3,000m+ and not in a SEP) with a human Crew Commander.

 

Indicators like the small whisp of smoke, barrel drop, exhaust, etc. are harder to detect at those ranges.

 

So unfortunately the AI Crew Commander isn't there to tell them to "Cease Fire" and the human Crew Commander isn't really in a better position to make a determination than the human Gunner (due to optics, experience, etc.).

 

 

What Mark said basically

 

Also the snap engagements when you are fighting in woods or in a target rich environment when there are live ones intermingled with knocked out ones. Or the ones where you crest a hill and have to make a snap decision to fire/not fire.

 

As  I wrote, then I am not asking for anything fancy, but I know for a fact that I am not the only one to reengage knocked out ENY vehicles. But there have been made many good suggestions that I can try, and also good points about the challenges regarding changes. But basically the challenge is biggest in multiplayer games with a human commander.

 

It would be nice somewhere down the line and given the time and financial constraints of Esim to maybe make a few additions to the damage model.