Clarity regarding coming CMx2 patch

[Lethaface]

Thought to start this topic because:

For the next patch there is come unclarity among some forumites about things that are confirmed to be worked on and which will most probably be 'fixed' in the next patch on the horizon. This is also true for me, as some of the perceived issues I faced have been discussed in the past but weren't 'fixed' in the last patch and so it isn't 100% clear for me whether they are confirmed and on radar. 

So, I thought it might be helpfull to create a list of issues that live in my mind:

CMBN (or larger, but mainly affecting bocage)

• Bocage runners: pixeltruppen can feel the urge to regroup while charging forward in certain situations - Existence confirmed, being worked on and will hopefully be fixed soon.
  • Personally I haven't really been impacted by this

 

CMSF2 (latest with all modules)

• Dutch platoon HQ radio's not being there (and dutch squads, other teams) - Confirmed that a fix will come in next patch.
  Because there seemed to be converging issues with radio/c2 I smell some risk that not all known issues are on radar.
• Syrian PKM ammo only 100rnds - confirmed and will be changed AFAIK
• Gill missile seems to have inverted flight path, instead of being a top attack missile it tries to skim the ground and when the target is on higher elevation almost always hits the ground. Confirmation unknown (to me)
• Syrian QB  RPG  supply issue: In QBs, for what I can discover all syrian formations have only 1 or 2 rounds of RPG ammo available. Excellent/etc doesn't make a change. Sometimes there is 1 RPG squad with a normal/decent amount of RPG rounds available. This makes the Syrian forces not really viable for QB's. Republican guards mech do have RPG ammo in the BMP-2s, but those are never the better VR rounds. 
  The unconventional forces don't have this issue BTW, their ammo seems normal.
  PS It was reported AFAIK (pre previous patch), but not sure about current status. This is quite important for CMSF2 QB's and multiplayer IMO.
   
• Syrian airborne mech (and BMP-3) not available in QB
• Syrian airborne mech forces in editor: they also suffer supply issues with regards to their RPG ammo. The Airborne infantry battalion doesn't face this issue.
• Syrian C2: it's a bit vague, but at times Syrian forces with radio's aren't in C2 with their HQ, no matter how long one waits. Another time, they are in C2. Difficult to pinpoint exactly, but Liveload seemed to have found out something. Not sure if that's it or not. 
  I posted one example in thread: 
• CV9035 could probably use some other fire scheme, as it's currently operating it's 35mm KTEF rounds like a 25mm. The KETF rounds seem a little undermodeled too. This has been suggested by multiple forumties and I agree.
•  

CMFI (latest with all modules)

• Adjusting one indirect/artillery mission, will also affect FFE missions currently onderway. I found out because I ordered a preplanned Arty mission (area, light, long or medium not sure), and a preplanned mortar smoke mission. When I adjusted the smoke mission, the arty mission also became a smoke mission using the same target as the smoke mission.
• It seems that any adjusting of arty missions in CMFI, will cause adjusting other missions already planned/underway.

That's it.

@BFCElvis hope this is useful for you (guys). Keep up the good work! 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Lethaface

[AlexUK]

I don't know how many titles it is affecting but I am getting blast order turning to quick. 

[Lethaface]

3 minutes ago, AlexUK said:

I don't know how many titles it is affecting but I am getting blast order turning to quick. 

I just successfully blasted a building in CMFI, fwiw.

[MikeyD]

Blast is a movement order and sometimes the AI thinks to itself 'why waste a satchel charge when I can just run in the front door? I've largely avoided that problem by not placing the blast order in the building but next to it on the exterior, one action square over or whatever. That way the guys won't try to make an end-run around to the door, and also won't blindly charge into the building (or through the wall opening) after the blast.

[AlanSA]

CMSF2 & CMBS : Airbursting ammunition being used against soft skinned vehicles and exploding harmlessly above them.

 

My old bugbear the retreat mechanic issues.

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by AlanSA

[Erwin]

9 hours ago, MikeyD said:

...not placing the blast order in the building but next to it on the exterior, one action square over...

This also sometimes works when attempting to blast through a wall or hedge - but not always. Sometimes, the unit blasts in the wrong direction (wasting a valuable charge) or simply moves the one action square over without doing any blasting.   From my observations it may depend on the orientation of the wall or hedge relative to the map.

[Howler]

48 minutes ago, Erwin said:

This also sometimes works when attempting to blast through a wall or hedge - but not always. Sometimes, the unit blasts in the wrong direction (wasting a valuable charge) or simply moves the one action square over without doing any blasting.   From my observations it may depend on the orientation of the wall or hedge relative to the map.

