Guns vs Armour

[birdstrike]

The problem, as JasonC has already pointed out is as follows:

a tank in CM is defined like a small point of mass that resides above ground.

a gun in CM is only represented by a point resting flat on the ground - despite what the graphics may look like

while tanks can be hit (and taken out) by shots hitting the space above ground, the gun can only be taken out when the shot hits the very ground the gun is standing. HE can kill a gun by hitting close enough to the gun, but AP needs a direct hit on the small area that represents the gun. This makes it very difficult to attack guns with AP shots (as any UK tanker in early NA can tell you )

If you position the gun behind a crest, the point representing the gun is totally hidden from direct fire. Even if there is a solid target line to the gun, direct shots will have absolutely no chance to hit the exact position of the gun, since the TacAI is aiming at the ground behind the crest and the trajectory would pass through the hill.

However, shots can be aimed at the crest in front of the gun and the HE blast does have a chance to k.o. a gun this way. Same goes for mortars and indirect artillery.

Further, AFAIK small arms fire (including tank MGs) ignore blocking terrain, as long as the gun is visible behind the crest - this way you can supress a gun behind a crest.

It is a shortcoming of the engine, a bug if you like, that doesn't give guns a real 'height'. It makes certain things more difficult than they should be, but I'd say again that I don't consider it a cheat.

A cheat gives one player a clear advantage over the other. But in this case the same applies to all players. An attacker can use this to deploy guns in the same way. And it doesn't make guns invincible - so this doesn't make it a cheat neither. Other things like using Matildas against Italian tanks seems so much more unfair to me.

[ December 12, 2006, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: birdstrike ]

[The_Enigma]

Right i get it now

[JasonC]

Birdstrike, you are simply wrong.

It has nothing to do with firing AP at guns incidentally.

No, firing HE at the ground in front of the gun will not take out the gun - not on the right sort of slope.

A mortar will. An air strike will. An FO will. But an entire tank company can expend their entire (ample) HE loads, and leave the gun intact. While the same gun can fire back and kill tank after tank in succession. (It may be possible for the tanks to hit it, but in practice they do not. They hit the hill, or the shots go over, and then the tanks themselves die to the gun).

Yes there are less optimal slope placements that are very hard for a tank to hit, but possible enough that 1-2 minutes of HE fire will still take out the gun. That is still gamey nonsense, but less than the full problem.

There is no physical reality to any of it. It is all pure bumcomb.

And yes exploiting it is cheating. It falsifies all the real tactical relationships between the weapons.

Anyone who uses it playing me will never play me again, and for that matter can finish the game against himself.

[JasonC]

The problem in a nutshell is that the gun is height zero as a target but not height zero as a shooter, so it can see and hurt the tanks when the reverse is effectively not possible by the game's ballistic engine. Exploiting this is as silly as hacking the .exe to make the gun invulnerable to fire.

[The_Enigma]

But in real life ... the shells are going to splash down to the front into the hill side or go over are they not?

As you say there is the chance of a round striking the gun in some way though (in rl).

However ingame, if the player has the possibility to take out the gun with other equipment and supress the weapon with Tank MG fire.. what is the problem, since its not invinable, just hard to kill from a frontal attack by a tank?

[Corvidae]

ok so its the game engine.

And the gun has zero height.

Ok,, Now I get it. So thats the bug, The gun has zero height.

See I was not aware of that detail, but now I see how the bug would over-enhance the cover value of a crest position. That suddenly makes sense.

And theres no patch to fix that?

[birdstrike]

JasonC,

Okay, I see we two have a different definition of 'cheating' - let's agree on that.

And we may also agree on gamey nonsense - like attacking along the edge of the map, cherry-picking forces in QBs, using shortcomings of the engine to use non-realistic tactics.

But those things apply to all players. And in most cases there are numerous ways to deal with these things. If a player excessively uses gamey tactics, this is of course annoying and I wouldn't want to play against him, neither.

But I do not make the gun invincible by placing it behind a crest. Even you say that. It just demands a different approach. To me it seems more like this: except for direct firing guns, a gun behind a crest is vulnerable to everything else.

A Tiger overwatching the single route of approach for a platoon M4s from a distance is invincible. This is an issue for me to rant about. Guns behind crests are difficult to take out and slow down, but in most cases, they are mortar-fodder.

