Panther gun damage

[Bob123321]

I'm new to this game and liking it very much (I have the NTA 1.8 installed with updates and missions), but I noticed some strange behavior in relation to the way the panther takes damage, the main gun seems to break very easily from non penetrating hits to the front of the turret, even a significant distance from the gun itself. None of the other tanks i've used have this problem.

I did some testing in the 'firing ground' mission shooting at the panther at 1km with pz39 ammo shooting at the front of the turret (not directly at the gun barrel itself) , none of the hits penetrated but about 40-50% of the time the main gun would be broken by the hit.  This seems a bit high (kinda nullifies the advantage of the good turret armour), so are there any fixes or ways to reduce this?

[Flanker15]

Probably a job for the someone who made the model panther.go.
I had a look at it and its gun is made slightly different than other tanks for whatever reason, it has the piece db_gun embedded inside the mask, barrel and turret and the main gun piece is db_barrel.  The other tanks just have db_gun for the entire barrel.
The armor map appears fine though.

[frinik]

Yeah I used to complain about the same thing ever since SPM 2.0 came on in late 2012. It's not only the Panther but the Tiger II as well ( to a lesser degree)seems prone to have its gun disabled even when shots will deflect on the front armour without touching it or sometimes simply when shots hit the ground in front of the tank... They modified or remodelled the Panther A and D armour maps and go files back in December 2011 ( the original Panther D model was introduced in Sept 2010 the others models( A and G)came much later).As Flanker pointed out it's due to the way the gun barrel is embedded. Try increasing the value of the armor_str of the panthers in the tech_cfg files from 2000 to 2040. That should help reducing the frequency a little.

//êîýôôèöèýíò ñíàðÿäîñòîéêîñòè
   armor_str   =   2000;

[Bob123321]

Should I do it for all the panthers or just the D model?

[Flanker15]

Try increasing the value of the armor_str of the panthers in the tech_cfg files from 2000 to 2040. That should help reducing the frequency a little.

//êîýôôèöèýíò ñíàðÿäîñòîéêîñòè
   armor_str   =   2000;

That'd mess with all the armor on the panther (and probably wouldn't work) I could try thickening the barrel on the armor map but might not work.  Best would be to correct the gun parts on the model.

[lockie]

I did some testing in the 'firing ground' mission shooting at the panther at 1km with pz39 ammo shooting at the front of the turret (not directly at the gun barrel itself) , none of the hits penetrated but about 40-50% of the time the main gun would be broken by the hit. 

Could u demonstrate er investigation with a screenshots? I didn't see a long time a complains about gun broken. At this time almost all panthers has two barrels to exclude this problem:
- fake d_barrel
- real db_gun
Only in case, if db_gun hit, then u've malfunction.

[frinik]

Didn't mess that much with the Panther armour values which, in my opinion, are underestimated and worked for me as it reduced the incidence of guns damaged by over 50%...

[Bob123321]

How do you post Larger Images? The file size is too big for me to attatch.

[lockie]

How do you post Larger Images? The file size is too big for me to attatch.

To make screenshot u've to press F12 during the game, then find the picture in the directory:
Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942\users\scrshots

Then register at this service
http://postimg.org
 and upload there a screenshots.

[Bob123321]

For my tests I tried to put one shot each on the left and right of the gun although I missed sometimes. Right shot was always 1st shot. stug 3 as firing vehicle.

http://postimg.org/image/xes0fb32z/
http://postimg.org/image/c15zagrx7/
pz39 ammo at 1km. Crew abandoned tank after 1st shot.

http://postimg.org/image/vo8zdtljv/
http://postimg.org/image/aarjmpzrv/
pz 39 at 540m

http://postimg.org/image/4rp05i2qj/
http://postimg.org/image/d64mtl3rv/
pz 39 at 540m

http://postimg.org/image/i289la3x7/
http://postimg.org/image/wgbnd0pqz/
pz 39 at 540m

http://postimg.org/image/kv1h5b49n/
http://postimg.org/image/9swe6va6z/
pz 39 at 1km, only 1 shot, crew abandoned tank (not surprised that gun was damaged for this one, didn't expect crew to bail though).

For shots at 540m the gun was always knocked out after 2 shots.

For shots at 1km gun remained undamaged after 2 shots about 40% of the time.

I also fired at the front of the king tiger ~500m to test but it's weapon was never damaged.

