VTOL overhaul [Rebalance 0.8]

[Ryo]

looks like i'll be a #824-Fan ^^

Hm what about the Lancer:
The first accuracy-Update ist "Improved Rocket Wire Guidance"
Is this upgrade avaiable bevore or after sunburn?
And, "Improved" reads like there is allready is a Wire Guidance for the Lancer.

Maybe the sunburn fires wireguided modified Lancer? Or wireguidet minirockets?
Afaik systems of that kind has been in use since WW2, in Air-to-Air fight and maybe in surface-to-air-fight short after?

Please dont missunderstand me, i like these new things you are doing mutch! ^^

Ryo

[macuser]

I like the idea and all and the model looks nice, but it seems too low poly, low detail for your standard olrox.

[3drts]

First, my comments on the design.
I prefer the double row design, for these to be "believable", you're going to have to have something that looks like it can fire a good sized Salvo.
For what its worth, real anti air rockets were often used in 24 rocket salvos (both the WWII R4M rockets used on the Me-262, and the 70mm FFAR "Mighty Mouse" rockets used on the F-86d Sabre).
A launcher that looks like it fire 6 rockets, is not good IMO.


Now on to the concept:
We discussed this in IRC when I mentioned salvo fire mini-rockets to Zarel, and he liked the idea.

I mentioned then that salvo fire AA rockets had only been used for A2A applications, fighters against bombers.

Getting a fighter up close, and starting the rockets off with 350-750 mph of initial velocity just from the plane, or firing from a ways off at a bomber formation, is a whole lot more likely to hit something, than trying to fire rockets at something from the ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R4M_rocket

The problem with heavy A2A cannons used by the Germans in WWII against allied bombers, and the development of the R4M anti aircraft rocket for use on the Me-262:

The R4M was developed in order to deal with the increasing weight of anti-bomber weapons being deployed by Luftwaffe fighters. Their design had started out with the 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons, compact enough to be mounted in an internal wing bay mounting in the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, but it was found that it took an average of twenty 20 mm hits to shoot down a typical four engined bomber. The 20 mm cannons, also fitted to the Bf 109 in drag-producing underwing gun pods, were then supplemented with or replaced by the 30 mm MK 108 cannon, in slightly larger underwing pods, which could bring down a bomber with an average of one to three hits. However the MK 108 was much heavier and the larger ammunition made it difficult to carry more than one or two "passes" worth.
Worse, the low muzzle velocity of this gun meant it had a very short range and extreme curvature of trajectory, of over 41 meters at 1,000 meters range. In approaching close enough to get hits, the fighters placed themselves within the range of the bomber's defensive guns. The more powerful MK 103 cannon had higher muzzle velocity and increased range, at the cost of greatly increased weight, size and much lower rate of fire: 380-420 RPM vs. 600-650 RPM for the MK 108.

Of course, lighter guns required getting within range of bomber defensive turrets.

The solution was to replace the underwing gun pods, and draggy large-calibre underwing rocket launch tubes, with a small diameter solid-fuel rocket engine-propelled projectile, mounting a warhead similar to that of the cannon shell. Although each "round" was heavier than the corresponding gun-fired shell, the lack of a gun reduced the overall weight considerably. The weight difference was so great that even a much larger and longer ranged rocket was still lighter than the guns it could replace.

In fact, cannons are only "weight effecitve" if over a certain number of rounds are carried.

The anti-aircraft version of the R4M used a large warhead of 55 mm with 520 g (17.6 ounces) of Hexogen explosive charge, nearly guaranteeing a kill with one hit. Each R4M weighed 3.2 kg and was provided with enough fuel to be fired from 1000 m, outside the range of the bomber's defensive guns. The main body of the rocket consisted of a simple steel tube with flip-out fins on the tail for stabilization. A battery typically consisted of two groups of 12 rockets and when all 24 were fired at once they would fill an area about 15 by 30 m at 1000 m, a density that made it almost certain that the target would be hit. The R4Ms were usually fired in four salvos of six missiles at intervals of 0.07 seconds from a range of 600 m. Two warheads were available for the R4M, the common PB-3 with a 0.4 kg charge for anti-aircraft use and the larger shaped charge, similar in construction to the Panzerschreck, the Panzerblitz II (PB-2), for anti-tank use.

There you have it, basically an effective range of 1 km (horizontal distance), good enough for A2A use.
A bomber flying at 10,000 feet wouldn't be threatened.
A stationary platform with an aircraft coming at a high closure rate, would have a very narrow window where the rockets would be spread out enough when they get to the aircraft to hit it, but not so spread out that the aircraft has a good chance of flying right between them, that is of course, assuming you got the trajectory/drop timing right.

Being able to match speed with the aircraft, then fire the salvo, is what made AA rockets work.

in March 1945, six R4M-armed Me 262s flying out of the Oberammergau flight test center and led by Luftwaffe General Gordon Gollob claimed to have shot down fourteen B-17s in a mission. In April 1945, R4M-equipped Me 262s claimed to have shot down thirty B-17s for the loss of three aircraft. The Luftwaffe found the R4M missiles to have similar trajectory to the 30 mm MK 108 cannon in flight, therefore the standard Revi 16B gunsight was utilized effectively.

