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russian armor

IS-2 and Panther

20 Jan 2015, 08:21 AM
#1
avatar of Iron Emperor

Posts: 1653

Dear fellow COHfans,

Lately, next to all the other balance problems, I have the feeling that the IS-2, King Tiger and Panther are too overpowered. Not by gun or speed, but by armour. It's just plain stupid. I had a multiple games (unfortunatly I don't have the replays) where my P-4s tried attack the rear and bounced 7 times, before it penetrated once. You can say that the RNG gods don't love me, but they don't hate me that much.

I have the same problem while playing as USF/Sov with the King Tiger and Panther. The times it doesn't penetrate or bounces is insane. While the Tiger 1 is balanced overall, the King Tiger and Panther are completely off.

So before we make the discussion about the gun the heavy tanks use, it's all about the armour.

Please share your opinion.

Greetz,

Iron Emperor
20 Jan 2015, 08:50 AM
#2
avatar of Australian Magic

Posts: 4630 | Subs: 2

It's not about big, huge, nasty armor. It's about lack of side armor in the game of 2012. on the other hand you have blitzkrieg with front/side/rear/top armors...

It's stupid when shells are bouncing from the side of the tank.

It means you can't flank. You have to go behind and lose your tanks to Paks/Schrecks.
20 Jan 2015, 08:59 AM
#3
avatar of Aerohank

Posts: 2693 | Subs: 1

I agree. The lack of side-armor really makes flanking overly complicated. Especially because the tanks that need to flank to be effective are all very vulnerable to hand-held AT and snares like ATnades.
20 Jan 2015, 09:02 AM
#4
avatar of Iron Emperor

Posts: 1653

It's not about big, huge, nasty armor. It's about lack of side armor in the game of 2012. on the other hand you have blitzkrieg with front/side/rear/top armors...

It's stupid when shells are bouncing from the side of the tank.

It means you can't flank. You have to go behind and lose your tanks to Paks/Schrecks.


When I see a IS-2, I must 100% go for T4 for the panther, since the rest of the tanks are completely garden to it (Ostheer). OKW is completely different, because you have the King Tiger and the Panther to counter it.

Consider the AT guns also as completely useless to the high amount of armour. While you go AT-guns with USF or Sovs vs a KT or a Panther it's also completely laughable. Once I went in a 4v4 for fun with 6 USF AT guns, to see how strong the KT's armour was. 4 hits in approxamatly 18 shots. RNG is a part of it, but only hitting 22,2% of your shots is no counter.
20 Jan 2015, 09:04 AM
#5
avatar of AchtAchter

Posts: 1604 | Subs: 3

These units finally became useful again after their armour buff. This thread only shows that they should stay that way, since these units are supposed to be powerful and not easily be taken out by medium tanks & mass at guns.

20 Jan 2015, 09:11 AM
#6
avatar of Australian Magic

Posts: 4630 | Subs: 2

We can't excpet pure math in the game when you will always kill IS2/KT when you inflict amount of damage that is equal to HP.
Bouncing is part of the game and I love it.
Some factions have problems with that (USF) others don't.

As Ostheer you have plenty options to kill IS2.

Elephant, Pak43, Tiger. These are good units vs IS2 front armor and you don't have to tech into Panthers :)
20 Jan 2015, 09:14 AM
#7
avatar of alcoholic
Patrion 15

Posts: 93

i have read it so many times that there is no side armour in this game.

but there actually is. (even though it has no particular value in the game files)

example: a tank has a front armour of 100 an a rear armour of 10.
if you shoot it at an perpedicular angle and if both hitboxes for rear and front are equally sized the armour of the tank when shooting it from the side (lets just name it side armour) is (100+10)/2 =55

it would have nearly have the same effect if the developer decided to code a specific value for the sidearmour with a value of 55

but what if the developer want a specific side armour valu of lets say 70?
no problem:

lets make the hitbox of the front twice as big as the hitbox in the rear and the sidearmour will become: (100*(2/3)+10*(1/3)) = 70
20 Jan 2015, 09:26 AM
#8
avatar of Iron Emperor

Posts: 1653

These units finally became useful again after their armour buff. This thread only shows that they should stay that way, since these units are supposed to be powerful and not easily be taken out by medium tanks & mass at guns.



As I mentioned I think the gun and speed is fine, but if the armour was balanced like the Tiger 1, it would be much better and also better counterable.