The trick is to apply a Face (default G) on the last waypoint before the Blast command to orient the team perpendicular to the obstruction being blasted. I've either been lucky and this works as I've had no issue since adopting this approach.

[Xorg_Xalargsky]

While we're talking about bugs, I noticed some more in SF2

- Syrian mech infantry have two sets of chest rigs (one olive, one camouflaged) overlaid on top of each other

- Syrian RPG gunners don't have chest rigs

- Some Syrian Single Teams and Single Vehicles are missing from the editor's force selection (mech inf MMG, irregular technicals)

[Erwin]

6 hours ago, Howler said:

The trick is to apply a Face (default G) on the last waypoint before the Blast command to orient the team perpendicular to the obstruction being blasted.

Will try that.

[Freyberg]

On 5/3/2020 at 6:20 AM, Lethaface said:

CMFI (latest with all modules)

• Adjusting one indirect/artillery mission, will also affect FFE missions currently onderway. I found out because I ordered a preplanned Arty mission (area, light, long or medium not sure), and a preplanned mortar smoke mission. When I adjusted the smoke mission, the arty mission also became a smoke mission using the same target as the smoke mission.

Is this with the same observer, or different observers?

[sburke]

for the blast if it selects quick, go ahead and place the order then click on the line again and change to blast.  You'll see the color change denoting the change in order.

[Lethaface]

10 hours ago, Freyberg said:

Is this with the same observer, or different observers?

The same observer.

[Aurelius]

There also seems to be an issue with AGS 17 ammo in QB's for the Syrians. They often don't even have 2 full drums of ammo (29 in a single belt which goes into a drum).

[Freyberg]

32 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

The same observer.

I think that's intended.

The idea is that an observer can either supervise multiple pre-planned bombardments, or supervise one fire mission. So you can't have multiple active missions going at the same time.

It's a little odd, and there are minor exceptions, but it's worked that way since the ability to operate multiple fire missions with one observer was changed.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Freyberg

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, Freyberg said:

The idea is that an observer can either supervise multiple pre-planned bombardments, or supervise one fire mission.

Yes, that's the way it's always supposed to work. 

Also FYI: It's usually bad to select multiple offmap artillery batteries to fire together as each battery will do its own spotting thus wasting ammo (unless that's been fixed in a patch).  You'd assume that in RL one battery would spot and communicate the coordinates to the other(s)....

[Lethaface]

On 5/10/2020 at 2:00 PM, Freyberg said:

I think that's intended.

The idea is that an observer can either supervise multiple pre-planned bombardments, or supervise one fire mission. So you can't have multiple active missions going at the same time.

It's a little odd, and there are minor exceptions, but it's worked that way since the ability to operate multiple fire missions with one observer was changed.

So it is intended that a preplanned HE mission which is currently FFE, will be adjusted into a smoke mission because I adjust another preplanned smoke mission (with the same observer)?

I don't think that is really intended, because it can give you the option to (ab)use this for changing a HE mission into a smoke mission on the fly.

To be clear:

* FO "Jean" (I was using French troops)
** Preplanned mission 'A': circle, HE, light intensity, medium duration, no delay (105mm howitzer battery)
** Preplanned mission 'B': line, smoke, maximum duration, 15 minute delay (81mm mortar section, off map)

So, if after few minutes of FFE for mission A in the game I adjust mission 'B', this should change mission A into a smoke mission? 

If it is really intended, it is a nice way to end a HE bombardment with smoke on a different position, to cover the attack, using the same battery  

Edited May 11, 2020 by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

21 hours ago, Erwin said:

Yes, that's the way it's always supposed to work. 

Also FYI: It's usually bad to select multiple offmap artillery batteries to fire together as each battery will do its own spotting thus wasting ammo (unless that's been fixed in a patch).  You'd assume that in RL one battery would spot and communicate the coordinates to the other(s)....

For preplanned missions there is no spotting necessary.

[Howler]

1 FO = 1 Mission. It's baked in. There's a partial exception for pre-planned missions. For those, I use the most useless shot caller which in some titles could be an infantry team.

Any missions needing to be managed (pre-planned or not) are parceled out to the best FO for it on a 1 to 1 basis.

I haven't tested (in years/previous patches) whether a mission proper (aka not pre-planned) in the Firing Phase is also adjusted when another is initiated (Prep/Spooting). The game does a good job within the limits of the (dated) UI to indicate when a spotter is busy.