And a HE round hitting a crest close enough to a gun will take it out, the degree of the slope doesn't matter. Blasts ignore that.

High velocity guns may have a harder time, because the rounds' trajectories don't drop as much, therefore they are more likely to miss the crest. But this highly depends on the difference in elevation and the range between the shooter and the crest. And how often does one encounter such a perfect rear-slope position?

(On the other hand, a gun behind a crest often has a 'blind spot' towards the bottom of the hill it is positioned.)

As for lacking tactical relationship:

Yes, it's not correctly related to RL. But this is just one of many smaller issues.

e.g. abandoned guns could be remanned if they were still functional, maybe this gave them a better chance to survive mortar or artillery fire in RL than in the game.

And many guns in the game lack the possibility to be fired indirectly - this is also a lack of tactical relationship between, let's say howitzers and mortars. Consider a player calling the use mortars in indirect firing a 'cheat', because he has only howitzers that cannot fire indirectly - even though they could in RL.

Or the way off-map artillery is not adequately modelled, and for the allies often overpriced. A German player using cheap, and accurate artillery would be cheating, too by that definition.

[JasonC]

"how often does one encounter such a perfect rear-slope position"

If you play cheaters, every time you play them and the map isn't perfectly flat and they have a gun.

If the slope shape is right, there is no way to hit the ground right in front of the gun and get it with blast "splash". The nearest hit can be 60-100m in front of the gun, sometimes. With anything higher going over so far it flies clear off the map.

If you use it deliberately you are a cheating loser who can't play CM, that is all. And everyone else should shun you like the plague, because it won't be the only cheat you reach for.

The solution is simple - guns have to be on or past the military crest of the hill they are actually on. This does not prevent reversed slope positions in the military sense - you can just be on the next hill back or down between two hills, to get that kind of LOS to the crest you are defending. But that has nothing to do with reverse slope bug behavior.

The game allows any unit to sight past a contour line within about 10-15m of the unit icon itself. When you are doing so, you can tell because the LOS tool to distant points will have a "kink" in it right next to the aiming unit, within 20m. If you see that kink, move the gun forward or pick a different spot.

[Hensworth]

There are some gamey effects in favour of the attacker too, to the extent that any AT gun not so placed must expect to die after maximum one turn of firing. That's over the top (pun not intended) too.

The Borg allows the attacker to immediately bring all available firepower to bear, making sure fire is kept up by selecting area fire instead of targeting the gun directly. There are tricks to make sure of the kill even if the gun is only shown as a generic marker or even as a sound contact. The attacker doesn't need to be worried about the gun being recrewed. Once it's out, it's out.

Then there are those who have perfected the fine art of driving a tank to JUST outside of LOS of the gun and then killing it with area fire.

Finally, it is not ENTIRELY gamey. The invulnerability is exaggerated but guns can make use of slopes so as to be extremely hard to hit even without the limitations of the CM HE chucking model. So if you forbid the defender from using this you rob him of a fair advantage as well as an unfair one. Most of the unfairness, in my view, does not come from the fact that the gun is almost impossible to hit, but from the fact that the amount of dead ground is much smaller than it would be in reality. The difficulty of killing it, in my experience, only becomes an issue when the gun is in a trench.

The best countermeasure, by the way, is to suppress the gun with MGs, as their beaten zone curves over the crest the same way the 'hull down' gun's LOS does.

[ December 13, 2006, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Sgt_Kelly ]

[birdstrike]

Originally posted by JasonC:

"how often does one encounter such a perfect rear-slope position"

If you play cheaters, every time you play them and the map isn't perfectly flat and they have a gun.

If the slope shape is right, there is no way to hit the ground right in front of the gun and get it with blast "splash". The nearest hit can be 60-100m in front of the gun, sometimes. With anything higher going over so far it flies clear off the map.

If you use it deliberately you are a cheating loser who can't play CM, that is all. And everyone else should shun you like the plague, because it won't be the only cheat you reach for.

Absolutely comprehensible, but way too many "ifs" to denounce it as cheat.

I would abstain from imposing a general ban on rear-sloped guns, only because of some people creating biased maps and/or exploiting the engine the way you described.

