Apocal
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Posts posted by Apocal
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19 hours ago, Apocal said:
A Tank Spotting Test.bts (run in two player hotseat, not scen author test, or the Panthers will unbutton at the start for some reason)
2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:Could you upload your test scenario? I cannot replicate your results.
Here.
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12 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:
In my experience vehicles in CM cannot get sound contacts unless it is passed on to them from another unit via C2.
The only Axis units are buttoned-up Panthers and they can only see in their lane.
39 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:I think people are a bit confused about the terminology here. Distant contacts are usually not sound contacts. When contacts are gained from sound close by, we can call them sound contacts, but at the end of the day, all contacts are just contacts.
Ah OK, I thought all of them were sound-based.
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30 minutes ago, Erwin said:
Sounds are not acted upon by AI. eg: If you have friendly AT team hiding behind a wall and a noisy enemy tank is on the other side, the friendly AT team will not notice and pop up and shoot. (At least not in the games I played.)
I know. I'm arguing they shouldn't be getting sound contacts though, since they are buttoned-up, looking the wrong way with their engines running. And there is still the matter of one or two every test getting an actual spot on the approaching infantry.
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15 minutes ago, Muzzleflash1990 said:
Are the Panthers' engines on - are they hiding? If they are buttoned up with engines on, should they get sound contacts from non-firing infantry?
They are not hiding, no. I don't believe they should be getting sound contacts from non-firing infantry but CM is full of surprises.
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15 minutes ago, Wicky said:
As mentioned earlier - whenthe tube guy enters the building using hunt command, he'll generally stop when he see the tank , only after he takes a pot shot off is he spotted presumably by the smoke from his weapon and the tank machine guns back at where it was attacked from using MG fire.
I have all the bazooka teams set with target armor at 50 meters (circular) range. None of the bazooka teams have fired yet. There are thirteen lanes total, all visually isolated. So far: one hard spot, four sound contacts.
edit: I don't have a problem blowing up the Panther in my QB, I posted this thread because I thought there was something funky going on with spotting.
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7 hours ago, user1000 said:
Whenever I try to sneak up on a tank more than often I get nailed by enemy infantry just trying to get to the tank.
I thought that was my problem too, but it really wasn't. There was no way I could have been spotted by the single infantryman left in my QB (the AI's force picks are absolutely bonkers, in case you didn't know) and so it was all up to the Panther. I'm so sure of it that I've thrown together a test scenario to confirm. It is actually a bit worse than I initially figured.
Far from being safe at modest distances like 20 or 30 meters, buttoned-up tanks can occasionally (roughly 20-25% for a contact marker, 10% roughly for an actual spot) sense approaching infantry from their rear at over 50 meters. While sometimes they remain oblivious even as bazooka rounds go off in front and behind them, it is more common that the tankers close to immediately detect the firing team if it fails to knock out the tank or panic the crew enough for them to bail out.
I don't think this is realistic.
A Tank Spotting Test.bts (run in two player hotseat, not scen author test, or the Panthers will unbutton at the start for some reason)
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7 hours ago, Xorg_Xalargsky said:
You can always nudge luck to your side, bazookas and panzershreks will fire up to 200m, but I find they only start to be useful under 150m. Even at that range, a first shot hit is 50/50.
I'm pretty sure it is lower than that.
Anyway, is anyone seeing the same behavior I noted in the opening post? I'm almost certain I am not crazy and this tank is spotting me in places it has no effective means of observation. If it is just a nod toward playability, OK, fine. I'll argue that point but first I need to know I'm not the only one this happens to.
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14 hours ago, MikeyD said:
If you're a tanker 600m away from a SMG squad holed-up in a barn you could not only climb on the rear engine deck and fire your .50 cal with impunity, you could stand on the road and do a hula-dance if you wanted to. Because effective range of MP-40 was only 200m. But most of the time you're not facing MP-40s. You're facing snipers and Mausers and MG-42s and mortars, all of which make standing in plain sight on a tank's engine deck somewhat less appealing.
