Improvement suggestions

[Erwin]

"If there are two soldiers in the square, then LOS starts in the center in between them, etc."

This was the most interesting observation.  It explains many issues.  (And can be understood without brain hurting.)

Edited May 31, 2017 by Erwin

[A Canadian Cat]

6 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

When using the target-command (during turn-resolution, the game uses a routine described by Vanir Auf B ), the starting point of a LOS is calculated from the positions of your unit’s soldiers within the square. If there is just one soldier in your unit, then the LOS starts at his head. If there are two soldiers in the square, then LOS starts in the center in between them, etc. I don’t know how the starting height of a LOS is determined (kneeling/standing/prone) if there are more than one soldiers in the unit.

I think the calculations are done with each height present in the team. For example if you have a two man team and one is prone and one is kneeling and they are looking past a low wall you will see the grey LOS line for locations that the kneeling solider can see. This is because the game knows that the prone solider cannot see the target area but the kneeling soldier can. If both soldiers are prone then they cannot see anything past the wall.

 

6 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I don't think so. I think HE is basically a case of the game drawing an invisible line from point of impact to each soldier within the potential kill range. If the line is blocked by a wall, ground, etc. then no further action is taken. If the line is clear, then there will be a "dice roll" made based on the size of the explosion and distance to target, plus cover type. In CMBS probably there's some modifier for body armour too - no such luck for my WW2 grunts.

But even though the game doesn't model individual fragments etc. the end result is pretty much like your drawings.

Yes, I believe this is a very good explanation about how it works.

 

3 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

• LOS always gets stopped at the border between-action-spots. I'm not sure if that means that the whole LOS-system is based on spots. On one hand, I've never seen a LOS blocked directly at/by a tree-obstacle (sometimes, when the tree is placed very close to the border, it looks as if this is the case), but only at the next action-spot-border that the LOS tried to cross. On the other hand, obstacles such as buildings and walls can instantly block LOS, within an individual action-spot.

So the LOS reported by the target tool stops at the border always. This is because the tool is actually not a LOS checking tool it is a targeting tool that reports the state of the LOS. Yeah, I know hairs are splitting, but it is actually an important distinction and explains this fully. When you have a unit and you invoke the target command the tool you get will tell you if you can target the centre of a certain action square. That is what is actually going on. As you will no doubt also observed is that if you click to commit the target command it will not drop where the mouse is but in the centre of an action square nearest. That is why the target tool will stop at action square boundaries.

Using the targeting tool the LOS is computed between your unit and an enemy (if they are there) or the centre of the action square if there are no spotted enemy units there. So in your example if there were enemy units in the mix you would see the LOS tool stopping at different places. For example if you had one instance where the enemy soldiers were towards the back of the action square the LOS might be blocked due to the obstruction effect of the cover but those same soldiers towards the near side of the action square might still be visible.

This is also why you see the problem of being unable to target building faces that it seems you should and yet when a spotted enemy shows up at in the window suddenly you can target them. For a full discussion of this limitation see this thread:

and Steve's comments (which might also be enlightening for some of your investigation)

 

[Kaunitz]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes I feel as if I've seen this many times too, but I guess I was tricked by trees close to the edge. As I'm not playing with a gridded terrain mod, I am not always sure where individual squares begin and end.

I'm pretty sure the foliage also blocks LOF. At least sometimes. Artillery and mortars will often burst against the leaves of a tree. At least it looks like that to me, but maybe it's actually the shell hitting the trunk's hitbox?

I think you're on to something, but not sure we're quite at the definitive answer yet...

I don't have a terrain-grid-mod either. But it's quite easy to check in the scenario editor. Just switch between the target-command (t) and movement-command (n), which highlights action spots.

Yes, artillery can explode if it hits trees. But, as you say, I can't tell if it is when it hits the trunk or a LOS-hitbox. 

20 minutes ago, Erwin said:

"If there are two soldiers in the square, then LOS starts in the center in between them, etc."

This was the most interesting observation.  It explains many issues.  (And can be understood without brain hurting.)

