Tanks

[Artyom177]

So I’ve been thinking, maybe we should have tanks? I know we already have the APC and the Armored Car (Not counting the player built or modified vehicles) in the game but we should have some heavy equipment. Imagine using a old British tank from the 1900’s and completely demolishing a horde; or clearing a town with a Tiger II! And even striping down a M1A1 Abrams and strapping the 105mm gun to a chariot hooked up to your Deathcar. But of course there will be balancing in how the ammo is rare, tanks don’t spawn very frequently, and they will most likely always be destroyed and out of diesel (or gas). I just think that having the ability to drive a tank in cataclysm will allow a extra little bit of fun at the end game. What do you guys think? Is it a good idea?

[FrankyPlaysGames]

I think it’s a good idea, but have tanks super rare and almost always fucked up broken, I’d rather the emphasis be on fixing one up from nothing, or stripping the gun and putting it on your own car.

[Burnt_Earth]

Nah. One, multi-tile turrets would be probably impossible to code. You’d need mutli-tile guntubes, Tracks would be hard to code, the tonnage of tanks would break the vehicle system, the APC is bad enough. A modern tank wouldn’t be fazed by anything in the game and would not be destroyed, they take a crew to operate, they throw track if you power-slide them, ect.

I’d say tanks are outside the scope of the game the same way player-controlled destroyers and nuclear bombers are outside the scope of the game.

The lore could be like the generals considered MBTs to be obsolete and thought tankbots and drones controlled the battlefield and the stryker-like APC is the heaviest ground vehicle in the entire arsenal.

[Straume21]

If you could code a heavy weapon into a single tile, like a player-controlled tankbot weapon, then it could be feasible to have one attached to a vehicle and operating like a turret.

If it were possible to code “operate turret” command or something of the like into the vehicle operation menu then the player could shoot targeted projectiles from the vehicle, but that’s some really advanced code. I wouldn’t think that anything like this would be reasonable for application in the game anytime soon.

But in the event that it did get coded in, and you did put a gun onto a vehicle, and you did find ammunition for that gun, it would be pretty friggin sweet to blast into a military base or a lab with one shell at the wall.

[Burnt_Earth]

Honestly tankbots don’t make sense anyways, being one-tile creatures. Kinda want a mod to remove them too.

But a light artillery piece like a big recoilless rifle or sci-fi ‘BFG plasma canister weapon’ and like a craftable blackpowder cannon that can be mounted and hauled around on a vehicle would be awesome. It could work like a turret, but the inventory slot only holds one shell, so you have to manually drop ammo into it after every shot. Or a insanely strong mutant could carry one as a weapon. Kinda like how the M2 .50 cal works now, but one shell at a time.

It could be a two-tile weapon, maybe. A ‘breach’ part on one vehicle tile and a ‘barrel’ part in an adjacent tile and it’s up to the player to wrestle the barrel to where it’s facing in the general direction of the target to fire? If mounted to a vehicle, you might have to aim the entire vehicle to line the breach and barrel parts to their target. Probably too much to code just for that, too, but the lighting code might work, I think? The targetable area would be from the barrel part, reverse of the breach, it could target areas in a cone like a headlight aimed between the breach and barrel parts. Idk.

Another idea that mite b cool, a large, stationary artillery piece that places a crater on a targeted map tile. Or maybe a mobile type, like the Davy Crockett launcher? Can lob a mini-nuke type effect to map tiles outside the reality bubble? Like a scaled down, reusable version of certain ingame features.

All that said, I like tanks and big guns, but I just think actual realistic MBT-type tanks in particular could not be done justice in the game. I know the game lets you launch ICBMs and all, but tanks are too much, imo and tankbots are silly.

[Barhandar]

If it were possible to code “operate turret” command or something of the like into the vehicle operation menu then the player could shoot targeted projectiles from the vehicle, but that’s some really advanced code. I wouldn’t think that anything like this would be reasonable for application in the game anytime soon.

Someone hasn’t looked in turreted-vehicle menu (“Aim a turret manually” option) recently.

But a light artillery piece like a big recoilless rifle or sci-fi ‘BFG plasma canister weapon’ and like a craftable blackpowder cannon that can be mounted and hauled around on a vehicle would be awesome. It could work like a turret, but the inventory slot only holds one shell, so you have to manually drop ammo into it after every shot. Or a insanely strong mutant could carry one as a weapon. Kinda like how the M2 .50 cal works now, but one shell at a time.

Perfectly possible to make with jsons alone. I’m surprised nobody has done it yet.

[system]

[quote=“Burnt Earth, post:5, topic:8841”]Honestly tankbots don’t make sense anyways, being one-tile creatures. Kinda want a mod to remove them too.