Further, a slope can occur with elevated area, as well as with a depression of sorts. Or the attacker himself could find himself in a an elevated position compared to possible rear-sloped positions of the defender. I say the severness of this issue seems vastly overrated by you.

[JasonC]

MGs are ineffective is delivered through the arc of the gun shield.

You can whine all you want, but you are defending indefensible conduct, and anybody that engages in it deliberately is a stone cold loser to the bottom of his shoes.

[birdstrike]

MGs in sufficient numbers surpress, with or without a gunshield - as do explosions in the general proximity of the gun (depending on the calibre). It works for me, it even works for the AI, I don't know why it doesn't work for you.

And it appears to me, I wasn't the one whining about this. I was simply trying to argue against your point in calling the use of rear-sloped positions for guns a cheat. And I object your inappropriate reproach that players using it are in general simply 'cheating losers who can't play CM' and the likes.

[JasonC]

Of course you object, you are no doubt doing it. But it doesn't matter how you try to spin it or how often. We aren't going to agree to disagree on the subject, you don't have a leg to stand on. You should simply give it up and play a more realistic game. You'll never play me regardless.

[birdstrike]

Right. Let people draw their own conclusions and have them test for themselves to what degree these things work or don't work in the game.

All you've come up so far is telling us that you are unable (or unwilling) to deal with it - therefore it is intolarable conduct for all of us (talking about legs to stand on...).

I'm willing to reconsider my position if other people's experience proves me wrong.

Right now, I doubt that will be the case.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

I was under the impression that the reverse slope gun glitch was fixed as far back as version 1.03

of CMBB. Did BFC unfix it in CMAK?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Hensworth]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

JasonC,

I was under the impression that the reverse slope gun glitch was fixed as far back as version 1.03

of CMBB. Did BFC unfix it in CMAK?

Regards,

John Kettler

Then you were under the wrong impression.

[jBrereton]

Originally posted by birdstrike:

Right. Let people draw their own conclusions and have them test for themselves to what degree these things work or don't work in the game.

All you've come up so far is telling us that you are unable (or unwilling) to deal with it - therefore it is intolarable conduct for all of us (talking about legs to stand on...).

I'm willing to reconsider my position if other people's experience proves me wrong.

Right now, I doubt that will be the case.

Well you're ruining your own game by abusing glitches to win, which is really pretty ****ty, to be honest.

Do you not love the subtlety of the game, and the fact that actually, it's much better to play well and realistically and lose than to win game after game essentially by cheating?

Yeah, you can take out such guns with mortars and offmap artillery, but preventing DF from hitting such guns is a bit out of order, and takes away a lot of the vulnerability of the guns which they realistically had - so you're just spoiling the game, really.

[birdstrike]

jBrenton,

you make my statements seem far worse than they were meant to be.

I don't think I've won a game ever, simply because I put one of my ATGs behind a crest. Interestingly enough, even the much despised AI never seems to have that much problems with taking them out as you, or JasonC claim to have.

This means either, I am doing something wrong when placing my guns on rear slopes, or you have figured out a certain terrain form that makes it impossible to kill the gun. In the latter case, I would be much obliged if someone can send me a small test scenario with such an invulnerable gun. I am willing to learn and stand corrected if I made a wrong assessment of the issue.

And direct fire works - in the sense that the gun can be knocked out by hiting the ground area in front of it, or even by routing the crew with MG fire. It is harder, yes, but it is not impossible, it is not even close to anything like impossible.

If you engage such a gun with a single tank, you will most likely lose it, as you would when engaging any other ATG. Use a couple of tanks, then see what happens.

[ December 14, 2006, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: birdstrike ]

[civdiv]

It is unrealistic to put guns on the reverse slope such that they can still engage targets over the crest. In military terms it is sheer lunacy. This is due to the fact that the gun, in every model I am aware of, extends above the barrel of the gun. Thus, you are silhouetting you gun against the skyline. You put it on the military crest, you put it on the reverse slope (such that it cannot be seen from the front of the hill), you put it on the ground, put you do not put it on the crest, which this gamey tactic is essentially doing.

Just my $.02.