We can't excpet pure math in the game when you will always kill IS2/KT when you inflict amount of damage that is equal to HP.
Bouncing is part of the game and I love it.
Some factions have problems with that (USF) others don't.

As Ostheer you have plenty options to kill IS2.

Elephant, Pak43, Tiger. These are good units vs IS2 front armor and you don't have to tech into Panthers :)


True that you have some options as Ostheer. Elephant is nice, Pak43 is also great and the Tiger is nicely balanced. But if you want to play luftwaffe air supply or Jeager Infantry you have a hard time. (Yes I consider that you made that choice on your own). So at that point you need to go for T4, since P4's can't counter it, since it bounces too much.

That the bouncing is RNG, no problem, I can live with that, but 4 shots out of 18 is not considerable as RNG (in my opinion)
20 Jan 2015, 10:45 AM
#9
avatar of Mr. Someguy

Posts: 4928

It's not about big, huge, nasty armor. It's about lack of side armor.


Rear Armour could serve as side-armour, but it doesn't. This is by design.

It's not a good design, but it was fully intentional.
20 Jan 2015, 11:17 AM
#10
avatar of KovuTalli

Posts: 332

You have to remember the Panther does not have that much HP and a few unlucky bounces will kill it.

The same cannot really be said for the KT but I see it as a bad tank outside of 1's and 2's as the amount of massed, high range AT that can kill it is silly. Especially if it's Jacksons sat behind IS2's.
20 Jan 2015, 11:32 AM
#11
avatar of gokkel

Posts: 542

I really don't like the RNG factor in armor mechanics. Sometimes shots bounce off all the time and sometimes every shot penetrates.

Last game I drove my Panther into 3 Jacksons and an IS-2. Ok, pretty stupid obviously, I just didn't expect it. However, under normal circumstances my Panther should bounce off at least some shots and be able to reverse, hopefully before the second salve. In that case however all 4 shots penetrated the Panther and it instantly got destroyed. I could as well have sent in a Panzer IV and the result would have been the same. Bad luck.

You cannot prevent such happenings with a system that is completely based on RNG. No matter how you fiddle around with the penetration and armor values of every tank, eventually you will run into situations where the unlikely is happening. Either that you bounce off a lot more shots than you should, making your tank far too powerful, or you don't bounce off anything, making your investment into a high armor tank pointless.
20 Jan 2015, 11:44 AM
#12
avatar of Sarantini
Honorary Member Badge
Donator 22

Posts: 2181

i have read it so many times that there is no side armour in this game.

but there actually is. (even though it has no particular value in the game files)

example: a tank has a front armour of 100 an a rear armour of 10.
if you shoot it at an perpedicular angle and if both hitboxes for rear and front are equally sized the armour of the tank when shooting it from the side (lets just name it side armour) is (100+10)/2 =55

it would have nearly have the same effect if the developer decided to code a specific value for the sidearmour with a value of 55

but what if the developer want a specific side armour valu of lets say 70?
no problem:

lets make the hitbox of the front twice as big as the hitbox in the rear and the sidearmour will become: (100*(2/3)+10*(1/3)) = 70

This is completely wrong
20 Jan 2015, 11:51 AM
#13
avatar of Purlictor

Posts: 393


This is completely wrong


Thank you for your most valuable input. Care to elaborate?

Edit: Sure, it doesn't take into account the angle at which the unit is fired at, but it approximates side armor pretty nicely.
20 Jan 2015, 11:54 AM
#14
avatar of pigsoup
Patrion 14

Posts: 4301 | Subs: 2

that could actually be a nice way to add a side armour. half way between front and rear. except for super heavies.
20 Jan 2015, 12:10 PM
#15
avatar of Kronosaur0s

Posts: 1701

We can't excpet pure math in the game when you will always kill IS2/KT when you inflict amount of damage that is equal to HP.
Bouncing is part of the game and I love it.
Some factions have problems with that (USF) others don't.

As Ostheer you have plenty options to kill IS2.

Elephant, Pak43, Tiger. These are good units vs IS2 front armor and you don't have to tech into Panthers :)


Except tiger, agreed on everything
20 Jan 2015, 12:26 PM
#16
avatar of Katitof

Posts: 17914 | Subs: 8



Except tiger, agreed on everything


Tiger stuns it frequently so your AT guns can work on it longer.
20 Jan 2015, 12:32 PM
#17
avatar of Sarantini
Honorary Member Badge
Donator 22

Posts: 2181



Thank you for your most valuable input. Care to elaborate?