Anyhow, it sounds like some are trying to exploit pre-planned missions to allow FOs to adjust/control more than 1 mission. The workaround is to use PL/CO leaders for the pre-planned stuff in order to reserve your FO proper for the in-game missions.

Not casting aspersions...

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, Lethaface said:

it can give you the option to (ab)use this for changing a HE mission into a smoke mission on the fly.

It seems you discovered a little cheat.     

3 hours ago, Lethaface said:

For preplanned missions there is no spotting necessary.

Yes, my comment was FYI re regular fire missions during the game.  Perhaps what you discovered re instant changing of missions offsets the ammo wasting issue when using multiple batteries.  The downside of course is that all batteries will adjust to the new orders and that may not be desired.  (I can't remember, can you cancel one of the batteries while the other adjusts, or does the entire mission for all batteries get cancelled if one battery is cancelled?)

 

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, Howler said:

There's a partial exception for pre-planned missions. For those, I use the most useless shot caller which in some titles could be an infantry team.

The problem I found with this tactic is that if you want to adjust this mission, the "useless shot caller" makes adjusting take longer and FFE is inaccurate.  In modern titles where you can also call a drone you'll want a good spotter to control the drone and call in adjusted HE.

[Howler]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

The problem I found with this tactic is that if you want to adjust this mission, the "useless shot caller" makes adjusting take longer and FFE is inaccurate.  In modern titles where you can also call a drone you'll want a good spotter to control the drone and call in adjusted HE.

To be clear. Always use your best spotter to man the drone(s). Drone contact info propagates to other FOs down chain so the larger drones get manned by the CO FIST (or equivalent). Nonetheless, for pre-planned missions not requiring adjustment - use your most useless spotter. A drone operator is allowed a mission in addition to the drone. There's rarely a reason not to assign a drone to your best spotter.

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, Howler said:

for pre-planned missions not requiring adjustment - use your most useless spotter.

So long as you know fer sure that you won't need to readjust, I agree.  The preplanned barrage will land as desired regardless of the quality of the FO/spotter. 

However, if you do plan to readjust and especially if relying on a drone for readjusting targeting, you should use your best guy.  Otherwise one gets caught having to cancel the strike called by your useless guy, then next turn have the drone operator call for the strike - which slows everything down a lot.

 

[Lethaface]

I usually use one of my FO's for preplanned, preferably with eyes on the objective so he can adjust the bombarment should the circumstances dictate. 

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

It seems you discovered a little cheat.     

Yes this was my idea, why I mentioned it. In my case I'd rather had my HE FFE continuing, or that was at least my intention when calling in the fires. It could be quite handy though.

Also, as we can order an FO to start a new barrage after one is FFE, adjusting that new barrage shouldn't affect the one in FFE I'd say.

 

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

It seems you discovered a little cheat.     

Yes, my comment was FYI re regular fire missions during the game.  Perhaps what you discovered re instant changing of missions offsets the ammo wasting issue when using multiple batteries.  The downside of course is that all batteries will adjust to the new orders and that may not be desired.  (I can't remember, can you cancel one of the batteries while the other adjusts, or does the entire mission for all batteries get cancelled if one battery is cancelled?)

 

The UI allows you to cancel them individually, but not 100% if that works.

[AlanSA]

A possible issue with LAVs in SF2 as pointed out by Hapless. It's mentioned shortly after 16:10

 

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by AlanSA

[JulianJ]

My Biggest gripe is artillery being unable  to take out armoured vehicles even direct hits, and near misses seem to do no damage, even though we had a long thread based on the Swedish tests in the 1960s which showed that near-misses did do serious damage to tanks and other armoured vehicles.  FYI most recently I had a T55 static tank which was directly hit by 2 x 155mm rounds and was not destroyed.  In a previous game a Bradley had a 122mm offmap round explode underneath it...I can only imagine it penetrated the entire vehicle. Did no damage I could perceive - it was still fighting.  I've also dropped massive barrages on vehicles and the crews don't abandon them - I would have thought that nobody would stick around in a tank, particularly an immobile one under those circumstances.

I agree about the lack of MG rounds for Syrians, but it seems that will be addressed.

It is wrong on realism grounds, and wrong on gaming ones, that is, if your force has inferior armour, you should be able to use artillery to rebalance the game by taking out enemy vehicles, but you can't.

Blast command:  I've found that you can rehighlight the command  that has gone wrong, and press Blast again and it works properly. It's a niggle, but not much more than that.