Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2 Multiplayer

Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2 Multiplayer

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Tank Crew & You
By SgtJoe
Maximize your tank effectiveness using AI!
   
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Introduction
Are you having trouble tanking?

Don't want to allow humans inside because they're not perfectly obedient like the AI?

Jealous that you can only fire one gun at a time while others can fire both?

Well say no more because here I'll tell you exactly how to maximize your tank effectiveness by using the tank AI to your advantage!
Bot-Only Servers
First of all: if you're the only human on a single tank map, you are a god.
Feel free to instantly open all hatches and keep them open the entire game!

The bots see the tank as one big entity and don't recognize the individual crew, thus they don't know how to shoot directly at you.


Be warned though, other tanks can still kill you, and if a human joins they will definitely kill you!


Now, if you remember from basic training, as the commander of a tank you have access to the Orders Widget, by default bound to F. Press and hold that key to make the module appear, as well as a pointer on the ground.


You can click to make your driver move there, but if you move it over an enemy:


It changes to a red crosshair. Click now to order Suppressive Fire!


All your tank's weapons will open up, and will continue to fire at targets for about ten seconds. After that they will go back to passive state until you give the command again.

That's it! Now you can have both the cannon, coaxial MG, and hull MG firing at the same time, tripling your effectiveness!

This works from any seat, not just driver. Although if you miss you'll accidentally order a Move Here command which can be obnoxious.

Human Servers
Now, with humans players things get a bit tricky. Obviously humans are much smarter than bots, and will immediately recognize and kill an exposed crew member.

So, you have to keep the hatches closed. That is a problem however, since when "zoomed in", your line of sight is fixed, making it difficult to move the pointer over an enemy.

You only choice is to stay in "medium" mode. You vision is still slightly obscured and aimed at the ground, but if you drive up on a little incline you can angle yourself to get a good view.

Server Admins/Advanced Users
If you're a server administrator and fond of this trick, you can make it a lot easier on yourself.

In your ROGame.ini, under [ROGame.ROGameInfo], there is a setting called TankAIFiringSetting.

Much like the name says, it controls the behavior of the tank AI.
Here's the description of each one, copy/pasted from the UnrealScript source code:

// What functionality AI Gunners in human controlled tanks can perform
// 0 = Fire when targets are designated by the human player only
// 1 = Only Hull MG can fire when targets are designated by the human player only
// 2 = Only Main Gun can fire when targets are designated by the human player only
// 3 = Never fire at all
// 4 = Only the hull MG can fire autonomously
// 5 = Only the main gun can fire autonomously
// 6 = Tank AI can fire at whatever it wants

Most servers have this option set to 0, forcing everyone to constantly give Suppressive Fire commands for the AI to do anything.

However, if you set it to 4, 5, or 6, they will automatically fire whenever an enemy is in range!

You can cancel this behavior with the Hold Fire command, and have them resume with Fire At Will.


If you're just a regular player like me, you can still do this. The steps are all exactly the same, and your ROGame.ini is located in "...\Documents\My Games\RedOrchestra2\ROGame\Config\".

However, it will only apply to offline matches. (Steam Workshop, loading a map via console)
Why?
What the heck is the point of this? Why can't I just get humans instead?

Granted, humans may be smarter and more effective at distances, but bots have their perks too.

Being bots, they have aimbots. They can shoot through smoke, and they can essentially see in all directions at all times, while a player is limited to the vision slits.

Also: I may be wrong, but it seems AI reload faster than players. I've seen the hull MGer go back to firing right in the middle of the reload animation. You can see this at about 6:25 in the video below.

And besides, sometimes people won't want to join, or there's not enough.
If you have another person with you, have them man the hull MG while the AI controls the cannon with their uninhibited vision.
Summary
Now that you know how to do this, there should be absolutely no reason for the hull MGer to be sitting picking his nose while you're blasting away with the cannon!

I've been using the T34 as an example for this guide, but the process is exactly the same for the T70 and German tanks. In fact it's a bit easier with them since you have the separate commander with a much better line of sight.

To wrap things up I've made a short video showing just how awesome this is!










(excuse the first thirty seconds, you have to kinda glitch the game to get the role working)
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20 Comments
SgtJoe  [author] Feb 6, 2023 @ 1:13pm 
DefaultGame is merely a template of the file, the game creates of a copy of it and stores it as ROGame in your local directory.
Officer Feb 6, 2023 @ 6:05am 
if you are still using this guide, then rogame.ini is no longer called that, it is now defaultgame.ini
SgtJoe  [author] Oct 29, 2019 @ 3:34pm 
Number only.
Officer Oct 29, 2019 @ 1:29pm 
do we have to do the // (number) or do we only do the number?
Cigarette Oct 28, 2019 @ 2:07pm 
its ben 2 years and steam gave me a notificatoin for this.
SgtJoe  [author] Oct 28, 2019 @ 1:08am 
Reread the Advanced Users section more carefully, it's all there.
Officer Oct 27, 2019 @ 2:23pm 
and how do i do that
SgtJoe  [author] Oct 27, 2019 @ 1:34pm 
It's not a console command, you need to edit your config file.
Officer Oct 27, 2019 @ 10:55am 
How do I get the tankAI firingsetting to work in the console command? What do I need to do?
Cigarette Nov 18, 2017 @ 1:40pm 
Okay, But what is the max settings i could have to allow them.