But this only applies to the LOS-line that the player gets to see when he issues a target-command. As Vanir Ausf B has stated, the game itself uses a different approach to handle spotting in its actual gameplay-resolution. If I try to interpret Vanir Ausf B: Apparently, for each spotting intervall (I assume spotting does not occur every single second but in larger intervalls?), the game checks for each unit whether a clear LOS can be drawn from the center of its action spot to the center of the action spots of enemy unit. If this check fails, then no spotting occurs. If it succeeds, the individual soldiers of the unit get to make a spotting attempt against (all the individual soldiers? - it often happens that my unit spots only a single enemy soldier of a larger unit, so I assume it works like that) of the enemy unit, with LOS being drawn from their actual positions within the spot.

 

[A Canadian Cat]

7 minutes ago, Kaunitz said:

If I try to interpret Vanir Ausf B: Apparently, for each spotting intervall (I assume spotting does not occur every single second but in larger intervalls?),

Correct. Some one once did some experiments and guessed that it was a 7s interval. But to improve spotting issues when units are close to each other the interval is now elastic. Meaning that when forces are far apart the interval is constant and when they pass some closeness threshold the interval shortens (at least for some units) to reduce the likely hood of issues around large things like vehicles coming around corners very close to soldiers and having it take 7s for the soldiers to spot the vehicle. But we don't know what the close threshold is or what happens to the interval. Also, as I am sure some one will point out, spotting between units that are close to each other still produces more odd situations that we might like.

 

7 minutes ago, Kaunitz said:

the game checks for each unit whether a clear LOS can be drawn from the center of its action spot to the center of the action spots of enemy unit. If this check fails, then no spotting occurs. If it succeeds, the individual soldiers of the unit get to make a spotting attempt against (all the individual soldiers? - it often happens that my unit spots only a single enemy soldier of a larger unit, so I assume it works like that) of the enemy unit, with LOS being drawn from their actual positions within the spot.

Yes, all the eye balls. You can sometimes see this if you have a multi team squad and they have spotted an enemy solider. When you split the squad one team can see the guy and the other team cannot. That gives you a hint of which set of eye balls is the one that has spotted the enemy solider.

[Kaunitz]

41 minutes ago, IanL said:

So the LOS reported by the target tool stops at the border always. This is because the tool is actually not a LOS checking tool it is a targeting tool that reports the state of the LOS. Yeah, I know hairs are splitting, but it is actually an important distinction and explains this fully. When you have a unit and you invoke the target command the tool you get will tell you if you can target the centre of a certain action square. That is what is actually going on. As you will no doubt also observed is that if you click to commit the target command it will not drop where the mouse is but in the centre of an action square nearest. That is why the target tool will stop at action square boundaries.

Using the targeting tool the LOS is computed between your unit and an enemy (if they are there) or the centre of the action square if there are no spotted enemy units there. So in your example if there were enemy units in the mix you would see the LOS tool stopping at different places. For example if you had one instance where the enemy soldiers were towards the back of the action square the LOS might be blocked due to the obstruction effect of the cover but those same soldiers towards the near side of the action square might still be visible.

 

My observations point in a different direction. The target-command does not tell me whether I can target the center of the action square. If you take a look at the last diagrams again, you can see that, depending on which point of the action-spot I have my mouse-cursor/"target-command", the LOS can be either clear (allowing me to place the target command) or blocked (so I cannot place it). So, within a single action spot, there can be places that are considered to be "clear" as well as places that are considered to be "blocked". The determining factor is how much LOS-blocking stuff my LOS touches until it reaches my cursor (If LOS is blocked, however, it always happens at the border between two action spots).

Imagine that the action-spot-grid was laid over this graphic. In the blue area, I get clear LOS, in the white area, I get blocked LOS. So both is true: there can be clear and blocked areas in a single spot, and LOS is always blocked at the border of spots  - presumably because it hit the "grass"- ground-hitbox which has the shape of the action spot. Other terrain features like walls might very well abruptly stop LOS (within a spot). 

 

Regarding area-fire, my experience was that as long as you can find a single clear-LOS point in an action-spot (the LOS-starting point is drawn according to the positioning of the soldiers of the spotting unit), you can place an area-fire-command on the spot (which will stick to the center of the spot). However, the crux is that if the LOS you've managed to find was very fiddly and delicate, most soldiers in your unit will still be unable to fire. (Perhaps because they proceed to check if they can see any point in the target spot to fire at it? And if there is just one clear LOS-point you could find, then the chances are high that your soldiers have no LOS on the target-square from their individual positions either.) 

