SlowMotion

New kinds of triggers would be nice at some point. Maybe those could also simulate units communicating with each other - like "advance to next area when group2 reaches target area X" or "when group2 has left area Y". Such things are sort of possible already, but do not work so well if one of the groups involved cannot move according to schedule.

I don't know if this "shoot through hills" is the reason, but sometimes when I try to use Target command, the game says there's no line of sight. Still the game may shoot at this target on his own, but not because I could tell him so.

Or similar idea: Now those support targets are painted to map the same way as AI plan's zones to occupy. Could be nice if you could make some arty units to belong to an AI group. Then the painted area would be used like support targets now - to specify targets, not where to move the group. This way you could assign different arty units to different targets and in different way in every AI plan.

If you make a scenario that you want to play against the AI, *you* the scenario maker, must tell the AI how units should move. Otherwise they just stay in their starting positions. So if you play as red, the blue team must have at least one AI plan. Things don't work like in CMx1 games where the AI knew how to do this. The new way means more work for the scenario maker, but allows the AI to do many kinds of new tricks the old AI didn't know. If that's what you were asking.

If you look at some of the pictures from my previous post, it's clear that Syria is not just desert. There are also areas where you have dense forest. Some more pictures in this thread: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=002476 IMO this foliage LOS differs from most game related issues discussed in these forums. This is not secret knowledge about some latest army technology that only few people know or understand. I'm sure all readers have walked in thick forest many times and know that just one tree can block LOS entirely. So based on this I hope some way of simulating really thick forest would be added. Whether the developers will add such option and when, that I can surely accept.

Now that we have several kinds of trees and also you can pick 1-3 trees per tile IMO it should be possible to somehow simulate more dense forests also. Maybe one of the tree types could block LOS enough that it's possible to get closer to real thick forest. Like KNac I think it should be clearly below 100m. I tried to find some examples of such forest from Syria and found quite a few. Not very high resolution pictures, but if you compare some of these pictures to what we get using the most dense forest in Scenario Editor at the moment, there's a big difference. http://www.souria.com/syriaphotos/index.asp?oo=20

"not only is foliage as a whole taken into consideration when calculating the LOS, but density and more importantly (and frankly stunningly) the type of foliage also have a significant effect on the LOS depth." It's really stunning if you must have 165 meters of trees between two units in order to have cover. In CMx1 I think two Woods tiles was enough, 2x20m.

And there really should be some command or tool that you can use to show LOS while deploying units in Editor. Now it's slow and difficult to pick good positions for the AI when you don't know whether that position has cover or not.

Here's another example. I was wondering why my tank wasn't shooting at enemy about 200 meters away. T62's commander seemed to have clear view yet nothing was happening. LOS straight ahead from the T62 looks clear. So try targeting a Bradley that is clearly visible. Suddenly LOS is blocked. The same thing from above: [ August 14, 2007, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: SlowMotion ]

I think there may be some special cases where a unit may start in different place. I once placed a Syrian medium bunker near marsh/mud tiles in Deploy. When I started playing, it always was in a totally different place - corner of the map hundreds of meters away. Then I went back to editing the map and tried a little bit different places to the bunker. After some tinkering it no longer started in map corner, but in the deployed place. Not quite sure what caused this. Since this was a bunker there was no AI plan's movement order that should have caused change of place. Could it be that deploy allows you to put units to places where they shouldn't be? In setup phase the game notices such invalid placement and puts it to some safe place? Just guessing.

pad152 wrote "So are the engineers that come with it!" Do you mean how they currently do mine clearing? I asked about Mark Mines command in Scenarios forum. Could developers give any official comment about that? http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=72;t=000014 The manual doesn't say much about how that command should work.

One arty comment - in manual p.77 it reads "As a general rule, any US ground unit can theoretically request both types of Support, while only a few specialized Forward Observer units can call in Artillery for the Syrian side." Has the game been changed after this part was written? In a scenario I was playing the Syrian side didn't have any FO units, yet they could get arty support. Not just HQ units, but things like HMG-teams as well.

