Welcome to the newest Q&A Session where developers are answering questions posed by players.
In the (albeit not-so-near) future, we plan to allow players to put the decals wherever they want on the vehicle. However, at the moment, we are not planning to add any "static" spots on existing vehicles.
Yes, we are planning to address the usefulness of AFVs in PvE when it comes to both scouting and firepower. Some changes, such as the improvements to the CRAB, SPHINX, T-15, BMP and BMD series AFVs, are planned for the near future.
Achieving a certain penetration percentage by itself is not a balance goal per se. The actual goal, when rebalancing any vehicle, is to find an optimal solution, a blend of realism, gameplay and vehicle diversity. Something like:
"This tank will have a vulnerable lower frontal plate but a well armored turret and an ERA kit on its sides that will offer some protection even against kinetic rounds, a setup that corresponds to its armor layout in real life, resulting in a vehicle that's good in hulldown position and during flanking maneuvers with its own flanks exposed but is not great when going head to head against other vehicles in the open when its lower frontal plate is exposed."
The penetration percentage statistic is one of the tools that allow us check if the tank corresponds to our vision for it, both when it comes to the balancing process itself and when it comes to looking for potential bugs. Of course, some values of the penetration percentage definitely show that there is a problem somewhere. For example, if only 33 percent or fewer hits penetrate the vehicle, it indicates that the tank armor is wrongly configured, possibly by its weakspots being too small (the infamous pixel-hunting).
When will the French vehicles be released?
We are working on those, but they won't appear in one of the near updates. You can expect likely around the end of 2017.
Will you return 30mm HE shells to the BMP-2?
Yes, along with the BMP-3, BMD-2 and BMD-4
How are you planning to improve the popularity of the Global Operations mode? It seems dead.
We have big plans for this mode. We can't disclose them right now, but you might have noticed that the income in this mode was increased by 50 percent, making it profitable indeed.
Will you improve the handling of wheeled vehicles? Some feel uncontrollable.
Yes, we are planning to improve the wheeled vehicle handling, specifically the wheel turning rate and handling at high speeds.
When will you overhaul the M60-2000 and the Challenger FALCON premium tanks? They are currently practically unplayable.
They will be significantly improved in one of the updates coming in the near future. For example, FALCON will no longer receive full damage when its unmanned turret is hit.
Why do all Soviet tank HEAT rounds have higher penetration than kinetic rounds? In the majority of cases, HEATs are ineffective against enemy armor.
In real life, the HEAT penetration of homogenous armor is higher than the one of kinetic shells. However, kinetic ammunition performs better against spaced armor and composite armor. In order to make the shell system easier to understand, we are planning to make several adjustments to shell mechanics in Update 0.21 and to add the armor inspector feature in the future.
Why are there fake tanks on Tier 10? There is no such thing as Leopard 2AX or XM1A3.
The question of Tier 10 western tanks is complicated. The latest versions of the Leopard 2 and the Abrams tanks (SEP v3 and 2A7V) are improved versions of the older designs, but they still are tank designs of the previous generation compared to the Armata for example. Furthermore, compared to their previous versions (SEP v2 or 2A6), the performance increase isn't all that high. On the other hand, in the 1980s and 1990s, a number of revolutionary prototypes such as the CATTB were developed and new systems (such as the 130mm Rheinmetall gun) are in development even now. Tier 10 tanks represent an assembly of real experimental (but existing and tested) technologies combined with the latest existing version of the tank. They received different names because it would not, for example, be correct to call the top Leopard 2 "Leopard 2A7+" and then give it a 130mm gun when the real Leopard 2A7+ doesn't have it. When (if) the real Leopard 2 receives this experimental gun, it will likely receive a different name (such as the Leopard 2A8) as well.
When entering the game, PT-76 is always automatically selected for some reason. Will you fix that?
Yes, it's a bug that will be fixed in the near future. You'll have the same tank selected that you had when you left the client the last time.
Are you planning to change the retrofits so that we can move them to another vehicle for a fee or sell them?
You can sell a removed retrofit even now in the new UI by right-clicking on the removed retrofit and clicking on "Sell". We are considering allowing players to move retrofits between vehicles as well.
Are you planning to introduce any changes to the spotting system? Ever since 0.19 we are suffering from issues such as tanks disappearing randomly, previous scouting positions not working and others.
Yes. In the near updates, we are planning to overhaul maps to work with the spotting system changes from 0.19 – obstacles and bushes positioning, bush camouflage factors etc.
Will adding ERA to a tank influence its mobility in the future? After all, ERA is heavy.
It's technically possible and we even considered it but we will most likely not introduce this change in order to keep the gameplay comfortable. Very few players would sacrifice additional ERA protection just to gain a little bit of speed anyway. As a result, some vehicles would simply just become slower, which is not what we want.
Won't the Leopard 2AV be changed into Leopard 2 (2A0) on Tier 6 and Leopard 2 on Tier 7 to Leopard 2A4 to match the 0.19 Abrams progression?
The current state of the line with Leopard 2AV on Tier 6 is there for gameplay reasons. The early production Leopard 2 surpassed the early Abrams – especially in firepower, where the Abrams got a 120mm gun with the M1A1 version, which is why Leopard 2 is on the same Tier as the M1A1.
That's it for today! Got questions for the developers? Please submit them on the forums!
We'll see you on the battlefield!
