Tank turret & gun control (POLL!)

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Oh, come on. Lets face it, its not so big of an issue where you would question the company because a vocal few forum members want to use the keyboard instead of the mouse without knowing what the (several hundred thousand or more hopefully) other potential players will like. We know from the past that TWI tries to listen when they can.

Its a minor issue that will play no roll in whether I buy the game or not because I am buying it. If I can't tweak it in the .ini, I will say 'bummer', get over it and move onto playing the game

 

[Unus Offa Unus Nex]

You were complaining about the turret speed "lightning fast!" that is not final, and even then, I didn't perceive it as "lightning fast"

No I wasn't, I was talking about how fast actual target acquisition will become with the mouse. It will become too fast & too easy not because of turret traverse speeds, but because with the mouse no coordination between traversing the turret and elevating the gun is then needed to place the gun onto the target, it's just point and wait for the turret & gun to place itself for you.

Just saying, I played with mouse in RO:CA until Ostfront came out and I never liked that change, mouse aiming was great as it was.

Well that's fair enough, but most people (me included) obviously prefer the method used in RO:Ost, seeing it as a clear improvement over RO:CA.

 

[Unus Offa Unus Nex]

Oh, come on. Lets face it, its not so big of an issue where you would question the company because a vocal few forum members want to use the keyboard instead of the mouse without knowing what the (several hundred thousand or more hopefully) other potential players will like. We know from the past that TWI tries to listen when they can.

No'one is pointing fingers here, cause we simply don't know yet wether or not TWI is taking this seriously.

But this isn't some small issue as you seem to think, we're not debating what colour the user interface should be here... No, this is about a game mechanic which has a huge influence on how immersive the experience of playing as a tank gunner in the game will be. Now I'd take that pretty seriously if I was part of the dev team, and I believe they are as-well, we ofcourse just need some confirmation there'of to be sure.

So far some 64 people have let their opinion be known in less than 24 hours, that's pretty significant on a relatively small forum like this.

 

[Dietrich Graf]

There is no use trying to persuade the few on this forum that using a mouse is a big deal. If they actually played as a tanker in RO/DH or any other sim (yes, I know RO isn't a sim but rather a tactical shooter with sim like qualities), they would know why nothing beats WASD and the joystick. It's simple and very intuitive.

Using a mouse is analogous to using a sledgehammer to put a thumb tack into a wall to hang a poster. Why not just use what works, a tack hammer (WASD)?

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

I actually suspect that if they can, TWI will give us the option to use either the keyboard or mouse.

We shall wait and see...

 

[cameron.]

I would prefer having either be an option, I don't really see the mouse giving much of an advantage given the speed of traverse and elevation should remain constant across the control schemes.

 

[Unus Offa Unus Nex]

I would prefer having either be an option, I don't really see the mouse giving much of an advantage given the speed of traverse and elevation should remain constant across the control schemes.

It removes the need for coordination between traversing the turret and elevating the gun, making the actual gun laying much faster & easier, esp. on the move.

You can compare it to having to make a drawing with either a pencil or an etch sketch board, obviously it will be much faster & easier with the pencil

Even so, some people are good with the etch sketch boards :

 

[Alexander Ostmann]

The turrets of all tanks turn way too slow to be used by mouse. You would be constantly picking up your mouse and it would be annoying as hell. Turret movements are supposed to be smooth, not "move move move, stop, move move move, stop, move move move, etc."

 

[Dietrich Graf]

The turrets of all tanks turn way too slow to be used by mouse. You would be constantly picking up your mouse and it would be annoying as hell. Turret movements are supposed to be smooth, not "move move move, stop, move move move, stop, move move move, etc."

After all that repetitive nonsense, you still then have to press the fire button on the mouse. If you have to employ some Kentucky Windage with your first shot that missed, then you will have to rinse and repeat the whole bloody nonsense over again.

 

[Major_Day]

After all that repetitive nonsense, you still then have to press the fire button on the mouse. If you have to employ some Kentucky Windage with your first shot that missed, then you will have to rinse and repeat the whole bloody nonsense over again.

Yes, and by which time your tank will probably be disabled,coz a butterfly landed on it, half the crew will be dead from snipers firing through the many many weak spots in the new armour system, and the commander has decided to commit suicide coz he can't bail out.
This is just another nail in the tankers armour.
(sarcasm is the lowest form of wit! but i don't care lol)

did i mention the point and click crosshairs?

