game bug or realistic?

[slysniper]

The game has it about right, that does not mean realistic, just right.

Anytime you drive a tank off road, there should be some thought that it might cause immobility by going over terrain that might cause problems.

So maybe the game does not have it grog perfect.

But as a game, playing a limited time frame, it at least forces me to think, do I want to risk moving cross country, or should I stick to the roadways where I know the enemy will be guarding it, but I risk no immobility.

This really comes into play if the ground is wet and soft. as it should.

But the point is, somehow the game needs to provide risk when moving cross country, So you know wire fences are part of it, live with it, the risk is really minor once you understand the game, which at the moment, you dont.

I get tired of the theme, My King Tiger, should never be in danger of such and such, because it is a huge #$#$@ Tank, Get real. They are a machine like any other machine, and machines break down. No matter what mystical powers you want to wish on them.

[Collingwood]

They are a machine like any other machine, and machines break down.

Yes, if people only knew how much time was spent by tankers at the end of each day, repairing tracks and damaged road wheels etc. There is a high amount of maintenance per mile for tracked vehicles.

[Amizaur]

I didn't know a light (green) damage to tracks doesn't reduce mobility.

But crossing a wooden fence should not cause even slightest damage to tracks 99.9% of the time.

Of course that even SINGLE medium caliber AP hit on tracks or wheels CAN cause mobility kill. I didn't ever negate that. I only say, the chance for such one-hit mobility kill should be small. There is a lot more undercarriage area where an AP or bazooka hit would not cause any serious damage, than area of those critical parts that would cause it when hit.

Cumulative damage model (with sem-random amount of damage dependant on energy of the hit, and also randomised hits on critical parts - that would make one-hit kils possible) would be a better for hits against tracks and wheels.

I'm not sure how it works, would have to test it. But the feeling is, that almost any medium caliber hit on wheels or track causes mobility kill. So it definitely happens often.

[Crushingleeek]

I didn't know a light (green) damage to tracks doesn't reduce mobility.

don't think of light green as "damage." The speed of your tank indicates damage. Think of it as a dice-rolling modifier.

[c3k]

...I'm not sure how it works, would have to test it...

That is the key. There is so much complexity in the game that a single event, even a "feel" developed over months of play, does not mean a thing as to how it works in the code. (Note: as a beta-tester I have no idea what's under the hood. All I get to do is drive the game into ground and gleefully tell BF.C what's broken. I have no coding knowledge.)

For example, let's say you've developed a definite trend of your tanks being immobilized by enemy fire. Why could that be wrong? (I'm not saying it IS wrong, I'm postulating why it COULD be wrong.) Perhaps you love leading your attacks with tanks. Maybe you only get a challenge when you play against an enemy with a lot more antitank weaponry than anyone else. Maybe you love the map-edge and always have a tank's flank exposed. Etc. Your particular style of play MAY be the reason why you're seeing whay you consider unrealistic immobilization numbers.

It may be that you have an unrealisted idea of what WWII tanks could do.

The solution is, as you stated, to test it. Set up tests which ISOLATE the variable. Run 100's of iterations. Assess the results. Change a SINGLE variable. Run 100's of iterations. Assess the results. Compare them to the previous results. Etc.

Of course you don't have to do this. Posting an issue and ASKING about it is far more conducive to better answers than immediately proclaiming it's wrong. (Hey, it MAY be wrong. That's where testing comes in.)

Light green may just mean a bent fender. It may just be a die-roll modifier. However, notice how it STAYS light green even after many fence crushes? If not, go crush some fences. It's fun.

You're a customer/gameplayer. If you don't want to waste your precious game time with testing, that's cool. I'm not being snide. I know how difficult it can be to set aside some game time. Why waste it testing a product that's already been released? However, if you don't want (or can't) test it, then please give a little more weight to the answers you get from those who have.

For example, dieseltaylor asked if the damage level is different for different classes of vehicles hitting the same obstacle. I don't know. (I _thought_ I test for that, but it's been over a year...) I'm going to grab some time today and try it out.

(Language barriers and cross-posting, as well as the difficulty of expressing subtleties with the written word, all contribute to miscommunication. We're all here to make this a better game.)

Ken

[Amizaur]

c3k, with every bit of respect but I don't understand you. I HAVE TESTED various issues in this game, making hundreds of iterations, and found how few things works. But I have a life and I don't have time/want/need to test everything I feel strange or wrong. Sometimes I just want to post my feelings - that I think something is not right. We can compare it to feelings of other players. Maybe I'm wrong, and have bad luck or selective memory. Or maybe there is something and most of players is feeling the same. Maybe SOMEONE would make a test then, out of curiosity.

If I want to know something, and have no time/will to test it myself, then ys, I'm usually asking about it. Have asked about game issues many times already, some questions were answered and I was satisfied. But sometimes I's just like to say, what I think, what are my feelings. And read what other player's feelings are and what they think about it.

