CMX2, 1:1 Representation and Soldier Attributes

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sergei:

Sounds like bothersome micromanagement to me.

Not if the AI does it for you. </font>

[Cpl Steiner]

The AI needn't scrounge for ammo at the expense of all other considerations. However, for a unit to be "out of ammo" when there are ammo-laden corpses a few feet away is equally nonsensical.

1:1 representation would imply that abstracting the retrieval of ammo and equipment is also out of the question.

The sensible option is for the AI to portray ammo/equipment scrounging within a limited range and under certain conditions (i.e. not while in the middle of a firefight when the unit in question has a full ammo load, and not when the player has expressly forbidden this behaviour).

[Sergei]

And then what? They'd have one volley and be out of bullets again? I'm not buying the suggestion.

[flamingknives]

I'd expect to see a squad running away before running out of ammunition.

Someone in the squad will always keep hold of a few rounds.

[dalem]

It might even be better to get rid of the absolute tracking of smallarms rounds entirely, even to the extent of getting rid of the "effective bursts" type of tracking that exists in CMx1.

I don't have any real knowledge of how the CMx2 fire combat system is going to work, but I make an assumption that each unit will fire AS a unit over an abstracted smear of time during each one minute turn, and not as a collection of individual barrels firing individual bullets.

If my assumption is accurate, then I think a lot of the ammo issues could be avoided by just going to "Max - Nominal - Low" states. Let the units be more likely to fire at Max, less likely at Low, (all else being equal of course), and maybe have random events or other stuff behind the scenes adjust states.

Say a rifle platoon at Max spends a few turns sitting next to a Rifle platoon at Low - maybe there is a chance that both become Nominal. Maybe you need a specific command, I dunno. Something like that. Maybe individual rounds like mortars and the like could be requested/auto-swapped as well.

With that, you could do a form of "ammo resupply" simply by keeping a platoon in reserve and moving them up (assuming they start at Max - maybe a scenario toggle). Or simplify it - give Platoon HQs an automatic Max rating, and Company HQs a "double Max".

Anyway, I'm the company commander - seems to me that Max - Nominal - Low is all I need to know, and all I would ever know.

-dale

[Cpl Steiner]

All this depends on what exactly 1:1 representation means. If you see a guy changing a mag (as has been suggested in a recent bone) then is he actually consuming personal ammo that is tracked by the game, or is it just eye candy? If it's just eye candy, then fine, abstract the ammo issue. If, however, he has his own ammo supply, the game needs to consider how ammo is distributed, conserved, and resupplied.

[dalem]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

All this depends on what exactly 1:1 representation means. If you see a guy changing a mag (as has been suggested in a recent bone) then is he actually consuming personal ammo that is tracked by the game, or is it just eye candy? If it's just eye candy, then fine, abstract the ammo issue. If, however, he has his own ammo supply, the game needs to consider how ammo is distributed, conserved, and resupplied.

I submit that the game engine might need to know these things, but I, as the Company CO, probably do not.

-dale

[Battlefront.com]

Indviduals fire individually, not as a unit. So if a guy with a rifle is not shooting, his firepower is not going down range.

Scrounging is something that we've gone back and forth on. Same with ingame resupply. I can not say exactly what will wind up in the final release of the first CMx2 product, but it will be more detailed than in CMx1 for sure.

As for the AI doing ammo scrounging... we nixed this idea a long ways back. Sergei figured out why;

Er. I don't want the AI to send my troops to see if some corpse two km's away has 50 bullets or 2 bullets. Actually, I don't wish to be forced to that either.

When we think of the AI necessary to do this sort of thing consistently and without screwing things up... oy! It could be done, but we think it is a poor use of our time. Much better to abstract it somehow. Probably more realistic than CMx1, but not taken to the nth degree of realism.

Steve

[dalem]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

When we think of the AI necessary to do this sort of thing consistently and without screwing things up... oy! It could be done, but we think it is a poor use of our time. Much better to abstract it somehow. Probably more realistic than CMx1, but not taken to the nth degree of realism.

Steve

What about a chance for units in proximity to affect each others' ammo loadouts? Too silly? Too hard?

-dale

[Battlefront.com]

Dale is correct. We are tracking ammo in a detailed way, but the player will only see status bars. As a player you don't need to know more than that AND you don't really want to.

