T2 arty's are a bit broken

I've done some testing and I think it's just an issue of T2 arty not having the projectile speed to hit something that high up.

At default gravity (4.9) these are the arty that can hit the plateau.

Lowering gravity just slightly to 4.8 means all of these can fire.

And raising it to 5 means none of them can hit the plateau.

It's not an aiming issue, Sera T2 arty has a pitch of anywhere from 0° to 90°. It just barely has the muzzle velocity to fire up there, and only in those very specific placements.

@jip I'm not sure there should be a solution...

The simulation already allows artillery to fire at whatever angle it wants, with as much projectile power as it wants, yes?
That alone is a massive advantage compared to real-world physics: where the range of artillery is restricted by the power it can throw a shell out with.
Supreme commander 'fakes' the limit with arbitrary ranges, removing 95% of the advantage that high-ground gives an artillery device.
Do people really want to remove that final remaining 5%, too?

[edit: After seeing deribus's reply, it appears I was wrong, and SupCom artillery ARE limited in firing power. This is good by me.
I realise that they are held back by the forced 'range circle' more often than their maximum projectile speed, but it's good to have it confirmed that high ground offers a slight advantage in artillery vs artillery wars, and it's not just some buggy trajectory calculation! ]

@cortana said in T2 arty's are a bit broken:

Going by your illustration, if you had artillery placed further back, I can see a trajectory for the projectile shooting up and over the edge of the hill here, and hitting their target.

In a world where artillery can fire with as much power, and at any angle, that they possibly want, I think there's nothing they can't hit (well, maybe not underground!)
Ie. there will always be a trajectory we can draw for the projectile.
The point of that diagram was to illustrate that the shot speed from high ground is massively lower than the lower artillery shot needs to use - as is the angle.
(We all played 'tanks' as kids, right? )

@sylph_ said in T2 arty's are a bit broken:

The simulation already allows artillery to fire at whatever angle it wants, with as much projectile power as it wants, yes?

No.

Units are limited to firing at an angle either above or below 45° depending on which firing arc they're set to use. For example T1 tanks are set to use low firing arcs (below 45°) while T1 arty is set to use high (above 45°).

The muzzle velocity is also set in the unit blueprint. Units have no capability to vary their muzzle velocity up or down. For T2 arty that value is 26.13

I think muzzle velocity can vary, but only downwards from the bp value.

Also let me add this (t2 arty not being able to shoot as far uphill) appears to be working exactly as intended, and something would have gone terribly wrong in the engine if that weren't the case.

https://replay.faforever.com/20899466

Minute 40, dark red guy building t2 arty in a ditch. The arty's a placed with several feet of the wall and arch of the hill to the base. How is this possible, but the arty's I made in the Syrtis game not possible.

@deribus said in T2 arty's are a bit broken:

I've done some testing and I think it's just an issue of T2 arty not having the projectile speed to hit something that high up.

At default gravity (4.9) these are the arty that can hit the plateau.

Lowering gravity just slightly to 4.8 means all of these can fire.

And raising it to 5 means none of them can hit the plateau.

It's not an aiming issue, Sera T2 arty has a pitch of anywhere from 0° to 90°. It just barely has the muzzle velocity to fire up there, and only in those very specific placements.

So due to the in game gravity mechanics, and the muzzle velocity of t2 artillery pieces, an arty fire base on a hill will have an advantage over an arty base down the hill. Or on a hilltop vs in a valley etc..

I mean it stands to reason. Having the high ground in battle tends to serve as an advantage generally speaking. It's just pretty hard to deal with in a game such as this. If the arty fire base is well protected, there's not a right lot you can do about it, except take the loss of everything within range of it.

@cortana said in T2 arty's are a bit broken:

https://replay.faforever.com/20899466

Minute 40, dark red guy building t2 arty in a ditch. The arty's a placed with several feet of the wall and arch of the hill to the base. How is this possible, but the arty's I made in the Syrtis game not possible.

The desync can be ignored fyi for anyone that cares to look at this.

@cortana

You can build enough TML overwhelm whatever TMD they've built and hope to knock out enough that the second wave of tactical missiles can get in and finish the job.

@cortana said in T2 arty's are a bit broken:

So due to the in game gravity mechanics, and the muzzle velocity of t2 artillery pieces, an arty fire base on a hill will have an advantage over an arty base down the hill. Or on a hilltop vs in a valley etc..
I mean it stands to reason. Having the high ground in battle tends to serve as an advantage generally speaking. It's just pretty hard to deal with in a game such as this. If the arty fire base is well protected, there's not a right lot you can do about it, except take the loss of everything within range of it.

I totally get where you're coming from, but in the long run I think I'd prefer an environment where building artillery on high ground gets an advantage over those built on lower ground.

If the map provides low-ground spawn locations, I guess we can see it as an incentive - or even an imperative, to secure some higher ground.

Losing a game because of an inability to fire back at artillery must suck; but in the long-run, it's a reason to value high ground more going forward, and I think this is probably going to feel like a 'good thing', in a strategy game that tries to emulate real physics, more often than not.

(Personally I'm very glad that T2 artillery has a low enough max muzzle velocity to be susceptible to elevation. I've seen enough games where aggressive firebases lose horribly to 'defender's advantage', and welcome seeing the opposite, given how much positioning influences strategic depth in RTS games.)

T2 arty is in general not a great counter to T2 arty so I'm not sure this really matters much. It is cool seeing the game's physics at work as that has always been a selling point of the game, but it is a bit annoying/confusing in the moment since this limitation isn't presented in the game in any way and you just see arty mysteriously not firing. Same with other situations where weapons cannot fire due to physics. Unfortunately there's probably nothing to be done unless we want to increase the muzzle velocity of arty, which I really don't think we do. In an alternate universe where we could make engine changes, it'd be really cool if the range ring took into account terrain and elevation and range actually varied by height changes in ways other than just "lol muzzle velocity too low/gravity too high"