Trenches, foxholes, and slit trenches

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Steve,

Yeah, but don't underestimate that there might be an actual mess coming up when you want to direct a squad to move to and occupy foxholes.

I think that'll be okay. Even in CMSF soldiers will pile in to trenches as much as possible but anyone not able to squeeze in will seek best available cover nearby. Behaviour for foxholes needn't be all that different.

[Redwolf]

I think that'll be okay. Even in CMSF soldiers will pile in to trenches as much as possible but anyone not able to squeeze in will seek best available cover nearby. Behaviour for foxholes needn't be all that different.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Did I say something odd?

[taccovert4]

And let's not forget that herding a 12-man 1:1 squad into existing foxholes might be not trivial. We wouldn't want to see half the squad staying out after we ran them to the - foxhole - foxholes? I'd assume there's a fixes set of foxholes belonging together that fit a squad and the move command order recognizes it and maneuvers everybody into a foxhole?

Not impossibly difficult. The engine is already putting the squads divvying up and going by 1s and 2s to windows in buildings. This is one area in which those semi-irritating (when they force you to change the plan) movement zones could shine. You have x number of foxholes in movement zone y. Squad z moves into zone x. Squad z puts 1 man into each foxhole in zone y, then 2 men then 3 men etc. Make 3 or 4 men per foxhole the maximum allowable so you don't end up with a single foxhole holding a squad (unrealistic). If the zone doesn't have enough holes for the men, then Crew Served weapons get the priority over riflemen in the squad. It might take some coding to add in a prioritization number for crew serves (riflemen get a factor of 1, MGs a factor of 2, mortars 3, etc.) but it would be worth it in being able to work out 1:1 scale with the realism you would need for a faster paced game.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Redwolf]

Did I say something odd?

Just frightening.

A "the left over guys will find some cover on their own if there's no space in the foxhole(s) you directed them to" will obviously not fly.

I can only warn again that this might be a tough cookie. Unlike in CMx1 you must have multiple foxholes for one squad, and you need to give the player some command that allows him to have certainty that if he directs the squad to a foxhole or group of foxholes they'll all fit.

[thewood]

All I can think of in this discussion is how two APCs are unusable as such if you have one or two extra men in the squad. Can't direct that extra man to the other APC, so no one can use them.

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

Not sure I can parse that. The fudge would be just a carpet, or a little 3D object buildup representing the front wall of a fighting position?

Yes, exactly. So it's not quite a flat decal thrown on the mesh, but rather something 3D placed ontop of the mesh. The difference is that the bottom of the foxhole would conform to the terrain rather than the terrain conforming to the foxhole. That allows it to be shown/hidden without involving the mesh.

It's still a 2D fudge into a 3D world because although the foxhole would be 3D it wouldn't represent the cover of the real thing (i.e. terrain mesh deformation). Therefore, it's real 3D properties would be ignored and replaced by fudged values simulating 3D.

As far as I'm concerned I don't like the word "trenches" in this context anymore. All I ever wanted is, given fighting positions (foxholes), it would be even better if they could be connected by terrain slits or whatever you call them that allows you to move back from the foxholes into cover terrain, or between foxholes.

Yup.

I suspect that I speak for a good portion of those who want the FoW foxholes in this thread by stating this:

the thing that's really pressing is that I can set up my AT guns, my MGs and my squads anywhere in the defensive zone, freely, preparing an ambush.

It probably has been lost now, but earlier I stated that we had already worked out the exceptions for the crewed weapons. They were already going to get something similar to the compromise 2D/3D fudge. This fixes a couple of problems with animations and placement of various sized guns with different forms of carriages, but the primary reason was to make sure that a side's limited heavy weapons (often what the defense hinges on) could be dug in without the enemy having a chance to guess where they are. This was a different case from soldiers since it would be simulated directly as an above ground object, but with cover in front of it (sandbags, logs, whatever). In real life this was often how heavy weapons were reinforced, either due to time or ground conditions.

Foxholes with FoW and decent protection and FoW is what's needed for this. Everything else is icing on the cake.

Agreed.

Taccovert4,

Not impossibly difficult. The engine is already putting the squads divvying up and going by 1s and 2s to windows in buildings.

It also does this with shell craters or foxholes. Again, the problem with the latter (I think) is that they are so nearly invisible to both players that most people don't realize they have them to play with.

Adam,

Basically I always thought that the foxholes and trenches were part of the 3d mesh, i.e. "deformable terrain", and that all the problems stemmed from that.