Long live the :IS2:

 

[Beans]

Definitely should use the keyboard. It is important when not using the optics, like if you are inside the turret looking out the little 360 degree windows and if you are unbuttoned with your head out of the turret. When doing those things you need the mouse to look around and the keyboard to turn the turret independently. Having the keyboard control turret movement in 2 types of scenarios but then switch to mouse when using the optics doesn't seem to make sense.


Plus using the keyboard feels more 'tanky' to me like you are turning some gears or levers to turn something huge.

 

[Unus Offa Unus Nex]

Plus using the keyboard feels more 'tanky' to me like you are turning some gears or levers to turn something huge.

Yeah, that's one of the points I've been raising as-well. It just feels and looks right, and as such adds a lot to the immersion.

Anyway I hope TWI is paying attention to this, so far 75 people have made their opinion clear, and I'm sure more will follow.

 

[Wesreidau]

The correct input device for tank gunning is a horizontal and vertical wheel bolted to your desk that you turn with your hands at whatever speed you want the horizontal or vertical to move. Some tank designs are even so kind as to include smaller wheels for fine control.

A mouse closely emulates the gunner's ability to turn wheels quickly or slowly depending on how much movement he wants to make, however it is far too easy to aquire targets, especially on the move, and doesn't feel right.

A keyboard closely emulates the gunner's two sets of wheels if WASD is set to fast movements and arrows are set to fine movements. The right control can even be your fire key. However this setup forces movement at a certain speed when you press the button, which can result in difficulties aiming.

A solution is to incorporate more customization into the keyboard keys. Under the options menu, have a Turret Input panel. This has two sliders which can be adjusted in sensitivity for two sets of keys, one WASD, and one with the arrows. I could set my WASD keys to be very fast for maximum turning speed and my arrows to be very slow for the finest control, or my arrows only slightly slower if it suits my tastes, or even have WASD be fine control if I'd like to gun southpaw. This will also put both hands on the keyboard for commanding the gun, which just feels more mechanical than an ergonomic mouse.

The other solution is to get Logitech to come out with a fake breechblock input device that bolt to your desk. Then we'll see who's against having a loader position!

 

[Tank!]

You would be constantly picking up your mouse and it would be annoying as hell.....to be smooth, not "move move move, stop, move move move, stop, move move move, etc."

I want infantry walking movement to be mouse controlled.

 

[cameron.]

It removes the need for coordination between traversing the turret and elevating the gun, making the actual gun laying much faster & easier, esp. on the move.

You can compare it to having to make a drawing with either a pencil or an etch sketch board, obviously it will be much faster & easier with the pencil

I still don't think that either control scheme would give much of an advantage, just because the turret doesn't really move fast enough to allow for the sort of twitch aiming advantage the mouse would otherwise give.

The etch a sketch isn't the best comparison as with a pencil you can go as fast as you want and an etch-a-sketch can't move in diagonals afaik.

 

[Oldih]

Anyway I hope TWI is paying attention to this, so far 75 people have made their opinion clear, and I'm sure more will follow.

I would slightly disagree about the basic idea behind the keyboard vs mouse. Keyboard certainly has its own charm but maybe I am just stupid idiot for having that very nonexistant faith in TWI to model it so that say, guns are not 100% accurate as in RO:Ost but have sort of realistic natural deviation with groupings, have small delays and quirks whenever you try to fine tune your mouse aim etc it won't possibly be as bad thing in practice as it sounds. After all the biggest problem is that there's no real details known how the stuff works and considering all of their videos have been demonstrations for the sake of demonstrating a feature it doesn't really give any proper practical appliance in a manner that would be halfway credible.

Besides while it's one of those cases that once you have enough experience it's becoming more than possible to hit a target even while moving as long as it's not completely uneven ground. Triple this to ridiculous levels in DH as tank shells have more realistic velocities than in RO and most of the custom tank maps have enough relatively flat areas to make it less of a problem -- and most of this can be attributed to the perfect accuracy the tank guns have.

(I have to admit though that it's tons of fun blasting some axis tanks with Hellcat or Cromwell while driving ramming speed on flat'ish ground and get a flank shot.)

tl;dr: Yes keyboard has its own charm and stuff but I'm not ready to condem mouse aiming right yet.

 

[Unus Offa Unus Nex]

Having blind faith in anything is never a good thing if you ask me, the developers still need the input they get from their community. I don't believe Tripwire intends to become just yet another closed game making firm as most others out there.

Besides while it's one of those cases that once you have enough experience it's becoming more than possible to hit a target even while moving as long as it's not completely uneven ground.

