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Louch, That was a good catch...a year ago! And the way you brought it up AGAIN six months ago was also well done! (Hmm, I wonder if the free-flowing nature of this forum is not the best way to notify the designers of possible errors?) Thanks, Ken

BF.C, any chance?

Gents, Watching through a replay I noticed something new. My 6 man US squad had a single M249 (plus the various M4's). With just a few seconds left in the turn a flicker on the Team Info Panel (the green or yellow weapon icons) caught my attention. The M249 gunner, in green, changed to an M4A1, in green. They were in the midst of firing on an enemy unit when this happened. Has anyone else seen this? Is this supposed to represent a weapon breakdown? If so, is it normal for M249 gunners to also carry an M4? If it's not a weapon breakdown, what was it? Savegame available. Thanks, Ken

Combatintman, Yeah, I'm sure the squad/team leader has the responsibility of releasing those weapons. I'm just POSITIVE about it. In a similar vein, I certainly do NOT want the added complexity of, say, ordering single fire vice auto fire. Nor would I want to have to order each grenade throw. I do think these exceptional squad/team assets should require exceptional player interaction. I think in most cases the TacAI that BF.C has created does a reasonably good job. In the case of special equipment there is room for improvement. Thanks, Ken

Nvidia 8800gtx; all options on. No change with options off. It's LOD and redraws, not framerates. Ken

Argh. It happened AGAIN!! Sure, heap abuse on me. Don't ever let me become your commander, but here's what I did: with my troops moving through and clearing blocks of 6 story flats, which are surrounded by high walls, I moved a pair of Bradley's into the compound to support the two assaulting squads. Other units were suppressing the contacts in the buildings. Yeah, I know, armor up too close. Off in the other quadrant I had several firefights, and two artillery strikes elsewhere. Each turn, beginning and end, I checked on my two assaulting squads (as well as a myriad of other active units). Since they did not find any enemy during the 5 minute clearing operation, I felt good. Foolish me. Somewhere in that 5 minutes, sometime, somehow, someway, someone destroyed one of the Bradleys. I sure wish I'd known about it when it happened. Ken

Steve, Thanks. I like a printed manual, but that's dependent on the quality of information as well as the level of editing. A good alternative or additional option would be the pdf manual WITH UPDATES! An out of date manual is worse than no manual at all (my apologies to the road atlas publishers from which I am plagiarizing). Note the thread I just started with corrections to the on-line manual. Feel free to add on to it. Ken

Another: page 198, PK w/Tripod, reads, "...under the breach..." should be "...under the breech..."

Gents, New manual, page 196, description of the AKS-74U: currently reads "...muzzle break..." it should, obviously, be "...muzzle brake..." Later, Ken

Paper Tiger, Good point. My purpose for that specific squad was to spot rooftop targets, report on movements, and engage any intermediate distance armor threatening my other troops. I may be wrong, but I thought split squads are more susceptible to adverse morale effects. Splitting off the AT team would weaken both elements of the squad. Additionally, the loss of 2 out of 9 trigger-pullers would lessen any suppressive firepower to engage enemy infantry trying to gain rooftops. In all, I thought the benefits of keeping the squad together outweighed any drawbacks. What are those drawbacks? Oh, the inability to withold inappropriate weapon use. Even if I had split off the Javelin team, the rifle team would still have retained several (at least) AT-4's. In that case, any TARGET command against contacts would result in them firing the AT-4's; that would go against my desire to hold them for armor targets. Hence, breaking off the AT team would have let me use only them to target the T-62 which started this. However, the rest of the squad probably would've squandered their AT-4's on other targets. Now, I'm not saying the game is unplayable. There are workarounds. Paper Tiger touched on one of them; splitting off AT teams whenever an ATGM Special Equipment is attached to a squad. Another workaround is never, ever, ever TARGET if you don't want Special Equipment ordnance to be expended; only use TARGET LIGHT. Another workaround is never ACQUIRE any kind of Special Equipment until you locate a target for that Special Equipment. Then, get a unit back to the vehicle carrying the gear and go through the acquisition process, move, gain LOS, and engage the enemy. Oh, only acquire the exact number of rounds of Special Equipment ordnance that you want expended. That way, for example, you won't fire 3 Javelins into a building when you only wanted 1. This is not a bug report, nor am I claiming the game is broken. I am trying to balance playability with realistic levels of fire discipline. As I have stated before, one of the strengths of this game is the ability for the player to act at several levels of command simultaneously: I am the vehicle commander, the team leader, the squad leader, the platoon leader, the company commander, the battalion arty FO, the battalion commander, all separately and all combined. I can dig down into which gear to drive a vehicle: SLOW, MOVE, REVERSE, etc. I can choose how many tubes of arty will fire when I call a fire mission. I can tell my squads to occupy the 6th floor of a building and look to the North. I can tell my tank to fire machinegun only at a target. I can move a team over to some casualties to begin first aid. But, I CANNOT keep my men from firing off every piece of Special Equipment ordnance they carry; I can either restrict them totally, or totally let them loose. There's got to be way of limiting this. I don't believe this is only desirable from a "control-freak" point of view. I feel this is a basic element of squad leadership, if not platoon level. The control of special ordnance when engaging targets. I am curious of any currently serving members have anything to say on this subject. If there is absolutely no command and control over Javelins and AT-4's during an engagement, then kudos to BF.C. If, however, it is expected that the weapon user defer to the squad leader in whether and when to use such a weapon if there is no immediate threat to the squad, then perhaps a tweak is not out of line. Regards, Ken

That's good news. My system shows constant redraws and an inverted LOD ring. Any improvement in drawing methodology is welcome news. Thanks, Ken

