c3k

Elmar Bijlsmar, Thanks. I appreciate your additions to this topic. If I may, when you've called in air support within 3-500 meters of friendly vehicles, were enemy vehicles in the area target zone? Or, was it a point target? (Or NO enemy vehicles?) Thanks, Ken

MarkEzra, I'll test it more thoroughly. Thanks, Ken

yeah, points to flamingknives... I was wondering how long it would take until I got called on that: make it an "L115 A something" sniper rifle. Three rounds. Later, much later, after firing his L85 a bunch, he found his L115 again. Test point: does he swap weapons when he needs to reload? I.e., a loaded weapon is better than his unloaded weapon? If the L115 is limited to only 3 rounds in its magazine, that could be possible. Something is up... Ken

Sure, there are examples of friendly fire. Earlier (in a previous air support thread, since hijacked) I mentioned that the example of a US pilot firing on a Scimitar when BMP-2/3's are operating nearby, would be possible. Of course, PROCEDURALLY, it should not; but, if a pilot and the FAC do not have good comms, or are unsure of the location of friendly units, then friendly fire can happen. If there are no enemy vehicles in the area, and everyone KNOWS there are no enemy vehicles, I'm asking that my FRIENDLY vehicles not be considered a target priority. Again, this is consistent. There is NO target identification procedure if a friendly vehicle is near the area target and no enemy vehicle is there. The friendly vehicle WILL be destroyed. That's out of balance. Ken

Gents, More... It seems that air support has some fairly rigid priorities when given an Area Target. First, any enemy infantry, if nothing else is there. Cool. Next, if ANY vehicle is present, it gets hit. Not good. Perhaps, a better ID routine for friendly vs. enemy vehicles could be coded? Case in point (repeated many times, works each time). Place an area target circle. Scatter just a few enemy in it - no vehicles. Open-ish ground. Some cover, but not too much. Now, drive one of your vehicles NEAR the perimeter. It WILL be targeted. I'm not griping about the out-of-the-perimeter aspect, it's the consistent targeting of friendly vehicles. Radio communications should preclude that, in MOST instances. Right now, it is NEVER precluded. Air support + nearby friendly vehicles - any nearby enemy vehicles = dead friendly vehicles. Each time. Ken

Yes! Of course. But now, I cannot use that specific Jackal. My wonderful Apache just tubed it with a Hellfire. I love air support. Really. The other Jackels are, indeed, racing around with the driver in the correct position and the other front crewmember missing. (I've been using them as targets for the enemy. ) So, at this point, I have not duplicated it. Oh, and thanks to the fact that I placed a "." in my game title, all my savegames have been written over. Aaaaargghh. Disregard for now. (Nice dashboard picture! I think I met her in a pub in London...) Ken

The point being that the truck is EMPTY. No driver. No one. It is the ghost truck... If the driver knew about the contact prior to dismounting, but then lost LOS to the contact point, THAT could (and may be) simulated in the game. That would be "?" known to the unit but with NO LOF. In this situation there are no "?" visible when the former driver or former passenger unit are selected. When the empty truck is selected, the "?" becomes visible. Thanks, Ken

Yeah, I know, flooding the forum... Playing CMBF; a Brit 2-man sniper team. I set them a FACE towards an enemy AT-4C position. The snipers don't know about it (no contact) others do, at the start of the turn. When the snipers see the contact, they see one enemy. The sniper takes 3 (three, iii, uno, dos, tres) shots with his M110, then swaps to the L85...and stays that way. At 485 meters, all three shots missed. His spotter nailed the one enemy they saw. With the contact gone, the spotter continued firing on the position. I never set a target command. The sniper never regained his M110. Savegame available. Thanks, Ken

Gents, Playing CMBF. One of the Brit trucks (whatever they're called... like Land Rovers on steroids. They can hold 4+4 soldiers.), gained a contact on the enemy. The truck was transporting a 4 man engineer team and was being driven by a 2 man sniper team. I QUICKED the engineers out and faced them to the contact. I dimounted the driving team, the snipers. The contact disappeared (ELITE difficulty). Neither group, the erstwhile drivers nor the former passengers, saw the contact. HOWEVER, selecting the EMPTY truck allowed me to see the contact. In short, the EMPTY truck KNEW about the enemy, but no-one who was just IN the truck knew about them... Savegame available. Thanks, Ken