Problem is that in RO:Ost surfaces are either completely flat or ragged, and tanks have zero suspension. So I'm sorry but you simply can convince me that shooting accurately on the move whilst driving over what in RO:Ost is called "rough ground" is even remotely possible. If you hit someone whilst on move in RO:Ost it's either blind luck, or because you were driving over completely flat ground and you simply waited until the crosshairs moved over the target.

In RO:HOS we will more than likely see active suspension, where light bumps wont have your tank make wild jerky movements up and down, but where it become more smooth & life like. And mouse users will then have a field day shooting targets on the move, whilst keyboard users will be confronted with the same set of problems a real WW2 tank gunner would've been up against.

 

[Oldih]

It is remotedly possible given correct circumstances. Odds of hitting on the other hand are very nonexistant as the shell travels way too slowly which makes the aiming part more difficult, and most maps have relatively short engagement ranges and only few areas where you can properly exercise that. Notably more easier in DH as there's a lot more flat ground in most maps but even then you need a good driver, preferably your own voicecomm and area where the elevation is favourable. Not that common but entirely possible, regardless of the technique you did it.

Having blind faith in anything is never a good thing if you ask me, the developers still need the input they get from their community. I don't believe Tripwire intends to become just yet another closed game making firm as most others out there.

Which in this case has the problem that have absolutely zero details about how suspension works, how mouse aiming works while going RAMMING SPEED greek navy style and attempting to shoot, are tank guns perfectly accurate as in Ost and so on. It has the same problem with RO2 suppression system actually, it may do its job alright practically but so far the few videos where it's seen it's just demonstrating that "hay guyz we have suppression." and it potentially raises some eyebrows if it works or not, and there's already plenty of threads about that in the past.

For the same reason I am not willing to condemn it just yet as much as the mouse aiming bugs me at the same time.

 

[Unus Offa Unus Nex]

The correct input device for tank gunning is a horizontal and vertical wheel bolted to your desk that you turn with your hands at whatever speed you want the horizontal or vertical to move. Some tank designs are even so kind as to include smaller wheels for fine control.

A mouse closely emulates the gunner's ability to turn wheels quickly or slowly depending on how much movement he wants to make, however it is far too easy to aquire targets, especially on the move, and doesn't feel right.

A keyboard closely emulates the gunner's two sets of wheels if WASD is set to fast movements and arrows are set to fine movements. The right control can even be your fire key. However this setup forces movement at a certain speed when you press the button, which can result in difficulties aiming.

A solution is to incorporate more customization into the keyboard keys. Under the options menu, have a Turret Input panel. This has two sliders which can be adjusted in sensitivity for two sets of keys, one WASD, and one with the arrows. I could set my WASD keys to be very fast for maximum turning speed and my arrows to be very slow for the finest control, or my arrows only slightly slower if it suits my tastes, or even have WASD be fine control if I'd like to gun southpaw. This will also put both hands on the keyboard for commanding the gun, which just feels more mechanical than an ergonomic mouse.

The other solution is to get Logitech to come out with a fake breechblock input device that bolt to your desk. Then we'll see who's against having a loader position!

The issue of fine adjustment was brilliantly solved in RO:Ost by having the turret traverse actually start out slow and then speed up as you held down the key. The acceleration time is about 0.5 to 0.75 sec from start to max traverse speed, which is more than enough time for small fine adjustments. As such you are easily able to make minute changes in traverse, whilst if you want fast traverse you simply hold down the key and within 0.5 to 0.75 max traverse speed has been reached.

A simple yet brilliant solution to the issue of fine adjustments, one of the best concepts introduced by Tripwire.

 

[Forssen]

The issue of fine adjustment was brilliantly solved in RO:Ost by having the turret traverse actually start out slow and then speed up as you held down the key. The acceleration time is about 0.5 to 0.75 sec from start to max traverse speed, which is more than enough time for small fine adjustments. As such you are easily able to make minute changes in traverse, whilst if you want fast traverse you simply hold down the key and within 0.5 to 0.75 max traverse speed has been reached.

A simple yet brilliant solution to the issue of fine adjustments, one of the best concepts introduced by Tripwire.

Yes, that is a really good solution, in my mind the more realistic approach would work really nice too.

Originally Posted by [TW]Wilsonam
Yes, there are a number of things we discarded as being just too tedious... for example, on tanks (might get reinstated in "RO3: Panzerwaffe" or something!):
...

• The multi-speed settngs for the turret traverse, requiring the gunner to manually change between speeds using a lever on top of the traverse mech

...