Are there only positove opinions about the game ? Am I supposed only to write about things that are good in this game, in my opinion ? Any comment about something that - IN MY OPINION - is not right, would be criticised ? Because it would hurt the sales, or what ? Lots of people are praising this game, you don't need me here.

[A Canadian Cat]

Of course that even SINGLE medium caliber AP hit on tracks or wheels CAN cause mobility kill. <snip>

I'm not sure how it works, would have to test it. But the feeling is, that almost any medium caliber hit on wheels or track causes mobility kill. So it definitely happens often.

Testing would be a good idea. I just completed a game that included an encounter between a tiger and three Cromwells. I was using the Cromwell's speed to come at the Tiger from multiple directions. The fact that I knew where it was and was able to maneuver well let me get the first shot with each encounter. My tanks managed three wheel hits from close range on the right side of the Tiger (we were in an orchard and the distances were under 200m). My thought at the time was - OMG how many times do I have to hit the wheels on that beast to make it stop. The Tiger just kept coming.

In the end my last wheel hit did immobilize it. The Tiger totally destroyed two Cromwells and rendered the third mute (only two crew left no working gun and severely degraded mobility)

Seems perfectly plausible outcome to me. And yes if I had immobilized it with the first hit or if it was still going after three I would still say it was a plausible out come

I have to admit that I was hoping that a surprise hit from the side really close I might even manage to destroy that Tiger. No luck there. Those are truly scary tanks.

[Crushingleeek]

Are you from Lodz or something?

[slysniper]

here is my example of the game model being just fine.

Since no test, we just want feelings.

Played a battle where I had about 45 PzIV's, battle was 2.5 hours long.

Driving all over the place because roads were almost none existant.

Units went through wire, brush, fences, walls and hedges.

Total battle losses were 15 PzIV's. I recall 4 immobilized tanks during the battle.

Two to direct Sherman fire and the other two were to arty fire. Now I had plenty of track damage going over the items that can cause it. But no unit ever was allowed to get to a level where they are affected to a point where their movement speed was slowed down. Generally, that level only happens when I get hit by enemy fire to my unit. In general, driving over terrain items cannot bring total failer, only if I was foolish enough to keep risking a unit that already has damage to the tracks.

I do recall managing to wreck halftracks speed by driving over enough to damage them to a point that they were moving dead slow. But that was when I was learning the game and have learned to avoid it.

[akd]

Mobility in CMBN is extremely lenient.

[Peregrine]

Do you guys that think it is lenient play the campaigns?

The original poster experienced his problem playing during the Engel campaign. I from my experience will not drive a tank over any fence in a campaign unless I know that I have repairs available simple because driving a tank over everything insight will result in tanks not surviving 3 battles with anything less than yellow tracks.

Anecdotally barbed wire/low walls seems the worst culprits at causing damage.

[slysniper]

Do you guys that think it is lenient play the campaigns?

The original poster experienced his problem playing during the Engel campaign. I from my experience will not drive a tank over any fence in a campaign unless I know that I have repairs available simple because driving a tank over everything insight will result in tanks not surviving 3 battles with anything less than yellow tracks.

Anecdotally barbed wire/low walls seems the worst culprits at causing damage.

And what part of this is wrong, in a campaign you should ponder about how much off road use you send your armor to do. second, the last time I checked, having yellow tracks on my tank really does not hinder it much.

I think the problem only shows up if the tank then gets hit from a enemy round or something. No question, the tank with yellow tracks will likely lose a track before a tank with green tracks.

As for campaign play, yes I have expearenced the sad event that on the very last battle of a long campaign that my three remaining tanks were so damaged that all three became immobile and I had no way to finish the final objective, which was adding salt to the wound of lossing additional panthers in previous battles to immobility and they would not be brought forth into the next battle. First, that was version one, which now with the update, things have improved much. Second, campaign designers have a factor in this with the settings. So stop thinking that the game needs tweeked if all it requires is the designer to set his setting a little different in the campaign.

[Peregrine]

I never said it needed tweaking.

The way many campaigns are if you use you tanks off road without area firing obstacles first they will not make it to the end of the campaign. It just feels a little dumb shooting stuff down first. Maybe this is what tankers did in real life, I don't know, but it just feels off.

[Fizou]

Peregrine,

I have played several campaigns and cant say that fences, barbed wire, bocage gaps etc have played a major role in making my tanks imobolized. And I dont use area fire to make holes. In my experience tanks dont take that much damage by going over these types of obstacles?

[Peregrine]

Have you tried Engel?

[YankeeDog]

Do you guys that think it is lenient play the campaigns?

The original poster experienced his problem playing during the Engel campaign. I from my experience will not drive a tank over any fence in a campaign unless I know that I have repairs available simple because driving a tank over everything insight will result in tanks not surviving 3 battles with anything less than yellow tracks.

