Kill Requirements
From BattlegroundWiki
There can be some confusion as to what exactly is required to get a 'kill' on enemy equipment. Doc posted in the forums recently (February 09, 2006) to set the record straight. That information is summarized here to keep it from being lost.
What are the requirements for a 'kill'
To be awarded a kill you must be the first person to destroy a critical component. Simply hitting a target will result in a "damaged" status if a Critical Kill Component is not destroyed by your bullets/AP-HE rounds or bombs.
A vehicle or weapon can only be killed once per sortie, although it is possible for more than one person to destroy a Critical Kill Component if the target remains in the game world after a Critical Kill Component is destroyed. This is because there are several Critical Kill Components on every vehicle and there may be a lot of people shooting at a single target vehicle. Only the first shooter to destroy a Critical Kill Component will be awarded the kill if multiple shooters damage a player vehicle.
Fires and explosions cannot award kills unless you destroy a Critical Kill Component before the fire or explosion destroys the vehicle or it's crew. This is a scoring bug we haven't eradicated yet. If you destroy a Critical Kill Component (like the gunner or driver in a tank) and then the vehicle blows up or catches fire, you'll get the kill. If you set the vehicle on fire, or blow it up, and the fire or explosion them kills all the crew, but you didn't actually kill or wound (with your fired ordanance like bullets or tank rounds for example) either the driver or gunner mortally before the fire/explosion killed them, you'll not be awarded the kill. You should be but there is a problem in the code there that we haven't squashed yet. This is a bug. You should get the kill but the code won't recognise you the shooter as the one who started the fire or caused the explosion, and it's the fire/explosion that killed the crew. This is a bug. We know about it. [Source]
Critial Kill Components
Information gleaned from Here.
Tanks and Armoured Cars
The following will award a kill if shot to destruction by your bullets/AP-HE rounds/bombs:
- Engine dead
- Main gun disabled
- Both tracks de-tracked
- Gunner crew dead
- Driver crew dead
- (if you catastrophically hit the ammo, and the tank explodes, killing all crew, but your rounds did no damage to the crew or any other Critical Kill Component, the game will not award a kill for that, it should, we want it to, it just can't do that right now because of the kill/scoring bug with ammo explosions and fuel fires killing crew)
Aircraft
The following will award a kill if shot to destruction by your bullets/AP-HE rounds/bombs
- Engine dead
- Guns disabled (all of them)
- Crew killed
- Wing removed (by bullets/rounds not the fire/explosion your bullets/AP-HE rounds started)
- if you hit the ammo or fuel tanks, and the plane explodes or burns, killing all crew, but your rounds did no damage to the crew or any other Critical Kill Component, the game will not award a kill for that, it should, we want it to, it just can't do that right now because of the kill/scoring bug with ammo explosions and fuel fires killing crew
Boats
The following will award a kill if shot to destruction by your bullets/AP-HE rounds/bombs
- Engines
- All guns in a single group type disabled (main, AA or torpedo)
- Flotation tanks destroyed (boat will sink)
- All gunners and captain (pos.1) on a Fairmile (DD's have no crew deaths)
- if you hit the ammo, and the boat explodes or burns, sinking, but your rounds did no damage to the crew or any other Critical Kill Component, the game will not award a kill for that, it should, we want it to, it just can't do that right now because because of the kill/scoring bug with ammo explosions and fuel fires killing crew)
Trucks
The following will award a kill if shot to destruction by your bullets/AP-HE rounds/bombs
- Engine
- Driver
- Tires/wheels blown off (1 each side minimum)
AA or ATG's
The following will award a kill if shot to destruction by your bullets/AP-HE rounds/bombs
- Both crew
- Main gun disabled
Questions With Official Response
Questions regarding scoring from the original thread.
I thought fire did score kills now?
