Infantry AT weapons

[M.Warren]

Originally Posted by Tirak

Warren, the LAT is horribly under powered, I firmly believe that all kits should be able to destroy at least one of their intended targets with the ammunition you carry, that being said, no matter where you hit, it takes two or more LAT hits to down an APC, and you only cary one tube. If you're ambushing, you don't have time to wait for the ammo to reload, then go through the reloading animation, zero in and fire, a good APC will have blown you away by then, but you do have time to shoot, reload, shoot. If anything needs to be done it's giving LAT another rocket.

Be careful. If Light Anti-Tank is capable of one-shotting an APC then it's just as strong as Heavy Anti-Tank now. And if this does become the case then Heavy Anti-Tank will have to be twice as strong, this means tanks will be one-shotted aswell by HAT.

If Anti-Tank is made that strong that means Tank vs Tank battles will probably be altered to match this one-shot situation against other tanks. Then proceeding to make the purpose of having Engineers on the battlefield a useless class.

If you also hand out large ammo quantities, you'll see people picking up Light Anti-Tank as the new Rifleman kit. Because if you got 2 Light Anti-Tank's on you, who cares to use grenades?

As much as I like reality based senarios, it will effect game play. The idea is to give armor that kind of "epic" edge in the battlefield that makes them so fearsome. Keep in mind that this is a modification and Black Sand Studios along with Project Reality are at the whim of the BF2 engine. If we could control ammo quantities, statistics, bullet drop, deviation and the like as intended we'd see a completely better game than with what we deal with now. Just gotta balance with what you can and can't do.

[Prejudicial]

I love this game, but my #1 complaint it is the AT kits, specifically with the HAT.

I've noticed while pubbing on Kashan, that the bunkers basically become a large barrel of fish in which the HAT snipers enjoy shooting. And it's not hard for them, nor does it require much teamwork outside of the squad necessity to acquire the kit. They simply go to the top of the hills with a jeep/HMMV/equivalent, drop ammo and nail away at any target of opportunity (usually infantry trying to progress from bunker to bunker). That being said I also believe that the HAT kit is necessary, but would make some small adjustments...

-Reduce splash damage; therefore it's still effective against armor direct hits, but requires skill to use and isn't that devastating as a "squad buster" (thats what the grenadier is for).

-Increase the reload time; this way people have to be selective about what they shoot. It won't be a constant stream of AT rockets from any given place.

-Decrease the ammo carried to 1; I never really understood why this kit had two missles versus the one that LAT carries.

As far as the light AT goes, I love the kit for the most part. I wish the field of view was a little better on the sight and that the ammo loadout was increased to 2, but thats it. It's already a slightly limited kit in that the drop is substantial at distance and requires some decent guesstimation to get those long-shot targets.

Just my $0.02

Looking forward to .8! You guys have provided an awesome game and despite my few minor gripes/suggestions your work is appreciated and greatly enjoyed! Kudos for taking vanilla BF2 and making it better!

[Cassius]

I feel the HAT is aright the way it is. I didnt see much HAT sniping if any. Only time I use it on infantery is on mestia at the start of the game to shoot in the bunkers and if the team wastes the HAT kit to get 1 or 2 kills untill they get sniped (Kshan) or killed in close quarters (mestia fools road) I would say tough luck for them when they need one against armor and none are avaiable.

[Pvt_Parts]

For theorectical gameplay:

... it would make sense if 1 LAT partially disables an APC, and 1 HAT partially disables a tank. Damage/disabling model should be expanded to partial failures (slower moving, etc), if possible. It should be present on all vehicles, even jeeps (simulating tire or engine damage). The idea of LAT/HAT/AA kits is to get the APC/Tank/Air to back off, right? And the idea of the APC/Tank/Air is to crush troops (well, APCs swat troops while transporting).

Since it is a game, AT splash damage should damage 50-70% health for troops in a small radius, 1m. (Can't you define a falloff over a distance, if so, 80% at 0.1m to 30% at 1m). Maybe 2m for HAT, but it would still make HAT weapons uber pwn@g3 weapons, so 1m would be better. The Devs claim they want each kit to have a specific role, so that means AT should be barely effective against troops. Reduced splash should eventually reduce HAT sniping from firebases unless it were against vehicles or bunkers.