They are part of the mesh, correct. But "deforming" is generally thought of as what happens to terrain during combat. Shell craters, for example, or knocking down trees. Those are "deformations" because the terrain original didn't have those shell craters or knocked down trees. Trenches and foxholes, on the other hand, are there from the very beginning as part of the mesh. Yes, all of these things modify the mesh but one thing is done on the fly to the battlefield and the other is done at the beginning before the battlefield is presented to the player.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

thewood,

All I can think of in this discussion is how two APCs are unusable as such if you have one or two extra men in the squad. Can't direct that extra man to the other APC, so no one can use them.

Except that in this case if a trench can only hold 12 men and you try piling 14 in it you will get 12 in the trench and 2 not in the trench.

The problems of splitting off a couple of men from a unit, other than what is allowed, is extremely complex. CMx1 didn't allow it either and for exactly the same reasons. CMx2, however, does tend to allow units to split up more than in CMx1.

Steve

[silverstars]

So if I read things right, Foxholes will be 3d ring of dirt that sits on top of the terrain mesh( just like old miniature wargame fortifications or shell-craters) but with some fudged numbers to improve the terrain protection (otherwise you would have to make the foxhole ring look more like a massive hollowed-out ant hill to work right protection-wise).

I think that would be acceptable on both the appearance and FOW issues.

Heh, it would be even cooler if vehicle movement could destroy( in game terms become "rubble" ) the foxhole to mimic tank overuns grinding the foxhole (and the men within it) into the earth. with an appropriate bog check of course. it might be a bit much, but then again if your adding barbed wire, shouldn't treaded vehicles be able to run over and destroy that as well?

Forgive the slight off-topic, just trying to grasp concepts and then extrapolate them into ideas to make Charles insane.. ;D

[Battlefront.com]

Yup! If a foxhole were represented 100% above surface there would be a 3' high "barrel" of earth sitting around. Oh boy, the problems that would cause

Tank overruns are needed, but not exactly sure what visual affects they will have.

Steve

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Just frightening.

A "the left over guys will find some cover on their own if there's no space in the foxhole(s) you directed them to" will obviously not fly.

I can only warn again that this might be a tough cookie. Unlike in CMx1 you must have multiple foxholes for one squad, and you need to give the player some command that allows him to have certainty that if he directs the squad to a foxhole or group of foxholes they'll all fit.

What? Magical fox holes? I cannot understand the issue you are having with five men not fitting in foxholes dug to fit four. One man will have to hide in the grass.

[RockinHarry]

While I understand the issue with 3D meshes and its deformation, I have more concern with the "hasty type" nature of "foxholes" (and trenches). While shell air- and tree bursts are a nice feature in CMX1, neither foxholes nor trenches offered any protection against these. Just the contrary indeed! While one can imagine sorts of "hasty" foxhole types, it´s hard to imagine a "hasty" type trench. From german field manual HDV 130/11 Fieldworks of the infantry:

1. Construction time - several hours. MG and 2 men foxholes (a "Schutzen nest").

Purpose: Protection vs. MG fire and shrapnel from HE. Simple wire obstacles.

(Edit: camouflaging and clearing fields of fire all included)

2. Construction time - half a day. Elaborate construction of above mentioned positions. Shelter (overhead cover).

Purpose: Protection vs. "light" high angle artillery (mortars, howitzers) and shrapnel from air and tree bursts.

3. Construction time - full day. Reinforcement of wire obstacles. Further completion of "nests", "strongpoints", connection of "nests" with shallow (crouching) trenches or (full depth) connection trenches.

4. Construction time - several days. Complete trench lines, elaborate wire obstacles, ....

5. Construction time - weeks. Complete elaborate trenchlines and dug outs....

______________________

Conclusion: "Trenches" are not a self purpose from the beginning, they do mostly "connect" reinforced "Schutzennests" (2-3 man foxholes with overhead cover), BEFORE they convert to elaborate trenchlines, which took at least several days to weeks to get completed and combat ready. So the main focus in CMX2 should be to get the "Foxholes/nests" right, assuming the majority of (german) "foxhole" positions were NOT of a "hasty" type in Normandy. That means either two types should be introduced, a "hasty" type AND a "common" type, or just the "common" type, which should offer overhead protection vs. air/tree bursts.

That IMO must not visually presented in 3D in CM Normandy. If the position of the "foxhole/nest" is tracked in the game, then maybe a switch for the foxhole occupants should enable them to go "under cover" by player command action. To present this visually, the 3D soldiers can "simply" vanish from the map, just showing the 3D mesh foxhole on the map. Just like vehicle passengers in CM1, only a direct hit by something that hits the foxhole and can (theoretically) penetrate the "overhead" cover (high angle medium/heavy HE) or grenade thrown into the foxhole can do damage to the occupants. Most likely result: All dead/out of action.