Questions, questions, questions

 

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Kaunitz

[MOS:96B2P]

@Kaunitz I thought you might find the below interesting.  Steve from BFC had the following information in a forum post in February 2014.

There are 5 ground heights in the game in terms of LOS, LOF, and Spotting:                                                                                                                       Prone, Kneeling, Standing/Small Vehicle, Tall Vehicle, Very Tall Vehicle.  These are the only values that are used.  LOS is from the eyes of your unit to a fixed position 1m off the ground.

Also, from reading various posts on the forum the default spotting check is 7 seconds.  With very close interactions checked more often than 7 seconds.  

Hope that helps.  

[Kaunitz]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

This is also why you see the problem of being unable to target building faces that it seems you should and yet when a spotted enemy shows up at in the window suddenly you can target them. For a full discussion of this limitation see this thread:

 

 

Looking at your link, I can only say that I have not made any experiments with houses so far. Trees are complicated enough for now  But the tank in the street-situation does not contradict the theory. It's just that you cannot find ANY clear-LOS-point in the target-spot at all, because the target spot is completely filled/obscured by the house. Perhaps if there was a small rim of open territory around the house in the action spot, you would have been able to area-target the spot by clicking on the rim (insider-tactics? ). At least that would be my guess. So maybe it's related to modular buildings that fit together seamlessly?

Or perhaps a unit's LOS is usually strong enough to barely penetrate the LOS-hitbox of a house-wall (so that units in houses can actually be spotted). And in this case, for some reason, the tank's LOS was so weak that it could no longer penetrate the house (and therefore see any point in the spot which would have allowed it to area-fire). But I really don't know.  Would have been interesting to see where the LOS was blocked. Right at the housewall? Was the housewall located at the border of an action-spot?

Or perhaps it is related to the angle? Perhaps the angle makes the game believe that your LOS is penetrating two housewalls (the one on the side and the one on the front), which blocks your LOS into the house. I suspect that a housewall/any object/hitbox is at least one meter "thick" and perhaps in your situation you can't get an angle that does not hit that one meter where both walls are applied (because the other part of the housewall is covered by the other house...). Maybe the game even is so detailed that it takes into account point by point (m by m) and applies a LOS-blocking-malus for each point? And if your angle is too steep, you might end up with your LOS cutting trough two points of "dense house wall" (completely blocking your LOS into the house) instead of one point (which could be seen-through).

56 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

@Kaunitz I thought you might find the below interesting.  Steve from BFC had the following information in a forum post in February 2014.

There are 5 ground heights in the game in terms of LOS, LOF, and Spotting:                                                                                                                       Prone, Kneeling, Standing/Small Vehicle, Tall Vehicle, Very Tall Vehicle.  These are the only values that are used.  LOS is from the eyes of your unit to a fixed position 1m off the ground.

Also, from reading various posts on the forum the default spotting check is 7 seconds.  With very close interactions checked more often than 7 seconds.  

Hope that helps.  

Thanks! The height system makes perfect sense. I wonder which height is used for "reverse-slope" LOS.

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Kaunitz

[Bulletpoint]

The problem with houses is that to target the bottom floor, you need clear LOS to the centre of the square inside the house. The house itself doesn't block this LOS, but any slight bump on the terrain, or a low wall or tiny hedge will do this.

So adding a low bocage outside the house means turning that building into a strong fortress, simpy because you won't be able to target the ground floor - even though it's clearly visible.

It's one of the most unfortunate side effects of the otherwise clever spotting and targeting system in this game, and I wish they would find a workaround or solution for it.
 

[Vanir Ausf B]

2 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

I wonder which height is used for "reverse-slope" LOS.

2 through 5. The text does not tell you what is the lowest height you have LOS to.

[Kaunitz]

Walls & LOS

Here are some LOS patterns for (straight, no gaps, no diagonals) wall-tiles (CM:BS):

light green = clear LOS

red = no LOS

violet = reverse slope LOS

dark green =  in a radius of 39-40m around the spotter (exact value may differ based on unit quality, etc.?), measured from the spotting unit, there often is a full-LOS area

red dot = spotting unit (always facing north)

 

Large stone wall (adjacent spotter)

Large stone wall (1 action spot+ distance)

Small stone wall (adjacent)

Small stone wall (1 action spot+ distance)

Low bocage (adjacent spotter)

Low bocage (1 action spot+ distance)

It seems as if the violet (reverse-slope) area reaches out exactly one spot (adjacent to the bocage-spot itself) in front of the bocage.

