Make tanks third person and decouple turret pitch from chassis pitch.

I talked with trickster and napalm about this on their server, it comes from playing a lot of UT3.

Basically in UT3, all vehicles are third person, and it's much cooler than first person. For one thing you get to see your tank, empires tanks are cool enough to merit that, and for another it allows for a much less jerky control system. Basically the turret does not inherit its pitch from the chassis, in empires when your tank chassis points down, your view and turret point down. In unreal tournament, when your tank points down, your turret tries to point in the same direction it was pointing before.

This is MUCH more fun to control, because it means your turret always points where you're aiming, and it means that unlike in empires, your shots don't go all over the place when driving over anything other than perfectly flat terrain. Your tank can be bouncing around all over but your shots are affected only by your ability to aim, not by the floor.

I think this would make empires prettier (spectate a tank in third person and see how cool it looks) and would also improve gameplay, because you can use the cool controls and you can also see much more easily where your tank body is located.

I think it'd also help reduce ramming, I think part of the reason people ram is because they can't shoot for shit otherwise, because shooting while moving is too hard with the current controls.

 

i have been considering this too, after watching quite some renegadeX videos in my time


anyway, it just seems... better in a way

perhaps only for certain vehicles though... or have different profiles (distance behind/hight above tank to put camera) for each vehicle

 

+Woot~~~

 

I think this would make it harder to drive/shoot, but then again I've never played UT3 or RenegadeX

 

No, we should never separate the turret rotation from the chasis rotation.

1. How are we suppose to do it? There are limits on the z angle of your turret. When it you start driving uphill, how is the turret suppose to be limited. Do you have it follow the mouse as low as it can go? If so, it'll make aiming very awkward. Your perspective also changes along with the rotation of the chasis.

2. This will further overpower the light tank and make ramming more frequent. Right now, you have a good chance at overcoming a light tank if you have a fast engine and drive evasively. if turret direction was absolute, light tanks would be even easier to kill with because driving and shooting would be too easy.

There should be an advantage to staying still and shooting because it makes you an easier target. We want to award players who practice speeding and shooting so they can be a harder target and kill people at the same time. Tank control is perfect right now. We don't need 3rd person. Empires doesn't have a "steep learning curve" all you people complain about. Tanking around is easy to learn, but difficult to master, the perfect balance. You say its fun to control just because it takes the difficulty out of driving and shooting. Don't dumb down Empires

 

You can still limit the pitch discrepancy, unreal tournament does this and it works fine.

I really think that unless you know what you're talking about (i.e, have used a control system like this, which you obviously haven't) you can't really criticise it, I assure you it is far less awkward than the current empires controls.

I don't see how it will make ramming more problematic, ramming is a problem because you can't easily evade a tank which is stuck under your firing arc, being able to aim better won't make that less of a problem, but it will give people an alternative, at the moment you can either sit still and shoot, or you ram and shoot, you can't drive and shoot because the turret bounces around all over the place and you can't hit anything smaller than a vehicle factory.

Tanks can already ram and shoot, and it works to a degree, if tanks could also drive and shoot they would be less susceptable to ramming, because fewer people would feel the need to do it, and a mobile tank is harder to ram, especially when that tank can accurately shoot at an incoming tank while running away.

There would still be an advantage to staying still, you don't have to take into account inherited velocity when you fire while stationary, when moving you do, it's harder to aim but in a predictable fashion, people can learn to predict the effect their speed will have on projectiles, but what they can't learn to predict is every single blasted pothole on the map which makes their aim go miles off every single time they hit one.

It's like saying we should introduce random jerks to your crosshair when playing infantry because that's exactly what tanks have now, and it isn't a skill to be able to hit people in spite of it, it's simple luck, or having dual rails which means you can't fail to miss because you're shooting so many shells.

 

"You can still limit the pitch discrepancy, unreal tournament does this and it works fine."
How?


"I really think that unless you know what you're talking about (i.e, have used a control system like this, which you obviously haven't) you can't really criticise it, I assure you it is far less awkward than the current empires controls."
I've played games like this. Don't tell me now to criticize because I hate the idea.


"I don't see how it will make ramming more problematic, ramming is a problem because you can't easily evade a tank which is stuck under your firing arc, being able to aim better won't make that less of a problem, but it will give people an alternative, at the moment you can either sit still and shoot, or you ram and shoot, you can't drive and shoot because the turret bounces around all over the place and you can't hit anything smaller than a vehicle factory."
I don't see how having your turret stationary will help if small vehicles drive right up to you. Either way, you can't move you turret low enough. It actually helps the light tanks because they can drive and shoot easier.



"Tanks can already ram and shoot, and it works to a degree, if tanks could also drive and shoot they would be less susceptable to ramming, because fewer people would feel the need to do it, and a mobile tank is harder to ram, especially when that tank can accurately shoot at an incoming tank while running away."
Do you really think just because light tanks can run and shoot more accurately, tank drivers will give AFVs a chance and not drive right next to them anymore?

