Infantry

[ClaytoniousRex]

Now that they've arrived, we will be releasing an actual addendum to the manual. For now, here are some quick notes on infantry.

This first release includes 3 types of light infantry: rifle squads, HMG squads, and ion squads. We plan for medium and heavy infantry squad types to be added in later releases. Every squad consists of at least 4 riflemen and up to one specialist.

You can use the "set formation" key (CTRL-N by default) to put your squad into different formations. You can also use this key to give your squad "Hold Fire" and "Hold Position" orders.

Hold fire prevents your squad members from firing until you cancel the order but you can still fire manually if you choose. It's useful both for executing ambushes and for conserving ammo.

Hold position orders your squad members to stay exactly where they are. This means they stop trying to hold formation with you or do any other kind of movement. This is useful in 2 common cases. The first is when you want to scout ahead and only poke ONE head up to find the enemy. You can order your squad to hold position and take your single marine over that ominous ridge line for a peek without the rest of the squad following. The second is for optimal deployment. For example, if you've arranged your squad in a good fighting position in a line at the lip of a ridge and it's time to hunker down and fight, you can issue the hold position command so that you're free to turn and shoot without having your squad's entire formation turn with you.

While formations, hold fire, and hold position are all accessible via the CTRL-N squad window, they all also have hotkeys which are customizeable on the controls tab. Effectively running a squad requires fluent use of these commands.

Use the "transfer leadership" key (CTRL-L by default) to move squad leadership between squad members. You might be tempted to often or always transfer leadership to the heavy weapon specialist in your squad. This is not a good plan but I guess you will eventually conclude that for yourself anyway.

Light infantry are suited in powered armor which does a good job of protecting them from HE fragments but is not so good at protecting from DIRECT hits. Most projectiles will kill them in one shot if they hit.

Press the "special action" key ('B' key by default) to order your squad to go prone. While prone, your troops will turn more slowly and can't move but they have a GREATLY reduced chance of being hit by HE fragments, present a smaller target for anyone shooting at you, fire their weapons with increased accuracy, and are harder for the enemy to see (more on that below). Press the key again to stand back up.

Infantry fire most accurately while prone, less accurately while standing, and worst of all while moving. Heavy weapons can't fire at all while moving. So to bring maximum fire onto the enemy, find a good spot and deploy in a prone position there.

Light infantry are equipped with jump jets for added mobility. Hold down the brakes ('X' key by default) to fire the jets. A bar in the lower right shows your current jet capacity. There are lot of nuances to using the jets creatively.

Infantry normally do not show up on the enemy's sensor network (no red pipper above them and invisible on tac and mini-maps). However, while firing jump jets infantry DO register on sensors. Therefore, as long as you refrain from firing the jump jets you're very hard to spot but not very mobile. So be a sneaky bastard. Fire your jets to hussle from one good spot to another and then leave them off. It often pays to jump into the general area where you want to deploy but then hump it the remaining distance so your FINAL position was never registered by the other team's sensors.

Infantry are hard to see. Even aside from sensor effects described above, infantry literally don't show up on enemy players' screens until they get within a certain range. This range is increased if an enemy player zooms in on the area where your infantry are and it is also controlled by the following factors:

1. Every terrain type has its own "concealment factor". Generally any terrain with foliage will offer better concealment for your squad. So if you move into foliage the enemy will get closer before spotting you. The thickness and height of the foliage or other environmental factor determines how much of a bonus the terrain type gives you.

2. Infantry which are prone can't be seen from as great a distance.

3. Infantry which jump can be seen from a greater distance so, once again, using your jets makes you more exposed.

4. Infantry which are shooting are visible at the usual maximum range like any unit would be due to the muzzle flashes (at least the muzzle flashes themselves are visible). These are very hard to see if at a great distance but can really be a killer with beam weapons, of course.

Every squad consists of at least 4 riflemen. Riflemen are armed with a 10mm assault rifle with an integrated AT grenade launcher. They have 3 massive AT grenades in that thing. The AI for your squad members will automatically use these AT grenades if you manage to get your guys close enough to an enemy AFV. You can of course use them manually, too. Their effective range is VERY low so you basically have to do a close assault for these things to work. The ideal way, of course, is to be laying prone in the foliage where an enemy AFV is likely to pass by...

[Neutrino 123]

Haha. I killed a Thor with the 10mm gun. It doesn't penetrate the back hull armor, but it does get the back turret armor for some reason...