This is what I found out: I placed one anti-tank mine to a map tile. When playing I moved an engineer squad to this tile and waited some time. The squad never detected any mines and Mark Mines button was always disabled. Then moved the squad away from the tile and drove a Stryker over the tile often enough that it hit the mine. Then moved the engineer squad near the immobilized Stryker. Now when close enough to the Mines sign Mark Mines command became enabled. Gave this command to the squad and waited. After some time the Mines sign changed colour. Then I was wondering what the effect of this marking command was. I gave a Humvee move commands so that it would drive close the marked mine. Maybe it would be aware of the mine and avoid this area? Nope, after a couple attempts it drove straight to the mine and exploded.

So first you must know where a minefield is, then you can use this command? If that's how it works, I must say it would be much more useful if it worked like Hunt command - you could give a unit at least one way point and it would search for mines from this path and mark all it finds. Must test more...

Those mines that caused no damage to Stryker? were probably anti-personnel mines. Hit an anti-tank mine and your vehicle will probably immobilize at least.

In a test scenario I was playing, my T62 tank had been destroyed my an AI controlled M1. The T62 was burning. Then two AI controlled Bradleys drove to the spot. They stopped about 10 m away from the destroyed tank. One of them did nothing like was expected. The other started shooting at this burning tank with its 25mm gun and kept doing it. Probably as long as it had ammo.

Looking at that "stryker in smokeless area 10meters" I really wonder how much sound contacts matter in this new relative spotting system. I would think you can hear a moving tank at least several hundreds of meters away. And much further in good conditions. At least when the listening tank commander is buttoned up. Now you usually see just a dust cloud moving, but no sound contact.

But when I tried to use Mark Mines command, it was always disabled. I really wonder if all engineers can do this? Or is it that it's not possible in all situations? The same way I was wondering why Target Light did nothing when given to a Stryker. Found out I had to use Open Up command first. After this the gunner started using the MG. So far the best way to mark anti-personnel mines I've found is to drive a Stryker into suspected area. If there are mines, they'll explode yet cause no damage. Then you'll know their position

If you mean the kind of wall that you get after using command Blast, go to 3d Preview mode. Find the house to change, keep CTRL pressed and keep clicking at the wall with left mouse. It cycles different walls. One of the alternatives is this broken wall.

Maybe. Those soldiers might have a value that tells how well they fight in high buildings, like vehicles have Off-Road capability. Just not enough room in the Detail Panel to show this value.

I guess so. If you calculate average floor (2x7 + 1x1)/3 = 5. But why did this one team member go to ground floor and not to the 7th floor behind the balcony?

Here is a strange thing I noticed while testing ATGMs. The test map had one 8 story building. In seventh floor there were balconies to two directions. In setup phase I moved a Syrian ATGM team to this seventh floor and then gave Face command so that they would move to a balcony. Two members of the team did go to the balcony, the rest to ground level outside the building. Once I started playing this I chose an area target for the team about 300m away. At this point things looked like this (notice how LOF starts from the 5th floor, not from the balcony). http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z213/r31070021/CMSF/balcony_target_line.gif The team couldn't use missiles from the balcony so a team member decided to use his assault rifle instead. This caused the enemy spot the team. Soon one of the enemy ATGM Strykers launched a TOW missile which destroyed the 2 soldiers on the balcony. If you look at this second picture, there's something interesting in it as well. If the damage to the wall shows where the TOW missile hit, this is in the 5th floor - where the LOF started, not where the team really is. Two dead bodies are in the 7th floor balcony. http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z213/r31070021/CMSF/balcony_after_enemy_tow_missile.gif

4. Smoke dischargers: There are very many different kinds of these. I've only tested few. If you want to see something like you described it should be, try Stryker Fire Support Vehicle. Popping smoke creates a circle of smoke around the vehicle in a couple of seconds. Even different Strykers use different smoke dischargers.

There is this new command Mark Mines. According to manual p.57 it's only available for engineers. I tried to make a scenario where first US engineers would mark mines in a mine field and then some vehicles could pass through. Didn't work quite as expected. When things were done according to an AI plan, Engineers could get through the mines with very few casualties, but AI controlled vehicles just drove to mines. So either those engineers didn't mark mines or the vehicles just weren't smart enough to drive according to marking. I tried this same task so that I played the US side, but Mark Mines command was always disabled. So does anybody know more about this command? Are there some undocumented restrictions on when it can be used or is it just broken at the moment? Is there a way to make it work in AI plans?

Bump - we need a LOS tool that is usable in Scenario Editor's Unit Deploy mode.