Scenario tonnage system makes no sense

[Carrion Knight]

Specifically on Taiga, you are put up against several heavy tanks, including a king tiger. I made a fifty ton tank which allowed me to have two total units. in order to fight the other heavy tanks, I had to use a ten ton tank I had made earlier.

Shouldn't the units match, or, at least my AI partner should have actual AI and not just ram into walls or miss every single shot. it feels especially unfair considering I have NEVER seen the enemy miss a shot, additionally, the enemy seems very reserved and will rarely ever approach, making many of the deaths feel unwarranted when my tank is just vaporised by a king tiger six hills away.

[Zinnia Later]

I think there are different types of AI, at the very least attacking and defending. You can see in Defense that your AI tanks are defending, but on Taiga they attack. I have seen a few IS-22 Late(s) come forward, along with the occaisional Spilliet or Lawmaker.
But yes, the enemy is like the Scrap Mechanic tapebots. They NEVER. MISS. A. SHOT. And, one to two shots kills you. It is annoying, but if it helps you know which spots to avoid, you could press P to go into photo mode to help you spot targets. If you don't know what photo mode is, then I'll tell you if you ask me.

[Storch Eater]

FFS they don't take 1-2 shots to kill ya if you have the appropriate armor

[calembredaine]

order your ai to halt or cut their engine off.
position a few tanks in hull down positions when you are not engaged.
use dead tank carcasses as cover. even a dead light tank can shield you from the most powerful shells.
maybe you have already tried but i'm really confirming you its potential: proper positioning is so powerful you could even beat taiga with WWI designs by just upgunning them to decent level and following the above tips.

your ai is actually as good as the enemy's. what you describe happens on both sides, but you don't notice it cause battles are chaotic. number really is the difference: if they shoot more, they hit more; when an enemy tank bogs down, you still have 6 others to worry about.

you are often outnumbered because it's actually very easy to make a good enough tank. combine impervious armour, a lolpen gun and good turret traverse and it's really done in a few tries at most. it's not even necessarily that taxing for your budget.

defense is a perfect example of why it becomes really braindead easy if the enemy does not have number on its side. unless your tank really is sub-par, your ai actually guns everyone down for you. scenarios certainly offer a poorly balanced challenge since they are very simplistic, but the budget numbers are not nonsensical.

[Zinnia Later]

Originally posted by Not2BDamned:

FFS they don't take 1-2 shots to kill ya if you have the appropriate armor

one shot might not kill you, a second might not as well. I was making a comparison to another game's enemies. which deal 55 damage out of 100.

[Carrion Knight]

Originally posted by Not2BDamned:

FFS they don't take 1-2 shots to kill ya if you have the appropriate armor

I have thick and sloped armour, my tank is fast at 45 MPH. My tank is using a high caliber gun, with lots of propellant to ensure that they have decent (195mm iirc) penetration. My issue is not the design. but more along the lines that the levels feel artificially hard, more like an old school arcade game.

Originally posted by calembredaine:

order your ai to halt or cut their engine off.
position a few tanks in hull down positions when you are not engaged.
use dead tank carcasses as cover. even a dead light tank can shield you from the most powerful shells.
maybe you have already tried but i'm really confirming you its potential: proper positioning is so powerful you could even beat taiga with WWI designs by just upgunning them to decent level and following the above tips.

your ai is actually as good as the enemy's. what you describe happens on both sides, but you don't notice it cause battles are chaotic. number really is the difference: if they shoot more, they hit more; when an enemy tank bogs down, you still have 6 others to worry about.

you are often outnumbered because it's actually very easy to make a good enough tank. combine impervious armour, a lolpen gun and good turret traverse and it's really done in a few tries at most. it's not even necessarily that taxing for your budget.

defence is a perfect example of why it becomes really brain dead easy if the enemy does not have number on its side. unless your tank really is sub-par, your ai actually guns everyone down for you. scenarios certainly offer a poorly balanced challenge since they are very simplistic, but the budget numbers are not nonsensical.