Hedge (adjacent spotter)

The violet (reverse-slope) LOS area reaches out ca. 10 meter to the front of the hedge. 

The number and the angle of the light green LOS "wedges" are an approximation. You get the idea: The more to the center, the larger the angle. 

Hedge (1 action spot+ distance)

Note that at 1 action spot distance, the violet (reverse-slope) LOS reaches out ca. 50m to the front of the hedge. With 2 action spots distance, it reaches out ca. 100m. 

-------------------------------

So, thinking about my woodland-scenario, by the looks of it, placing someone behind a low bocage and then placing another tile of low bocage in front of him might be a rather bad idea on flat terrain. I better use a bocage + hedge combination to keep spotting capability high while (hopefully) increasing hiding capability.

At least this is true for LOS-area. LOS-strength might be a different matter, but also here I would believe that the hedge blocks LOS less than the bocage.

 

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Kaunitz

[BletchleyGeek]

Thanks very much for the time and effort to collate these observations in the form of pretty clear diagrams, @Kaunitz. This must have been a lot of work, mate.

[Kaunitz]

8 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Thanks very much for the time and effort to collate these observations in the form of pretty clear diagrams, @Kaunitz. This must have been a lot of work, mate.

Sure, it is time-consuming, but I'm having a lot of fun trying to understand how stuff works for my scenario. I do think the game is very elegantly designed. It's just as if I have a safe place to keep my notes (I tend to drop all my notes made on paper ).

-----------------------------------------

PS:  I should have noted that the wall-LOS diagrams above always refer to a prone spotter (explains why he can't see over the small stone wall except for the 39m-radius). 

PS: Special wall-tiles (such as sharp or "rounded" corners, arrow-shapes) seem to offer a much better LOS-area than straight tiles. I wonder if they still provide the same amount of concealment.

 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Kaunitz

[Kaunitz]

I just wanted to point out that grazing fire is a bit hard to pull off in Combat Mission games, but it's certainly working. The reason why it does not seem all that usefull in many Combat Mission scenarios might be related to a lack of proper defensive tactics/positioning (which often requires proper/realistic map-scaling to begin with). 

In the scenario I'm currently working on (a mechanized platoon attacks a dug-in squad), I tried to build a proper defensive position for the defenders. The base idea is to shield the defenders from frontal fire (I only wnat to face tanks at RPG range  ) and make them fight obliquely, with overlapping fire-arcs from ambush/keyhole-positions. And I think that the slanting of the angle of engagement is the key why grazing fire is important irl: when you shift your axis of engagement by 45-70 degrees, you feel less like you're firing "at" the enemy to kill him, but rather, you fire "in front of him" (well, at least that's how it feels) in order to stop him from approaching your position any further. You generally want to generate a defensive wall of fire, so to speak. If the enemy manages to get through that wall, he reaches dead ground (not covered by the fire-arcs of your positions) and thereby has overcome your defences. And this is where grazing fire is the key: the longer the reach of your fire, the more front you can cover with it. Range is much more important when you imagine it to be a wall that stops enemy movement towards your position. And grazing fire is the means to maximize range. If terrain allows an MG (positioned at 90 degrees) to deliver grazing fire down your entire front, then a single MG's wall of fire covers more than 500m of your front against an infantry assault. That's much more usefull than exposing your MG to your enemy's frontal fire (as this usually includes fire by long range assets such as tanks and APCs which tends to kill you as soon as you give away your position).

I'm currently trying to maximize grazing effects in my scenario. It's needless to say that the AI can't really handle it, since it is a quite delicate and complicated matter. But the engine certainly makes it work.  As you'll end up with lots reverse-slope-LOS, you usually need to area-target points well in front/short of your actual aim. Deployed MG teams are firing from a prone position, ca. 1m above the ground, and the area-target command also makes units aim ca. 1m above the ground. Therefore, on flat terrain, your MG's shots are fired almost perfectly horizontally, allowing them to go on and on and on (below a man's height) well beyond the square that you had area-targeted, Targeting a closer spot also comes with the nice side-effect that it keeps the rate of fire high (bursts!). 