Sure, the calculation is incorrect (try it with, say, 100 armor pen, 250 front/100 rear, 2/3rds of side hitbox is front and assuming pen chance = armor penetration/armor*100%), but simply saying it's wrong adds nothing.


Well I wanted to elaborate but I had to leave for a bit, i probably shouldnt have posted but the reason i did is because the first paragraph was wrong

I made a very shitty image cus I dont have any image tools here but you get the idea. Let's say there is a tank with both hhitbox sized the same:


example: a tank has a front armour of 100 an a rear armour of 10.
if you shoot it at an perpedicular angle and if both hitboxes for rear and front are equally sized the armour of the tank when shooting it from the side (lets just name it side armour) is (100+10)/2 =55

What I gather from this sentence is that he thinks that armour gradually goes from the front value to the rear value, which is OPTION 1

In fact tanks have 2 hitboxes where the armour is the same no matter the spot. OPTION 2

Because the hitboxes are clearly defined you can't hit between the two hitboxes, you will always hit FRONT or BACK but not both. Incoming angle also plays no factor



lets make the hitbox of the front twice as big as the hitbox in the rear and the sidearmour will become: (100*(2/3)+10*(1/3)) = 70

No the effect will be that two third of the tank has a armour value of 100 and the rear hitbox will have a value of 10 at every location
20 Jan 2015, 13:28 PM
#18
avatar of Kronosaur0s

Posts: 1701

jump backJump back to quoted post20 Jan 2015, 12:26 PMKatitof


Tiger stuns it frequently so your AT guns can work on it longer.


Im not relying on some RNG bullshit, I prefer getting elefant to completely shut down dat IS2
20 Jan 2015, 14:03 PM
#19
avatar of Ginnungagap

Posts: 324 | Subs: 2

i have read it so many times that there is no side armour in this game.

example: a tank has a front armour of 100 an a rear armour of 10.
if you shoot it at an perpedicular angle and if both hitboxes for rear and front are equally sized the armour of the tank when shooting it from the side (lets just name it side armour) is (100+10)/2 =55

it would have nearly have the same effect if the developer decided to code a specific value for the sidearmour with a value of 55

That doesn't factor in penetration thresholds.

If a gun had a penetration value of exactly 55, it would penetrate every shot if 55 was a "real" value for side armor. With a mix between 100 front and 10 back armour, there will always be non-penetrating shots happening, no matter how small the "back hitbox" of the tank is.

So... as Sarantini said.


On topic: Armor in this game is for my taste not handled optimal. Heavy tanks rely to much on RNG, while medium tanks don't get punished enough for facing rear armor, since the majority of shots will penetrate the front anyway.

What i would like to see:
-Higher, reliable penetration values for tank hunters, Jacksons and Jagdpanzer 4 specifically (160 damage for Jackson to compensate in this case).
-Real side armor (altough i fear you will notice the bad pathing much, much more when tanks start spinning around)
-Damage modifier for back armor (x1.5) and maybe also for front armor (x0.75) hits
-Removal of random stun chance (this chance puts stupid RNG on top of stupid RNG)
20 Jan 2015, 14:18 PM
#20
avatar of Ginnungagap

Posts: 324 | Subs: 2

jump backJump back to quoted post20 Jan 2015, 11:32 AMgokkel
I really don't like the RNG factor in armor mechanics. Sometimes shots bounce off all the time and sometimes every shot penetrates.

Last game I drove my Panther into 3 Jacksons and an IS-2. Ok, pretty stupid obviously, I just didn't expect it. However, under normal circumstances my Panther should bounce off at least some shots and be able to reverse, hopefully before the second salve. In that case however all 4 shots penetrated the Panther and it instantly got destroyed. I could as well have sent in a Panzer IV and the result would have been the same. Bad luck.

You cannot prevent such happenings with a system that is completely based on RNG. No matter how you fiddle around with the penetration and armor values of every tank, eventually you will run into situations where the unlikely is happening. Either that you bounce off a lot more shots than you should, making your tank far too powerful, or you don't bounce off anything, making your investment into a high armor tank pointless.

That's exactly how i feel. Even after thousands of hours playtime, i find it very hard to calculate the risk when using tanks like the panther offensively, because it is so hugely inconsistent. It reaches a point where i can't be arsed to be bothered with it anymore... it feels safer playing conservative with an ISU or Elefant in the back and not giving RNG even the slightest chance to ruin your day.
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