Will there be AT Guns? (Merged a gazillion times)

[jedinstven-o crni Wuk]

Im new here and i FRICKING LOVE YOUR GAME!!! This has got to be the most accurate and realistic ww2 experiance ever!

I am very fond of the many strategic possibilities in this game from tanks , machine guns , sniper rifles , and anti tank rifles / rockets

But you are missing the most important part of all!!!
Artillery and mortars!

why is there no option to have towable flak 88's or pak guns? no nebelwerfers ? and no mortars?

please try to implement this in some of the big maps !!!'

EDIT **

The pak guns could spawn already packed up and connected to the vehicle that tows it ! like when you start up the round , the gun would already be attached to the halftrack! and you would Drive to the the desired area that the gun would be in , unhitch the gun , deploy it , then push it to the specific position in the area you want it to be ( like behind a bush , or sanbags) ! it works perfectly !

some movable 88 woud be the best, since it was a powerfull and one of the most used german gun on the east, if i rember corect.

but before that, i woud like to see the vehicles that germans/soviets used to transport there guns before in game. Just for fun!

 

[343Guiltyspark]

ya see, thats what i am talking about , those trucks/halftracks could spawn at the beginning of the round with the guns already hitched on , then go find a spot to set up

 

[SnozzFartz]

I like 343's suggestion, but mostly because it would simplify things.

I think you should be able to move a pak38. Two people can move one. Yes, it's slow, but yes, they can move it.

I doubt many of you have played WWII Online, but they have everything from pak38's to 88's, and you can move them without assistance of a halftrack. The 88's move about 5cm/hour, and the pak38's move a little faster.

It's all completely realistic in my opinion if you introduce the lighter AT guns, like the Pak38.

And I definitely agree to the vegetation point somebody made earlier. I would like to be able to run through the woods on Arad as an infantryman, but it's impossible (which pisses me off to a point).

 

[angelangel]

How about self-propelled artillery/guns.

 

[angelangel]

Pak guns mounted on a back of a truck(NOT TOWED)

 

[Rich_Zap]

The point about manning a pak gun with only 2 men being 'unrealistic' is kind of getting a bit old now. Yes doing that wouldnt be realistic but then neither is rapidly swapping between tank crew positions or having vehicles spawn out of the air or being forced to fight within a confined area.

Just take it as meaning the 2 crew gunners represent more men than they actually are, just like the rest of RO does. Even if the server limit was expanded enough so that you could have enough slots for a full crew, you are never going to be able to organise that many people affectively, its hard enough now just trying to organise a tank and they have fixed positions.

I think 2 crew members is the ONLY way this could be done and still play.

 

[Slyk]

There are people working on this. wink-wink. We have considered a lot of aspects and settled on most. In-game movement is virtually pointless under most circumstances. At best rotation of the carriage would be our limitation. The coding and animations would be a huge task. What I prefer to do is have two positions. Gunner and Assistant/Loader. One man can work the gun but it will fire at 1/2 the speed as if two work it. Destructible, non-respawn and encourage mappers to use random spawn locations as much as possible for variety of play.

 

[Lex]

What may be one of the only ways this could be done where it doesn't look unrealistic would be to have it manned by one person a tanker, and he would approach the artillery piece and get into the looking through the optics position to aim at his target. Once he fires, like in a tank he must stay in the aim position and the reload sounds would be played as the weapon reloads itself.
I would do it this way because at this time I can not make all of the necessary animations for a player to reload the weapon.
The turret would pivot about 30 degrees to each side of center. Also I think they should be destructible and there should be 3 to 4 spawn locations for each new cap zone and once destroyed the weapon would re-spawn at one of the 3 to 4 spawn locations randomly.

At this time there aren't any pushing or pulling animations, so moving the weapon would look strange and unrealistic. And I am totally against seeing a driver and gunner driving across the map on an artillery piece.

The only other way would be to connect it somehow to a vehicle but have it where it would have to stay connected at all times.

