Heyho Squadies! I really like the infantry game-play. While it is easy to learn it is pretty hard to master. It feels intuitiv but at the same time it has a realistic feeling without being overly complex. This is, as I hope, will follow into the vehicle gameplay. In this topic I would like to discuss my ideas/ hopes especially for tanks, without knowing how they played out in PR. I draw my experience out of SteelBeasts Pro PE, which is a full fleched tank simulator. Despite being a simulator, it did a lot of things correct and simple. Crew-System While I would like to see a 3-men crew-system, meaning driver, gunner and commander being playable, I would understand when it would only be a two-men-system: Gunner + Commander. In the two-men-system the commander would be the guy who controls the movement of the tank and this solution seems to be the best IMO. Commander: He "drives" the tank, can look outside the hatch, controls maybe a remote-weapon-station (if available) and gets his own optics. When he uses the optics-mode, he can bring the gun on his sight with a simple left-click on his mouse. With a right-click he can bring his vision on the current sight of the gunner. This would implement a hunter-killer-ability of modern tanks and enhances inner-tank-teamplay. Of course in this case to fire the RWS would need to be on another key, but this shouldn't be a big deal. With a press on the "prone"-key, he would get the smoke-screen up. Gunner: He shoots the gun over his optics, without the ability to look out on his own. There should be two optics available to him: The "normal" main-optics with thermal-imaging and different zoom-level and a optical-solution with a fixed zoom, no Laser-Range-Finder or Dynamic-Lead as a kind of emergency-optic. Should the tank be only be crewed by a single person, an instant switch between both position should be possible, while driving should also be possible from the gunners-position in such an instance. How to fire the gun As you have seen, I haven't written much about the gunner in the part above. Shooting a tank-gun should be more complex, than shooting a rifle. I imagine it the following way, without getting too complex: 1. The player identifies a moving target over his optics 2. With the "Lean"-keys he zoomes onto the target and brings the optic on target. (e.g. with the left-lean-key you change the zoom, with the right-lean-key you turn on/off / change the Thermal-Imager) 3. Middle-Mouse-Click: Lasering the target, when "hit" then he gets a correct echo (he gets a solid red range number into his optics), when he misses (or the laser is blocked) he gets a wrong echo (blinking red number with the measured distance). 4. Right-Mouse-Hold: Because he needs to follow the target with his optics, this way the dynamic lead is "programmed" into the FCS. 5. Left-Mouse-Click: He fires the gun... when he got everything right, he hits the target... if not, he misses. What he needs to learn is to program in the dynamic-lead correctly (when he follows the target too fast during the "hold" period, he shoots in front of it, if he follows it too slow, he shoots behind it). When he got a wrong laser-echo, he needs to either lase again or shoot with a wrong echo by adjusting the distance manually (aiming above the target). Lasering isn't constantly possible. If you would laser too fast (around lasering every second), the laser might overheat and will need a short cool-down period. After the gun is fired, the crew hears some loading sounds and then a generic voice of the loader with something along the lines "Sabot in", "Sabot loaded", "HEAT in", "HEAT loaded", I don't now the correct terms of our English friends, they might help you out here. When such a system is implemented, using a tank-gun gets far more interesting and realistic. It would even be possible to put in the different mechanics of the nations, when wished, but I think the above system would be fine as a generalization. Is the enemy dead? This is an important point for me: Everybody knows that an enemy tank is destroyed, when his ammunition cookes off (while we are at it: can we have this please) or he draws the head (his turret flies away)... but when you hit an enemy tank with an APFSDS-round, the only thing you see might be a flash, dust and a standing enemy tank... you don't know if the crew inside is completely dead, if they are only wounded, if the gunner might be even alive and shoot back... you need to wait and see... or sent a 2nd round downrange until you are sure. Thus the damage-mechanic is important: Optics, Crew, Ammunition, Tracks, Engine, Turret-Rotation, Stabilizer, LRF, ... should be destroyable if possible and cause different problems to a crew of a tank... while at the same time you could still work with a invisible "health-bar" that renders the tank completely destroyed. When a tank is destroyed it should just stay there without doing anything most of the time and only with a small chance of a cook-off or explosion (which is of course higher, when the ammunition compartment was hit). Armor and Ammunition It seems the developer are on a good way here from what I found in the forums... but please, can we have working ERA? sincerly, Thonar