Also, there is a bug with infantry and tall buildings. If you jump jet to them in certain places (not the bottom), you instantly teleport to the top of the building, even if it is very tall...

Edit: Another couple things I noticed with infantry: crawling seems to work incorrectly, with my guys sometimes randomly standing up near walls. On the ice map, I sometimes jump-jetted onto the walls, but then had a strange animation for the movement (sliding instead of walking I think).

Otherwise, everything's swell with infantry. They will be a good addition to the game.

[ July 22, 2006, 06:50 AM: Message edited by: Neutrino 123 ]

[yurch]

Uhh.

I'm killing Thor turrets from the front with 120mm HE. Am I supposed to be able to do that?

Looking through the files, both 120mm HE and the heavy mortar used on the hurricane have both a StructuralDamageAmount of zero and the same HEBlastFragPenetration. Other mortars have structuralDamageAmounts listed and the 76mm HE and 20mm HE do not have these HEBlast properties.

The 120mm HE appears to be equivalent in blast and fragmentation to the light mortar.

I like the dropship paint job. Haven't even dropped an infantry unit yet.

[yurch]

Why don't ion units get a coaxial? They could really benefit from a second kinetic weapon.

Infantry:

The breathing sound (while aiming) is exceedingly loud and probably way overdone, especially while moving. It's downright unpleasant.

Extracting with the squad is very easy if you jump to meet the ship in mid air. One guy makes it, the rest seem to dissapear.

Bots appear not to be able to move infantry at all.

Is there a way to mount these guys in vehicles?

Friendly infantry are impossible to see on the spacebar map. I think I'm looking at thier shadows.

Switching from infantry to vehicle leaves the camera at a lower-than-default view.

[poesel]

Ok, love that infantry!

Some points:

- display number of members (left) in the squad (hmm some image from Aliens springs into mind )

- give these guys names

- please let us crawl - I want to be sneaky and just poke over that ridge not wander there in full sight and _then_ hide. Crawl is very slow of course

- if I kill some AA with the rifle the message says '...with 20mm' - shouldn't that be 10?

- if I get shot at, the explosion will throw me around like a leaf in the wind. Explosion blast is good but the force needed to fling this guy this far will most probably kill him too

[yurch]

With the large assortment of different calibers in this game, I think it's high time the AI was a little more discriminating. That ion in my heavy weapon squad should be going nonstop, and I shouldn't have to put everyone on hold fire and shoot it myself in order to actually conserve ammo.

The ion member of the squad has a mind-numbing job, by the way. That's a bot-job. It doesn't appear that anyone wants to pick up that gun after he dies.

In deployment, you have to undeploy each infantry man individually. Edit: applies to scuttle too.

Edit: 20mm HE and 76mm HE appear to have no effect on infantry, outside direct hits of course.

Edit #435: infantry in prone often won't have thier heads rendered in zoom. I think this is proximity related.

[ July 22, 2006, 12:51 PM: Message edited by: yurch ]

[yurch]

The galaxy doesn't reload the second weapon.

On some of the vehicles, you can't use manual ranging for the secondary. I think this is limited to the ATGM carriers.

[Dark_au]

I have a few issues with the Infantry.

1. The walking animation makes them look like they have S**t themselves.

2. The fact that given nothing else to do and especially under bot control they just stand there. If in doubt they should go prone or maybe have a Kneel posture with a slightly improved aiming that they go into.

3. Jump jets have too little juice in them and its vectored too downward. It should be slightly vectorable so you can do low skimming hops.

[poesel]

I never would have used the HE but I just wanted to test yurchs remark. There you go: 4600m shot to Thor front - down he goes. This is fun but totally unbalancing the game. Its like having an additional Hurricane in one of the Apollos pockets...

The coax is nice but that thing is totally devastating against the deployables. It not very accurate but since you have enough ammo, it works at great ranges (following yurch teaches you a lot ). Thats the additional Ion in the other pocket.

Infantry gets mowed down by the coax too (thats what its supposed to do) but that renders the infantry useless. Before the infantry comes into effective range (and the target is not distracted) those guys are dead.

The bots do spot them like any other unit.

The infantry should be totally invisible until they fire or jump. That way they would be able to attack stationary defenses or create ambushes.

Micromanaging these five guys to be 'hull down' is a bit tedious.

[yurch]

The reload time for ammo-switching isn't reflected in the crosshair circlely thing.

Infantry have no problem with ice it seems.

I actually don't find the 17mm too great at range, as it devitates a bit too much. 20mm AP remains exceptional for turret work as always. Turrets usually suck no matter what you put against them.

