So here we are again. I actually managed to make a video which is NOT 40 mins long… HUZZAH 😀
After the request of some people on reddit, my stream and YouTube comments as well as my personal curiosity as I also like the STB-1 I went on the testserver and played around 15 games in it, today alone 10, so here are my thoughts about it.
The Gun
A lot of people where scared of the worse Alpha and AP as standard ammo, especially as it looses a lot of penetration over distance. I have to say that this is hardly any problem, or at least a problem I personally did not encounter during playtesting. The gun feels much more smoother. With rammer, optics, bia, rations and vertstab it felt like a very good snapshotting gun. HOWEVER, the turret dispersion is still poopoo and could definitely use some love, especially for its intended purpose. The better reload time and worse Alpha felt so much more comfortable to use then the old gun. Yes you do less damage, but the better shot frequency makes so much up for it. You miss a shot? who cares, 5.7 secs later you got a new shot to hammer into your enemy. Also the new AP makes the shells riccochet less off of armor because of better auto bouncne angles. HUZZAH! Aimtime also feels neato 🙂
The Turret and Hydropneumaticsuspension
Yes the turret got an armor buff ( you can look at it yourself on ) It got some additional weaker armor spots but over all got a lot sturdier and can do decent bounces. It feels good to use! BUT cupola still weak and a great weakspot! Needs skill to hide it and its not the herpaderp turboidiotproof weakpsot of the sconquerors cupola. I like it. HOWEVER lets talk about the new gimmick. The Hydrosusp ( shortened because word to long). It is meh at best. It feels very finicky to use and feels just straight up sluggish. I actually had more success in the Type 61 with less armor and bigger profile because the gundepression was flat 10°. The STB-1 trades it for 6° base and 6° when using the Hydrosusp. BUT only when your hull is facing where your gun is facing. Meaning, you want to aim sideways, welp rip 12° gundepression, hello 6°. Btw, STB-1 was able to tilt its hill IRL form left to right, not just up and down afaik. It also is sooo slow…
like FRICK. It takes ages to set in and you never know when exactly you reached 12° or not. So I have several options to fix it.
A) Give the STB-1 10° normal and 2° for hydrosusp so you are less reliant on it. Is it unhistorical, yeah, is it more enjoyable to play. YES
B) Give it like 8° normal and 4° Hydrosusp. So it is not too daming if you fail to utilize the new gimmick properly.
C) Actually make the hydrosusp be more snappy / quicker to react. And fix the mechanic in general. The Udes tanks also feels very finicky and not that pleasant to play because eof the wonky mechanic
For all 3 options I HIGHLY recommend on doing a HUD overhaul. Give us a small rectangle and a line to indicate where the hull is pointing and where the gun is pointing. Yes yes I know its already there but I want it in the middle of the screen. Something like this:
Also please add a small counter showing you how much of your gundepression you already used for Udes and STB-1. Like -10/-12 indicating you use 10° gundepression out of 12°. I made an example in my video if you want to see it how it could look in game. Spoiler. I am trash at photoshop and I am only good enough to do somewhat appealing Thumbnails… maybe… not sure… my viewcount says different… FRICK
AAAAAANYWAY, lets segway to the mobility
The mobility:
YES. moving on…
No the mobility feels great. The 25 hp/t ratio feel awesome and the 25 kph backwards are just amazing ( what I would have wished for on the leo1… feelsbadman) Honestly the trade of 3 kph topspeed for 5 kph backwards speed is amazing. And 100% useful! Like it feels sooo goood… FRICK. I made two comparisons in my video of the STB-1 racing the 1.5 version and the 1.5.1 leopard 1 version up the hill from both sides. See for yourself 😉
Conclusion:
Fix the problems with the Hydrosusp, give us a tad better accuracy during turret movement and a new HUD element indication how much gundepression you still have and where your hull points at. Boom. Done… You got a tank with awesome DPM, great attacking capabilities and a tank which feels awesome to play. I am very much surprised how good the STB-1 feels after the changes. Its a new gaming experience yet you still feel the old STB-1 in it. Its a great rework and I look forward on playing it on liveserver IF they fix the hydrosusp problems and give it the HUD element I mentioned.
Outlook:
Gonna try doing LeoPTA and Type 61 together tomorrow. Quick spoiler. Both feeling very good.
Thank you so much for your attention. please share your feedback and feelings in the forum as well so we can make a difference
Kind regards
RagingRaptor
Ps: Its 1:13 AM, please don't tear me apart because of spelling mistakes ;w;