Anecdotally barbed wire/low walls seems the worst culprits at causing damage.

As I mentioned earlier, I think this is more a campaign scripting issue than a damage modeling issue. Tank crews are quite capable of performing minor maintenance on their own, so I think campaign designers should consider very carefully before setting repair/refit % between battles in a campaign to zero; this would reflect a situation where the tank crew has had almost no time between battles to rest, refuel, and refit. Given an hour or two of down time, the crew would least be capable of pulling wire tangles out of the running gear, perhaps replacing a damaged track link or two, etc.

But in certain campaigns, this may be justified. It all depends on the historical situation and tactical challenge the author is trying to represent.

[akd]

Just did a quick test and I had to run a platoon of KTs over 350m of parallel rows of barbed wire fences to immobilize them.

[Lt Belenko]

Just did a quick test and I had to run a platoon of KTs over 350m of parallel rows of barbed wire fences to immobilize them.

But at 349m they were still running?

[akd]

That is approximate. The 4 tanks went immobile between 340-370m. But yes, the damage is clearly cumulative and fairly predictable, not random chance per interaction.

[YankeeDog]

That is approximate. The 4 tanks went immobile between 340-370m. But yes, the damage is clearly cumulative and fairly predictable, not random chance per interaction.

Bear in mind that even if there is some random variation in the amount of damage per overrun, if it takes a large number of overruns to reach immobilization, it will average out to be fairly predictable.

For example, if each overrun causes a random 1-5 "points" of mobility damage, and it takes 100 points of damage to completely immobilize the tank, things will average out so that it usually takes very close to 40 overruns to completely immobilize a tank, even though there is a fair variation in the amount of damage caused by each individual incident.

Not saying that this is the way the game engine works in this area (I have no idea). Just pointing out that from a statistical viewpoint, consistent results in the overall outcome does not necessarily mean there is no variation in the individual iterations.

[akd]

Yes, I mean the cumulative effect is the dominant factor in immobilization.

[womble]

As I mentioned earlier, I think this is more a campaign scripting issue than a damage modeling issue...I think campaign designers should consider very carefully before setting repair/refit % between battles in a campaign to zero...

I think there's a bunch of things for campaign designers to beware of in the campaign system. The campaigns included with the base game are, at best, diamonds in the rough when it comes to exploting the new features. Having resupply set to zero, while reflecting independent operations (with maybe some supply trucks showing up occasionally) and satisfying micromanagers/logistics-focused types to an extent, makes baby Jebus cry when you consider all the munition types that will be expended that simply aren't carried by ammo trucks/half tracks as it stands: grenades; 7.92K; demo charges to name but three. If a unit is supposed to be a) executing a pre-prepared plan, and carrying its own supplies, the supply setup needs to reflect that it won't just carry pistol and rifle ammo. Those "resupply trucks" would, IRL, have been carrying supplies for everyone, except in very specific situations.

[Praetori]

I personally don't think there's very much to see here. Battlefront was kind enough to give us a little marker to show an approximation of the health of the tracks. Not something a RL crew has much information on, even after-battle inspection won't give you much insight into how you'r vehicle is holding up (other than the obvious leaks, cracks or odd noises).

I've found the CMx2 engine to be very kind to tracked vehicles terrain performance in general compared to my own experience. Real terrain is not made up of easily identifiable squares and bogging does occur frequently (there's a reason most western armored battalions has integrated towing vehicles).

Now Combat Mission IS a GAME and everything that's realistic might not be fun from a gameplay perspective. Rather than harsh mechanics I'd rather see extra candy to help the players tackle the issues presented.

I for one wouldn't say no to AFV re-arm and battlefield towing (and possibly track-repair of thrown tracks) as it's something that armored forces really do, on the battlefield, all the time. And it would make for some interesting gameplay if the AI could handle it (and bogging would be a lot less serious).

[Vinnart]

I just ran over a HEDGE with a panther and got a track hit. From my observations the game does not differentiate between hedge, stone wall, wooden fence ect… The damage does seem the same as they seem to be classified as the same under the hood. I do find it odd that going over a hedge with a tank would cause damage to the tracks. I just can’t believe they are that delicate. If so, I doubt I will use the saying “built like a tank” in quite the same way. From reading the thread I do seem to be experiencing less track hits when going SLOW over walls as advised. When I use the term “walls” I mean all of the above as a general term.

Also, some have said there is no speed hit when the tracks get down graded, but I am fairly sure from my experience that they do. This should be easy enough to test. Make a quick scenario with 5 of the same tank with the map with a bunch of walls to run over to downgrade the tracks. Put two roads parallel a distance apart as a start, and finish line. Once you have a tank in each damage color light on the scale have a race. My money is on the horse with no track damage.

[Crushingleeek]

let us know your results