Gents, Playing a lot more CMBF and I noticed something. My Jackal had one of the three crewmembers killed by small arms. It was the radio operator, listed as "driving". As he disappeared, the 2iC swapped from "spotting" to "driving". (Cool, keep the vehicle mobile.) However, he was NOT behind the steering wheel. There was a gunner in the center, manning the .50. Great. There was another crewmember, the 2iC, but he was sitting in the front LEFT seat, behind the GPMG, yet was listed as driving. The seat behind the steering wheel (Brit style) was the front RIGHT seat; it was empty. Pix and savegame available... Thanks, Ken

Okay, Time to vent; I set up overlapping Air Support area fire requests. I selected "Heavy" and "Medium" for my Tornado and Apache, respectively. Fortunately, I was fighting in open hills with my force mounted against unmounted enemy light infantry. My air support did a great job!! BOTH assets ignored the area I'd selected, instead, they shot OUTSIDE the area and each platform destroyed one of my vehicles. That's cool. I mean, wouldn't it suck being the only pilot to return to base with unused ordnance? Fire it at anything you can!! Grrr. I'm open to friendly fire incidents....especially when BMP's and Scimitars are operating near each other and the air support is not British. But, c'mon; if friendly fire was as common as it is in this game, NO ground commander would call in a strike within 10 klicks. Here's an idea (just so I don't get called a total complainer!). In the next iteration, allow/force the air support call to specify the target type!! So, I could set an area circle for air support and specify "infantry". A point target would not require that. Okay, there are some flaws with specifying a target type, like, what if I don't know about that tank hiding up there and the air support never fires on it? Thoughts? Ken

Yeah, but you DON'T know the duration of the mission until it's already underway. In a WeGo game, that can cripple your arty use. You either use it all up in the first turn - ooops. Or, to avoid using it up, you're TOO parsimonious with it, and end up with a full ammo bar at the end of an hour long scenario. My "gripe" is that an FO would KNOW how much arty support he's got. This interface does not give that information to the player. Ken

The abstraction for indoors works fine...for me. The ability to shoot through windows and doors is cool. I like having my guys cluster on windows. (Oh, yeah, I HATED learning that having a squad set up by a large picture window merely makes them an RPG target. Many casualties later, I've learned to avoid those windows!) So, outer building walls affect firepower. Stairs are abstracted. All is good. What is "odd" is firing through 3 intervening floors, 2 walls, and at a soldier lying down on a balcony on the far side of the building... Ken

Gents, In game I had one of my squads shoot THROUGH a building and THROUGH 4 floors to hit an enemy soldier. Screenie.... My guys were there, at the bottom of the building on the right, looking to the left. The poor guy on the balcony thought he was safe! Fool... I'm not sure it's correct that my guys could spot the enemy, let alone get some rounds on target. Thoughts??? Thanks, Ken

Gents, Okay, another in my series of posts to try to get a better user interface for support assets in the next set of games. Slight spoilers follow (not much though - if you play as Brit, NO spoiler). I started the CMBF battle "To the Bank". In it, there are two artillery assets, each with a dedicated spotter (for the Brits.). Here are two screenshots showing what you start with, and HOW MUCH ammo they get: Mortar Screenie: AS-90 (155mm SPA) Screenie: Okay, please note that they BOTH have a full ammo bar. What does that mean? Well, I found out... It means the mortar has less than 2 minutes of fire and the AS-90 has over 15 minutes of firing. Not very intuitive and it wasn't what I expected in the battle. So, I ran a test after I finished the battle. I placed an at-start artillery request from both batteries and counted every single impact. Here's what I found... The mortar, firing medium for maximum duration with 3 tubes, fired 84 rounds. The AS-90, firing medium for maximum duration with 2 tubes, fired 96 rounds. So, the round count is similar. However, the mortar fired 33 rounds the first minute (delay due to start of mission), and 51 rounds in the second minute. (It ran out of ammo before the second minute finished.) The AS-90 fired at a slower rate. It took 19 minutes to exhaust its 96 rounds. It fired 4 rounds the 1st minute, then averaged 6.75 rds/min. the next 8 minutes. Starting at minute 10, it slowed to 4 rds/min. which it maintained until it ran out. Conclusion: full ammo bars do NOT tell the player how long the battery can provide support. Is there ANY way of including information like that to the player??? (Note that after the mission has started, there is a line which states how long the mission will continue, i.e., "< 1 minute", etc.) Thanks, Ken

