A relevant forum thread got acknowledged roughly ten hours ago. I’m absolutely thrilled; it feels like a terminally ill patient finally seeing a miracle cure.
It’s only a repost for now, yet there’s hope at least, and I’m really excited about that.
This crew priority issue originally only affected Japanese tanks and has plagued players for nearly two years. It might take another year or two before it gets fixed.
I can’t even remember what year I posted my original suggestion. All those old feedback threads have been archived now.
The Marder I suggested has been moved from BR 3 down to BR 2. Though personally, I believe it really belongs at BR 1.
This issue has existed for an extremely long time. I first submitted feedback when I started playing Japanese tanks, way before Japanese BR 5 vehicles were even added.
It’s really frustrating now that the vehicle-mounted machine gunner ends up taking the loader’s crew slot. This crew member can’t function as a commander, nor can they work as a dedicated loader. What’s more, there’s no way to seamlessly switch between the gunner and machine gunner views.
This isn’t really a new feature rework; it’s more like correcting an existing error, plain and simple, just patching a bug.
I came up with two possible solutions a long time ago.
One option: allow the machine gunner to fire automatically via AI without interfering with the loader’s position, similar to how it works on the M3 amphibious vehicle.
The other option: let both the gunner and driver operate this machine gun, just like the vehicle commander.
That brings up another issue. Should this be controlled via squad orders, a dedicated hotkey, or by manually selecting the loader and switching over to the squad machine gunner position?
This sounds pretty complicated.
Congratulations, your suggestion has been approved. At least the open-top tank destroyer won’t have to be relegated to scrap metal at the respawn point anymore.