...meanwhile there are guys facing all that with nothing more than their field jackets between them and hot steel. I'm sure it wasn't a good thing to do in every situation, but I'm pretty sure standing up with about thirty tons of steel to crouch behind wasn't much more dangerous than walking into the same. And like @jtsjc1 wrote, it was a two-way street. Shooting that dude riding the rear deck didn't do a damned thing to stop the tank's other weapons from functioning.
8 hours ago, SLIM said:Don't forget, in '45 tankers started re-mounting their .50cals as COAX machine guns, so they could use them with the hatch closed.
I saw photos in Steven Zaloga's 'Armored Thunderbolt'.
It does seem strange to see weapons mounted in a place not easily accessible. Seems to defeat the purpose.As coax MGs? How did they fit a fifty in the space cut out for a 30cal?
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On 7/6/2017 at 10:44 PM, Battlefront.com said:
Not sure how the news came here about Chris' departure. That only became official last week. So here's the official scoop...
Someone in another thread mentioned that BF's programmer had left. I immediately assumed it was ChrisND since he hadn't been streaming and his last post was a long time ago. Sorry to hear he burned out on this stuff, I know game development is no joke when it comes to stress.
On 7/7/2017 at 9:30 PM, benpark said:Rest assured that work has indeed been underway on the RT module (lots of work).
Great, thanks.
7 hours ago, Freyberg said:I play some CM nearly every second day. I have all the Second World War titles, modules and packs. I browse the forum regularly.
One of the reasons I seldom post is that although I'm quite knowledgeable about history and the Second World War in particular, I'm not 'grog' and I don't that degree of detailed knowledge; and some of the posters here are frankly kind of hostile to those lacking their encyclopedic knowledge.
I wouldn't worry about that too much. I'm not a grog, a modeler or a hex wargamer and nobody gives me flak over it. I'm not even really an old-school Combat Missioner, despite the fact I came to Combat Mission from Close Combat in the hallowed days of 1999, and most people haven't so much as mentioned it, even when I go against the grain of popular opinion.
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On 6/6/2017 at 5:15 PM, Duckman said:
As for the rifle grenades, I wonder how much they were actually used. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of one used in combat. That's not exactly proof they weren't used, but with most other weapons you can find action photos quite easily.
Senator Daniel Inouye, a Medal of Honor recipient, had his arm mostly blown off by one, so clearly someone was making use of them as late as 1945.
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On 7/1/2017 at 6:04 AM, Oleksandr said:
I'm trying to imagine reasons someone (anyone) would look at that and NOT expect there to be mines in the middle. Like, seriously. Dude literally left a big polygon of wire in the middle of the road, I wonder what's inside...?
On 7/2/2017 at 9:20 AM, Xorg_Xalargsky said:This thread is a very good idea!
How do you find the return on investment on your first example? That's something I struggle with in Quick Battles, when to buy fortifications vs. more units. As of now, I always lean towards units as opposed to fortifications unless some area just *asks* for some obstacle or mine (and then, sometimes the enemy decides to go completely around them, hi there @IanL
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Maybe I'm not playing to the strengths of fortifications (I'm definitely open to criticism or suggestions), but I think they could do with an overhaul in the future (new types, re-balance of some values, perhaps an alternate resource system reserved for fortifications...)
Mines are useful to me in limited doses, for very specific purposes. One of the best uses is planting them on the AS next to doorways, especially the only doorway into/out of a building with good line of sight. Another good use is placing them along map edges when facing another player. Occasionally, I'll leave an entire objective undefended but covered in mines, with a TRP emplaced; the mines act as a sort of sensor and artillery/mortars follows up on whatever is there.
But the use is situational, so it is rare for me to invest too much into them. Personally, I think they could use a bit of a price reduction, especially obstacles like wire. Even better if defenders could get a preset minimum, depending on stance (hasty or deliberate defense) to which players could add more if they chose.
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1 hour ago, Wicky said:
Tactics tactics on a decidely risky mission...
I played through it a few times - essentially trick is to get right behind it to minimise the chance of being spotted and shoot at the weakest point up its bum - one shot one kill.
Shooting from buildings to the panther's side wether ground level or higher floors the result is mainly partial penetrations and the discharge puff brings a destructive rain of revenge / or it can take out a tank crewman or two and send the hulk off seeking shelter to lick its wounds without firing a shot back.
