Make tanks spawn with their own AI infantry squad

Suggestions
1

On the roadmap, devs indicated they want to solve the issue of tanks camping outside of the playable area. The problem is, tanks without support are easy targets for the enemy infantry.

So lets give them infantry support in form of their own 5 man AI squad. It would act like a normal AI squad but would follow the tank instead of going to the objective (also it wouldn’t occupy the player slot in the room/server nor use tickets).
AI in general is not the best so maybe a slight buff would be needed so they fullfill their role.

You may say that other players should guard the tank. There are coupple of issues with this solution:

  • a player who could be atacking the objective, now has to guard the tank. This effectively turns him into (kind of) a camper.
  • guarding a tank can be really boring task. We can’t expect a player to sit near a tank for 20min, hoping that maybe an enemy player will show up so he can do some shooting.
    Such boring tasks should be done by AI imo.
  • tanks are CAS magnets so any player near them, is simply an extra waste of tickets when the bombs hit.

So overall, I think it’s just a nice soft buff to tanks who are willing to enter the playable area.

7 Likes
2

well, the idea is good in theory, but it gets worse the more you think about it.

first of all, it would imply adding soldiers to every single tanker squad.
or perhaps create a new template that generates soldiers at each spawn.

of which it would then have to take in account the br that is being used, the weapons of each soldier across said brs, otherwise, just piniata and free snacks alongside killing the actual tank.

you then have to rework behaviors of AI just to accomodate this new type of behavior.

matter of fact, on a technicality, bots do follow vehicles. problem is, they are dumb as hell since all they do, is try to get on top of it. and most of the time, you’ll be running them down. so, major ai behaviors changes are needed or just to create an entire behavior of it’s own.

other issue is, vehicles are for the most part faster than walking soldiers.

so, you’ll just end up reaching a destination and these ai are just 4 meters away from the spawn, but miles away from you. because ai can’t sprint ( that is, not at the same speed as players ).

the logical solution could be, stick them to the tanks.
but, you’d need to add additional sits for like… 90+ tanks over the base code.
and placing those it’s long and tiresome.
speaking for experience…

p.s. forgot to say, them mounting on vehicles requires a behavior of it’s own that AI are currently unable to do. like, even in mods you can’t force them to enter vehicles, hop out etc.
therefore, sitting targets. and then needing to tweak getting fired to dismount, etc.

so, TL;DR

good in theory, most likely not gonna happen because it requires too much work and they probably aren’t gonna do it in the first place.

and, personally, i’m dubbious of what it would do.
like, it doesn’t really tackle the issue.

if a gray zone camper camps, no AI in the world is gonna move them or make them “feel” safe unlike the spawn does.

of which, i would really love to get this feature. especially the behavior for AI to stick around tanks.
but cases of being used are very few. i’d probably be the very few that would use it for a more cinematic counter attack mounted by Ai.

stugs rolling with panzergrenadiers behind etc.

and that’s about it.

i could be wrong though. but… i wouldn’t get my hopes on that.
since most likely not even the behavior we’ll get.

now, i’m not saying it’s not worthed. or half of those points are " actually major issue ".
i’m just saying ,with how those issues stacks just to achieve midly satisfiyng results, might takes years. or might not get done at all because of how much it requires.

i’m not one to throw darts at the wind and be edgy and stuff.
but i’m honestly doubtful of them pulling this off.

maybe i’m just pessimistic. we’ll see.

2 Likes
3

new task to do in my suppor deck

4

It’s already done. It would be simply an AI squad, the same one that replaces players when they leave.

They should be around the tank. Not on top of it.
Bots already can of follow player in kind of a formation. Just swap the “center point” of the formation to a tank and you have bots following a tank (also change the shape of formation, line won’t do).

I haven’t write anything about mounting vehicles.

It uses already existing mechanics. Question is, how hard would it be to adjust them.

I also doubt they will do anything like that.
But it would be nice.

1 Like
5

They should just give 25% exp. bonus if you are within 35m of the objective. People would take more risks even though they would get destroyed by infantry.
AI is still very questionable and I doubt that it would help protecting the tank.

1 Like
6

Imo they should do both.
Tanks need some protection and we can’t expect players to babysit a tank and potentially not see any combat for a whole match.
But AI won’t replace even an average player.

1 Like
7

If the tank player could use these AI infantry soliders like normal squad (hot swap) it would be really interesting and engaging trying to protect the tank and push objectives. Tanks need information before they want to turn around a corner.

8

The best protection for tanks would be if the commander could rotate 360° in his hatch, not just 180°.

I’ve died a handful of times from not being able to turn properly at the EP thrower

3 Likes
9

Maybe then I could finally reverse with my stug and not hit something.

1 Like
10

no

those are two type of different squads with different behaviors and loadouts.

you’d need a new one.

because currently those squads works with behaviors type of sets.

that’s the key words, they should.

but they aren’t.

because ais are meant to follow the squad leader. and the squad leader bot has the behavior of chasing capture points.

if it was that simple, they would have probably done it by now.

given all bug reports about AI trying to climb every effing vehicle

i did

because they either walk, which are going to be slow and left behind pretty much.
or you make them enter vehicles to keep up the pace.

not to mention, they should also take cover and fire while moving too.

something that to this day, they can’t do.

because if they just follow, they will not relatiate unless stationary, or getting fired upon. but after few seconds, they will return to move and be easy targets.

mashed potatoes

and well, entire new behaviors. which it’s alot.

last type of new behaviors we got for ai, were the zombies ones. and god’s knows how much has been long in the making.

11

Yea I did think of award for this but didn’t get much opinion on it afaik so I support adding xp for being near ally soldier or something like that

1 Like
12

Its not a bad idea, all the other issues discussed aside, I think this would make tank maneouvre more feasible, at least as long as you followed your own line of troops at some reasonable distance.
This coupled with the tank AI crew being able to use the tank based MGs dynamically would definitely assist in tank maneouvre.

Another idea, and I don’t know how hard it would be to implement, but to use custom battles to train the AI of your troops. Atm custom battles are relatively meaningless, they don’t “level” anything nor generate any income, so perhaps this could be a trade off, where the Devs work on improving the C2 system, and then allow players to literally train the AI soldiers in their squads to follow these commands. In this way you could train your soldiers to adopt the appropriate formations, path correctly across the terrain, whilst maintaining formation etc…

I’m assuming the devs need to do this to some extent and they tweak the models every time they update the maps etc… Why not let players train their own troops and over time and the many games players would have some veteran troops that follow orders and path correctly and some conscript level stuff which acts pretty much the way the current bots do and just run around randomly getting shot.

It would be nice to break up the larger squads into fire teams and have the necessary control for a bit of fire and maneouvre, where half the squad moves and the other covers. It would greatly assist in slowing the game down as players got busy with issuing orders and having a more measured approach to objectives.

Circling back to the topic on hand, I would be happy to train a squad of PanzerGrenadiers or Armoured Infantry that knows how to protect a tank and adopt an appropriate formation to provide suitable coverage from a det pack rush.

13

The job to protect tanks resides upon the shoulders of fellow teammates. Giving this task to AI is just plain uninteresting and at most an easy way to get a few more kills by enemy.

We have chat, we have many platforms for communication. Do not pull in AI to do people’s job just because they are either selfish or braindead. Instead try to motivate teamwork and reward for the protection.

If we want AI do to people’s job, because we can not relly or work together, then lets make this game PVE. Then we won’t have to deal with each other at all.

14

I’d say no, but some tank squads have more people than the tank can hold. Perhaps those extra unusable tankers could be given some use…