One of the problems we are faced with is having a tank commander and no driver. As of now the coding doesn't like that situation. So then if we can't get it to work without a driver could we get it to work right as a weapon instead of a vehicle, that will be our next choice I guess.
If I would make a vehicle to attach the artillery piece then we would have a driver and a tank commander, but then to get the hitch to work right and pivot at that point, oh well those will be options we would have to look at down the road.

Lex

 

[343Guiltyspark]

why are people so against it being mobile ? these things were put on wheels for a reason! why not have the persons stamina go down REAL fast when moving the peice? that solves that problem

 

[Tak]

Real fast as in they lift it and stamina drops by a quarter, lean into it and give a tug and it drops down TO a quarter, then actually get the wheel to roll and it drops to zero?


They have wheels so they can be towed. Yes, they can be pushed, but in RO we just don't have the time. Not to mention you'd be a loverly target for anyone with a bolt.

 

[Rich_Zap]

If they were set up in effective emplacements i think they would be pretty hard to hit actually. A pak gun has a really small profile when compared to something like a tank. The only way to destroy them easily would be to get round the flanks or rear.

 

[Tak]

I mean while trying to roll it across the map. You'd be moving at a very slow steady pace. It would be like shooting someone crawling over level terrain from a high vantage point at under 100m. Even one of Jerry's kids could hit that target.
​

 

[343Guiltyspark]

I mean while trying to roll it across the map. You'd be moving at a very slow steady pace. It would be like shooting someone crawling over level terrain from a high vantage point at under 100m. Even one of Jerry's kids could hit that target.​

ya but you are not going to be rolling it arcross the map , the gun will spawn already connected to a halftrack for towing , all you need to do is drive to the location you want it , unhitch it , and push it the 5 or ten feet to the location desired

 

[Lex]

I don't think you guys understand that in order for all of this to happen you need animations. And these animations are not already in the game they would have to be built, which is a long tedious process. Also at this time Tripwire has not released any of the player models or animations to work with in order to make our own player animations. So the only way to do this would be to remake each player model and animate it to push, pull, unhitch, load, open the breech, and reload the weapon etc...

You may think this is an easy process but try making a player model and then animating it. each little movement has to be laid out then but together into a series like screen shots in order to make a simple animation, and you are talking about major movements here. It would take months for a good animator to do all of the movements necessary to move an artillery piece around.

Just because it's easy to say, just have them unhitch it and move it, does mean that its an easy process to do. Break down the process of what you want done then think about what all it would take to do it. These guys aren't magicians "poof" and its done. To do a pushing animation it would take probably anywhere from 15 to 30 or more different positions, frames, that the model would have to be put into to get that one animation. And each little movement of a hand or foot could contort the model into an unnatural position, so the model would have to be checked and checked again for each position to see that there is no contorting going on and that the motion is fluid and not choppy.

So what I am trying to say is it would take a very long time to do and right now Tripwire is the only ones that could do it unless the player models and animations are released. Or someone takes on the task of remaking each player model and connecting the bones properly.
I doubt any of these things are going to be happening, at least not in the near future, so the idea of moving artillery pieces by players is nice but its not going to happen.

Lex

 

[Rich_Zap]

I think were all aware of the effort involved to create the pak gun and other artillery pieces. Were not saying 'Do this now or else', were discussing how this could be implemented in a future patch. Also considering the total amount of animations TW has already created i would say that the few for manning the guns is a very small increase on the total.

Just because it's easy to say, just have them unhitch it and move it, doesnt mean that its an easy process to do.

Actually its not that bad, essentially you would have an automated vehicle set to be a certain distance behind the halftrack and make it follow the halftrack around. When the players want to deploy it, it changes states so that it becomes a regular vehicle with a very small groundspeed and a very good turning circle.