Yeah, I figured out the hows of getting it done and putting the cat down. Obviously one of them is "just fire from slightly farther away," accepting the modestly higher risk of a miss or non-penetrating hit. Another is two teams, relying less on luck.
But in this thread, I'm here to discuss the fact that the tank can apparently detect infantry in a way that doesn't seem too realistic. I accept this particular incident is an edge case for the most part, but it is an annoying one. It would probably be a lot more annoying in CMRT, with Soviet infantry having nothing like a bazooka equivalent and relying on close assault for AT self-protection, but it was a game of CMFB I was playing.
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2 hours ago, Wicky said:
Can you replay the turn (and calculations) a few times and see if this outcome repeatedly occurs.
2 hours ago, IanL said:You need to see the calculating progress bar otherwise you are just watching the same video over and over.
I play in real-time. Yes, the behavior repeats itself. I have a save game from the moment I sent the team over, just because the situation seems like something I might want to practice.
edit: the trick seems to be if the distance between bazook team and Panther closes to within 15 meters, they are automatically spotted, at least from two more playthrus.
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Playing a quick battle, just to get various drills down pat. This time infiltrating a single team w/ bazooka into "can't miss" range in order to take out a top of the line AFV. I have a solid sound contact, maneuver my team through the terrain and into a nearby building, setting them up for a shot only 15 meters away, off the port quarter in nautical terms. The tank is totally buttoned and partially damaged from previous hits, I don't know if the optics are kaput as well, but it shouldn't matter. All supporting infantry who could have passed a spot to the tank were off riding bicycles three hundred meters away, having never spotted the bazooka team and out of contact (radioman shot) anyway.
Somehow, as my team was lining up their shot, the tank spotted them. They managed to put a bazooka round into the tank but were promptly machine gunned for their trouble.
The all-seeing eye of CMx2 armor remains. Is there any fix on the horizon?
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45 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
In my opinion he wasn't very good at promoting CM. His screenshots for CMFB gave such a poor impression of the game, that I wondered whether he knew what he was doing. Mind you, the promotion of CM always has been weak and uninspired. Much to improve and gain there.
Who looks at screenshots nowadays though? It's all about the streaming when it comes to marketing your product.
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11 minutes ago, TheBog11 said:
Isn't there a sequence from a recent movie/series (it might be Band of Brothers, or *maybe* Fury) that shows the Sherman TCs actually standing on the rear deck of the tank as it advanced, shooting the .50s? It seemed pretty improbable to me.
It was a real thing done by tankers, not sure if it was necessarily the TC though. Fury showed infantrymen on the track Manning the gun during their rescue mission and later it was instantly manned by the loader when they struck a mine. The Carentan episode showed tankers doing it in Band of Brothers, as they first arrived to drive off German armor but I don't recall any other scene. And ofc Audie Murphy got the Blue Max for said feat on a burning TD in Italy. I also think it featured in the movie To Hell and Back, but it has been a long time since I watched it.
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2 hours ago, Erwin said:
AI is probably THE most difficult ability to program. Millions, probably billions have been spent on creating predictive AI to simulate terrorist actions and other phenomena. Not sure how successful it's been as I have been out of that game for a while now. It's not something one would want BF to get sunk on trying to develop,
I'm not asking for true AI, with all the predictive abilities, etc. I'm asking that it knows to react to very simple variables, already acknowledged in the game's code, rather than stick to -- and I'm leaning on this example hard because the AI has done it since Shock Force -- running into an area being bombarded by artillery. The game knows where impact areas are; it has to because they are not created dynamically by a direct player intervention, like throwing down claymores in a first person shooter. It knows the danger area of each blast. It knows when rounds will land. It shouldn't be hard to produce a realistic pause rather than entering an impact area.
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On 7/1/2017 at 2:05 PM, Xorg_Xalargsky said:
In my example, 4 guns on harass would still expand too much ammunition. 1 gun will produce a barrage lastinv 4 x as long.
It will also allow a particularly bold player to run troops under the footprint. Infantry on "quick" can usually (this is a gamble) run under the impact area of a single 105 firing "harass." Certainly 203 and larger as well since their rate of fire is ridiculously low, but I'm pretty sure (or just unlucky) that 155/harass is a game you're better off not playing.
