We’ve completely reworked our combat system in the most recent version, especially the interaction between different models of vehicles. How did we do this, and what are the gameplay implications?
Armour Protection and Ricochets
The old combat system had a lot of drawbacks, both from the player’s perspective and from that of our own internal development. However, this helped us to establish a basic balance line, and starting from that we can now configure units as we wish and give them stats that resemble real ones as closely as possible while maintaining the balance between the models. This has allowed us to start moving towards greater historical accuracy in vehicle firefights. We currently have:
- Realistic armour from all sides. Previously there were situations where shells ricocheted off of heavy tanks even if they hit the rear or the side, where the armour was definitely not thick enough to protect the tank from a sufficiently large-calibre shell.*
- Realistic breakthrough setting. In most cases, APC machine guns no longer penetrate tanks. Tanks do, however, still have vulnerable points (poor rear armour, armour joints, gaps under turrets), and an APC can deal damage to the tank crew or disable the tank’s modules in certain situations.*
- It is now simply impossible to damage some vehicle models with a frontal attack. Monsters of engineering like the T95 and IS-3 are invulnerable if used competently.
- In addition, the number of ricochets in tank battles is now closer to real life. Low-tier small-calibre cannons don’t have a chance of penetrating vehicles with better armour protection.*
- Ricochets no longer do damage.*
How We Created Historical Armour
The RTS genre has both technical and gameplay limitations. We couldn’t make a 3D model of a tank consisting of plates of different thickness and shoot at a random plate at a random angle. That makes no sense in our game. So we used statistical simulation, taking into account the following factors:
- The thickness of every tank armour plate
- The structural angles of inclination (and therefore effective thickness of the tank armour)
- The composition of the armour plates. I.e. if one side of a tank is covered with one thick plate and one thin plate, then the chance of breaking through directly depends on the chances of hitting one plate or the other.
- The accuracy of weapons and guidance systems. This is manifested in two different ways in the new combat system: a gun can simply aim at the tank or can target a specific weak area of the tank.
Like most mathematical models, ours is obviously based on certain assumptions that can be slightly inaccurate. For instance, the tanks’ relative combat distances. Hit and breakthrough statistics heavily depend on whether the combat distance was 500, 1000 or 2000 meters. Parameters like this can make our model less accurate, but we plan to keep going and will continue to adjust the combat system until it is acceptable and we have the necessary adjustment tools.
Vehicle Speed/Mobility and Misses
As we moved tank stats closer to historical ones, we didn’t forget about their movement speed and turret rotation speed. Differences in the power of engines and turret drives are also reflected in the game. But that’s not all. As we developed the idea of statistical simulation, we decided to take into account the mobility and size of tanks, too. It’s more difficult to hit a moving target, and the quicker it moves, the more difficult it is. That’s how it works in real life. We decided not to apply any dodge buffs to moving tanks, since it wouldn’t be right to make players control their vehicles non-stop and move them continuously to avoid missing out on such a buff. Blitzkrieg is a game of strategy and planning, not micromanagement. But we still considered the size and possible speed of vehicles when we adjusted our hit calculation methods, thus accentuating the combat peculiarities of specific tanks.
Gameplay Changes
We want to kill two birds with one stone with our new combat system. First, this will make your game experience better. We all like historical accuracy, even when it doesn’t have any significant influence on gameplay. Second, the historical characteristics themselves highlight key tactics. Now that heavy tanks and tank destroyers are really impenetrable from the front, positional warfare and manoeuvres become more important. The role of medium tanks automatically shifts to infantry support tanks or breakthrough tanks, just like it was in real battles. In addition, the individually configured vehicles allow us to maintain the significance of earlier models. It might make sense to keep a couple of lighter and faster tanks instead of replacing them with later models, so that you can shoot tank destroyers from behind if you manage to break through to the enemy’s rear.
As a whole, the mechanics of the interaction between different unit classes has been completely changed. Counter-units are now stronger against their targets. This automatically increases the value of counter-counter-units. And all of this completely changes the tactics to follow when adding units to squads and keeping one or another unit type in battle. Along with Generals, this will completely change combat tactics in Blitzkrieg 3. Players who properly plan their tactics before battle and skilfully manage their units in battle will be rewarded.
Artyom, Lead Game Designer
I’d only like to add that we’ve arduously tested the new balance system since introducing historical performance characteristics, and Generals. It should be noted that we like the balance of the sides as they are now, but the balance of the Generals makes us feel like this:
Andrey, Lead Level Designer
We made a large number of modifications to the map. You know, I think that instead of talking about it, it’ll be better if I just show you the symbiosis of the artists’ work and the level designers’ work – this is from when we were adjusting the lighting on the Cologne map (bottom photo - before adjusting the lighting; the top photo is after adjusting the lighting).
Vitaly, Lead Artist; Nikolay, Lead Programmer; Jean, Lead Tester
We’re getting ready to deliver the current version :)
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