Restrict rear armor so that you can't place as many plates on it as the other parts. This is only a lower cap on the max number of plates. This could help reward players who carefully aim at the tanks since the rear should have less armor. However, if no one has armor detection a clever player can still stack extra plates on the rear and no one would be the wiser.
i always give my tank 1 extra plate on back if possible, because mostly tanks dont see you coming when you are rushing in, but they do when you are fleeing again for repairs
I usually aim for the sides, then unleash all the barrage there. Can we nerf that side so I with my careful aiming can kill them faster?
Fun strat: Max out your rear armor and drive in battle backwards. Then when you've taken your lumps, you can retreat by driving forwards, which is much faster.
The rear is more commonly hit by turrets than the front. When you're driving past the turret at a fair distance, the missile arcs so as to hit the rear armor. If you want to find the weakspot on a tank use Armor Detection, but as a rule most people buff the sides more than front/back by at least 1 plate. Other than that, choose one side to shoot and stick with it.
In a siege situation (i.e people stop their tanks to attack a base or something static), they usually expose one of their side and move it as needed to hit different targets making it easy to do a retreat/aggressive maneuver against an incoming tank. Or they attack with the go-round maneuver still exposing side of the tank to the enemy. But i put more plate on the front/back for when i need to retreat. Back to Topic : Why would restricting rear armor be more rewarding? If you stick to the same side of a tank, you ll get it soon. Making a side weaker just means a faster death from this side though it should not be.
The sides take more hits, simply because they're bigger. Also, generally, whether you're being attacked from the front or the back, most hits have a decent chance of veering into your sides unless you're directly facing the enemy (and you rarely are.) However, I do like the idea of forcing tanks to have a "weak" side. It encourages strategy, because it means that you need someone to cover you there, and it makes tanks more vulnerable to ambushes or flanking (both of which should be encouraged as strategies.) Therefore I support this suggestion.
it used to be tanks could hold 1/2 value on their rear as the rest of the sides. this was removed because it led to tank battles being too predictable.
It already exists that tanks lack armor in specific places. My super lights consist of ML, Cannon, Std MG, one plate on front and back, two on the sides. The reason for this is that I don't ram. Ramming fucking stinks vagina. I'm more of a run and gun guerrilla warfare kind of driver. Plus, it adds a level of extreme for me, and I like that feeling of danger in my tank. Sides get hit the most often, and if you're good and you know how to drift at all, you can direct where a turret will hit you, and it's generally easier to force it into your side unless you're driving straight into it. Armor is fine, though APC's need their weight adjusted again I think, because they suck right now. They can only have one gun and armor, two a GL and MG and like one plate each side. *By armor is fine, I don't mean it's current health and dmg reduction values are fine. I mean the way in which you're allowed to stack it is fine.*
The problem is that even if you have your own little strategy for where you put your armor, nobody is going to know about it (and almost nobody who is not suicidal imbalances their armor by more than one plate in any case, which is of little meaning on a med or heavy.) This leads to a lack of any real way to ambush a tank's weak spot, or any real way to flank a tank while working as a group with your team, and eliminates any real need for tanks to rely on other tanks to cover their vulnerabilities. All of that makes the game more dull. A tank should have serious vulnerabilities; and for a vulnerability to be a real vulnerability (one you have to worry about), it should be "obvious", something everyone knows about that is common to all tanks. This will force drivers to rely on their team to cover them, and encourage people fighting against tanks to use interesting strategies rather than just "mindlessly charge" or "mindlessly run-and-gun". Hence, weak rear armor.
i can dance the "ketchup dance" as engineer when next to a light tank or afv without him riding me over thats a weak spot anyway, the top should really be a weak spot, it was in real tanks too as far as i know
WTF, yet again annother atempt to completely destroy the whole point of "customisation" of the game *facepalm
One less max plat is obviously destroying your whole customization options.... As already pointed out, this unfortunately increases predictability since it limits a particular position in terms of armor. I would hope that since it's only a cap on maximum number of plates that this doesn't disrupt customization and still allows for flexibility. However, its purpose is to introduce a potential known weakpoint for people to try and aim for instead of just pick a side, shoot it alot, and pray it goes down/the enemy left it weak.
The purpose of armor detection is to be able to understand these things. I believe this undermines about half the purpose of the skill. I like being able to put all my armor on rear, move backwards towards my opponents, then run away at full speed when it gets low. Interesting tactics like this cannot exist with limitations.
Armor detection is also good when you have damaged one of the sides of a scary enemy tank inside your base, or the enemy comm, and want to inform your teammates on what side to shoot, to kill it faster. You know: GIANT ENEMY TANK, ATTACK IT'S WEAK POINT FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE!
Actully naturaly my back armour is ususly the weekest, but yet again. It depends on the situation. If i know its going to be an open space where enemy will be behind i try to balance out the armour but to me front always gets prioraty armour