Possible multi turret solution

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Olrox
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by Olrox »

Crushy wrote:The only modern weapons that use twin and quad turrets are ballistic AA guns and battleships. The reason for this is that these vehicles either have to engage really large targets (other battleships, land bombardment) or put a lot of bullets ASAP into a small really fast target (bullet dispersal is an advantage).
Or because the knockback is doubled, and you've got to have a lot of counter-weights to balance a battleship, for instance. Or in AA guns, where the knockback is much more vertical than from a regular cannon. If you fired a quad AA horizontally on a humvee, for instance, it would flip, surely. That's why mobile anti-aircraft warfare generally uses rocket-propelled munitions, or guided missiles. I'm lazy now but you did visit the War school topic, didn't you? One of the ideas that came up were a AA vehicle for the scavengers, that was a humvee with stinger pods. And even those are certain to need correct timing when firing, for the knockback not to add from one firing to another, otherwise I really think It would keel over.

I've already seen bridges that crumbled because of the adding of horizontal G forces of the vehicles atop it and the dynamic load caused by wind, so small, occasional forces can add each other in a devastating way.

That's one of the many issues, how to balance which weapons could be put toghether in which bodies, who will balance it and if there's actually any way humanly possible to do it (I mean, without having to make every possible combination to balance it).
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by Per »

Hamstertron wrote:Directional armour? e.g. Vehicles have weaker armour from the rear?
We have this already.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by Crushy »

Olrox wrote:The only modern weapons that use twin and quad turrets are ballistic AA guns and battleships. The reason for this is that these vehicles either have to engage really large targets (other battleships, land bombardment) or put a lot of bullets ASAP into a small really fast target (bullet dispersal is an advantage).
Or because the knockback is doubled, and you've got to have a lot of counter-weights to balance a battleship, for instance. Or in AA guns, where the knockback is much more vertical than from a regular cannon. If you fired a quad AA horizontally on a humvee, for instance, it would flip, surely. That's why mobile anti-aircraft warfare generally uses rocket-propelled munitions, or guided missiles. I'm lazy now but you did visit the War school topic, didn't you? One of the ideas that came up were a AA vehicle for the scavengers, that was a humvee with stinger pods. And even those are certain to need correct timing when firing, for the knockback not to add from one firing to another, otherwise I really think It would keel over.
[/quote]

Actually...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aveng ... ssile.JPEG
You might be like me and be thinking: Well they don't all fire at once probably.
"...two Stinger missile launcher pods, each capable of firing up to 4 fire-and-forget infrared/ultraviolet guided missiles in rapid succession." So yeah, they're supposed to fire at nearly the same time, fast enough to see recoil isn't an issue. Some missile weapons produce very little recoil but I don't think stingers are one of those.



Yeah but I agree, a quad could flip a humvee. It would also be completely USELESS.
That's why mobile anti-aircraft warfare generally uses rocket-propelled munitions, or guided missiles.
No, that's because missiles are the only thing capable of hitting a modern airplane. A direct-fire AA unit has NO CHANCE to hit something 4km up. Quad cannons are used against choppers and relatively slow planes. They are usually heavily armoured and accompany armoured columns because choppers are (mostly) used to hunt armour. Stingers are mounted on jeeps and such because their purpose is to shoot aircraft from a (relatively) safe distance.

Another thing, quads and other AA weapons are used to fire at higher angles than most other direct fire weapons, but that doesn't mean other weapons fire at flat angles: the typical image of a tank battling in an open plain is something like this: http://www.army.dnd.ca/LFWA_HQ/photos/LE2006-0509.jpg

Battleships are usually similar, they use heavier but more powerful ammo, but the distances of engagements are on a far greater scale. http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 6c1f08a0c5 - That's an actual battleship in combat.

Also take into account quad weapons are designed to engage incoming choppers, that means fast turret movement speeds and all sorts of firing angles. I'd guess most of them would be in the 0-45 range because a helicopter is not going to stand above you and shoot perfectly still. I'd also be willing to bet quads would be a prefered target for them which would put you directly in their paths.