The problem here isnt code, that would be relatively easy to implement. The problem is the animations side of things, but it depends on what the community is willing to settles for. For instance it might not be neccessary to have any animations at all. Perhaps the gunner and loader would merely be in a crouched position with the ability to look around freely. I expect community members would be willing to have that as a custom vehicle but would probably not be willing to accept it from TW.

 

[343Guiltyspark]

What may be one of the only ways this could be done where it doesn't look unrealistic would be to have it manned by one person a tanker, and he would approach the artillery piece and get into the looking through the optics position to aim at his target. Once he fires, like in a tank he must stay in the aim position and the reload sounds would be played as the weapon reloads itself.
I would do it this way because at this time I can not make all of the necessary animations for a player to reload the weapon.
The turret would pivot about 30 degrees to each side of center. Also I think they should be destructible and there should be 3 to 4 spawn locations for each new cap zone and once destroyed the weapon would re-spawn at one of the 3 to 4 spawn locations randomly.

At this time there aren't any pushing or pulling animations, so moving the weapon would look strange and unrealistic. And I am totally against seeing a driver and gunner driving across the map on an artillery piece.

The only other way would be to connect it somehow to a vehicle but have it where it would have to stay connected at all times.

One of the problems we are faced with is having a tank commander and no driver. As of now the coding doesn't like that situation. So then if we can't get it to work without a driver could we get it to work right as a weapon instead of a vehicle, that will be our next choice I guess.
If I would make a vehicle to attach the artillery piece then we would have a driver and a tank commander, but then to get the hitch to work right and pivot at that point, oh well those will be options we would have to look at down the road.

Lex

this is an idea forum....... the team is willing to take ideas and put them into the game , and to be completly honest , i dont think you understand how LITTLE animation goes into somthing like a pak gun IF ANY......

 

[Lex]

Well I don't think that you have any idea what you are talking about.
First off I make low poly models and do animations for them.
Secondly I agree that there is not much animation for a artillery piece such as a pak gun but you are not talking about animations for the pak gun you are talking about moving the gun and that requires a lot of player animations.

This is a suggestion forum and I am trying to say that this suggestion more than likely will not be implemented as you want it, in the near future if at all.

I have a Russian 45mm artillery piece working in the editor and we are in the process of coding it to be implemented into RO.

If you would read more of the forums you may have found this out before you posted

i dont think you understand how LITTLE animation goes into somthing like a pak gun IF ANY......

To be completely honest: I think I do understand.

Lex

 

[Rich_Zap]

Never the less this is an ideas forum, its not a place where ideas are bashed because they are hard to do. Were discussing the practicallity of ideas and your post was aimed at killing the thread. There is no reason for that, im sure everyone posting in the thread realises pak guns are a long way off and might never come however that should not stop us discussing them.

Also for the movement animations that are going to cause so much trouble, surely thats just a case of animating the players to be pushing while walking slowly forward, thats just one animation...

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Anyway lets get this thread back on topic:

No one answered my post earlier about the mortars. What do people think of having a mortar class which works like the MG ?

 

[343Guiltyspark]

Anyway lets get this thread back on topic:

No one answered my post earlier about the mortars. What do people think of having a mortar class which works like the MG ?

i think that would be a great addition to the game , adding a new level of strategy to the game , This could be a class just like the MG class , one with limited ammo and stationary gamplay , but still requires PERFECT placement to be used effectivly.

i would have to say for the mortar to be set up , it would take about 5-10 seconds to set up the weapon , and it would need a flat level surface to be deployed.... just like the mg needs a ledge to be set up on .

 

[Rich_Zap]

Yeah, it should be harder to use than MG, also it should require a similar amount of time to pick up so you would have to deploy it in a relatively safe area or get guys to protect you.

I think you should be able to move around and use other weapons while controlling the mortar though. So you can use binoculars to find a target and the mortar will instruct you as to what elevation and direction to aim to hit the target. That still lets player control the mortar how they want but also allows for pin point accuracy (within the accuracy limits of the mortar anyway).