valid A Crew System For Tanki (Idea)

[1VeryPointyShrub 18]

A Crew System For Tanki (Idea)

The idea of a Tanki crew system is an intriguing one. It would add a lot of customization to this game, and its progression system would add meaning to playing the tanks you love. Some crew skills could change aspects of the game forever (I’m looking at you, parkour). My goal in this is not to present a final product. It's just to get the ball rolling and maybe, hopefully, help put a crew system into the game.

 

Lore

This feature could be somewhat at odds with Tanki lore - or at least Tanki X lore. However, the turret augment Adrenaline seems to suggest that someone is controlling the tank, as robots don’t have adrenaline. 

 

Basics

There would be three crew members: A gunner, located in the turret, a driver, and a commander, both located in the hull. The gunner controls the rotation of the turret, as well as firing. The driver drives the tank (dur). The commander controls the overdrive and commands the tank. The crew members gain more experience as the turret or hull they are located in is used in combat.

 

Another crew member could be a Loader, but it seems like a lot of turrets would have to have an autoloading system, so that probably wouldn't work.

 

Progression and Skills

Each crewmember may pick two skills corresponding to their roles in the tank. Experience that you earn in battle is also given to each crew member (there is no reduction in rank progression). The crew earns XP for all the normal actions, and ALSO when your tank gets destroyed, with the idea that the crew is learning from its mistakes. The crew may also gain experience from training manuals that may be purchased with gems or tankoins - preferably not the latter, but we know money must be made :| -  and also possibly earned via missions or challenges or received from chests. Training manuals would sit in your inventory like supplies until you use them; you can only use them on one crewmember at a time.

 

Once a crewmember’s XP reaches a certain point, they level up. Each skill may be trained up to 50 levels, but only 60 levels are allowed total. You may train the gunner either to rotate the turret faster or to reload faster. The driver can choose between hull rotation and speed. The commander picks between overdrive charge speed and “leadership”. Leadership grants a bonus to other crew members’ skills.

 

At overall training levels 20, 40, and 60, the crew members may select abilities. Abilities’ effects may not be changed by leadership or anything else. Every time you select an ability, you may change it once for free, and from there out you must either sacrifice some of the crew member’s XP or pay crystals/tankoins to change it, aside from PRO Battles, where players would get a “Veteran Crew” and be able to mix and match skills however they liked so that they could test out ideas without penalty. However, this might be best if you got a special Veteran Crew for Parkour battles only, where there is nothing to lose and some abilities could help do some amazing stunts.

 

Veteran Crews/Crewmembers could be an interesting prize for Challenges and Contests as well.

 

Here is a table of some ideas for abilities:

Since each crewmember would have three abilities, I tried to double that to ensure that there are plenty of combinations that people could use.

Name	Members	Effect
Teamwork	All	Improves all crew members’ skills. The more members that have the skill, the more effective it is.
Resistance	All	Decreases the effects of high and low temperature.
Adrenaline Rush	Gunner	Replaces the adrenaline augment, works the same.
Tricks of the Trade	Gunner	This is an ability that changes the unique parts of each turret. In Railgun, it reduces the firing delay, while in Smoky, it makes criticals more likely.
Focus	Gunner	Increases damage and reload speed, but decreases turret rotation speed.
Sight Modification	Gunner	Adds an aiming cursor to the screen, showing where the gun is pointing.
Quick Reactions	Driver	Reduces the time required to stop the tank and change directions.
Steady Hand	Driver	Reduces the knock-off effect of enemy tank rounds.
Additional/Improved Thrusters	Driver	On tracked hulls, allows control in midair, but not quite as much as the hovering hulls. On hovering hulls, allows them to hover higher than normal so that they can go over some obstacles and are harder to block.
Engine Modification	Driver	Increases tank power, resulting in better acceleration.
Triangulation	Commander	When any tank activates its overdrive, it is highlighted similar to Hornet’s overdrive. Enemies will be highlighted in orange, allies in green.
Intensity	Commander	When within a few meters of an enemy tank, buffs all aspects of your tanks by 10% for 5 seconds, before going on a 30 second cooldown.
Last Stand	Commander	Allows your tank to stay active for one second after its destruction.
Radio Modification	Commander	Boosts various parts of the hull’s overdrive: Its effects will last longer and those with ranges will be increased.

 

Well, that's all. I hope I've covered everything, though I know I haven't. I think I've written this so that free-to-play players (like myself) aren't at a huge disadvantage when it comes to crews, or at least not a larger disadvantage than they already are. Feel free to throw some hard questions out there, they'll help make this thing better (or perhaps just show me how hopeless this is).