Currently all Squads track up to 3 kinds of ammo (grenades are included as ammo this time around). Teams can track up to... hmmm... 8? types of ammo (I forget). Same for vehicles. Not saying that there are many cases when you would need all 8 slots, just that we have provisions for that many.

Steve

[dalem]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Dale is correct.

Muuahh hhahhahahahahahahah!

Steve is my puppet!

-dale

[Battlefront.com]

Well, that would explain a few things

What about a chance for units in proximity to affect each others' ammo loadouts? Too silly? Too hard?

That's the sort of thing I meant by an abstracted system.

Steve

[dalem]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Well, that would explain a few things

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What about a chance for units in proximity to affect each others' ammo loadouts? Too silly? Too hard?

That's the sort of thing I meant by an abstracted system.

Steve </font>

[Emar]

First let me say that I am very excited about this new product. It really sounds like it is going to be great. But here is where I am a little confused and maybe someone can shed some light.

1:1 representation: Will orders still be given to the squad and halfsquad or will I be able to micromanage (ie when I approach a building will I be able to have 2 guys laying down supresive fire, 2 going in the front door while 3 go in the back and upstairs, or have a couple guys return fire on an ambush while the rest of the squad sneaks behind them on the flanks, etc?).

For that matter will all the 1:1 guys in a squad be able to accept seperate orders or split up at all or is it AI run or abstracted? :confused:

If orders go to the squad as a whole then I assume the AI will find the best cover for each guy.

It is shame about not having enough space for the names. At this small scale 1:1 level of combat it could provide that extra touch of realism that helps you to care about what happens to your soldiers. Maybe next time.

Looking very forward to playing with the new map editor (my favorite part of scenario design )

Battlefront. Congratulations and best wishes for your new products!

P.S. Reading the previous posts and B.F. responses to them is leading me to believe that at least 1 if not both of these new products is WWII based (perhaps wishful thinking) That would be just fine by me

[Denwad]

in Close Combat the individual soldiers are tracked in all their aspects ( grenades, bullets left, morale, health status [ wounded, incapacitated, dead... not hitpoints ] LOS to enemy etc. ) albeit in a 2D fashion

also if a trooper in Close Combat runs out of ammo, he will pick up a fallen trooper's weapon, be the trooper friendly or foe.

and that was close to 6 ( more? ) years ago, I'm SURE technology has advanced far enough to power the same system in 3D

[Denwad]

Originally posted by Denwad:

in Close Combat the individual soldiers are tracked in all their aspects ( grenades, bullets left, morale, health status [ wounded, incapacitated, dead... not hitpoints ] LOS to enemy etc. ) albeit in a 2D fashion

also if a trooper in Close Combat runs out of ammo, he will pick up a fallen trooper's weapon, be the trooper friendly or foe.

and that was close to 6 ( more? ) years ago, I'm SURE technology has advanced far enough to power the same system in 3D

{EDIT} also in Close Combat the moral can go above normal, soldiers can become heroic or fanatic ( depending on the circumstances ) and become unaffected by incoming fire ( to pin status at least, they still die, and usually die fast because they don't take cover )

in Close Combat you can see the one guy in the squad with the HHL rush toward the T-34 and place it on it. That would be the COOLEST thing to see in CMX2, in 3d.

[Cpl Steiner]

This all sounding very interesting. I like the fact that ammo is tracked individually but the game hides the precise details of how this is done from the player. However, I hope the game comes with a pretty hefty manual explaining what the game is doing behind the scenes. It may still be possible to influence the behind the scenes behaviour of the game somehow if we know how it works.

[Battlefront.com]

Denwad, it isn't so much about technology as it is what we are willing to sacrifice in terms of display space. First of all, a Close Combat unit was at most a half squad. In CMx2 we have to anticipate much bigger units. We have alocated enough space for up to 21 Soldiers per Squad. Many felt the CC interface was cluttered pretty badly with all the details on and showing, what, 7 men max? And if you don't believe that people felt it was cluttered, then why did Atomic code up the more reduced UI (which is what I used )? Plus, you had maybe 30 or 40 men to keep track of... you might have 200 + in CM. Different scales mean different approaches.

What you control has been mentioned in other threads prior to this Forum getting started, but I guess I'll so up a quick post to clarify.