Unfortunately you are right, it isn't that easy. We need to rip out the kill scoring code (and it's connected to almost everything, so it's a dangerous beeatch to **** with) and replace it. This is core game engine stuff and can't be undertaken lightly or in a short time frame. That means after it is tasked to a coder to do, it requires a LONG (and unknown) timeframe ... and those are the worst to plan for because, like the big core engine work we undertook several times before, means no visible progress to our players, who then think we aren't working on the game, and they get antsy. So we need to plan it in such a way we can do the long. boring (for players) work and still produce the kinds of things that they demand to make them feel we are working on and improving the game. That's not easy with a tiny dev. team. so it takes a long time to get done. All we can tell you is we don't get it done faster just because you think we didn't know it needs doing. B] We have it on our "get this done this year" list. [Source]
How come sometimes I brew a tank and am not awarded a kill?
There's a reason for everything. Fuel tanks and ammo bins can't be made Critical Kill Components under the current code because they aren't linear like other damage components, a fire or ammo explosion is a gamble event, it isn't based on accumulated damage, it's kind of a "lucky hit" system, as in real life, the same consequence would not always follow the same event criteria.
Like, 1 round MIGHT torch it, and then again, it might not.
That's not able to be factored into the current Critical Kill Component system because they function on different principles. We'll change that when we can but it's a rewrite of the systems ... so I thought I'd tell you what was what to further your understanding, not because we need advice on how to make it work better. To do that, you'd have to undertsand how the code works ... it isn't the way it is because we lack ideas ... all we lack so far is the devevelopment time to rewrite it. In the meantime, this post serves to inform, and nothing else.
If you read it [the article] again you'll see that a kill is possible to be awarded from a fire, IF YOU KILL THE COMPONENT WITH YOUR BULLETS (AP rounds, HE, what have you, etc.) ... so in fact you THINK you got a kill from the fire but in fact you did not, your hits on the component you killed awarded you the kill, the fire is just a result of starting a fire with the same or some other rounds that you used to get the kill on the Critical Kill Component ... the two are seperate events to the code. You connect them from your visual feedback, but the game engine code cannot do that yet. That's why a fire gets you kills sometimes, and sometimes not. Same for ammo explosions. Because when it does get you a kill, it wasn't the fire or the explosion, they were just subsequent events you caused by shooting the target. Say you destroy the engine (kill awarded by the Cricial Kill Component) and you also hit the fuel tanks and start a fire. The fire will kill the crew, you'll get a kill for the engine destruction, but the fire will not be why you got the kill even though it killed the crew.
Say you start a fire and don't destroy a Critical Kill Component. The fire will kill the crew, but you WON'T get a kill because you didn't directly destroy a Critical Kill Component. Yes, I know that there will be a lot of suggestions what we should do, but you need to know this and this only: we know what we need to do. The current code cannot do it. We need to rewrite it. No suggestion will make it possible, until we rewrite it. It's on our task list for this year. We don't need a suggestion to make it possible, we just need time.
Until then, I thought I'd try and help you understand what is going on so you're less confused. That's all. We don't need any help in working out what needs to be done. We just have to do it. Any rewrite of core game engine code is difficult and time consuming so you'll just have to cope with the fact it will take awhile to do that. We are going to do it.
The reason fires and explosions that kill vehicles isn't able to be connected with the shooter (yes it should but it isn't, is all I'm saying) is not because we don't know what to do with it. It's because the core game engine was written before these effects were a part of the game, and must be rewritten to make them possible, and that's going to be a big rewrite, so it will take us some time. We're in the process of assigning things like this to their place in our future dev. cycles (and a million other things as well) and until then, use the post above to help you undertsand how the current (and old) code operates with respect to kills and scoring. [Source]
Does the amount of fuel or ammo left effect the likelyhood of a catastrophic failure (like fire)?
If you have no fuel left (it leaked away due to battle damage or you consumed it all in a long sortie) you can't suffer a fuel fire. Fuel fires don't burn after you have no fuel left. If you survive a fire long enough to burn off all your fuel (this happens in aircraft occassionally) then the fire goes out. [Source]
Does the 2lber mount on the Fairmile count as the main gun, and if so does killing this count as a critical hit?
Due to the nature of the Fairmile itself, with a single "main gun" mount, we decided you need to knock out ALL the guns on them. DD's are a different matter. Try knocking out just one single type group of guns on that beast and surviving the attempt. [Source]
External Links
The original thread of discussion in the forums is available from Here.