 

PS: Small example video of grazing fire coming up here: 

 

Now, if you place some wire just behind that fire-wall, then this line should hold even if the gunner is reloading or the enemies are trying to crawl under it (they should still be suppressed though, the bullets fly low enough!) 

Edited June 2, 2017 by Kaunitz

[Kaunitz]

For anyone interested, here is a field manual from 1985 touching on fortifications: http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/fm5-103(85).pdf

Here is a nice collection of US field manuals: http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/publications/field_manuals/index-5.shtml (on the topic of grazing fire, take a look at the machine gun manuals).

[SlothDC]

Speaking of improvements - I'd buy the heck out of this series if there were a steam version.

[Erwin]

Ha ha... Good one Sloth...

I think BF should put the games on Steam and charge MORE for a Steam version lol.

[Kaunitz]

Speaking of improvement suggestions again: The velocity of tank guns is by far too slow. I looked at CM:BS, but I'm pretty sure it is the same for WWII-titles, and probably also true for many small arm weapons (there is a reason why bullets make that characteristic whip-sound: they travel at supersonic speeds, generating a small supersonic boom on their flight - even WWII weapons had supersonic muzzle velocities afaik).  I had my BMP-3 100mm guns fire at a target 1km away, and it took the round slightly over 3 seconds (!) to travel from the muzzle to its target while irl, it should be more like 1 second. This issue certainly affects gameplay: the slow speed comes with a more rock-lobber like, curved trajectory, which not only looks weird, but also reduces the time/distance over which the round travels close to the ground. On the one hand, more grazing leads to more danger for personell, on the other hand, it would make small bumps in the terrain stop tank-rounds more often. To be honest I would love to see this changed, but I bet it's a rather complicated issue (as it interefers with all the units' aiming procedures, animations, etc.). Perhaps slow projectile velocities are even an intentional feature like those tracers to increase the visual feedback for players?

Other than that, I'm currently testing my scenario a lot. I found out that flavour objects such as rocks and logs can be destroyed pretty fast.  It's also nice to see that trees are destroyed step by step (first the foliage comes off, then the tree is destroyed as a whole).

 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Kaunitz

[HerrTom]

1 hour ago, Kaunitz said:

I had my BMP-3 100mm guns fire at a target 1km away, and it took the round slightly over 3 seconds (!) to travel from the muzzle to its target while irl, it should be more like 1 second.

Are you sure about that?  The 2A70 low pressure gun seems to have a muzzle velocity of 250-350 m/s depending on the round.  Ignoring drag on the projectile, that's between 2.8 and 3 seconds to travel 1 klick.

[Kaunitz]

I was just looking it up and I was surprised to find the BMP-3's main gun comes with such a slow muzzle velocity. So it's pretty accurate.  And these round trajectory, airburst HE shells are terribly effective in my scenario. I also checked the T-72 and was happy to see that its gun fires faster rounds (1.3km: roughly 1.8 seconds in my test).

Mea culpa maxima once again. It's astonishing to see how much effort has been put into these units. 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Kaunitz

[SlothDC]

On 6/3/2017 at 3:20 PM, Erwin said:

Ha ha... Good one Sloth...

I think BF should put the games on Steam and charge MORE for a Steam version lol.

Depending on how much of a price increase, that would still probably get me to buy the heck out of the series - it looks great, and exactly like the type of game I prefer, but there's no way in hell I'm buying another game with someone else's flaky DRM that doesn't have steam's library support.  Gotten burned too many times.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Dude.....Just read the accounts of people who've had issues here, including me.  My last problem was solved by one of the BFC bosses personally, in about an hour.  Tell me when you ever got service like that on Steam.  This is a small community, but it is a community.

[J Bennett]

Some things I hope for. probably all been mentioned before but the game needs  fires. burning buildings, wheat fields, woods etc. with spreading fire affected by conditions, wet or dry, windy or not, with varying degrees of the aforementioned.  And maybe with squads that get targeted heavily and casualties, there is a chance they might surrender. A whole squad with their hands up and a white flag walking toward enemy lines.  And maybe in addition to or replacing "buddy aid" we have medics with the armbands and correct helmets.

If you could see them treating troops and and maybe carrying them on stretchers haha I know I am dreaming , far too resource intensive, I barely have acceptable frame rates as it is. Here is a graphical change that might be doable. Can we get some other  types of infantry entrenchments and foxholes? Those things we have now look like big rubber rafts on the ground. I guess they are supposed to be big sandbags?  I dunno they just dont look right.

