Considering all the complaints about how shells don't OHK all infantry anymore, I thought of an alternative to both balance out tank power vs infantry and still give players a lot of their expectations back. The solution is extremely simple: Add damage degradation to AOE damage. For those who like to bring realism into this, just think of it as if all projectiles are rocket-powered to keep their velocity constant and expend their payload to keep flying. When you hit infantry directly, you deal direct damage+AOE. By adding damage degradation to the AOE damage you can change the damage potential vs infantry without touching the damage you do against tanks, which are immune to the AOE damage. For example: We change the HEAT canon to deal 1000 damage AOE at it's center, at 5m distance from the tank. So you can OHK infantry even if you didn't get a direct hit. But at 200m your AOE damage has degraded to for example 100 damage at it's center, meaning you can't even kill with a direct hit anymore. This is an extreme example just to illustrate the point, not a suggestion. This gives the devs a massive power over the actual ranges that tank canons are useful at against infantry. By making the AOE damage in CQC combat much higher than at range you can even encourage tanks to get as close as possible to infantry to kill them. It also makes Flak armor that much more imporant in combat against tanks. To add even more control over this, you can reduce all vehicle health by 20% or more, and also reduce all AV weapons by a similar amount to keep the current TTK's (20% would bring the Prowler and Magrider on their old 4000 health levels and the old repair times). This way the AOE damage is more imporant against infantry and the direct damage will be less important except when facing tanks.
Far simpler: change CoF of MBT cannon so it CAN OHK a puny infantryman (just common sense) but it will be VERY UNLIKELY (again, common sense) to do so unless at point blank range. Moderns MBTs have fire stabilization systems and fire computers taking in account wind, temperature, barrel aging, ammo type and a tons of other factors but are designed to hit a tank size target, not a 60 cm wide infantryman.
I don't think this mechanic exists, Splash damage doing less damage over distance. It would be an awful lot code this brand new mechanic in. It's far easier to appease the mouth-breathers and just nerf vehicles, those tank ***** don't even make up the majority so who gives a **** about them.
It's another option. Ofcourse I like my idea better, but it's definitely a good alternative. Ofcourse I would expect the COF not to be massive and depending on the weapon role the COF would differ. But even then I think it's important to make sure tanks can't just sit and shell from a long distance if you happen to use a long-range AV weapon for example.
I'm sorry, but I can't hear you over the vehicle mouthbreathers, they are so incredibly loud compared to the infantry who at least have a point. And hey, we already have a damage over distance for normal bullets. Splash damage is completely based on reducing damage over distance. The code is there, all they have to do is apply it to the right damage modifier. Just keep in mind that they did wonderfully weird things with the original Rocklet Rifle for example, and that flak used to keep flying until it started gaining distance on the aircraft before detonating so that you could deal more damage, or that they can apparently make infantry immune to flak explosions in certain situations, such as pre-Valkyrie anyone in a rumble seat would receive damage from flak explosions and after the Valkyrie they quickly changed it. If they can do all that, then applying damage reduction formula over distance traveled for AOE damage should be childsplay, especially since all the formula's are already in-use in the game but for other types of damage. This is why the vehicle mouthbreathers are so damn annoying. They don't think beyond the simplest of simple. "an aweful lot of code to get this brand new mechanic in", yeah right. It's not new and it's a single-sentence formula that controls it, which could practically be copy-pasted from the existing infantry range formula's.
There is no gun in the game where the splash damage is reduced the further the impact point is from the shooting vehicle. It always does it splash damage from it's impact point, regardless of how far it was from the origin. There is no code to copy/paste here. Your argument is based on something that doesn't exist.
Exactly which shells don't OHK infantry anymore? As far as I know, only Lightning AP and Viper. I suppose there are more?
They should really just make tanks dangerous again and let them OHK infantry with any main cannon. This is a stupid conversation to have to have because people cry about anything that kills them. And I'm not even a tank-jockey, I just hate to see **** nerfed.
