Our codie genie anv has released another great update to this Drivable Vehicles mod, this time bringing movable enemy tanks to life. The coding is done, all we need is a new set of animations for the tanks to properly showcase movement. Tank AI isn’t perfect, but it’s not much more imbecilic than other enemies. To fully utilise the feature you’d need mappers to set orders for tanks other than stationary, specify patrol points and put them in the open – on vanilla maps they’re frequently blocked with fortifications – cause, you know, they couldn’t move before. Here’s a list of setups you can enable/disable in the INI file:
Tanks Can Blow Obstacles Up
Tactical Gameplay Settings > ENEMY_TANKS_BLOW_OBSTACLES_UP
Normally enemies don’t use launchers unless there’s high enough chance that its missile will reach the target without hitting anything on the way. It makes sense, since most soldier have very limited ammo, and wouldn’t want to waste their only shot. But tanks have unlimited ammo… There’s something between me and the target? Well, boo-hoo, I’m a tank! Let’s blow this shit up!
Tanks Don’t Spare Shells
Tactical Gameplay Settings > ENEMY_TANKS_DONT_SPARE_SHELLS
By default enemies won’t throw grenades and use launchers until they know they can hit at least two opponents at once – or are wounded bad enough. It’s partly to ensure they won’t waste it and partly an artefact from JA1/DG (OK, maybe that’s just me, but if I had a grenade I wouldn’t save it UNTIL I GET SHOT). Point is, once again, tanks have unlimited ammo (or even playing by real world rules, enough to blow up every merc twice). It also prevents such absurd tactics like soloing tanks in order to avoid cannon fire.
Tanks – Any Part Visible
Tactical Gameplay Settings > ENEMY_TANKS_ANY_PART_VISIBLE
If TRUE, you will notice enemy tank as soon as you see any part of its structure, not only the middle grid. That actually makes fighting tanks slightly easier.
Army Uses Tanks in Patrols
If there’s one thing intro taught us, it’s that Deidranna has no qualms over sending bunch of tanks all the way up to Omerta to slaughter civilians – but in normal gameplay only tanks you meet sit camping around Meduna. At the game start there are 30 enemy groups patrolling Arulco, consisting mostly of army soldiers. If Strategic Gameplay Settings > ARMY_USES_TANKS_IN_PATROLS is set to TRUE, some of them will be randomly reinforced with tank. Amount of tankified patrols depends on difficulty level – from ~10% on Novice to ~40% on INSANE. Now you have real reason to avoid patrols…
Army Uses Tanks in Attacks
Drassen Counterattack is clearly underpowered (said no one ever), so with Strategic Gameplay Settings > ARMY_USES_TANKS_IN_ATTACKS set to TRUE, one soldier per attacking group will be randomly replaced with tank. Chance depends on difficulty level. Same applies to other cities taken and scripted offensives if you play with AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI. Both above options are off by default – because with it on you’re so dead that it’s not even funny. 80 soldiers during Drassen counter-attack? That’s cute. How about 76 soldiers and 4 tanks? You can use both Army Uses Tanks options even with ENEMY_TANKS_CAN_MOVE_IN_TACTICAL off, but that means attacking tanks will spawn at the edge of sector and won’t move – which would be counterproductive.
Resting Guns In Vehicles
Done. I considered another tag for externalised seats, but I can’t think of any place in vehicle you could shoot from without resting gun on something.
Resting Guns On Vehicles
It’s more of a fix really, but now you can rest your gun on dashboard of any vehicle – they won’t mind. Now we just need squad cars and spikes strips, and Higginses can feel at home again (Turtle prefers donut shops).