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On 6/30/2017 at 4:19 PM, kch001 said:
Just curious if anybody plays both the Combat Mission games and Steel Division? I do not own it, and despite the beautiful graphics, then it does seem like Command and Conquer set in Normandy. Has anybody on the forum tried it out?
Yeah, I play pretty regular. It's not really like Command and Conquer, it is moving away from the base-building mechanics of RTS and more into tactics-heavy, limited macro-game trend of late. Games play out in three phases (A,B, and C; recon, skirmish and battle), each one ten minutes long, with the recon phase being basically a meeting engagement writ large. Some divisions (think force mixes in CMx2) have an advantage here, either through the possession of clearly superior unit types (20mm armed armored cars, light tanks, high quality infantry, etc.) or the fact they garner more points to put more units on the field overall. Or both, in the case of some divisions. Phase B (skirmish) is all about jockeying about the territory taken in the previous phase, where you start to see more medium tanks, heavier fire support, bombers, etc. come out to play. The final phase, C (battle) is when heavies hit the field in numbers and "banked" points used to launch seriousface attacks and counter-attacks.
The AI is smarter than CMx2. It understands flanking (to an extent), counter-attacks against overextended player forces, close range infantry ambushes, etc. The game lacks fortifications and mines, while off-board artillery is handled in a particularly gamey way due to defensive limitations. There is only light fog-of-war, with units occasionally depicted only by silhouette rather than outright wrong information being presented to the player. There are mods available through the Steam workshop, including enhanced realism conversions even though some mechanics are hardcoded, such as infantry starting with motorized transport that disappears (permanently) if unarmed.
That was one biggie that more realism orientated people pick up on frequently, but it is to limit the gamey behavior of using something like cheap jeeps to drop off troops, then gleefully running them through the enemy lines in order to force them to reveal their defenses and mallet them with air/arty. There were counters to that (cheap and numerous tanks allowed to freely fire while the rest of the capital systems like high-end AFVs, ATGMs and attack helos held fire) but it invited silly encounters, so the makers just decided having jeeps and cattle trucks evaporating into the Normandy countryside was more realistic on the balance.
Similar reasoning for the handling powerful off-board artillery; without fortifications, artillery (any kind, but rocket artillery especially) was absolute cancer in previous Wargame titles (European Escalation, AirLand Battle and Red Dragon) as you could reliably pound the living hell out of anything that stood under your launchers and stop offensives dead cold. Each iteration tried various nerfs and adjustments, but Steel Division just went scorched earth on the whole thing with the only truly powerful guns are going off-board, each with specific FO assigned, giving you three total fire missions per purchase. So if I pick my 3rd Armored Division "deck" (consisting of "cards" of various numbers of units), I have to buy three FO Shermans to get a total of nine 155mm fire missions. American artillery is more available than other nations, but it is still apparent they didn't want the recon+artillery meta to dominate the game, even if their attempt (at the point in time) has been rather unsuccessful (German nebelwerfers have unbalanced effects if properly utilized). But the counterplay to artillery dominance is realistic; spreading out forces, relying on a relatively low number of infantry shooters with disproportionate firepower to delay while maintaining a reserve in depth that can counterattack to restore your line. Alternatively, you could just run armor, which is hard for artillery (except the absolute largest stuff) to knock out in general (and near impossible for heavies) and if the player is paying attention, basically immune since they can shift from under the impact area faster than a second or third volley can arrive.
Compared to previous titles in the series, Steel Division's scenarios are essentially denuded of forces, which opens up more opportunities for maneuver, but there is a "frontline" mechanic that means you can't really fully surprise anyone who has functioning eyeballs. Sometimes you figure it is a single machine gun running around your backfield or pushing a flank and it turns out to be a trio of Pz4s, but nothing like other games where you can lose a bunch of stuff to guys running around like ninjas in areas you thought were secure. So while you don't have as many units, you're not obsessively garrisoning your backfield due to the frontline mechanic showing you almost exactly (a few units, like scouts, don't push the line) where the enemy is, if not what they are bringing.
