Armor Smoke: Give control back to the driver.

Wolfe · Post by **Wolfe** » 2008-03-20 18:56

Why was smoke control was taken away from the tank commander and given to the gunner? Realism? Gameplay? Neither makes sense.

In order to deploy smoke, the gunner has to remove his AT/HEAT round from the chamber and load a smoke round. Realistically, smoke is deployed from smoke bays, not the barrel. And the delay of swapping out armor rounds in favor of unrealistic smoke rounds hurts gameplay. I realize the smoke bays are on the turret, not the hull, but it should be a function of the tank commander (i.e. driver) not the gunner.

Please reconsider this.

DeePsix · Post by **DeePsix** » 2008-03-20 19:01

I agree 100%. I do not like to stop firing my weapons, fire smoke, then swtich back to guns and wait for the ammo to load. The delay makes smoke practically useless and the driver is just better off fleeing at full speed hoping they miss.

As much as I love the new smoke effects, I hope you reconsider this change.

markonymous · Post by **markonymous** » 2008-03-20 19:03

absolutely agree. i never use the smoke anymore its way to risky.

Tef · Post by **Tef** » 2008-03-20 19:45

They should re-bind the smoke to like the c key and give drivers back the old type of smoke and the smoke launchers stay with the gunner.

Eden · Post by **Eden** » 2008-03-20 21:29

even if the smoke launchers stay with the gunner, i definitely agree that the driver needs control over some type of smoke.

ReaperMAC · Post by **ReaperMAC** » 2008-03-20 22:34

DeePsix wrote:I agree 100%. I do not like to stop firing my weapons, fire smoke, then swtich back to guns and wait for the ammo to load. The delay makes smoke practically useless and the driver is just better off fleeing at full speed hoping they miss.

As much as I love the new smoke effects, I hope you reconsider this change.

x2

Artnez[US] · Post by **Artnez[US]** » 2008-03-21 02:14

Agree.

nedlands1 · Post by **nedlands1** » 2008-03-21 05:14

Wolfe wrote:Why was smoke control was taken away from the tank commander and given to the gunner? Realism? Gameplay? Neither makes sense.

In order to deploy smoke, the gunner has to remove his AT/HEAT round from the chamber and load a smoke round. Realistically, smoke is deployed from smoke bays, not the barrel. And the delay of swapping out armor rounds in favor of unrealistic smoke rounds hurts gameplay. I realize the smoke bays are on the turret, not the hull, but it should be a function of the tank commander (i.e. driver) not the gunner.

Please reconsider this.

Smoke is launched from the two sets of launchers on either side of the turret. There are currently no, main cannon fired, smoke rounds in game. As I have already explained in another thread, having control of the smoke launchers can't be given to the driver. That is to say that it is hardcoded. The ready time, I must admit, should be far less. I'm afraid nothing can be done about the ready time of the cannon when you transfer control back to it from the smoke rounds. This because there is no way, that I know of and probably the coding team know of, to have a ready time which is dependent on which round was already loaded into the chamber. As far as I know there are no free control keys which smoke can be assigned to either.

Wolfe · Post by **Wolfe** » 2008-03-21 07:07

[R-CON]nedlands1 wrote:As I have already explained in another thread, having control of the smoke launchers can't be given to the driver. That is to say that it is hardcoded.

Hardcoded? Wtf are you talking about? It's always been controlled by the driver until this latest patch. Sure, you can't add the new smoke effects to the old driver position, but who cares. It was MUCH better when controlled by the driver.

Spaz · Post by **Spaz** » 2008-03-21 07:13

I vote for giving it back to the driver.
Right now you never use the smoke.

Post by **77SiCaRiO77** » 2008-03-21 07:19

Wolfe wrote:Hardcoded? Wtf are you talking about? It's always been controlled by the driver until this latest patch. Sure, you can't add the new smoke effects to the old driver position, but who cares. It was MUCH better when controlled by the driver.

he means that is impossible to give the smoke back to the driver but at the same time making it drop from the front of the turret .

IMO the best solution is to give the somke to teh driver and make it drop from the front of the hull , like poe2 .

nedlands1 · Post by **nedlands1** » 2008-03-21 08:59

77SiCaRiO77 wrote:he means that is impossible to give the smoke back to the driver but at the same time making it drop from the front of the turret .

IMO the best solution is to give the somke to teh driver and make it drop from the front of the hull , like poe2 .

Correct, you can't split the controls (traversing done by the gunner, firing done by the driver). I'm going to see if making a smoke generator is feasible. This would be given to the driver.

Post by **Deadfast** » 2008-03-21 09:10

Leave the gunner's smoke as it is but give driver back his I say

nedlands1 · Post by **nedlands1** » 2008-03-21 09:29

Engineer wrote:Why does it have to be launched to position of the turret? Just deploy the smoke where ever the tank is heading/tank commander is watching...

I dont like this change at all. Even as a gunner. I hate that when ever I switch from HEAT to SABOT I accidentally pop shitloads of smoke all over and cant see anything. Let gunner do gunning and TC do rest of the decisions.

I was hoping for better smokescreen yes, but not like this one.

The reason it has to be launched from the turret is because that is where the two banks of smoke launchers are located. The grenades originate from here. It's pretty simple to work that much out IMO.

EDIT: Read my above post with respect to what sort of smoke the driver could have access to in a future build.

nedlands1 · Post by **nedlands1** » 2008-03-21 10:59

Engineer wrote:I know the realism point of view, but by giving only the gunner to be able to pop smoke was a bad compromise.

As people here have said, you need to switch weapons to get smoke screen makes the tank vulnerable for period of time. I'd understand if the gunner would be able to pop smoke by pressing X or something, but now you really need to switch thru weapons which makes it bad.

If there is a free vehicle control (like the flares key was before it was bound to zoom) then you could do that. Otherwise a reduction in the ready time after pressing "3" is the next best alternative.

kilroy0097 · Post by **kilroy0097** » 2008-03-21 11:41

Well if I can have input on this. Please leave the option for the smoke deployed by the gunner and also add the driver smoke back in. The gunner smoke being an nice arc area of effect is excellent for certain situations such as supporting troops coming up behind your tank. It offers them a nice smoke screen to advance or retreat to the next cover position. The driver smoke is more defensive for the vehicle itself.

So smoke for gunner and driver is my vote.

BloodBane611 · Post by **BloodBane611** » 2008-03-21 11:41

Right now smoke is awfully pointless though. The long arming time makes it just as bad as the crappy driver deployed smoke cloud. If it can't be deployed quickly it's not worth having it.