Infantry are annoying to kill (without using the dreaded HE device) but there's little use for thier heavy weapons right now. These weapons seem oriented towards killing other infantry, and the bots sure aren't deploying 'em. (Why does the specialist always get hit by an ATGM?) I haven't been killed by any infantry in a vehicle but I've downed a few thor bots.

The infantry grenade can be fired at ranges above 300m, depending on map of course. Use it like a cruddy high-delay HEAT round. It's suprising that infantry only get three, though. Combine this with some inevitable losses your squad will end up taking and you have a severe shortage of ammo with a loooong walk home. Three in the gun, maybe, but they should really be packing a reload or two.

You can 'skim' with the jet by popping the guy up a short bit, then firing and holding the jet as the little guy lands. The rest of your squad probably won't do the same, though.

I think they're a little too concerned with staying in formation. Having that lone idiot repeatedly fly over your squad can't be good for the stealth factor.

[ July 22, 2006, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: yurch ]

[Neutrino 123]

I've found the infantry 6mm ion cannon to be useful against the lighter vehicles, and would think that the 20mm HMG would be great for point defense against anything at close range.

As for killing them, it seems a bit easy, but maybe that's because I was using the ION CANNON.

To really see infantry shine, one probably needs to wait for the city map or the mountain map. A mostly forest map would also be good for infantry, but I don't think one of those exists...

[Dark_au]

it would be nice if in the infantry the same key that selects coax in tanks selects Rate of fire. Have 2 rates of fire burst and single shot. Only for the 10mm and the 20mm rifles of course.

[yllamana]

A few preliminary comments:

- you need to be able to walk at diagonals. Anyone who's played a first person shooter is going to try it, and at present it seems to just ignore the forwards and walk sideways.

- whenever anyone in my squad fires, my circle is lighting up. (edit: the one that shows your time to reload)

- when I go prone they should not be trying to move to stay in formation. I can't aim at anything without them trying to reposition.

- can infantry please have a rangefinder on their scope?

- infantry don't appear able to return the flag at all. Is this intentional?

They're fun, though.

Extras:

- can they please not be worth 1 point per man? 5 points per light infantry squad destroyed is excessive to say the least.

- I don't know about the whole visibility thing, but the bots don't seem to care about it. My lone rifleman was fired at from 2.5k by two bots, despite not having fired in ages and having not used jump jets in ages.

I really love them though.

[ July 23, 2006, 08:05 AM: Message edited by: yllamana ]

[bboyle]

I can't seem to change over to the anti-tank rounds for infantry...can I do that with the r button or is there some other way?

[yllamana]

You have to change the ammo type with the +/- keys.

[yurch]

Originally posted by yllamana:

- I don't know about the whole visibility thing, but the bots don't seem to care about it. My lone rifleman was fired at from 2.5k by two bots, despite not having fired in ages and having not used jump jets in ages.

The visibility does seem to work, but the bots, like with jammed items, aren't really limited to field of view concerns.

Prone on a hill at maybe 2.6km, they'll happily drive by or sit idle. But, the moment you stand up, you get to watch in horror as 4 thors turn thier turrets completely around to nuke you with HE. The bots simply know you are there far before a player ever would.

I'm finding the squad AI only useful stationary and at range. Which is a shame, because the only weapon the majority of the soldiers can use in the average tank-heavy game is the AT grenade. If I'm moving or in close combat (since I'm always looking around me) the bots are constantly reshuffling positions and are too concerned to actually fire. For a while I thought you actually had to fire each AT grenade yourself. Close in fighting is a thrill, but you're better off leaving the rest of your squad out of the way and going it Rambo. Rambo saves lives.

[bboyle]

Originally posted by yllamana:

You have to change the ammo type with the +/- keys.

I tried that too and it didn't work. Hmmmm...I'll play around with it for awhile.

[yllamana]

Okay, well I've decided the infantry are just too stupid to use most times, purely because of how badly they use the AT grenades. I know they use them - I saw one guy fire off three of them quite happily at a Shrike (to no effect). But when you're actually in combat doing something like close assaulting a Hermes, when it actually matters that they fire, they never do, and you get ripped up by the 20mm.

The ion is sort of fun, but it's so weak that it takes you something like a full minute to work your way through a paladin's side hull (not to mention the trouble of telling if you're actually hitting anything with it).

It basically seems like you have to resign yourself to the fact that your squadmates are just useless, or even worse than useless since they seem capable of shooting you in the back.