Even if you are running away, its hard to hit light tanks. Have you ever had a light tank right behind you? You can try to shoot them, but your shots go over.


"There would still be an advantage to staying still, you don't have to take into account inherited velocity when you fire while stationary, when moving you do, it's harder to aim but in a predictable fashion, people can learn to predict the effect their speed will have on projectiles, but what they can't learn to predict is every single blasted pothole on the map which makes their aim go miles off every single time they hit one."
Then stop driving into blast craters. Why does everone exaggerate Empires' difficulty? I drive on bumpy maps all the time and I aim just fine.


"It's like saying we should introduce random jerks to your crosshair when playing infantry because that's exactly what tanks have now, and it isn't a skill to be able to hit people in spite of it, it's simple luck, or having dual rails which means you can't fail to miss because you're shooting so many shells."
Tanks are different than infantry. Don't compare the two. You and your opponent in a tank have to drive over the bumps. If he can dodge bumps or compensate for wobble better than you can, he deserves to win.

 

What do you mean 'how?', you just do it, from a programming standpoint I would surmise that you could make the cannon track the cursor like a turret tracks a player, using the same code to limit that as you would for turrets, the how isn't up to me, but it's obviously possible.

I told you, it doesn't stop vehicles which ram you from getting shots in, it means they don't have to do that and you can avoid that more easily. Pay attention.

The reason you can't hit things while running away is because the controls are fucked. I can hit things fine in unreal tournament at any speed, because the shots go where I point, and where I point doesn't flail madly all over the place.

You haven't driven on bumpy terrain and you haven't the faintest idea what you're going on about, you can't compensate for random fluctuations which cannot be anticipated and cannot be avoided because the whole map is full of uneven terrain. Drive around at full speed on a map like arid and try to hit someone else doing the same thing, or just watch someone else try to use guided while moving and see the missiles jerk around all over because his aim is doing the same.

You obviously haven't played a game using this system because if you had you'd know it works better. You obviously can't see the difference because you have no experience of the other system.

 

Please.... Devs...


If you are gonna use any idea on the suggestion forum, use this one.

 

only optional please, I prefer first person driving

 

I suppose the system could be implemented in first person as well, UT2004 did that as far as I know, as did renegade although it's been so long since I played it I could be wrong about renegade. Personally I'd prefer third person over having a barrel stuck in the middle of the screen, but there's no accounting for taste.

 

You would still suffer the same problems you now have if you are aiming too low or too high.

So are you saying that vehicles that ram you can get shots on you, they don't have to shoot you so you can avoid being shot? that makes no sense.

There is no way you can hit a light tank right behind you because your shots go right over it. I can hit things from a distance while driving over bumpy terrain, but I don't use missiles. Compensate as you hit bumps. I try to keep my crosshair a certain distance above the enemy.

Wild Speculations

 

Would prolly make stickys harder to use. I like the idea of it because I liked it in bf2 but I enjoy how it is now too.

 

The point is that currently you can spot a light before it rams you, but you can't do much about it, if you move and shoot you'll likely miss, if you stand still and shoot you'll be unable to kill it before it hits.

If you can move and shoot and hit you can evade lights more easily.

 

How long until they drive right up to you? Especially if they have 3phase, which any serious game, NF should have 3phase, you're lucky to get 2 shots at a light tank before he runs up to you. Especially if they have reactive, which they should as well, no matter how fast you can run, they are going to catch up to you. Being able to make a few shots easier won't do much to reactive armor.

 

Really? Two plates of reactive can't actually withstand that many hits, assuming you're driving an AFV, spot the tank at a distance and have something other than advanced coolant, you should be able to land maybe five hits on it. If you're driving a medium or mark 2 with a 2 slot cannon you should be able to destroy it quite quickly if you're good with the cannon.

The only reason lights are so powerful is because they're so hard to hit.

Of course lights still need to be nerfed a bit, because they are better than the BE equivalent, but even if you nerf lights that doesn't stop ramming from being a valid strategy, this does go some way to doing that, and combined with the required light nerf should put AFVs on an even footing with lights, as well as improving overall tank combat, making it more mobile and cinematic.

 

huh. I personally approve.

 

If you give the driver an all seeing eye, it will have to be higher than the tank or he wouldn't be able to see over it. That means the driver can see things you, as infantry, would not expect him to see. In fact giving the tank drivers full awareness around their tank is a massive nerf to infantry trying to sticky or even just hide from the tank. It's no doubt great if we're talking tank vs. tank, but infantry is still, barely, in the game.

As for gyroscopic barrel compensation, every modern tank has it and I don't see a big problem if it is put in the heavier models of BE (medium and heavy). After all BE is the cannon specialist and uses high tech tanks, while NF uses mobile missile turrets from world war 1.

 

im unsure about this one.. ut3 maps are mostly open, some empires maps are close-combat (xroads) and driving there in 3rd person would be a pain in the ass (but i agree on the points about ramming etc)

map-sided perhaps?

 

Or optional.