Armor Detection Detecting Armor

I still don't like this idea.

It reveals too much about your armor and in my opinion then the gameplay goes too easy. Everything is predone for you and you just need to run to the field and click your mouse and repeat it after you die.

I like Empires because it is challenging. It isn't as simple as going out on a field in a tank and blowing up other tanks and when you get killed you get another one and start shooting again.

When your weapons and armors aren't revealed to your enemy you need to USE your BRAIN to figure out what the other team might be using. For example regenerative, absorbant, bio diesel and coolant engines are quite easy to figure out.

For example: You have bio diesel and your enemy keeps shooting at you a lot longer. = They use advanced coolant because it isn't worth to get gas turbine when you can get coolant engine on cheaper cost.

You are engineer and you notice that enemy tank's armor repairs itself. = They have regenerative.

You shoot missiles to enemy tank and it blows up very soon. = They use absorbant.

Enemy vehicles just won't stop when they have shot at you very long time. = They use Bio Diesel.

Also 3 phase is quite simple to recognize: Enemy is driving faster than you and all enemy vehicles do big drifts. = They use 3 Phase engine.

In other words I don't like it that everything is revealed to enemy team at once. I want to figure it out on my own without any stupid "SHOWMEEVERYTHINGRIGHTNOWTHXLOL" -skills. God damn...

Code an AI to play instead of you and follow how it moves on your screen and come here to say it is fun.

Bottom line is:

I still don't like it. I want to figure SOMETHING on my own too without any "reveal everything on the enemy team" -skills.

 

Most of what you said is how to reveal what engine they have. The ONLY way to reveal what armor they have (besides regen) is to get a calculator out and memorize how many shots it takes to kill an enemy tank with composite from a railgunwith XX number of plates, and then you still may be wrong because they might have put only a few plates or a lot of plates on.

There is absolutely NO way to tell what armor they are using (except regen). This is why I suggested this. Plus, the enemy can change armors and you will not be able to figure this out unless you actually aim to figure it out, you would have to keep aiming at a manned enemy tank for quite a while for its armor type to be revealed to you, and this is EXTREMELY hard to do in combat.

Unless you can convince the dev's to go the really long and hard way to give the armors telltale signs, this is a solution to figuring out what armor the enemy has. Plus, you essentially just told us a quick and easy way to figure out what engine/weapon the enemy may be using, which is essentially what you say you're trying to avoid? Using this skill wouldn't be an easy-peasy way to figure out what armor the enemy is using. You would have to go out on foot and literally track a manned enemy tank for 10-15 seconds (which is a really long time in game terms, it takes around that long to destroy an enemy tank in battle), and if it goes behind a tree or any sort of cover, your lock is broken and you have to do it again. PLUS, you can be discovered and shot while doing this, not to mention you aren't doing anything physically productive to your team, but are gathering information instead.

 

This suggestion works both ways. Teams will be aware of what the other team is using, by that increase their experience and give them the ability to counter the opposing team. Compared to not having this skill, it is actually going out on a field in a tank and blowing up the others, as there is no clear way of you or your commander to know what they have and adept to it, thus most tank battles are fought by the idea that your own tank is good disregardless of what the enemy has. (while from experience of play all you can do is guess that most people have absorbant, which in most cases will only work against you)

The challenge aspect goes both ways, being able to have a strategy for tanks that will give you the advantage, while knowing that the enemy has the ability to find out exactly what you have been using. And being able to counter their tanks with your experience of the game.

There are no clear cut counters in the first place to decrease the challenge (can't call it much of a challenge if most of the time its impossible to find out). There are some clear cut counters to armor, but most of the weapons and armor fall into a more general category rather than -fight armor a with weapon b-.

Not saying the last isn't in there, its just that theres more to it than that and that your own tanks need to be in good shape aswell, its not as if you could get a plane armor and standard engine tank with railgun on it just because the enemy has composite. While you could get absorbant just to counter their railgun, with that bio weaponry to counter their regenerative, but thats pretty much as far as it goes, the rest comes down to skill. While you wouldnt be able to win a tank battle against absorbant tanks with a railgun, you would be able to win it if you managed to overheat the enemy, or having an engine that allows you do dodge his shells, or whatever.

Challenge only increases when the game is transparant, I can give you examples of other games (not just computer games) and why their rules are set up the way they are.

 

At what point the time came in? I didn't read about it until you said it and because now you know how to identify engines and armors why you want to have a skill for it too?

Also there's only 3 possible armors which enemy may use in the beginning of the game. Composite costs way too much to be used on early game so does the reactive armor and plus that's very heavy armor so you are down to three armors which enemy may use.

Regenerative armor can be indentified by the engineer's calculator, absorbant can be identified by missiles, reflective can be indentified by the time difference between straight and angled hits.

There you have it. Now you don't need any upgrade skills for to identify any armors.

How you then identify composite and reactive? Composite is most easiest one.

If it takes hell of a lot time to destroy enemy tank hmmmm.... maybe they are using composite.

I haven't seen the reactive so much in the game but I think if your keep shooting missiles at enemy vehicle which has reactive armor but you don't know it, missiles won't do much damage to it even you have shot them on it like one year. At least I remember it that way thay reactive is very good against missiles.

There you have all the methods how to identify what armor enemy is using. You don't need any skills for that anymore.

 

Weedy, I dare you to go out in an average game of Empires and gues what armor the enemy is using, then actually find out what they are using. I guarantee you 9 times out of 10 you either get it wrong, or take a blind guess and get lucky.

In addition, several armors cross between eachother in some categories. Regenerative and reactive are both good counters against missiles. Absorbant and reflective are good againt cannons. Composite could be mixed up with any of these as it takes awhile to destroy a tank with comp, so you could be using cannons and deduce they're using absorbant since its taking so long to kill that tank, but they are really using composite. As for regen, is an enemy tank really going to let you walk up to it as an engi to let you have the chance to tell whether or not it's armor is regenerating? I doubt it.

Short: That is a far from foolproof way to figure out what armor the enemy is using, actually, its like trying to guess a 13 letter hangman game when you only have the first three letters revealed. But one other thing: What about emp_recruits? Wouldn't they have a hard time figuring out why their railgun isn't doing shit to the enemy tank when they don't fully know the armor/weapon system yet?

If you can provide proof this is a good way to figure out enemy armor types 80% of the time, i'll acknowledge that this suggestion isn't needed.

My first post.

 

Oh well. I still don't like at this idea. It makes the game too "transparent" and "flat."

 

Being able to counter tanks is not "flat", transparency is not flat either, its gives way for more nuance in gameplay and strategy.
Games that reveal all their inner mechanics to you in the first second, I agree that would considered "flat." whether more transparency in strategy is flat is more of an opinion than a fact. The option should be there atleast, its arguable how much effort the opposing team should take to gather the information.

 

As you stated and if this gets in, I would like to have the time delay there even it is quite easy to detect armors when you are right next to a tank or in well hidden place or in a vehicle.

 

Why not just leave it at this?

 

Because 1.08 should never be released to the public.

 

I'm not suggesting that this has to be included in 1.08. I'm putting the idea out so that you can add it if you like it in whatever version you want. I don't want to delay 1.08 any longer than it's already been delayed. This could go in 1.09 or whatever version.

 

I think this is a wicked idea still. Adds a lot more versitility