I've tried and I've even used a light tank with like, a 30mm gun on defence. when the enemy come at you its hardly ever an issue. My issue is the enemy on defence when they just hide and take pot shots at you without ever doing much of anything, I've spent more time in some scenarios looking for the enemy than actually fighting them, and when I do find them it often feels like I'm totally helpless and unable to do anything, like, I'm not perfect at tank design, but it feels like a lot of the enemy tanks are just more powerful than the should be. I've even done custom battles where my own tanks destroy the actual ones, and even done one set of my tanks against another, and the AI almost universally comes out on top unless you use a goofy lolpen design.

[calembredaine]

in my experience AIs are equivalent, and what always mattered to decide a win (barring design quality) was positioning first then number. we got different impressions, can't be helped.
exception is silent border where your ai teammates are scripted to be oblivious from AT guns (without this script, it's awfully easy for them to snipe the ambushers so ig it was put there as a bandaid).

common tactic i have to counter campers is to place one ai tank taking shots as a bait (armour it well or find a carcass to tank shots for you). the ai systematically focuses on the closest threat, so they are oblivious to anything else not coming closer. all that's left is snipe their flanks while still keeping a safe distance.
most direct scenario to practice this tactic is crossroad. lead tank of your column takes the shot and advances a hundred meters or so. this should give your flanker enough space to have a good position without aggroing the king tiger.

Originally posted by Carrion Knight:

My issue is not the design. but more along the lines that the levels feel artificially hard, more like an old school arcade game.

i agree that they're cheesy. even with all the knowledge i gather, it's never subtle enough to make a good challenge.

would put that on levels and ai being too elementary to be properly balanced though, not really enemy budget or ai being buffed. i think regardless of numbers, it'll either be a piece of cake or a cheesefest.

[Eugen]

idk about you, but my friendly AIs never miss too. maybe check your gun, it could have really bad dispersion over range. and tbh i think there's no issue in the enemy AIs, i see other things as problem. for example engine noise and how quiet they are. sometimes enemies can be 100 meter away (or maybe even closer but behind a tree) and i could barely hear their engine. its hard to spot enemies if you cant hear where they're from. and also just tactical capabilities that the game doesnt support (yet, hopefully). for example, opening a map and commanding friendly AIs to certain positions. strategies work in this game, but if your AI is just programmed to move forward and shoot at anything that moves you would definitely have to order a halt and control your AIs position yourself one by one. and that would suck if you have 5 tanks to control

[Burnside's Sideburns]

I've managed to get the <50t two vehicle thing to work. I did it by maxing turret traverse and elevation speeds, and making some really hefty armor. By hefty I mean >280mm at all points in a 60 degree arc front, through the use of applique or pike-nose cheese.

It's worth being said though that there are easier ways to do that mission than that. I played around tonight and took a tank like I described before, with 125mm/1000mm ~5m gun, and reduced the armor to 15mm or lower, lightened the tracks to match and removed all ammo in the hull. That took a 48t tank to less than 18t, and the mission was quite easy in comparison. I also made a version around 27t where I kept the turret armor and the very upper hull armor, and reduced everything else to 15mm or less and that went quite well. In conclusion, the game's tonnage rating system makes armor very underpowered for the "cost", as opposed to grading designs on manufacturing cost, complexity, volume etc.

Lighter guns work well too, I had luck with a light tank with extreme sloping and a long 65mm gun. In general, light tanks with guns just good enough to pen, good traverse and good gun depression do really well across all scenarios and custom battles.

[Dinkleberg]

Originally posted by calembredaine:

order your ai to halt or cut their engine off.

Do these commands still exist in the new versions? Not seeing them in the key mapping and not able to locate an answer.

[calembredaine]

you can't order the ai to hold position in current 0.2 afaik. but you can turn engines off.