Excellent!! I'm glad you gave the game a second chance. With v1.20, it is really shining. What you're referring to has been brought up in http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=84655&highlight=what+just+happened Note the author (cough, cough). Please note that BF.C _has_ tried to address this. In the release notes for v1.20 (which is what the current version is, included as part of CMBF), BF.C has made a change. If a unit takes a casualty, its icon flashes. Now, the flash is a 3 second pulsing green which is the same pulse when you select a unit. So, zoom out, and play the replay. (Obvious shortcomings: if the unit is suppressed due to incoming fire, you don't know about it. Also, I'm not sure if a yellow-base casualty will cause the pulse. So, you still don't know about INCOMING fire. Nor do you know if your unit spots a new enemy and fires on it... And, finally, since the pulse duration is LESS than the incremental fast-forward duration, clicking the ">>" icon during playback can cause you to miss the pulse entirely. (">>"= 5 seconds, pulse = 3 seconds). BUT, it is an improvement over nothing.) Play and enjoy, Ken

JohnO, Hey, great work! I've just played a bit with these icons; they really add a bit of flavor. Thanks for doing this. Now, the mandatory request: the British FV432 (Mark 3) Bulldog has an icon which I don't think is correct. My apologies in advance if I am mistaken. The icon is the same as that for an IFV, but with an underline and 3 circles underneath it. The 3 circles are reserved for wheeled cross-county vehicles, is it not? As well, the icon for APC's (as opposed to IFV's) is a "house" shape, rather than a diamond. If the lower chevron (with its point down) is removed, as well as the three circles, it would seem to be spot on. Of course, all this is based on internet research. My most sincere apologies if I am wrong! Regardless, you've done a lot of work and I appreciate how you've added to the immersion I get with this game. Thanks, Ken

Just wanted to share a good moment. You know, one of those emotional impact events which will stick with you a good while. I'm playing a battle from CM:BF. My focus is on my two sniper teams. I'm trying to determine how and why the sniper changes weapon while engaging an enemy. I've got a separate thread on that. So, during my initial WeGo playback, I zoom in behind my two man sniper team up on rooftop. They've got a waist-high wall around the roof. 250+ meters away, inside a building, is a Syrian sniper. The Syrian is firing on my two guys. The spotter is cowering while the incoming rounds snap past the British sniper. The British sniper (L85 in hand - DO NOT get me started!) keeps trying to acquire the Syrian. No luck. Finally, the spotter comes up to join him. The spotter takes a light hit; yellow base. The sniper drops down behind the wall into a fetal curl. He's had enough and his buddy just got wounded. Rounds continue to snap around them, about 1 per second or so. Finally, the sniper finds his courage and decides to stand up. I'm zoomed in close.... The MOMENT the sniper clears the wall, one of the incoming rounds nails him! Ow. Red base. Yeah, I jumped back. And cursed. The incoming round had to've already been in the air BEFORE the sniper came up. Bad luck. It was a cool moment. Here's a game which lets you play the role of battalion CO, down to team leader, and I got to experience something which usually only occurs in first-person-shooters. Cool. Ken