And here's proof that recoil isn't that much of an important concept (at least nowadays): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... t-rear.jpg - That monster has a 105 mm cannon and can fire it on it's side. And it's WHEELED and weights 30 tons. In comparison an abrams has 62 tons, a 120 cannon (used to be 105 too) and is a lot wider.
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Olrox
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

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Crushy wrote:And here's proof that recoil isn't that much of an important concept (at least nowadays): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... t-rear.jpg - That monster has a 105 mm cannon and can fire it on it's side. And it's WHEELED and weights 30 tons. In comparison an abrams has 62 tons, a 120 cannon (used to be 105 too) and is a lot wider.
Ok, put 2 of those and fire when they are pointing either side. I mean recoil is a problem because when you fire a gun, the reaction force pushes you to the opposite side. The kind of movement we see there isn't Uniform Linearm motion, it's Simple Harmonic Motion (SHM), because there's a fix point (while the wheels are in contact with the ground) around which you can study a particular type of movement which best fits the characteristics of a simple pendulum. When you reach the appex, or on any moment between zero acceleration (when the tank stands equally on every wheel) and the zero speed point, every force that would apply to the same movement (such as firing a cannon in the same or similar direction), adds to it, arithmetically on most cases, but always on the great majority of its contingent.

Speaking on a more simple way, that would be when the tank is still suffering the primary effects of the recoil (tending to keel over on our example). After that, we could say that the tank is suffering the secondary effects, as it is recovering from the recoil and falling back into position, or redistributing the weight equally between all of its wheels. on that case, any recoil would be subtracted from the inertia , tending to hold the tank at the same position or making it keel over again, if the recoil strength surpasses the inertia.

That is the importance of timing the shooting, for the recoil to subtract each other and not add each other (especially when you've dealing with many thousands of Newtons of recoil such as when firing a 105mm cannon). Of course that on multi-barreled mounts, in which the recoil from each single shoot is very small, seeing that you're dealing with 20~40mm calibers, you can recompensate the recoil in an effective way, you don't need to compensate a huge recoil for each fired shell.

I say again, put two 105mm guns and fire them, even at half ROF, you'll certainly have trouble to lift the 30 tons of that Rooikat.

Aftar all, speaking of even the pure, basic physics as I did is out of the reality of the game, because no one will ever go testing prototypes of in-game weapons for measuring the recoil and seeing what weapon can be mounted along with which, and doing every possible combination allowed by the tech tree. If someone does that, and redoes all de .pie art, rebalance ROF and yet manages to please the community without generating bugs,
send me an e-mail, [email protected]
because I'll go personally go worship this guy for his efforts and slap his face for his lack of occupation.

I think it is time to return to the first pages, where this should have stopped until someone, who I think that doesn't exist right now, comes here and accepts to do it:

SOLUTION FOR MULTI-GUN TURRETS

Well, I'm not the guy O_o
And I'm out of here because I'm actually working on something real, where I'll have results, and my efforts on proving anything here aren't going to bring up the forementioned Solution.

Regards,
Olrox.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by Tenoh »

Never liked multi turret idea... however id love to see dual weapon turrets.Like for example dual cannons turrets were cool in the past but got taken out.and you could add a small machine gun turret on the top of the big turret like i saw in some mods.or just add bunkers machine gun to big body so the buddy would have weapon of its ow lol.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

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The whole thing about having the choice between different weapons is that the resulting units have certain advantages and disadvantages. This forces the player to make up units that not only fit his tactical desires but also complement each other. Allowing more then one weapon on a vehicle annihilates the need for such considerations. Furthermore, it would render the light and medium bodies useless. Support weapons are traditionally mounted on lighter bodies due to cost efficency. This is possible as to now because mortars and lancers, for example, have supperior range compared with cannons or machineguns, so these units will recieve less fire, since the MBT's draw it upon them. This leads me directly to the point that putting two weapons of different range on one vehicle ends up with the long-range weapon loosing its primary advantage, furter reducing the need for tactical consideration. Another issue is that infantry can be used to stop tank rushes because it is to an extend resistent against anti-vehicle weaponry. Now imagine MBT's with additional MG. This would limit Cyborgs to terrain which is unsuitable for mechanised batallions. This limitation is of course true for real-life infantry since tanks do have coaxial machinguns, but WZ knows no such terrain. Even urbanized areas turn into open planes when the buildings are destroyed. Slopes slow tanks down, but do not prevent their movement as such.
My conclusion is that multi-weapon units tend to reduce tactical considerations to "What combo gives my heavy-body-on-tracks the most firepower?"
I opt for vehicle turrets to get coaxial machinguns as researchable upgrades though, provided that forests, debris heaps (from destroyed buildings) or steep slopes impassable for tanks are introduced that provide new circumstances for the use of infantry. This should give WZ a level of realism that has, to my knowlege, never been reached in any RTS game.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by cheesepuffgd »