Edited June 8, 2017 by J Bennett
got more ideas

[Holdit]

An OB screen that allows the player to click on a unit and have it selected on the map ("Ah, there it is...")

[Kaunitz]

New improvement suggestions:

• flares to increase visibility in night battles and add aesthetical appeal; could be implemented in a variety of ways: 1) squad-based (like smoke), 2) called in via the fire-support tab, 3) as a special scenario-parameter (night/flare). The more sophisticated implementations (1 & 2) could last only a certain time (depending on the type of flare: ordinary/parachute) and have a certain area of illumination.  Flares were and are in use in all settings, from WWII to modern day. It would make night-battles much more fun to play and make timing an interesting factor (if flares are limited).
• Minor thing for scenario-design, especially for WWII-titles: let the scenario-designer set a fixed artillery-plan (no control for the player over pre-planned barages). It seems as if artillery fire plans were sometimes decided beforehand on higher HQ-levels than those represented in the game (company).
• Allow us to mix forces of one "faction". E.g. the Göring-parachute-division in CM:FI needs para-troopers AND tanks. Right now, if I choose Luftwaffe (in order to have access to para-troopers), I can't have tanks in the same scenario.
• Target Reference Points should be toggled on/off like units when pressing ctrl+i. They're so ugly.
• If not already in the game: perhaps heavier calibre small arms weapons could have an increased suppressive effect. From what I've read, larger calibers are better for suppression because their bullets travel faster and therefore make a louder supersonic-crack-sound, which is a major factor when it comes to suppression. Also, the larger the calibre, the more visible the impact-effects of the bullets on the ground/etc. Moreover, any "small arms" that fired tracer-rounds (mgs) had a stronger effect on the enemy's morale. (In the game everything fires tracers to enhance the overview for the player.) From what I've read, US & British fired red tracers, Germans fired red ones that turned  green/white.

PS: Inspiration for mg-tactics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_HYmcm9A2o

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Kaunitz

[A Canadian Cat]

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

New improvement suggestions:

• flares to increase visibility in night battles and add aesthetical appeal; could be implemented in a variety of ways: 1) squad-based (like smoke), 2) called in via the fire-support tab, 3) as a special scenario-parameter (night/flare). The more sophisticated implementations (1 & 2) could last only a certain time (depending on the type of flare: ordinary/parachute) and have a certain area of illumination.  Flares were and are in use in all settings, from WWII to modern day. It would make night-battles much more fun to play and make timing an interesting factor (if flares are limited).

A frequently requested feature. Maybe one day - it would be nice to have.

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

• Minor thing for scenario-design, especially for WWII-titles: let the scenario-designer set a fixed artillery-plan (no control for the player over pre-planned barages). It seems as if artillery fire plans were sometimes decided beforehand on higher HQ-levels than those represented in the game (company).

I think that would be brilliant actually. I am not sure if that has been asked for before or not.

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

• Allow us to mix forces of one "faction". E.g. the Göring-parachute-division in CM:FI needs para-troopers AND tanks. Right now, if I choose Luftwaffe (in order to have access to para-troopers), I can't have tanks in the same scenario.

Something is off here. In the scenario design editor you can add what ever forces you want - no restrictions. You can even add forces form the other side to fight with you.

Could you be talking about quick battles instead?

 

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

• Target Reference Points should be toggled on/off like units when pressing ctrl+i. They're so ugly.

LOL that would be nice. I would like to see icons for the TRPs - sometimes I cannot find them - despite how ugly they are.

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

• If not already in the game: perhaps heavier calibre small arms weapons could have an increased suppressive effect. From what I've read, larger calibers are better for suppression because their bullets travel faster and therefore make a louder supersonic-crack-sound, which is a major factor when it comes to suppression. Also, the larger the calibre, the more visible the impact-effects of the bullets on the ground/etc. Moreover, any "small arms" that fired tracer-rounds (mgs) had a stronger effect on the enemy's morale. (In the game everything fires tracers to enhance the overview for the player.) From what I've read, US & British fired red tracers, Germans fired red ones that turned  green/white.

Yeah that is modelled already. This will no doubt cause lots of discussion since there is lots of debate about how it should or should not be modelled. Loads of fun. In the game all rounds are tracers for game play reasons  - to help the player see what is going on.