Let me repost this, which is from this thread: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=87092&highlight=scenario Scenario Organization in CM:N -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gents, I'll resurrect this idea: we NEED a way to sort the scenarios in the next game. Right now we can only look at the alphabetical listing of scenarios, with no idea of what type of battle is hinted at by the name. Nor can we tell if we've ever played that scenario, or how we did. Here are some suggested sorting criteria (adjustable/selectable by the user): Date Size, map Size, forces Force type Opposing Nationality Objectives Length Region Have I played it yet? Did I win? Did I lose? Did I finish? (How many restarts did it take? Kind of tough with savegames.) Best score/record? Review score by others (is it a popular scenario or is it a dog?) Time of Day Environment Weather Conditions Terrain Types Reinforcements Support: Artillery, Air Obviously a simple tabbed sorting system would be a boon. (As well as a SCROLL BAR.) Oh, a "delete" option would be nice. That way I can delete all the hundreds of savegames I accrue. A feedback system, voluntary and opt-in, would be too cool. It would upload the player's battle results back to BF.C. Regardless, a better system needs to be implemented. See these threads: http://www.battlefront.com/community...ad.php?t=72661 http://www.battlefront.com/community...ad.php?t=76751 Thanks, Ken Thanks, Ken

Hmmm, traverse rate vs. aircraft speed. That's a straight out angular velocity issue. The whole problem revolves around the range. (Oh, how I love a subtle pun...) Anyway, no aircraft goes much above 600 knots on the deck these days. (Mach 2+ is only possible in less dense air. At this point I could wax poetic about the capabilities, now lost, of the old F-105 on the deck, but that's neither here nor there.) Approximate 1 nautical mile as 6,000 ft. Therefore, 600 knots ~ 1,000 feet/second. If the aircraft is at a range of 1 mile (for simplicity, due to ground weapons using statute measurements, let's call it 5,000 feet.), the apparent angular velocity is about 78 degrees per second. Hmmm, if the aircraft is much beyond 1 mile from the AAA site, the flight time of the shell would make a hit quite rare. An average shell velocity from muzzle to aircraft of about 1,000 fps means a time to impact on the order of 5 seconds...or more. Any range less than 1 mile makes the angular velocity higher. All presupposes that the aircraft streaks across at a right angle to the gun site and maintains its tangential vector. All this changes if the aircraft is approaching the site.... Ken

At this point, to the best of my knowledge, the sniper team has received zero rounds of incoming fire. He appears to be totally unsuppressed. The OTHER sniper team (yes, I have two) shows the same weapons behavior under similar conditions; enemy support weapon team at 250 meters, unsuppressed, keeps swapping to L85. Shrug... Ken

Yeah, I'm thinking a tweak would be nice. All I know is that the sniper is MISSING with his L85. I'd think (guess/hope?) that he could hit a man 250m away with the L115A3 who's manning a Kornet. Of course, this will be moot since the Kornet team must be almost out of missiles, based on how many of my vehicles they've destroyed. It would've been nice for my sniper team in overwatch to actually suppress, if not kill, the Kornet guys. That's what keeps this game fun... Thanks, Ken

Ah, that's what I get for typing whilst tired. "L" it is. However, that still doesn't change the fact that while targeting enemy teams at 260 meters the sniper uses his L85 instead of his L115A3. It's more sporting, sure. I mean, we all expect the Brits to have a superior sense of sportsmanship; that's what they're known for. But it may be a bit too sporting to use a weapon which will miss when you have the ability to use a weapon which will hit. Especially when firing at an enemy Kornet team. But that's just me... In sum: the sniper "prefers" his backup weapon at a medium range. Thanks, Ken

Other Means, No! I did not know that. Time for a bit of a move and return to get them off their balcony. Especially so since now the sniper is using his M115. Grrr... I guess he HAD ammo all along. Time to delve into sniper targeting/weapon use. Thanks, Ken

Edit the above: Grrrr....savegame is for AFTER weapon switch. Range is about 250 meters. The sniper may've dropped the M115(?) due to a lack of ammo. The battle starts with a significantly lower state of supply than normal. It's my fault I did not check the linked ammo stats first. In a perfect world, I could quietly retract the original post and go back to getting my Brits back on the attack... Thanks, Ken