But a light artillery piece like a big recoilless rifle or sci-fi ‘BFG plasma canister weapon’ and like a craftable blackpowder cannon that can be mounted and hauled around on a vehicle would be awesome. It could work like a turret, but the inventory slot only holds one shell, so you have to manually drop ammo into it after every shot. Or a insanely strong mutant could carry one as a weapon. Kinda like how the M2 .50 cal works now, but one shell at a time.

It could be a two-tile weapon, maybe. A ‘breach’ part on one vehicle tile and a ‘barrel’ part in an adjacent tile and it’s up to the player to wrestle the barrel to where it’s facing in the general direction of the target to fire? If mounted to a vehicle, you might have to aim the entire vehicle to line the breach and barrel parts to their target. Probably too much to code just for that, too, but the lighting code might work, I think? The targetable area would be from the barrel part, reverse of the breach, it could target areas in a cone like a headlight aimed between the breach and barrel parts. Idk.

Another idea that mite b cool, a large, stationary artillery piece that places a crater on a targeted map tile. Or maybe a mobile type, like the Davy Crockett launcher? Can lob a mini-nuke type effect to map tiles outside the reality bubble? Like a scaled down, reusable version of certain ingame features.

All that said, I like tanks and big guns, but I just think actual realistic MBT-type tanks in particular could not be done justice in the game. I know the game lets you launch ICBMs and all, but tanks are too much, imo and tankbots are silly.[/quote]

That would be amazing. Just imagine blasting that tankdrone from afar with an artillery blast.
I just got another Idea: What about mortars?

[Burnt_Earth]

A light mortar, like one of those 60mm numbers could work like a grenade launcher, but maybe it ignores obstacles and you don’t need line of sight. Just thinking outloud but the the shell can ignore wooden walls and detonate inside regular houses, abstracting that the crashes through the roof, but it would be stopped or fizzle if it’s through a steel or stone walls. Just to reflect that a bunker would have a steel roof and a little mortar could’nt burn one to the ground as easily as a house.

Would need a minimum range feature, too. Mortar shells (and 40mm grenades for that matter) don’t arm until they are few dozen meters out, but I suppose it would still hurt a lot to get direct-fired with an inert shell.

I think it would be a reality-bubble-only deal though, it would be really fun to play with if implemented.

[Straume21]

Someone hasn’t looked in turreted-vehicle menu (“Aim a turret manually” option) recently.

I sure haven’t! Thanks for pointing that out for me.

A mortar weapon would be fantastic, but it would have to be relatively close to the player’s LOS (or at least in the same map square as the player) to function like a projectile weapon.

[FrankyPlaysGames]

[quote=“Barhandar, post:6, topic:8841”]Someone hasn’t looked in turreted-vehicle menu (“Aim a turret manually” option) recently.

I sure haven’t! Thanks for pointing that out for me.

A mortar weapon would be fantastic, but it would have to be relatively close to the player’s LOS (or at least in the same map square as the player) to function like a projectile weapon.[/quote]
You activate the mortar to place it on the ground. Then you have to take turns to aim, and then extra turns to drop the mortar in and fire. Wouldn’t work well as a kill approaching zombies sorta thing, more of a defensive tool. Could lead to automated mortars, something I’m totally down for.

[JayJayForce]

Tanks would be awesome and kind of make sense with all the Military bases around though actual MBT’s may be rare.

As for mortars and artillery, I really like the idea and would love to see it in game. I don’t think we are in a state to create mortars though. The lack of z-levels could pose a real problem especially when they are eventually added and all the code will have to be checked and redone. The other problem will be range. I just don’t think the current reality bubble makes mortars all that practical, though auto-loading mortars might be better off.

LOS artillery though could work I think. While reloaded one would be near impossible from outside a “bunker” position (auto-loader not withstanding) they could be used to deliver devastating blows to enemy hordes. I great idea could be to have the round pass through weaker or closer enemies and only exploding when they hit a zombie hulk for instance. A ricocheting cannon ball could also be fun to watch as it bonces around smashing zombies to a pulp.

While I can’t speak for the devs, I’m pretty sure a well made artillery piece would be merged.

[Artyom177]

All of you guy’s suggestions are amazing. Me being me, I can’t code for shit. But I was hoping that maybe the devs would see this and put some fucking heavy weapons into the game. Besides RPGs and grenades we don’t have any weapons that will blow the shit out of some hordes. Like I said before, the tanks, guns and mortars will all be end-game weapons. Something that will allow the player to clear a town in a day without having to use CBMs, power armor, or mutations. So purest characters have something to look forward to beside a grenade launcher and a death car.