_____________

RE: Making "improved positions" (shallow excavation) during the game, it should be possible if the squad given order to "improve position" is immobile during this action, does not receive "suppression" from enemy fire, time limit for chance to become succesfull and maybe other factors thinkable....

Things like that are implemented in the Steel Panthers series of games (SP:WAW) already.

That too does not need to be presented in 3D. It would be just a change of state (better than just prone in good terrain cover) with accordingly better cover and concealment modifiers ingame. As soon as the soldiers abandon their "improved" postions (moving away), they loose the "improved position" modifier permanently, without leaving a mark on the 3D terrain.

Well, sounds all simple, but it´s brobably not.....(coding wise)

[Redwolf]

What? Magical fox holes? I cannot understand the issue you are having with five men not fitting in foxholes dug to fit four. One man will have to hide in the grass.

When I order a squad somewhere in CMx2:Normandy I want to know in advance whether all men will end up in a foxhole or not.

Given that you cannot give commands to individual men in the squad this is a nontrivial problem. Unless you are perfectly happy with randomly having soldiers in open ground.

What is a needed is a real concept of "groups" of foxholes that fit a certain number of men. Obviously single foxholes can't be the target for the "move" command given by the user since no single foxhole will hold the whole unit.

[Wengart]

Well you would know in advance whether an entire squad can fit into the foxholes. Since the fox holes will have a 1:1 representation if there are less fox holes than men then you have a problem. However, if the foxholes are spread out over several action points, as a general rule, your men will occupy positions in their current square and those squares connected to it. Disclaimer: that last bit is from my experience playing the game and has not been thoroughly tested.

And, if you have any problems being able to judge if the foxholes are close enough that should work itself out in the first few hours of play.

[Redwolf]

Well you would know in advance whether an entire squad can fit into the foxholes. Since the fox holes will have a 1:1 representation if there are less fox holes than men then you have a problem. However, if the foxholes are spread out over several action points, as a general rule, your men will occupy positions in their current square and those squares connected to it. Disclaimer: that last bit is from my experience playing the game and has not been thoroughly tested.

And, if you have any problems being able to judge if the foxholes are close enough that should work itself out in the first few hours of play.

If it'll be that easy more power to you.

Does it work this way in SF? I honestly never had the honor to play SF as a defender in a scenario that granted foxholes.

[Battlefront.com]

Teams stay within the boundaries of a single Action Spot as a rule, but through circumstances they can be spread out and stay that way because they don't value moving at that particular moment. And of course a Squad occupies 2-3 Action Spots because a Squad is between 2-3 Teams.

The primary problem with foxholes now is that we removed the "coloring" of them so as to help out with FoW. It came to our attention a while ago that this worked a bit too well People who have foxholes apparently don't realize they do. In other words, effectively FoW for both sides. That definitely wasn't intended

The solution for FoW foxholes has yet to be implemented so we'll have to see what happens. I suspect that what will happen is that soldiers will simply cram themselves into whatever they can, like they do now. If there is one huge crater only, all of them go into the crater. If there are two medium ones, then they split and occupy both. So on and so forth.

Anyway... we're still hashing out some design concepts based on the discussions here. Fortifications isn't on the development schedule for the near term, so it will be a while before the final product is presented to you. But as it stands right now, at a minimum, this is what you guys can expect:

1. All defensive elements, including trenches, can be located by the defending player during Setup.

2. The attacker will not see any defensive elements during Setup, therefore he can not base any of his deployments and pre-game planning on foreknowledge of where the defender's fixed positions will be.

3. Foxholes, bunkers, and "dug in" heavy weapons will have FoW. This means the attacker won't know where the defenses are until he spots them. They will, quite possibly, be subject to Absolute Spotting rules. Meaning, once one attacker spots something it stays on the map and doesn't disappear or reappear depending on which unit you select. The performance hit for doing Relative Spotting, in context with the framerate of the game as it is developed, will determine which way we go here.

4. All defensive works will be tailored to the conditions and circumstances of Western Europe, specifically Normandy, as much as possible. What you see now in CM:SF is tailored to that environment, which means the two won't be the same.

That's pretty much where things stand now. Will any of this change before you get the final product? Well, that should be expected since we haven't coded anything yet, therefore anything is possible. And that "anything" might be for the better.