[lockie]

OK, I see. This is a very good investigation! As my point, all damages are reasonable. Means, shell hit the mask and created a fragments, which damaged the main part of the gun.
Anyway, if u're not satisfy with existent set up of the Panther D, then open the file:
\data\k42\loc_rus\levels\levels\tech_cfg\panther.engcfg
and add parameter db_gun to the massive notrace(), i.e.

   notrace()
   {
      d_hole_00;
      d_hole_01;
      d_hole_02;
      d_hole_03;
      d_hole_04;
      d_hole_05;
      d_instrument_01;
      d_tros_01;
      d_instrument_02;
      d_tros_02;
      d_kreplenie_01;
      d_kreplenie_02;
      d_launcher_head_01;
      d_launcher_head_02;
      d_shield;
      d_light_03;
      d_deco_small;
      d_barrel;
      db_gun;
   }

In this way, game engine will not calculate the damage of the gun.

PS
I'd like to recommend to use Thumbnail for Forums (1) link to upload the image. In this case user have a look at the thumbnail and it's more informative to pick up interesting picture.

[Bob123321]

Ok, that seems reasonable. I think I might try putting the armour_str to 2015 to reduce just a little bit without removing altogether, the other panthers have 2030 in their files and I don't remember them being particularly vulnerable.  Just out of interest is there any way you can look at the armour maps fully assembled to see what they look like?

[Flanker15]

 Ahhhhhhh lockie, I don't think db_barrel should be in the notrace section, otherwise db_gun will have no armor! (the armor map is for db_barrel on the panther) 

I took it out and the gun seems to not take damage from non direct hits now.

[lockie]

Just out of interest is there any way you can look at the armour maps fully assembled to see what they look like?

All armor maps located here:
data\k42\loc_rus\armor_maps

I don't think db_barrel should be in the notrace section, otherwise db_gun will have no armor! (the armor map is for db_barrel on the panther) 

Each part of the model, which has a texture - automatically has armor map

I took it out and the gun seems to not take damage from non direct hits now.

SF has many interesting moments as pros and cons  8)

[frinik]

I took it out and the gun seems to not take damage from non direct hits now.

What did you take out just to be clear? You removed the entry d_ barrel from the list in notrace()....

Lockie; what is that notrace for anyways?

[Flanker15]

Wrong panther!

The one Bob is testing is the Panther D (panther.go) ( the first entry in panther.engcfg)    it has no texture on db_gun.
It has this for the the notrace section, I've commented out db_barrel.

   //нетрассируемые чанки
   notrace()
   {
      d_hole_00;
      d_hole_01;
      d_hole_02;
      d_hole_03;
      d_hole_04;
      d_hole_05;
      d_instrument_01;
      d_tros_01;
      d_instrument_02;
      d_tros_02;
      d_kreplenie_01;
      d_kreplenie_02;
      d_launcher_head_01;
      d_launcher_head_02;
      d_shield;
      d_light_03;
      d_deco_small;
   \\   db_barrel;

   }

I believe no trace chunks are parts that a incoming fire won't interact with, won't "hit".

[Flanker15]

Also lockie how did you get textures into the model viewer, I've only got matte models.

[lockie]

Lockie; what is that notrace for anyways?

Massive notrace does that any parts of the model which has included into it - becomes invulnerable. Game engine doesn't calculate the damage for these parts.

The one Bob is testing is the Panther D (panther.go) ( the first entry in panther.engcfg)    it has no texture on db_gun.

U're right. db_gun of the "Panther D" doesn't has a texture. Good testing! I've recovered texture for the db_gun, thus armor map applied on this part. Place db_barrel in the massive notrace is not good idea, coz if the shell hit db_barrel we will get a deco on the barrel, but in fact gun would not be damaged.
Here's fixed "Panther D" for the new testing.
http://www.4shared.com/rar/l2NyKpjYba/panther_D.html

Also lockie how did you get textures into the model viewer, I've only got matte models.

I don't understand the question. Model viewer does Object Editor? What does matte model?

[frinik]

matte model

It means they are not transparent; they are greyed out or opaque most likely....

Does anybody know what kreplenie and tros stand for?

[lockie]

It means they are not transparent; they are greyed out or opaque most likely....

I'm still confusing  I need a picture to see what matte model does.

Does anybody know what kreplenie and tros stand for?

Frinik, I know!