I'm about ready to go back to AFVs.

[Jalinth]

Aye. I found very little threat from yllamana's Infantry when I was doing my flag runs. Often I would spot them before they were in position and cut them apart with my 20mm HE rounds.

Still I HAVE managed to close assault a couple Thors and kill them. It's really fun when it works.

Also, spotting a dropship about to land on top of your troops can be a bit freaky. It was great fun chopping yllamana's squad to bits with my squad before he could get orientated.

Infantry kill Infantry VERY effictivly.

It takes some practice but your trooper can skim along the ground. Hit your jets enough to get off the ground, let off just long enough to start falling then hit the jets again while holding foreward. I've managed to get some rather nice low hops going like that.

Finally on Moon maps, I've found that my jets recharge very fast. By using some finesse with them I've been able to get up to an obscne level above ground. Dropships were appearing below me. Gave me a good look at the whole map, though I'd not want to be the dude in the suit doing such a pop-up manuver. EVERYBODY on the map could see me, even if the didn't bother shooting at me.

[yllamana]

I was trying to hide in the rocks, but got sabotaged by my team. They ran around, activated jump jets and flew over the rocks. Then when you were close enough to hit with grenades, I was the only one actually shooting at all. The others were just standing there and getting killed.

Infantry just don't seem all that useful. They're reasonably survivable against long-range fire, but they can't damage anything, can't interact with the flag, move slower than Thor (unless you activate the kill-me jets) and die horribly to the lighter AFVs from far outside their effective weapons range. Anything less than the 120mm kills them easily - the 76, 20mm, the ion.

I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of a role for them. They don't have enough mobility to be used as radar-invisible flankers, and if you activate the jump jets you lose all the benefit of stealth. They can't defend well because almost all the vehicles can kill them easily. They can't intercept flag carriers well because they are killed easily. The only role I've had great success with them in is long-range ion fire, due to their low visibility and high survivability, and even then the ion they carry is prohibitively weak and 4/5 of the squad are useless (or straight out kill your ion guy by shooting him).

I would love to hear others' thoughts though.

[yurch]

fun fact: infantry are more armored than turrets. This is the difference between 2 and 3 (tank)ion hits to kill.

20mm may be able to do a number on a vehicle or two, but this requires too much exposure at a time for this to be realistic. The ion does an amazing 2 ablation per shot (that's 64 shots to kill a thor rear), so the same problem applies. 20mm and ions are much more accurate against infantry-sized targets than the 10mm at long range, however.

I'm convinced these infantry squads are anti-infantry only.

We all know how well the AT grenade approach works. We should probably consider this a desperate act instead of a standard infantry function.

What we need is crazy kilted bastards running and screaming at the tanks with plasma flamethrowers.

For the saner among us, the infantry need low exposure weapons like ATGMs and other launched weapons, something allowing them to pop up, make a dent, and dissapear. And not just one guy in the squad, preferably all of them should carry these things. If the squad makes no effort to pick up the specialist's weapon, it makes little sense to just deploy one guy with one.

I hope it's not just ATGMs though. Drowning in a sea of the deadly 90 degree angled-missile will get old pretty fast. It'd be nice to get some really creative weapons for these guys.

Infantry also need a way to get extra ammo, they run out of the important rounds really fast. Perhaps the Paladin can be equipped with extra rounds for them?

[Jalinth]

I like the Extra ammo in a Paladin idea. Calling down a Galaxy to reload a squad of troopers just seems... wrong.

I've killed a couple Apollos with the 10mm rifle at close range to the rear armour. The 10mm will also slice up Shrikes very well.

Still, it is very obvious that the Light infantry need some tweaking to make them generally useful.

[Neutrino 123]

Are you sure it takes three shots to kill infantry? I'm almost certain that I have killed them with one, or even with one 10mm hit...

[yurch]

Ion hits. They are different from standard internal hitpoint damage. I've taken a direct hit by the ion without dying.

Infantry will die from anything that penetrates them. Ions don't penetrate like a 10mm does, they just remove the armor rating by an ablation amount.

[dan/california]

Something like the new CKEM missile that is under development for the army right now wold be ideal. In game terms it would basically be a rocket propelled 120mm ap round. It would have a reversed penetration to distance curve though. The farther away the target is the more time the penetrator has to pick up speed. It would make sniping from ion thors on hills a much less attractive.

I think that would be a good thing.

It might be hard on dropships but they seem to be much more sensitive to heat rounds anyway.

Give each squad say four of them.