[z-warfare]

Don't we agree that ATGs are disadvantaged (in terms of stealth) by the game's modelling & borg spotting? Could this crest stuff be a reasonable counterbalance to this?

[John Kettler]

From the README.txt for CMBB v. 1.03

"Modifications

* Ordnance aims better at soft targets just behind the crest of a ridge (i.e. on a reverse slope)."

from Bug fixes for v. 1.02

"* Ordnance is far less likely to fire a shot just over the top of nearby intervening terrain, only to see it impact into the top of that terrain."

Looks pretty topical to me!

Couldn't find any notes along these lines for CMAK patches.

Regards,

John Kettler

[birdstrike]

civdiv,

yes, but if this is gamey, it would also apply in the same way to entrenched guns on the top of a hill. And I think the dangers of this tactic are modeled in the game quite well, as a gun in an exposed situation such as this can be fired upon from more angles than a keyholed gun. Borg spotting adds to this effect.

Further, let's not forget that you will find a rear slope in a depression, too. Or sometimes there are other terrain features behind the crest (e.g. high trees) which in RL would mask the silhouette against the horizon.

--

On a general note:

All this discussion centers around the argument that guns on rear slopes get an unfair advantage because they are much harder to kill from the front.

I say the effect as how much harder they are to kill is highly exaggerated by some. It is more difficult, for sure, but so is putting an elite ATG in a trench.

And JasonC,

for all your profound knowledge, which you have repeatedly shown in many aspects of the game, you simply got way out of line here.

There is absolutely no reason for accusing others of cheating, or denouncing them as losers, because they position their gun in a way that makes it not quite as easy to take it out than the attacker would like. Using the terrain to an advantage is not the same as hacking into the game code. I do not use a tactic that I would not accept (and expect) from my opponent, too.

I personally prefer attacking over defending, and I see taking out a well set up defense (including rear slope positions) as a challenge. I had much more severe problems when facing concrete AT bunkers than with the occasional rear-slope gun.

--

If the whole argument was simply based on a misunderstanding as to how the engine handled rear-sloped positions back in CMBB and now ín CMAK, as John Kettler has pointed out, I hope we can settle this in a reasonable manner - since we were all right and wrong at the same time.

[Corvidae]

Its an ethics issue.

Problem

If Jason is correct, (and I strongly suspect he is) Then the game itself is flawed.

Ths flaw being the gun height bug.

It is obvious that a crest position is a good position for a gun. But a gun MUST have height.

To continue to use the crest while KNOWING that the game has a flaw which causes the gun to have no height,,,, Is unethical.

Solution?

Unknown.

Suggestion,,,, Placing guns so wheels are on line of crest.

Would this simulate proper crest positioning without exploiting gun height bug??

Is there a compromise position here? Something we can all agree on and work with?

[Pirx]

I find these allegations of cheating to be way out of line.

The main complaint against the "cheaters" is that they are exploiting an unrealistically modelled situation. A problem arises, however, when one considers the fact that no aspect of the game is a perfect model of reality. Therefore, any action taken in the game is imperfectly modeled, and will therefore produce an advantage for one of the players. All game decisions are therefore "cheating". Where do you draw the line at how bad the "cheating" has to be before it is banned? I don't think there is an objective answer to this question. In my opinion the cheater-haters are overly confident that only they know how to "fix" the game.

I think its perfectly acceptable to create "house rules" to adjust for perceived modeling flaws in the game. Clearly, one of JasonC's rules is no ATGs on the reverse slope of a crest. If a player agrees to the house rules and then knowingly violates them, then that player should be called out. If a player doesnt play by one individual's house rules, however, thats not cheating. That is just playing the game as the game designers intended it.

[realest]

Jason, i'm kinda new. But i've played AI enough to know sorta what your talking about (i understand fundamentally).

However, i've parked guns behind crests and they still got killed quite effectively. The problem with doing that is that i've never been able to drop a gun behind a crest and still have a relatively decent LOS.

Is the problem you referencing created by someone taking 4 hours to place the piece so that it appears to be at the top of the crest but the game engine see's it as 1 meter below???

Apologies, i understand what you folks are talking about, but lost at the same time. Maybe email me a setup so i can see what you are talking about? I'd rather not get into a PBEM and get whacked due to a bug in game.