Chieftain Mod

[jcmiller101]

Noticed some comments on Chieftains. After reading a thread at http://graviteam.com I thought I'd quickly alter the engine, transmission & gearbox/gears to match a SABOW Chieftain mod. Haven't had much time for gaming of late so this is a 5 minute job :P

The resulting tabs.flatdata needs to go here -
[GT:OS install folder]/data/k43/ma_gerat/shared_data/

MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP THE ORIGINAL. You can just append an extra ext e.g.:-
tabs.flatdata.original
to preserve it so you can easily roll back.

I ran the modded tanks on Shilovo - lots of trees, hills & gullies & they seem a bit more sprightly on that terrain.
On one of the SotP maps they appeared to match the speed of the T-55s & 62s with all grinding thru sandy desert.

It was interesting to see kill ratios with & without the mod. This was 8 vs 8 tanks, 8 Chieftains, 4 T-55 4 T-62. I just set them to attack each other head on in a 'flat' area.
Without mod - 5:2 in favour of Russian Ts
With mod - 1:1
Random Chance or better performing tank???

If you want to try it out -
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQEfuCgimkQg10mHtjlCx-0u2ds

[Simdeck]

Thanks for this. Great stuff.

[babushka]

thanks for this

[jcmiller101]

Had a chance to review this & made a change.
This is after the change on the tank-unfriendy terrain of Zhalanashkol -
https://youtu.be/LXvAnwIdKxU

D/L link for v2
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQEfuCgimkQg2DFsNKaKI-u3SGR

Too much or too little change? See what you think.

[^Steel-Savage^]

Works a treat, thanks for this! Chieftain still seems to be T-55 fodder though, the latter seems to be a supertank in GT:OS, able to fire accurately when moving at speed and kill Chieftains significantly faster than they can repay the compliment. Still, it's great that Chieftains no longer regularly sit immobile, huffing in a corner, or when they do move, shuffle hesitantly at about walking pace, regardless of skill setting. Now, they actually move out smartly - much more realistic than the un-modded version.

[jcmiller101]

Thanks for letting me know it works OK 33lima.
I could uprate the armor or gun in theory, wasn't sure about how far to go.
Or do you think that the targeting ability should take precedence?

The problem is getting enough 'independent' testers who understand the problem of realism vs gaming

This may be of interest

"The Iranian Chieftain was used extensively in the Iran–Iraq War of 1980-88 apparently with mixed results resulting mostly of engine breakdowns. In early 1981 the Iranian Chieftains and M60A1 took part in the biggest tank battle of the war, loosing some 200 tanks while Iraq lost 50 T-62 tanks."

But I can give it a shot if you fancy trying it out.

[jcmiller101]

Had a spare hour so here is version 3
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQEfuCgimkQg2EizsnnznNovnmK

This has some slight changes to the vehicle stats which should make it a bit more even, I have only tried head to head T55 vs Chieftain platoons on the open spaces of SotP.

It isn't a cakewalk but it needs someone to try a battle with all the various elements (M60A1, T62, T55 & Chieftain etc) to see if the overall balance is OK.

[^Steel-Savage^]

Thanks JC will give it a try. ATM (previous version of mod) my impression is that T-55 is too accurate (poss incl while firing on the move) and too lethal vs Chieftain. If export T-55s were as good as this, I doubt the USSR would have wasted their roubles developing T-62!

[jcmiller101]

I hope you will find this variant makes it a fairer fight 33Lima.

The process of editing the cfg raised a few interesting questions. In my historical research one of the key differences I discovered was that the T55 turret rotation/elevation mechs were slower than the Chieftains. (IIRC this was one of the upgrades on the T62). This simple factor would make a critical difference in combat.
As these values are in the cfg I started with that.
I guess the mod should really be called the T55/Chieftain balance mod as I have attempted to find a parity. One version made the stock t55 brew up faster than they could shout 'Davai', another turned the tables back against the Chiefs. I made a number of changes on various values in the end until I found one that seemed to give the most 'equal' balance.

Hopefully the current iteration retains the difficulties & uniqueness of the vehicles, & gives both a chance. We don't want COH tank battles do we ?!

[Sul]

Originally posted by jcmiller101:

Noticed some comments on Chieftains. After reading a thread at http://graviteam.com I thought I'd quickly alter the engine, transmission & gearbox/gears to match a SABOW Chieftain mod. Haven't had much time for gaming of late so this is a 5 minute job :P

The resulting tabs.flatdata needs to go here -
[GT:OS install folder]/data/k43/ma_gerat/shared_data/

MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP THE ORIGINAL. You can just append an extra ext e.g.:-
tabs.flatdata.original
to preserve it so you can easily roll back.

I ran the modded tanks on Shilovo - lots of trees, hills & gullies & they seem a bit more sprightly on that terrain.
On one of the SotP maps they appeared to match the speed of the T-55s & 62s with all grinding thru sandy desert.

It was interesting to see kill ratios with & without the mod. This was 8 vs 8 tanks, 8 Chieftains, 4 T-55 4 T-62. I just set them to attack each other head on in a 'flat' area.
Without mod - 5:2 in favour of Russian Ts
With mod - 1:1
Random Chance or better performing tank???

If you want to try it out -
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQEfuCgimkQg10mHtjlCx-0u2ds

For some reason this mod doesn't fix my issue, the root directory don't exist in my game files either (the ma_gerat file isn't there, but I found a tabs.flatdata file inside my game files and replaced it)

[jcmiller101]

Azir -
(APOS)\data\k43t\ma_gerat79\shared\packed_data\
is where the SotP DLC\tabs file is on my non-steam install
In \k43t I have -
upd_poly
ma_sokolovo1943
ma_blau1942
ma_kr_polyana1943
ma_hooper88
ma_gerat79
ma_zhal69
ma_shilovo42
dev_updates
...etc
Each DLC (ma_* folder) has it's own tabs.flatdata - they are DLC/campaign specific.
You will need to figure out which one is SotP & try it.

BTW try v.3.0 < https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQEfuCgimkQg2EizsnnznNovnmK >as it has uprated defense values as well.
hth

[Sul]

ah yes I found it!

[jcmiller101]

Great. Let me know how it goes. ;)