To further the idea of conventional versus non-conventional armies, conventional AT weapons should partially disable armored target and destroy non-armored in one hit (if used against intended HAT->tank, LAT->APC, etc). Non-conventional should take twice as many hits. However, conventional carries one shot, and non-conventional carries two.

(As a conventional: ) It should probably take 2 LATs to partially disable a tank, 4 to disable a tank, 6-7 to burn it (slow), and 8-10 to outright toast it. 1 HAT to partially disable, 1-2 to disable (chance of burning), 2-3 to toast. 1 LAT to partially disable APC, 2 (1 if from rear) to completely disable (no turret, little/no driving), 3 to toast. There should also be long reload times. But for non-conventional, it should be less of a reload time.

If its not already done, it may be a good idea to have non-conventional vehicles have less health, but spawn more often.

Just my thoughts on it, I'm sure most (if not all) will disagree.

[IAJTHOMAS]

Was off to test but just noticed I forgot to reinstall the training mod.

Personally, and this is coming from someone who is mainly an inf player and so has a healty distaste for armour rolling up, I think its pretty well balanced atm i terms of AT v armour. Skilled and co-ordinated LAT and HAT crews have litte trouble dispatching armour. APCs are quite often death traps anyway, as they're one shot killed by most anti armour devices at the moment, even if it does take 2 LAT shots. The HAT is so effective that even long range inf support is risky. (TBH perhaps HAT should one have 1 missile on them and have to rely on ammo like LATs).

Also, the size of the maps means that view distance etc must be scaled and armour can't operate at the long range it might in real life, its primary defence against such AT weapons, so perhaps this can be seen as bit of a compromise.

[Thermis]

IRL most modern Armored Vehicles can sustain multiple hits from weapons like RPGs. American vehicles are built on a principle of crew survivability so very rarely will anything "kill" a vehicle but a multiple hits to a APC or Tank even with light AT weapons will disable an Abrams Tank.
I'd like to see a better system of disabling vehicles but I'm not sure that's possible. So I think 2-3 hits is good for an APC. 4-6 should disable a tank. I think it would be nice if they had a larger splash damage area too.

[Tirak]

Originally Posted by M.Warren

Be careful. If Light Anti-Tank is capable of one-shotting an APC then it's just as strong as Heavy Anti-Tank now. And if this does become the case then Heavy Anti-Tank will have to be twice as strong, this means tanks will be one-shotted aswell by HAT.

If Anti-Tank is made that strong that means Tank vs Tank battles will probably be altered to match this one-shot situation against other tanks. Then proceeding to make the purpose of having Engineers on the battlefield a useless class.

If you also hand out large ammo quantities, you'll see people picking up Light Anti-Tank as the new Rifleman kit. Because if you got 2 Light Anti-Tank's on you, who cares to use grenades?

As much as I like reality based senarios, it will effect game play. The idea is to give armor that kind of "epic" edge in the battlefield that makes them so fearsome. Keep in mind that this is a modification and Black Sand Studios along with Project Reality are at the whim of the BF2 engine. If we could control ammo quantities, statistics, bullet drop, deviation and the like as intended we'd see a completely better game than with what we deal with now. Just gotta balance with what you can and can't do.

I'm not asking for one shot LAT, or huge ammo counts, I just want another rocket for LAT, that's it. No replacement for grenades, no increase in power, no greater kit availability, no uber awsome addons, no HAT increases etc.etc.etc. Just one more rocket for LAT. It won't replace grenades because it's direct fire, and it's not offering a major edge, just giving LAT a fighting chance against a two manned APC.

[IAJTHOMAS]

Get a rifleman?

[M_Striker]

Originally Posted by Tirak

I'm not asking for one shot LAT, or huge ammo counts, I just want another rocket for LAT, that's it. No replacement for grenades, no increase in power, no greater kit availability, no uber awsome addons, no HAT increases etc.etc.etc. Just one more rocket for LAT. It won't replace grenades because it's direct fire, and it's not offering a major edge, just giving LAT a fighting chance against a two manned APC.

@Tirak, all the light AT weapons featured in Project Reality (cept the RPG probably), are throwaway weapons - you fire, you discard. No reload. carrying another rocket wouldn't be realistic for this type of weapon, lol. It'd be useless.

@Warren, So the problems with the AT kits are all for gameplay purposes then.......

[Conman51=US=]

Originally Posted by M_Striker

@Warren, So the problems with the AT kits are all for gameplay purposes then.......

unfortunatly..i think they are