Then the F-86d used A2A rockets as well.

Gun armament was eliminated in favor of a retractable under-fuselage tray carrying 24 unguided Mk. 4 rockets, then considered a more effective weapon against enemy bombers than a barrage of cannon fire.

The A2A anti-bomber rocket pod is shown deployed here:


A2A unguided rockets work in Reality, I can't think of any S2A unguided rockets that actually worked.
Zarel decided for gameplay, we could ignore that, much like how we ignore that a flame thrower is not an effective anti tank weapon.
There are no examples of one tank taking out another with a flame thrower.
Nor do machine guns really do anything against tanks.

FWIW, I think Assault guns, mini pods, and many weapons are a little too effective against VTOLs.

If we expand the dedicated AA lineup, I think we should scale back the "V" weapons that target both.

I hate when my bug VTOLs overfly some mini pod towers along the way to some other target, and I lose several of them.
AG/twin AG is also pretty effective, if your vtols dont just fire a salvo and leave, they get chewed up (so you need a lot of splash- ie heap/thermite+ bombs, or rockets/scourge, and medium bodies to be effective against these tanks)

[JDW]

And it's time for Rebalance 0.8!

First on our list is an overhaul for VTOL balance.

While VTOLs are somewhat balanced, they don't have nearly as much variety for dealing with them than other unit types. Until T3, you only have one weapon line for dedicated anti-air: The Hurricane line, which are all pretty similar right now.

But that's gonna change in Rebalance 0.8 (due in 2.3.5 if I can convince cybersphinx to include it ).

Since Zarel has gone 'WZ|Inactive', are the re-balancing plans still on course for 2.3.5? Or is it postponed for a later release? Just asking...

[Olrox]

I like the idea and all and the model looks nice, but it seems too low poly, low detail for your standard olrox.

I was specifically asked to do that
The models needed to go along with the current ones without too much of a shock.

Of course, AR standards are way different

About the rockets, I was thinking about making the VTOL version like the one on the picture you've posted, 3drts, but twin. In both versions, changing the number of tubes is a simple matter of dividing the polygon and re-mapping the textures, but I need to know exactly how many shots per salvo we'll have, to make a coherent model

Let's wait and see what the devs got to say about that.

Since Zarel has gone 'WZ|Inactive', are the re-balancing plans still on course for 2.3.5? Or is it postponed for a later release? Just asking...

Zarel told me that he's "Inactive" because he'll focus on 0.8 rebalance and pretty much just that for the next days, so don't panic

~Olrox

[Zarel]

I prefer the double row design, for these to be "believable", you're going to have to have something that looks like it can fire a good sized Salvo.

The largest salvo weapon in Warzone has 8 launchers. Making a new weapon with 12 launchers is going to look ugly. This is an aesthetics thing - Warzone weapons are simplified to be more recognizable - if every MRL actually had 48 launchers, you wouldn't be able to see details in any of them. In actuality, all the salvo weapons - MRA, Sunburst, Ripple, etc all have more launchers than are visible on the model.

A2A unguided rockets work in Reality, I can't think of any S2A unguided rockets that actually worked.
Zarel decided for gameplay, we could ignore that, much like how we ignore that a flame thrower is not an effective anti tank weapon.
There are no examples of one tank taking out another with a flame thrower.
Nor do machine guns really do anything against tanks.

Another option would be to call them guided rockets... "Wire guidance" or something. Though that could make them pretty infeasible range-wise; I dunno, I'm not a weapons engineer.

FWIW, I think Assault guns, mini pods, and many weapons are a little too effective against VTOLs.

If we expand the dedicated AA lineup, I think we should scale back the "V" weapons that target both.

Per's been against my making mini-pods V for ages.

But, seriously, look at them:



Doesn't this look like it can rotate upwards?

I hate when my bug VTOLs overfly some mini pod towers along the way to some other target, and I lose several of them.
AG/twin AG is also pretty effective, if your vtols dont just fire a salvo and leave, they get chewed up (so you need a lot of splash- ie heap/thermite+ bombs, or rockets/scourge, and medium bodies to be effective against these tanks)

Well, they're bug VTOLs. If you spend all your money on weapons instead of sturdiness, what do you expect? I'd argue this is a perfect example of balancing making scorpions not worthless.

[Rman Virgil]

[
Per's been against my making mini-pods V for ages.

But, seriously, look at them:



Doesn't this look like it can rotate upwards?

It sure does. Never noticed that before.

- RV
.

[Zarel]

I like the idea and all and the model looks nice, but it seems too low poly, low detail for your standard olrox.

Olrox's screenshots are at 1/16 the texture detail currently in 2.3-branch, so it looks a bit worse than it would actually in-game.

It doesn't make that much of a difference, either - Buggy and Berg actually laughed at me could not perceive a significant difference when I committed those detailed textures. At any zoomlevel Warzone supports, the amount of detail in one of Olrox's complex models compared to one of these are practically indistinguishable.