Edited May 12, 2021 by 1VeryPointyShrub

[Iron_Man 2,376]

Under review

Valid

[Tanker-Arthur 2,971]

This is a really cool idea, and it's a really good rework for the Adrnaline Augment as well cause as long as that thing is an alteration choice, there's no reason to use most of the other alterations for each turret.

 

But I seriously hope all players, regardless of whether they're buyers or not, will have an equal chance to utilize the crew system, or else if it's restricted to one group of players (like buyers for instance), the power gap between non-buyers and buyers will be increased even further than it is now.

[1VeryPointyShrub 18]

Please keep in mind that this is just an idea for how this could work.

 

4 hours ago, Tanker-Arthur said:

This is a really cool idea, and it's a really good rework for the Adrnaline Augment as well cause as long as that thing is an alteration choice, there's no reason to use most of the other alterations for each turret.

 

But I seriously hope all players, regardless of whether they're buyers or not, will have an equal chance to utilize the crew system, or else if it's restricted to one group of players (like buyers for instance), the power gap between non-buyers and buyers will be increased even further than it is now.

That's what I was trying to do with the XP grind - it makes free to play compatible with the crews. The training manual system would be the part that buyers can purchase to gain an advantage, but even then it's not an enormous advantage because of how crew xp would work, so buyers would basically be purchasing to get to the top faster, and at higher levels where people have certain hulls and turrets that they use primarily, there would be very little difference in crews between buyers and f2p players.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

But why?

[raze_avenger 221]

On 5/11/2021 at 12:30 PM, 1VeryPointyShrub said:

A Crew System For Tanki (Idea)

The idea of a Tanki crew system is an intriguing one. It would add a lot of customization to this game, and its progression system would add meaning to playing the tanks you love. Some crew skills could change aspects of the game forever (I’m looking at you, parkour). My goal in this is not to present a final product. It's just to get the ball rolling and maybe, hopefully, help put a crew system into the game.

 

Lore

This feature could be somewhat at odds with Tanki lore - or at least Tanki X lore. However, the turret augment Adrenaline seems to suggest that someone is controlling the tank, as robots don’t have adrenaline. 

 

Basics

There would be three crew members: A gunner, located in the turret, a driver, and a commander, both located in the hull. The gunner controls the rotation of the turret, as well as firing. The driver drives the tank (dur). The commander controls the overdrive and commands the tank. The crew members gain more experience as the turret or hull they are located in is used in combat.

 

Another crew member could be a Loader, but it seems like a lot of turrets would have to have an autoloading system, so that probably wouldn't work.

 

Progression and Skills

Each crewmember may pick two skills corresponding to their roles in the tank. Experience that you earn in battle is also given to each crew member (there is no reduction in rank progression). The crew earns XP for all the normal actions, and ALSO when your tank gets destroyed, with the idea that the crew is learning from its mistakes. The crew may also gain experience from training manuals that may be purchased with gems or tankoins - preferably not the latter, but we know money must be made :| -  and also possibly earned via missions or challenges or received from chests. Training manuals would sit in your inventory like supplies until you use them; you can only use them on one crewmember at a time.

 

Once a crewmember’s XP reaches a certain point, they level up. Each skill may be trained up to 50 levels, but only 60 levels are allowed total. You may train the gunner either to rotate the turret faster or to reload faster. The driver can choose between hull rotation and speed. The commander picks between overdrive charge speed and “leadership”. Leadership grants a bonus to other crew members’ skills.

 

At overall training levels 20, 40, and 60, the crew members may select abilities. Abilities’ effects may not be changed by leadership or anything else. Every time you select an ability, you may change it once for free, and from there out you must either sacrifice some of the crew member’s XP or pay crystals/tankoins to change it, aside from PRO Battles, where players would get a “Veteran Crew” and be able to mix and match skills however they liked so that they could test out ideas without penalty. However, this might be best if you got a special Veteran Crew for Parkour battles only, where there is nothing to lose and some abilities could help do some amazing stunts.

 

Veteran Crews/Crewmembers could be an interesting prize for Challenges and Contests as well.

 

Here is a table of some ideas for abilities:

Since each crewmember would have three abilities, I tried to double that to ensure that there are plenty of combinations that people could use.