You guys have to remember that when I speak to you I can only speak about things we are pretty much certain will come to reality. Justifications/rationalizations of shortcomings are made on the basis of what I'm talking about here being implemented as described. If circumstances arise that allow us to do something better, then I'll explain that IF it happens. We don't hold back improvements to the game simply because we at one point said it wasn't going to happen. That would be, uhm, rather dumb

In short... what I said above is what we believe, as of this date stamp no my post, will be in the game when it is released. That doesn't mean we won't try to do one better if we can between this date and the date of release.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Some of you will notice that I'm now saying that FoW foxholes are a definite. Conceptually speaking, Charles has agreed to try and hack them in so the current plan is that FoW foxholes will happen. Probability of success is pretty good since he can't think of anything, off the top of his head, that would nuke the idea. And yes, that makes me very happy too

Steve

[Lurker765]

thanks Steve.

Will the new foxholes provide more protection than the current shell scrapes?

[Michael Emrys]

Hmm, I have had an idea that might offer some slight comfort to those who want to use trenches in an ambush situation and are unhappy that they won't necessarily enjoy FOW. In a scenario, couldn't the designer establish one or more of the attacker's setup zones at or near the point where the ambush would be triggered? Granted, this would limit the flexibility of the attacker somewhat, but if the purpose of the scenario is to explore an ambush situation, does that really matter?

If this is thought to be too unwieldy or burdensome for either side, just go back to using foxholes and avoid trenches where the ambush is intended to take place.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

All factors related to weapons and terrain are subject to review for CM: Normandy. The reasons should be obvious... 60 year old conflict in a different part of the world... some things will likely need some tweaking

The only negative of having dummy trenches all over the place is that they can backfire on the defender if the attacker can get into them at the wrong time. Also, trenches kill framerate more than any other single piece of terrain, thanks to the way they cut into the mesh. So the more is not the merrier from a framerate standpoint.

Steve

[Other Means]

I'd be happy with any fortifications subject to absolute spotting if that makes things easier. The justification is: they're not going anywhere.

So if foxholes, bunkers and trenches are subject to the borg it makes no difference to me. If that makes things easier.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

i'm just posting a pointless thumbs-up for adding FOW weapons positions and foxholes. superb stuff! very promising that you wanted to do this enough to find a way to do this and find time to implement it. excellent. i am looking forward to getting the game in my hands.

[Steiner14]

Thanks for the info. Superb!

[RSColonel_131st]

I saw my above post was a little late

One thing I'll say - and if I get eaten for it alive - is that I'm a little disappointed in BFC these days. I can perfectly well understand the problems of 3d Terrain and trenches (thanks for trying to hack foxholes). Similar abstractions exists in CM:SF (like the inability for the Syrians to split off the RPG Guy or crawl out a window or to blow up/scale a wall without being noticed).

What disappoints me is how quick Steve these days is to "explain away" these concerns by telling the players how the game should be played, and what we are to assume. In this case, we are to assume that the Germans were only cabable of creating monstrous wide badly camoflaged trenches that were uncovered before by aerial recce. In CM:SF we are to assume that no Syrian Commander ever would try to restrict his exposure by sending only the RPG-Guy on the roof.

Steve, I understand the tech problems and reasons behind doing things the way they are, but can't you just stop telling us "it's not a problem" because in your version of the war, every German trench was known about anyway? That is not the version of the war I want to be playing, not the one from my history books either. You give us detailed 3d guys and detailed ammo for each and all these improvements, it's an enormous detailed tactical sandbox, and then you restrict our tactical creativity in unrealistic ways while claiming "this wasn't done anyway" or "it's more real that way".

If it's a tech impossibility, then I can accept that, but the constant sugar coating and calling it "chicken little" is insulting. Same as in TOW people were told that maps the size of 2km x 2km square were large enough for tank battles because "they happened a lot closer as you think". This kind of arguments from BFC side have started back then with TOW, and continue today, and that is what I find disappointing.

To be more constructive, and to get from a question of style to substance: Many people have asked about the Iron mode already, and I know the problems (for example to get around a corner if your man are bunched on the wall and you can't see the place you actually want your men to go).

But obviously many people are willing to try an imperfect implementation of Iron Mode, so can't you just give us an "inofficial" (call it "beta") Ironman mode that basically restricts players to eyes on his unit, the first two zoom levels and the last two (to get an overhead view of the map and to give command that can not be given from 1st Person view).

If you can then add some kind of overhead visual camo to trenches as a flavor object or whatever (so they stick not out in color against the surrounding terrain), this would make them pretty well invisible to the Ironman players.

I'm really puzzled that you guys spent years designing the ultimate wargaming engine for past and future conflicts and didn't figure out a viable way of hiding fortifications yet. The whole "terrain has no FOW" design is terrible for tactical sneakieness.

I hope you get it solved eventually.