Steve

[Jack Carr]

Originally posted by Bonxa:

Hey, I now regularly fight multi-battalion actions and want to be able to do that in CMX2 as well.

I realize I may need an above average rig to do it but I concurr about the lack of meaning for displaying details. The only time I would want to know the names of my privates is when one brave digital soldier runs up to a big menacing tank and places explosives on it in a nifty spot.

Edit: added an s.

Reading your post gave me an idea. What if at the end of a battle, the engine could somehow figure out which soldiers were eligible to be decorated.

Not important in the scheme of things but an interesting concept.

[securityguard]

I have a couple of 1:1 questions.

1) I'm assuming that each guy has his own morale, but his morale status isn't displayed unnecessarily. Like having all the menu's turned off in CC, but having color coded outlines around men when you click on them to show their morale. I can't imagine just having an ammo bar, unit type and health status. Morale is going to be somewhere indentifiable too, right?

2) Here is a more technical question. I understand firepower will work in this one like it does in previous CM's, except that each dude will have their own firepower to push around. What about solid shot weaponry? It could be abstracted in CM (you shoot an AP shot into an icon, it kills a dude), but in CMx2 that abstraction would be impossible, right? You'd have to see the AP round hit a guy...

[Denwad]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Denwad, it isn't so much about technology as it is what we are willing to sacrifice in terms of display space. First of all, a Close Combat unit was at most a half squad. In CMx2 we have to anticipate much bigger units. We have alocated enough space for up to 21 Soldiers per Squad. Many felt the CC interface was cluttered pretty badly with all the details on and showing, what, 7 men max? And if you don't believe that people felt it was cluttered, then why did Atomic code up the more reduced UI (which is what I used )? Plus, you had maybe 30 or 40 men to keep track of... you might have 200 + in CM. Different scales mean different approaches.

What you control has been mentioned in other threads prior to this Forum getting started, but I guess I'll so up a quick post to clarify.

Steve

i see

also ten people per squad max, 15 teams max so the theoretical maximum is 150 people

[juan_gigante]

Actually, I believe Steve said that the maximum number of guys in a squad was 21. I'm not exactly sure where, but did around and I bet someone'll find it.

Edit: Never mind, I'm an idiot who can't read. Steve says that number in the post you quote. Why do you say 10 men max in a squad, then? I don't really understand what you're talking about.

[securityguard]

Originally posted by juan_gigante:

Actually, I believe Steve said that the maximum number of guys in a squad was 21. I'm not exactly sure where, but did around and I bet someone'll find it.

Edit: Never mind, I'm an idiot who can't read. Steve says that number in the post you quote. Why do you say 10 men max in a squad, then? I don't really understand what you're talking about.

I think he's talking about Close Combat maximums. In CC you could only buy so much before it stopped you, and that was a theoretical max per side. Usually battles weren't over 60 guys per side though.

[dalem]

Steve G.-

Is a question about "portage capacity" inappropriate at this point? Will vehicles have "man equivalents" they can carry? Will weapons be able to be left by themselves in vehicles?

-dale

[YankeeDog]

More detailed modeling of encumbrance/vehicle capacity would indeed be a great thing.

It's always been a bit hard for me to swallow that some of the small 7-man German squads (PzGren. Pioneer, I think?), can carry 2 MG42s (& ammo for same), plus a whole mess of Demo Charges and AT specials like Panzerfausts, and still run just as fast (or just as long w/o tiring) as an SMG squad with nothing more than their SMGs and a few grenades. Variable encumbrance could fix this.

As an added bonus, it also could be used give a better representation of ammo loads -- for example, I've always found the 15-ammo point Volks. SMG squad in CM right now a bit silly -- while I don't have hard evidence to support this, I really gotta believe these 2-LMG/SMG squads accepted a higher encumbrance (and moved slower) than other squads, rather than carrying such a limited ammo supply, espcially considering that they were the Volks. SMG platoon's only medium & long range firepower.

As an added bonus, combined with the separate soldier & weapon modeling already mentioned, a variable encumbrance system would allow to game to model panicked/routing units casting off heavier weapons and AT "specials" in order to move faster, which IMHO would be a really cool additional realism tidbit.

Anyway, everything so far sounds great, and I anxiously await more yummy bones!

Cheers,

YD