Name	Members	Effect
Teamwork	All	Improves all crew members’ skills. The more members that have the skill, the more effective it is.
Resistance	All	Decreases the effects of high and low temperature.
Adrenaline Rush	Gunner	Replaces the adrenaline augment, works the same.
Tricks of the Trade	Gunner	This is an ability that changes the unique parts of each turret. In Railgun, it reduces the firing delay, while in Smoky, it makes criticals more likely.
Focus	Gunner	Increases damage and reload speed, but decreases turret rotation speed.
Sight Modification	Gunner	Adds an aiming cursor to the screen, showing where the gun is pointing.
Quick Reactions	Driver	Reduces the time required to stop the tank and change directions.
Steady Hand	Driver	Reduces the knock-off effect of enemy tank rounds.
Additional/Improved Thrusters	Driver	On tracked hulls, allows control in midair, but not quite as much as the hovering hulls. On hovering hulls, allows them to hover higher than normal so that they can go over some obstacles and are harder to block.
Engine Modification	Driver	Increases tank power, resulting in better acceleration.
Triangulation	Commander	When any tank activates its overdrive, it is highlighted similar to Hornet’s overdrive. Enemies will be highlighted in orange, allies in green.
Intensity	Commander	When within a few meters of an enemy tank, buffs all aspects of your tanks by 10% for 5 seconds, before going on a 30 second cooldown.
Last Stand	Commander	Allows your tank to stay active for one second after its destruction.
Radio Modification	Commander	Boosts various parts of the hull’s overdrive: Its effects will last longer and those with ranges will be increased.

 

Well, that's all. I hope I've covered everything, though I know I haven't. I think I've written this so that free-to-play players (like myself) aren't at a huge disadvantage when it comes to crews, or at least not a larger disadvantage than they already are. Feel free to throw some hard questions out there, they'll help make this thing better (or perhaps just show me how hopeless this is).

This reminds me of the crew perks in world of tanks pc. 

[1VeryPointyShrub 18]

20 hours ago, raze_avenger said:

This reminds me of the crew perks in world of tanks pc. 

That's where the inspiration comes from :)

On 5/12/2021 at 3:33 PM, ThirdOnion said:

But why?

Adding crews would add a new level of variability to the game, enable players to play a bunch of different playstyles and allow players to boost aspects of tanks that are currently hard or impossible to improve. They would also help close the buyer-f2p gap at higher tiers with the 60 level cap.

[wolverine848 13,097]

1 hour ago, 1VeryPointyShrub said:

Adding crews would add a new level of variability to the game, enable players to play a bunch of different playstyles and allow players to boost aspects of tanks that are currently hard or impossible to improve. They would also help close the buyer-f2p gap at higher tiers with the 60 level cap.

You been playing a lot of MechCommander recently?  Cuz this all seems familiar...

 

There is already too much complication in the game as it is with augments, modules, drones, ODs.  And you want to complicate it by a factorial?

And how would this help "close the buyer-f2p gap"?  Won't buyers have access to the same things?

Some people mistakenly thought ODs would close the gap.  Boy were they wrong.  Since ODs are generated by time and score, between buyers and f2p, guess who gets OD faster and more often...

[1VeryPointyShrub 18]

21 hours ago, wolverine848 said:

You been playing a lot of MechCommander recently?  Cuz this all seems familiar...

 

There is already too much complication in the game as it is with augments, modules, drones, ODs.  And you want to complicate it by a factorial?

And how would this help "close the buyer-f2p gap"?  Won't buyers have access to the same things?

Some people mistakenly thought ODs would close the gap.  Boy were they wrong.  Since ODs are generated by time and score, between buyers and f2p, guess who gets OD faster and more often...

Never heard of MechCommander 

For complication, much of it comes from a) deciding where to spend your crystals and b) changing equipment in battle. Because crews would earn XP passively for your actions in combat, you wouldn't have to so much as look at them aside from when you choose skills and abilities. Plus, the crew interface when you would be deciding on skills and abilities would be pretty simple: select from two skills when you purchase the equipment piece, and select from six abilities when you reach those levels.

For closing the gap - yeah, I associated "not making things worse" with "making things better", that's my bad. However, it won't get worse at higher ranks, because what buyers would be paying for with crews is to progress faster toward the cap. At the point where f2p players reach that cap, crews would be equal, with no difference between buyers and f2pers.

Edited May 14, 2021 by 1VeryPointyShrub

[raze_avenger 221]

On 5/13/2021 at 4:52 PM, 1VeryPointyShrub said:

That's where the inspiration comes from :)

Good to see a fellow world of tanks player .