The game has a simple and functional morale system that works reasonably well in depicting the effect of fire on men. Suppression rises as a unit takes fire, until finally they become pinned -- unable to move, shoot or respond to orders except one. Troops under the influence of leaders take half as much suppression and fight more effectively, so you always want to have a leader with troops you expect to be in even-ish firefights and close assaults. Heavier weapons pin them faster at which point your only option is getting fire lifted off them (either by your own suppressing fire on the enemy or using smoke to break line of sight) or telling them to fall back (the only order they will obey once pinned, but always an option), at which point they become uncontrollable for a short time as they seek cover.
There are aircraft in game, player directed. Antiaircraft defenses, especially automatic AA, are underrated in terms of killing power, but surprisingly enough given a fair shake in terms of effectiveness. It is entirely possible for four decent pieces (i.e. something like a trio of M15s backed by tanks' and halftracks' fifties) to keep all but Wrath of God levels of air attacks off your forces. Heavy AA is better -- and I'm somewhat salty about the fact that the American divisions don't get their 90mm guns -- but not so much you see nothing but 88s everywhere. That being said, it is somewhat restricted in amount to avoid the Iron Curtain air defense (every inch of the map owned by one side, usually Soviets, having a no-sell level of air defense that locked aircraft out of the game). If fact, that applies to everything awesome in game: restricted, limited, unavailable in certain phases, etc.
There are tons of guides, walkthroughs, videos, FAQs, etc. to help you git gud (get good) but the community isn't awful if you're bad. For the most part, people will leave you be as long as you're not screwing up too bad and if you're an experienced wargamer, you already know enough about tactics and combined arms that you shouldn't be getting rolled after your first two or three games.
On 7/1/2017 at 6:11 PM, kch001 said:I think I would probably agree with your pov. I love cnmao, war in the east, hoi 3 command operations etc but hoi 4 I find a bit too arcady. And I never really got into airland battle and European escalation. Too many clicks and not enough planning and immersion.
I have an average win rate (52% whooo!) and last time I metered my APM, it was 28 with a peak of around 54. That means clicks, button presses, mouse-edge camera movement, etc. not actual actions. Actual, effective EPM is pretty low, probably around 5-7 per minute and I do fine. Granted, that doesn't mean I'm a pro (obviously not, with a 52% win rate, lol) but the game is perfectly playable even if you're not good with the mouse. Even better, the units can actually manage themselves to an extent, so if you -- for example -- leave a bunch of halftracks out in a field, they'll take cover from serious threats (ATGs, tanks, aircraft, etc.) or cheerfully engage anything they can kill with their machine guns (advancing infantry or scout teams, some light vehicles, spotter planes) without having to micromanage too much. Obviously, the AI sometimes makes big mistakes when it comes to that, but it isn't anything anyone familiar with games in general should be surprised about.
The planning part comes down to communicating with your team in the lobby or deployment phase. It works pretty well, which can be a downside when you're just hopping on for a quick game or two and find yourself facing down four guys on voice comms with each other who have come to pubstomp. In one particularly memorable incident, I lost approximately 60% of what I had on the field in only two minutes thanks to a literal rolling barrage of heavy artillery, followed up by frankly unstoppable amounts of armor and high quality infantry, backed by on-board mortars and fighter-bombers, that no single player could possibly have a response for. In that situation all you can do is beg for help that probably won't be coming, lol.
But it's a fun light wargame, overall.
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3 minutes ago, CM-Kane said:
Same here.
The lack of information is very disappointing. Where are the youtube videos of ChrisNd showing new stuff? An update per month would be great, pics, videos etc...
ChrisND doesn't work for Battlefront any longer. And yes, I agree that having someone handle community management is important in an era where gamers are accustomed to routine status updates from developers.
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1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:
There is no AI in this game, only scripting. If the computer-controlled enemies walk into machinegun fire, that's because the human scenario designer has issued an order for group X to move to position B at time XX:XX.
This is why the "enemy AI" feels robotic. It is, in fact, programmed just like a robot.
I'm am aware. I have made scenarios in CMx2 before. That's why I wish the AI had the good sense programmers give even the most brain-dead AI in other genres, such as "do not walk straight into, or stand under, a player's killing power." It would greatly ease my concerns if I knew the AI wouldn't keep mashing itself into defense and instead go to ground and at least attempt to gain fire superiority.
