Hello friends. Today's diary continues the topic of the past one, so we shall tell you about some of the changes in the artillery gameplay. If you ever had to throw apples over a fence in the hope of hitting the neighbor's dog - you already know something about plunging fire. This diary deepens your knowledge.

Type of shells in Soldiers: Arena

In the future we are going to introduce all the main types of shells into the game, but now the units use only armor-piercing and high-explosive fragmentation (HEF) shells. Today we will focus on the work we done to enhance the HEF shells and their mechanics. The main objective of the fragmentation projectiles is to defeat the enemy's manpower and unarmored light engineering vehicles, while the high-explosive shell is used for the destruction of fortified assets and other protective structures. Now we use HEF shells as a universal weapon for hitting more targets and we still doubt whether it makes sense to divide it into high-explosive and fragmentation ones. We think this add some difficulties into the gameplay and only a few tactical features. When calculating the damage, the explosive and fragmentation damage capabilities are calculating separately. For example, 37-45 mm caliber projectiles have a very weak high explosive effect, and fragmentation one, comparable to the explosion of anti-personnel grenade. Using the HEF shell with your Pak 35/36, you can destroy the enemy artillery crew or infantry "in the field", but it’s no sense in shooting trenches in the hope of their collapse. Shells with a caliber of 75 mm do not yet have enough explosive to create a powerful shock wave, so you can’t destroy buildings with merely a few shots. But the fragmentation action of such shells is already serious and capable of sweeping enemy infantry in a substantial radius. The explosive action of shells from 100 mm represents a serious danger for a landscape of any type. So any infantry and armored vehicles caught in the general direction of the epicenter of mentioned explosions isn’t very good for your health!

Firing positions

In Soldiers: Arena units can shoot both with direct (when the target is visible) and indirect fire (when the target is out of line of sight from the firing position). In Soldiers: Arena we want to reflect the individual characteristics of each unit as fully as possible, therefore, when setting them up we take into account not only the caliber, but also the weight of the gun, the speed and trajectory of the projectile, the noise created by the muzzle brake, the rate of fire and, of course, the angle of the horizontal and vertical aiming. Let’s take for comparison two guns with an almost identical caliber, but completely different tasks on the battlefield. LeIG 18 is a 75 mm infantry support gun with a 3.5 km max range of fire in reality and a good vertical aiming angle from -10 to +75. This cannon is lightweight, which allows it to be moved quickly by the crew. And the speed of the projectile is quite low, which makes it possible to use indirect fire while near the target. But because of the low speed of the projectile it has a weak armor-piercing and low accuracy at long distances. A large range of angles of vertical aiming makes it ideal for plunging fire, and its priority targets are infantry in the field (with less success infantry in shelters because of the small explosive action of the shell), enemy’s cannon crews and unarmored vehicles. ZIS-3 - a divisional gun of 76.2 mm caliber with a maximum range of 13 km, and less flexibility of vertical aiming angles compared to LeIG18 (from -5 to +35 degrees). The greater weight of the powder charge and the high speed of the shell make it possible for the ZIS-3 to hit light and medium tanks without problems, but makes the flight trajectory of the projectile more sloping, which, in combination with a small maximum vertical angle, makes it impossible to infiltrate close targets with indirect fire. In addition, her muzzle brake raises lots of dust when shooting and gives away the position with ease. ZIS-3 will prove its maximum potential when shooting direct fire on armored targets and destroying other cannons in the field of its visibility. An attempt to destroy the mortar hidden behind the building is a thoughtless waste of this weapon’s potential, because first you will need to flatten the building itself.

Plunging fire

Trying to reflect in the game the advantages of units on a real battlefield, we ran into the problem of howitzers. In Soldiers: Arena cannons have no limits on the range, but the chance to hit still falls with distance. But what in that case to do with howitzers? After all, they are created to hit hard from the rear, clearing the bridgehead for the attack and to be sufficiently accurate, because in the melee they do not really shine. Also howitzers shoot shells of large calibers that can destroy almost any target. You can not argue the fact that it is difficult to ignore the direct hit of a 203 mm projectile fired from the B-4 no matter how tough your armor is. In addition, artillery is invisible now! All signs of the imbalanced class are present. But in the war howitzers using the indirect fire, aiming on the location rather than a specific target. It's not so easy to hit into a moving tank from a distance of more than 10 kilometers, and even beyond the line of sight. We decided to develop thought in this direction.
So we enhanced the trajectories of shells for howitzers and later all cannons that are able for plunging fire got it. Now the artillery does not hit the target, but the location. In the screenshot above, you can see the aiming circle that displays the location in which the projectile can fall. When you select the zone for fire, the cannon will begin to aim, which will cause the circle to decrease. This gives you the opportunity to choose: to shoot now, hoping for luck, or to wait and increase your chances of hitting the target. In addition, with each new shot in the same zone, the circle decreases until it reaches its minimum size, which is still much larger than a lone target. The minimum aiming zone is not a constant and increases with increasing distance to the target. When choosing a new location for the fire, the circle will begin to grow, cause your artillerymen needs to zero-in again on the target. You should concentrate on static targets that can be destroyed by a blast wave and do not try to catch up the fleeing car with a direct hit, because your accuracy drops with the changing of the firing zone, and even with the maximum aim rate, you still may need several shots to get to a specific point. The mechanics described above solve several problems at once. The howitzers strike painfully and fairly accurately, but not too much to hit the open hatch of the moving tank from the other side of the map, and cause a high-explosive effect in the epicenter of the explosion and powerful fragmentation damage in a large radius. The fragmentation damage of howitzers is huge and even the entrenched infantry is likely to die, and at best it will be stunned and withdrawn from the battle for a time. Heavy fragments easily penetrate bulletproof armored personnel carriers and thin anti-ballistic armor of light and medium tanks at the case of close blasts. It's still possible to shoot a direct approaching tank with a direct fire, and a 40kg shell is unlikely to go unnoticed for even the heaviest of them, but here it is worth to evaluate the risks twice, because if the gun fires from close range, it will be immediately unmasked to the enemy. Who knows, maybe this is what the enemy is waiting for? In addition, there are no more flights over the edge of the map due to direct fire. The projectile is guaranteed to fall within the aiming circle. And most importantly, guns with a plunging trajectory of shooting have their own role, unique gameplay and their tasks in combat. This is all for today. Friends, do you think it makes sense to introduce additional types of ammunition into the game and if so, which ones? Don’t be shy to write your comments. And, as usual, we wish you the best!

[ 2017-08-10 18:58:25 CET ] [ Original post ]