Since Zarel has gone 'WZ|Inactive', are the re-balancing plans still on course for 2.3.5? Or is it postponed for a later release? Just asking...

Since Buginator is rushing a 2.3.5 release for today/tomorrow, I don't we'll be able to get all of Rebalance 0.8 in until 2.3.6.

I am still waiting on a version of this model that actually works in game, btw. All of the ones uploaded thus far appear to be crashing Warzone.

Most preferable would be a mod that changes weapons.txt to change Cyclone's model with Flak Cannon, and the Lancer's model with Sunburst (i.e. Without changing the existing .pie files). I'd be able to handle everything from there.

[stiv]

Since Buginator is rushing a 2.3.5 release for today/tomorrow...

Curse that dang Buginator and his typical open source "Release Early, Release Often" philosophy! It is like he is trying to make progress or something.

[Zarel]

Curse that dang Buginator and his typical open source "Release Early, Release Often" philosophy! It is like he is trying to make progress or something.

...I never said it was a bad thing. Just that I wouldn't be able to get the graphics in time.

[Zarel]

For the record, Berg originally posted here, writing:

It doesn't make that much of a difference, either - Buggy and Berg actually laughed at me when I committed those details textures. At any zoomlevel Warzone supports, the amount of detail in one of Olrox's complex models compared to one of these are practically indistinguishable.

You should only write the truth Zarel I did not laugh. Inventing details is a bad flaw you seem to have.

For the record, Olrox below was responding to my original words, which included:

<Zarel> http://imagebin.ca/img/Ate8FOw.png
<Berg> you changed the blue light to a green light?
<Berg> magic

<vexed> Berg, don't your tanks have better looking textures ?
<Berg> mine are not worthy or up to that high standard i just saw

The main point wasn't what you did, the main point was that there's not much difference between a high detail texture and a low detail texture, and I was using your reaction as an example of someone who, like me, had seen the difference between the current texture and a 16x more detailed version, and concluded that it was inconsequential.

[Olrox]

the difference between the current texture and a 16x more detailed version, and concluded that it was inconsequential.

I believe I can use 16x more detail to make a difference. At least on most cases, yes. I don't think that such shallow mockery should make (and hope it doesn't make) you think that it doesn't make a difference, because IMHO it does - I've seen the increased texture page myself and I believe it can bring improvements, at least in short-term.

Depreciating each other's work is only gonna make us stop developing, and that's bad for the community altogether. That's not for anyone specific, I think that it applies to everyone including myself... That's all that I'm gonna dare to say about this situation

As for the models, I'm still struggling to learn exactly how to adapt PIEs to the original Teamcolor system. I'll post them here when/if I manage to do it right.

~Olrox

[MaNGusT]

As for the models, I'm still struggling to learn exactly how to adapt PIEs to the original Teamcolor system. I'll post them here when/if I manage to do it right.

Its really hard to do this by using TXT editor. also you can try to use pie sliecer.

So I want to say that we have no tools to edit team color positions and parameters for the 2.3 version.

[JDW]

... so don't panic

Awww.. Well, then I'll just have to find something else to do.

[3drts]

But, seriously, look at them:



Doesn't this look like it can rotate upwards?

So can a Mortar, that does not make it an AA weapon.
FWIW some howitzers can be makeshift flak cannons if loaded with the right shells, and mounted in such a way that they can fire at an acceptable upward angle.

I hate when my bug VTOLs overfly some mini pod towers along the way to some other target, and I lose several of them.

Well, they're bug VTOLs. If you spend all your money on weapons instead of sturdiness, what do you expect? I'd argue this is a perfect example of balancing making scorpions not worthless.

#1) it wasn't about the money, it was about production speed to get as much firepower out as I could when he had no AA defenses.
Based on his layout of bunkers, minipods, and later lancer towers/hardpoints, I don't think his intent was for the mini pods to be AA.

This is another high vs low oil thing....

On low oil maps, in the older versions, if you got out a few vtols, you could relatively safely harass an enemy tank group.
The Mgs and lancer borgs would do some damage, but not much, now sending a few vtols out to pick off a few tanks, results in the loss of a few vtols too.
To effectively fight a group of tanks, without dedicated AA, you need a group of vtols, preferable with splash damage, and now you not only have to make sure there is no dedicated AA in between your VTOLs and their destination, but no borgs, or mgs (or mini pods depending on tech levels).

Just look at the DPS of the twin AG, a group of Twin AG tanks will tear up VTOLs, and lancer borgs will do a pretty good job against anything but large groups of bomber vtols.

I think the proliferation of "V weapons" has rendered VTOL weapon choices to only rockets, and bombs.
Anything else requires too much time over the target that can now very effectively damage the vtols.
Without salvo+retreat, or splash, vtols suck, and it didn't used to be that way.

I guess I have fond memories of my cannon/HPV cannon/ Pulse laser VTOLs spending a lot of time over enemy groups picking off tanks one after the other, receiving minimal damage (with rocket/missile armed ones being used initially to take out any AA units that are in the group)