Tank Destroyer Moving Penalty When Turning to Aim

This has always felt like a distinct problem with the Jagdpanzer IV, and after seeing it a few times in streams recently it has been on my mind again.

When tank destroyers (TDs) rotate to target an enemy tank they have a tendency to shoot before they have finished turning. This seems to coincide with a high miss rate that makes it look like they must have a moving penalty being applied that a stationary turreted tank would not have.

I did some tests in CheatMod with an SU85 and JPIV. I always had the bias that the JPIV was far more heavily affected by this issue, but surprisingly it seemed pretty even from an anecdotal perspective. Both tanks distinctly shoot before they finish rotating and often miss.

I'm curious as to whether increasing general TD aim time by 300 milliseconds or so (and reducing cooldown/reload time accordingly) would help to resolve this issue and allow TDs to perform more consistently in their role.

If the enemy tank was close enough to make the TD keep rotating, the moving penalty would probably still appropriately apply.

Anyone with modding knowledge able to comment on whether or not this makes any sense?

Edit

And the results are in:



Recordings of the experiments in case you want to see it yourself or recreate methodology (I recommend 2x speed )

I think it's also possible to not have the penalty apply when ONLY rotating as another option.

This has always felt like a distinct problem with the Jagdpanzer IV, and after seeing it a few times in streams recently it has been on my mind again.

When tank destroyers (TDs) rotate to target an enemy tank they have a tendency to shoot before they have finished turning. This seems to coincide with a high miss rate that makes it look like they must have a moving penalty being applied that a stationary turreted tank would not have.

I did some tests in CheatMod with an SU85 and JPIV. I always had the bias that the JPIV was far more heavily affected by this issue, but surprisingly it seemed pretty even from an anecdotal perspective. Both tanks distinctly shoot before they finish rotating and often miss.

I'm curious as to whether increasing general TD aim time by 300 milliseconds or so (and reducing cooldown/reload time accordingly) would help to resolve this issue and allow TDs to perform more consistently in their role.

If the enemy tank was close enough to make the TD keep rotating, the moving penalty would probably still appropriately apply.

Anyone with modding knowledge able to comment on whether or not this makes any sense?

Do you have any counted numbers for yout test?
But what I could imagine hapoening:
The tank shoots as soon as the first edge of the target reaches the tolerated angle. It might be that the tank then targets the edge instead of the center. If the shot scatters, then one half of the scatter area is not covered by the enemy target which leads to a higher chance to miss overall. But I don't know how target aquisition is checked. Maybe it is always the center of the unit that needs to be in range. But I remember a discussion in the forums about Elefant and the British AT emplacement being weird, because although both have 70 range, the Elefant could target the emplacement but not the pther way round due to hit boxes and the projectile spawn point or something.

But it might just be that CoH bugs out and applies some modifiers during rotation.

I am not sure if fire aim time would fix this. It depends on where the tank actually aims at. If the original target would still be the edge and not be updated after the aim time, then nothing would change.

thanks for the info! In order to properly test this one must compare the turning numbers with the numbers while chasing a tank. So one can actually do moving acc vs turning acc. I always feel like the moving acc can be quite bad, so i often halt before the shot.

thanks for the info! In order to properly test this one must compare the turning numbers with the numbers while chasing a tank. So one can actually do moving acc vs turning acc. I always feel like the moving acc can be quite bad, so i often halt before the shot.

Moving accuracy is usually halved. Additionally the scatter area gets larger which further reduces hit chance.

Do you have any counted numbers for yout test?
But what I could imagine hapoening:
The tank shoots as soon as the first edge of the target reaches the tolerated angle. It might be that the tank then targets the edge instead of the center. If the shot scatters, then one half of the scatter area is not covered by the enemy target which leads to a higher chance to miss overall. But I don't know how target aquisition is checked. Maybe it is always the center of the unit that needs to be in range. But I remember a discussion in the forums about Elefant and the British AT emplacement being weird, because although both have 70 range, the Elefant could target the emplacement but not the pther way round due to hit boxes and the projectile spawn point or something.

But it might just be that CoH bugs out and applies some modifiers during rotation.

I am not sure if fire aim time would fix this. It depends on where the tank actually aims at. If the original target would still be the edge and not be updated after the aim time, then nothing would change.

this dont need tests, since everybody which played TD with no turret know this issue...the first shoot misses often while the vehicle stay but must turn the chasemate.


jackson and firefly has a big advantage here

this dont need tests, since everybody which played TD with no turret know this issue...the first shoot misses often while the vehicle stay but must turn the chasemate.


jackson and firefly has a big advantage here

Of course it needs testing. Subjective bias is strong and otherwise fixing it would just be guess work.

this dont need tests, since everybody which played TD with no turret know this issue...the first shoot misses often while the vehicle stay but must turn the chasemate.


jackson and firefly has a big advantage here

while it is indeed known that rotation counts as moving and, hence, rotation tends to make shots miss, this is not what the OP wants to test. the question is if a longer aim time could be used to delay the shooting animation so that the moving accuracy penalty no longer applies.

i did some quick testing on that and it seems that is indeed possible.

setting the fire aim and ready aim time to 2 seconds did the trick in my setup, which used a base acc of 1 and moving acc of 0, together with absurdly high scatter angle to quickly distinguish scatter shots from natural (accuracy based) hits.

in the tests the jp4 took a brief moment to aim after rotating and thus never missed a shot. so it'd be merely about testing how much delay is needed to force the rotation to fully stop before shooting

setting the fire aim and ready aim time to 2 seconds did the trick in my setup, which used a base acc of 1 and moving acc of 0, together with absurdly high scatter angle to quickly distinguish scatter shots from natural (accuracy based) hits.

Oh, very cool. Thanks for doing that. The scatter change is nice idea for testing. I'll record some testing of vanilla rules to help provide a baseline.

Does changing the aim time make it easier to circle the TD?

Does changing the aim time make it easier to circle the TD?

It means you need to have target in sight for longer to shoot. It should make it easier to run away from firing arc.

i thought no-turret TD CAN'T shoot on the move, they don't have the line of code right ?

i thought no-turret TD CAN'T shoot on the move, they don't have the line of code right ?

Pretty sure all of them can. I think the JT and ISU are the only ones that cannot. Maybe the elephant as well?

i thought no-turret TD CAN'T shoot on the move, they don't have the line of code right ?

Only super heavies can't.

Do you have any counted numbers for your test?

I do now! Turns out it was pretty much as I suspected.

And the results are in:



Recordings of the experiments in case you want to see it yourself or recreate methodology (I recommend 2x speed )

Show Spoiler