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ATGMs don't fire?


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I've been having a problem with my ATGMs in my PBEM game.  They won't shoot at anything.

HP0SPQw.png

This team spent the whole minute with a target order on the tank, but didn't even rotate to aim at it.  The tank drove forwards into full view and nuked a BTR.

What's the trick into getting ATGMs to fire?  Has anyone else seen this happen?

I'm running CMBS v2.00

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Generally it's best to just let the ATGM units fire on their own terms (with a covered arc to direct attention to a particular target) rather than giving TARGET commands.  Just cos it looks like an easy kill to the human player's eyes, doesn't mean the unit "sees" it that way.  Also, the AI may decide that it's a too low probability kill.

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Nope.  They were sitting there, spotted the tank the previous turn.  I gave the target command on the tank, it moved across their line of sight, where they lost it after about 45 seconds, then the tank shot and killed a BTR.  This team in particular I think fired one ATGM at the beginning of the game, missed, and has spotted various vehicles for the past 10 minutes and refused to shoot at any of them.

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Yeah, have experienced this regularly as well.  I just assumed that the AI won't waste ammo on a hopeless fire mission.  The question is how is "hopeless" defined.  eg: The crewman without the Javelin has wonderful LOS, but the bloke with the Javelin launcher does not.

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15 hours ago, HerrTom said:

Nope.  They were sitting there, spotted the tank the previous turn.  I gave the target command on the tank, it moved across their line of sight, where they lost it after about 45 seconds, then the tank shot and killed a BTR.  This team in particular I think fired one ATGM at the beginning of the game, missed, and has spotted various vehicles for the past 10 minutes and refused to shoot at any of them.

They are afraid of failure. ;)

Sounds goofy. Can you share a save? That way I can look at the terrain etc and try and repeat it.

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It would be nice if, in addition to Target, Target Light and Target Timed there was a way to select which weapon to fire. The BMP-2M comes to mind which has an Autocannon, LMG, ATGM and AGL. 

The first thing that comes to mind is having something similar to when you place a move order on a building and you get the little pop up that asks which floor. Simply have that come up when you place a target marker and have a list of available weapons, with the default set for all, which is I think the current behavior.

 

 

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1 hour ago, DougPhresh said:

It would be nice if, in addition to Target, Target Light and Target Timed there was a way to select which weapon to fire. The BMP-2M comes to mind which has an Autocannon, LMG, ATGM and AGL. 

Yes, this comes up frequently and you have allies. People clearly have a desire to micro manage things :) . Steve has talked about the game design issues that lead to why it is the way it is in the past. I am sure I will not do it justice but the short version is that changing it would: 1 it add more work and adding more work is not desirable and 2 it would give the human play yet another advantage over the AI.

I usually let my unit's TAC AI do it's thing and only using target to area fire or disambiguate multiple targets and only then rarely.

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1 hour ago, IanL said:

I usually let my unit's TAC AI do it's thing and only using target to area fire or disambiguate multiple targets and only then rarely.

Me too.  May be why I never saw this before, since I rarely use target let alone target arcs!

I agree that complexity is not always the solution - I find the AI often makes good decisions on what weapon to use.

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+100 Im behind the curve I will say - I decided not to get 4.0 yet etc but Im still yet to EVER see one of my BMP2Ms with a 3rd crew member added ever use its atgms. targetted, arced, or on their own. On the move ambush defense etc. Long range close range all aspects. Countless games as Russians.

Ive brought it up numerous times in the past

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On 7/29/2018 at 6:49 PM, IanL said:

Yes, this comes up frequently and you have allies. People clearly have a desire to micro manage things :) . Steve has talked about the game design issues that lead to why it is the way it is in the past. I am sure I will not do it justice but the short version is that changing it would: 1 it add more work and adding more work is not desirable and 2 it would give the human play yet another advantage over the AI.

I usually let my unit's TAC AI do it's thing and only using target to area fire or disambiguate multiple targets and only then rarely.

Inability to select main weapons has same issue with the Ukrainian BTR4.  It has 30mm plus AGL and in the many times I have played with a BTR4, it always exhausts its 30mm HE (at 10 rounds/sec it takes only about 40-50 seconds) regardless of the suitability of the target before it uses the AGL.  

Maybe not economical/practical to address for CM2, but hope this is on the list for CM3.

Incidentally. a major problem with fast firing weapons like the BTR4's 30mm is that it only requires maybe 5 seconds of fire to be effective.  If one uses the 15 second fire command it uses way too much ammo (approx 25% of its entire HE load-out).  Currently, one has to revert to the old work around of having waypoints with a 5 second pause and TARGET command followed by a fast move to another waypoint a few meters way with a covered arc or facing command to stop the firing.

How practical would it be to reduce the firing time span command to 5 second increments?  For modern weapons that is often all one needs.  

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That's true, there may be a bush in front of the launcher. Annoying that i have to put up with a whole minute of unpack and pack time just to move the launcher a few centimeters if that's the case...

I'm beginning to see the annoying LoS issues that people sometimes complain about. Zero feedback to me as to why they decide shooting isn't worth it...

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+1    Have regularly brought up the issue of the 3rd ammo bearer having great LOS, but the guy with the main weapon can't move a few inches to get the same LOS. 

Dunno how hard it would be to program so that the move is automatically made by the AI.  But, obviously, one never orders a main weapon, gun or ATGM to fire with the intention of merely having the 3rd ammo loader fire his rifle instead.

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I sent it to Ian but now that I think of it, I don't think my opponent visits this forum so I'll post it when I get home today.

Edit:
Turn is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=11_erpUiUrYmQKfc0qiWim0SUD41a96Bu

Turn password is "hairtonic" (get it?)

You can get a glimpse at how poorly things are going for me on the Dnjepr... B)

Edited by HerrTom
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I got burned on this so many times I just gave up deploying ATGMs in any sort of sketchy positions. There is some truth to this systems unreliability in terms of how laser command information channels can get blocked by moving grass and whatnot, and this even may be the case if you lose visual queue to your receiver from the missile. Subjectively there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the visual representation in-game and the deeper mechanical logic which leads to unpredictable outcomes.  

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