Other things as well. A basic awareness of what does or does not constitute a threat in front of them, "Player has tank. I will not drive my five scout cars in front of it" or "player has tank riders just behind the edge of the woods. I will not trickle riflemen in there." Knowledge of what are the long suites in any combined arms relationship; "Heavy ATG spotted. Hold tanks' orders to move while allowing infantry forward." Hell, even just ability to blind-fire/call arty on suspected locations would be nice and I know the game already understands the concept of contacts, since it is displayed in game terms. No reason the AI shouldn't be firing on the soft contacts of things like machine gun teams, ATGs, AT teams, etc. that players certainly would.
I know I am not asking for impossible here. Possibly unreasonable, given factors I know nothing (and, as a customer, don't care) about, but nothing that hasn't been done. Other games, even ones with one- or two-man programming efforts like CMx2, manage to provide as much. Of course I know the players will still stomp the AI, but as a scenario designer of a defense scenario, I have to actively imagine ways that players will defend any given terrain and create a plan -- using only time as a trigger, no scripting possible -- to make an attack function and look good. Unsurprisingly, the results vary depending on how closely players stick to the script between the designer's ears. For truly adaptive players, frequently the provided AI plans are nonsense wearing clownshoes by the twentieth turn; they are standing bodily in the attacker's start zone, having murdered everything up to that point, just waiting for reinforcements to come in so they can murder them as well.
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6 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:
....and I would personally savour the tears of rage of edge hugging gamey bastidges. But an "OBAT" unit could be a single fixed point on either flank, hence subject to on map terrain, and also time-bounded, i.e. be presumed to be suppressed after a certain point.
Just add this to the fantaCM list....
Back on the main topic, I agree that "overstaffing" the computer forces is the primary way to overcome the zombietruppe factor. But I have also long felt that if the TacAI isn't up to simple things like:
"Advance along the ditch, not along the sides of it, unless I've told you to Dash" or
"'Sir, we've spotted an enemy unit!' Take cover, return fire, then send a team flanking through the trees to the left", or
"If my Sherman is on a road and I click a single waypoint down that road, just follow the dang road to it, not a straight line across country, unless I click a waypoint off the road"
... then give the designers Editor tools to pin out sensible (covered) 'paths' to prompt the AI. It's basically a variant of the waypoint tool that automatically repaths around impassable terrain. It basically preplots waypoints, and is invisible to the players but not to the unit TacAIs. Use of such a feature is optional of course, you can always let your zombies be zombies
We should probably start with the baby-steps of teaching the AI to not walk directly into machine gun fire or the LOS of known threats they cannot harm, in general.
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1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
If you study the thread that LLF linked to and follow the various links there you will find all the information you need on Shermans.
It shows that a ring mount was built into the late model hatches, but this doesn't function in CMFB for whatever reason.
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51 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:
A related discussion came up fairly recently though it doesn't furnish an answer to your specific query.
Thanks. I missed that thread because the search feature doesn't really work for me on this forum.
1 minute ago, Erwin said:Need an "Audie Murphy" mod, where the brave CO stands on the rear hatch and fires the 50 (esp if the tank is burning under him).
I initially figured one possible way to get the rear-mounted AA fifty into was to have troops mounted, thinking they'd act as the gunner. But it didn't seem to work, at least not any way I tried. Which is strange, because the code is clearly there; it works for half-tracks and scout cars to have passengers manning the fifty cal.
)...
Buttoned tanks still possess telepathy.
in Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg
Posted
I'm concerned with the ease they get sound contacts (or just plain contacts, I don't know how to tell the difference in-game) on infantry approaching from the rear quarter within a minute or less. I didn't realize the non-targetable contact markers weren't all sound contacts before. Although I am seeing sound contacts (for friendly forces) in my own test. I'll try to get another save once I'm off work.
I don't think cover matters at close range unless it is actually blocking LOS.
Infantry are in place for less than a minute; first spot happens within ten seconds, with one or two contacts following over the course of thirty seconds out of thirteen lanes total. Tests with movement produce essentially the same outcome -- until the infantry get close and telepathy kicks in -- which is odd considering that infantry are stationary vs. moving and these are buttoned-up tanks.