i think that on certain bodies (wyvern and dragon) you should be able to put 2 lighter weapons instead of 1 heavier weapon. during capaign mode when i have to send out small groups of tanks out, my repair tanks always get shot because they dont have weapons. if there were bodies that could have a repair turret and a light cannon it would be a lot better
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by cheesepuffgd »

the maps need more cover and things like that. that would allow flamers and other short range weapons to be way more effective
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by Corporal Punishment »

If your repair units get killed on a regular basis, this is proppably due to your fighting force beeing unbalanced/to small/AI set to "Victory or death!" It is long ago that I lost a repair tank. Giving them armament beyond defensive machineguns would blur the distiction between combat unit and support unit.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by milo christiansen »

Make it so only 2 weapons of the same basic type can be used together eg. a heavy cannon and a light cannon, a twin assault gun and a normal assault gun, ect.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by Corporal Punishment »

I generally dislike the idea of mulitple turrets. Anyway, it just came to me this morning that they are the locical consequence of constructing the super heavy bodies. The crucial point for real-life engineers in designing a tank is to balance three factors: Protection, mobility and firepower. Raising protection (what basiclly means building a super heavy body) must correspond with increasing engine output so the vehicle will not suffer a loss of mobility. Raising firepower is the consequence of the design offering more space and load capcity (by improved structural integrity). Using a traditional single-weapon/turrret design would be wasting potential. Examples for such a super heavy vehicle are the old WW2 design studies Panzerkamfwagen VIII "Maus" and Landkreuzer P 1000 "Ratte". The Landkreuzer P 1500 "Monster" was essentially a mobile version of the super heavy howitzers "Gustav" and "Dora" and is, as an artillery piece, not of interest in this context. All where discarded at the time because there were no sufficently effective eninges and these vehicles were to big and heavy to cross towns, bridges or tunnels. Plus they could not be hauled either by rail or truck. However, they featured multiple weapons in one turret (Maus) and multiple turrets (Ratte). While I advocate multi-turret designs for super heavy vehicles, I strongly object using them for anything else for three reasons:
1. The heavy bodies depict machines of the current 70 ton MBT class like Leclerc, Challenger 2, Merkava, Leopard 2, Abrams or T-90. These designs do not offer enough space to install a multi-turret array.
2. Heavy body-on-track-designs are already painstakingly slow, adding the extra wheight of a second turret will render them so immobile they would fall easy prey to tank hunters. Protection, mobility anf firepower are simply not balanced in such a design.
3. In campaign mode, the Python body becomes available quite soon. So would multi-turret design. Since new players are most likely to play campaign mode before advancing to skirmish/MP mode, the campaign serves as a kind of tutorial. Allowing multi turrets only at the end of the tech tree makes it easier to realize the charakteristics of the different waepons for they stand out more clearly in a single weapon design.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by winsrp »

are we still talking about a feature of the game here or what, this thing got so technical I don't even know what are you guys talking about O_o

Come on guys... make a tank have 2 weapons so what... no big deal, put a max on the cost for a vehicle for example, vehicle max cost can be only 1000 energy points, so, if you add a body and a track and that makes your tank cost 800 buck you can only put a 200 bucks weapon on top, or 2, 100 bucks weapons on top, or what the heck, 4, 50 bucks weapons on top... all guns have a cost, so just be based on the cost and thats it... less problems, add some upgrades to lower the weapon cost if you like, I don't know something that can ACTUALLY be done on the game.
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Re: Possible multi turret solution

Post by Corporal Punishment »

If you're thinking that way about it, I would go with weight or resulting speed rather than cost. Money is the least thing military engineers have to deal with, while pysics is a fixed ammount in their considerations for obvious reasons.
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