Oh deary me, no gun yet where the splash damage is reduced the further the impact point is from the shooting vehicle? Why on earth would I suggest to add it to the game then? Oh right, because it's not there yet. "oh, but how to code it then? It's so hard!" Not it's not! How do you think it calculates damage? Let's say you fire a Lasher and hit someone. Client says: Lasher hit! Apply (direct damage*range modifier)+(AOE damage*enemy target distance from center damage modifier)=total damage to hit target! Not including resistances or flak armor for easier reading, I know you have trouble with this stuff. Also because of the direct hit the range to center is ofcourse 0 so within the minimum damage range. Hey, that range modifier at the direct damage there. What does that include? Well the distance the shell traveled (or perhaps the range of the player to the hit target). The AOE damage with damage degradation would use that same distance. What else does it include? Oh yeah a formula that reduces the base damage based on the range. And the AOE damage would use the exact same formula, but with different values. So you can copy-paste that formula, change the value's to your liking and you get the following client response on a hit: Tank shell hit! Apply (direct damage)+(AOE damage*range modifier*target distance from center modifier)=total damage to hit target. There, was that so hard? Just copy-pasting the code they already have for infantry weapon damage degradation, changing the values to whatever they want or need and it's done!
Tank canon OHK on direct hit chart, for normal infantry / flak 1 / flak 5 Lightning AP : yes / no / no Lightning HEAT : no / no / no Lightning HESH : yes / yes / no Lightning Viper : no / no / no Prowler AP : yes / no / no Prowler HEAT : no / no / no Prowler HESH : yes / no / no Vanguard AP : yes / yes / no Vanguard HEAT : yes / no / no Vanguard HESH : yes / yes / yes Magrider AP : yes / no / no Magrider HEAT : yes / no / no Magrider HESH : yes / yes / yes* * : you can survive with 5hp left if you use flak armor 5 and auxiliary shield.
Splash damage inversely proportional to distance from shooter to target? Is there any other game that has tried this idea?
Don't think so, but it would fit PS2. You can decrease the amount of players farming infantry from a distance in a tank, while giving them high firepower when they engage infantry up close. This makes for a deadlier and more entertaining battle as the vehicles will willingly enter effective infantry AV range and even stick close to infantry for better results. But without ever having to affect the vehicle combat. It gives the players more of what they want (a tank shell kills infantry) but prevents the cheeseroutes of simply hanging back from infantry AV. It also gives the devs a much higher control over weapon variety, giving different tank guns different rates of AOE degradation.
There's a range modifier for bullet damage, all that would have to happen is apply that modifier to the explosion. I really don't think it would be that complicated or take up much more cpu power, as every bullet already does this calculation. This would also be a great fix for the Skyguard, letting it 1-clip libs at 30m without locking down a whole hex. I also really like his point that tanks would be forced to get within AV range to deal their damage against infantry. It's a simple and effective solution.
So all direct tank rounds kill again and shots have increased splash damage at close range but with reduced splash damage at longer range? I can support that, very fair.
The point would be that tank shells can OHK on a direct hit within a certain range, and even have a OHK range if you shoot nearby. But at range the shells would stop doing a OHK on a directhit. This to prevent the long-range farmers having too a cheesy time and encourage vehicles to get into effective range of infantry, making the battle more enjoyable for both parties.
One game I remember a long long time ago called freefall tournament had a similar idea in which this one class (gunner) had a railgun in which the damage was increased the farther he was from the target, so while it was a great idea to ambush him, being a predictable target at long range could screw you. Also still can't stop laughing at the signature. @OP, shells in real life deteriorate over a distance? At this point I'm sure glass would have a better effect. Personally, I'm still gunho with the idea that tank shells should be allowed to be swapped from type to type much like ESF's swapping between rockets and the nosegun, but at the same time they each have a limited amount of ammo in the total capacity of the tank, along with the tank shells behaving drastically different from eachother and are recommended to be used against their specialized targets. But we cant do that at this point because ammo printer exists, as stupid as I thought it was on release, still stupidly good.
Not inversed, that would mean more splash at long distance and none at close range, that would only encourage more farming and make vehicles even worse up close. I'm pretty sure he meant splash damage diminishing over distance so that vehicles wouldn't be lobbing shells at bases from safe ranges, and if they want to fight infantry with the most effectiveness, they have to get closer to infantry where they are also more vulnerable.