These are all great ideas. With my style of play it would be important to auto-unlock any weapons very soon. That's why I suggested that any change or loss of the original TARGET command would auto-unlock. I could see coming up with a reason to block the squad from using a weapon and then forgetting about for several turns. That would be an ooops. Kinda like the lieutenant in Aliens 2 taking all the weapon keys. The relevance of TARGET LIGHT: In a previous thread I asked, and was answered by Steve, about the difference between TARGET and TARGET LIGHT. I also ran some tests. The prime difference, other than firing Special Equipment with TARGET, was the ammo usage rate. TARGET fires twice as fast. TARGET LIGHT is better aimed. I don't know if BF.C will buy into this idea. There are 3 issues. First, it will take coding time and resources. Second, BF.C does not like to let players have any more control over their units than what BF.C deems appropriate, and based on what we have now BF.C did not think controlling Special Equipment is a player function. Third, and finally, I always sense BF.C has a bit of inertia to any outside idea (cheap reverse psychology ploy!). Regards, Ken

My take, since I am started this particular thread, is that the current red crosses/screams is totally inadequate. Run a test: place about 30 units or so (10 units per Stryker platoon), which is about a company. Have a hidden enemy somewhere on the map. Move around for about 15 turns as you approach an objective. The red-cross/scream is only noticable if you are very close to the unit in question. Let alone any yellows which may happen that turn. Now, you're obviously not inept, so you've spread your 30+ units about. The result is what we have now. After every single action phase you must poll each and every unit and see what state they are in. If you recognize a change in state, be it pinned, more suppression, another yellow, missing someone, or a red circle somewhere - all of which MUST BE A CHANGE from the previous state, then you can replay the turn and stay focused tight on that unit. Obviously that may mean 10 or more replays depending on the action. Of course, it could also mean that you just never notice something. Then, when you get in your assault positions, you notice that 3 squads have lost an air guard somewhere. Huh. Must've passed an enemy position. Oh well. Regards, Ken

Lethaface, What really got me thinking about this is the situation where you have a contace in a building. Your infantry squad has, say, 2 Javelins. You want to suppress the contact so another element can manuever into the building. If you TARGET, the TacAI will fire all weapons, including BOTH Javelins. If you TARGET LIGHT the amount of small arms fire will be half (approximately) of what TARGET would give. Therefore the contact will be less suppressed. I _want_ to TARGET the building with the contact, but under no circumstances do I want the squad to fire off both Javelins. As long as TARGET is locked onto the building with the contact, if I have HOLD on both Javelins, all is good. If an enemy tank appears, the TacAI can do its thing. If it determines the squad should break TARGET from the building and instead engage the tank, the HOLD disappears. This allows the TacAI to engage the tank with any and all Javelins. (Of course, the TacAI would need to know that the Javelins are available. Mere coding.) Now, assume a situation where you want to fire ONE Javeline, or AT-4, or whatnot, at a target. Maybe it's a bunker, or a building that MAY have enemy in it. There's no way to do so. You cannot un-acquire special equipment. You'd need to have the right amount of ordnance on hand in the squad. Your only solution would be to have an un-equipped squad mount a vehicle, wait a turn to acquire the one weapon, then come up to the firing point and TARGET the desired, err, target. Your solution could work. I'm just extrapolating out to conditions where ONE round will not destroy the target, yet would yield the results you want. Thanks, Ken

Why is Steve going to fire an AT-4 at his supermarket? Is it because of the ice?

I've built several machines. My current one is a quad-core running Vista64 Ultimate. Why? So I can use all 8 Gb of Ram. My other 3 are running XP. Vista is quite mature and runs all my applications - except CMx1. (8800GTX card.) Microsoft has publicly announced that they will not support XP in the near future. Why would anyone spend their money on an OS which has already been assigned a date of obsolescence? (Note that I intend on running my XP machines for many years beyond that date.) In short, you are exhibiting quite a bit of computer arrogance without knowing why the users want to put Vista on their machines. Regards, Ken

Gents, Having looked at the online manual, page 48, bold red 12, shows the area I'm talking about as being "Special Equipment". If the player selects HOLD on an item of Special Equipment, the TacAI could just act as if that particular piece of kit is missing (excepting the penalty for its weight). The ability to HOLD Special Equipment would be limited to expendable munitions. This would obviate any complexities associated with having a Javelin, but the CLU is on HOLD. Extend as needed for Red equipment. Thanks, Ken

Drusus, I checked the thread you linked; thanks. My idea is subtly different. I would not want any user control over organic weapons - the ones indicated in the user interface as green or yellow, depending on the individual's status. I'm only interested in gaining a stop command on the EXTRA weapons. Regards, Ken

Huntarr, I disagree. The TacAI may or may not have fired at the non-threat T-62. However, _I_ wanted the infantry to fire on the T-62, not some of the small teams scurrying around a little closer to my squad. My squad was supposed to expend ordnance on the T-62. The rain of AT-4's was bit of an unintended consequence. TARGET is the only way I have to explicity engage a specific target with AT weapons. Refining my user interface idea, right clicking over the extra weapons would enable HOLD, signified by a red box around the item and a bold red "HOLD" across the icon. Obviously left clicking is reserved to bring up the icon's stats, such as penetration, range, weight, etc. Thanks, Ken

Gents, A thought occurred during the replay of a WEGO turn. First, the situation: I had a U.S. squad equipped as an anti-armor overwatch unit. I'd taken the Javelin launcher and the 2 or 3 spare missiles as well as 4 or 5 AT4's. The squad was up on the sixth or seventh floor of a building. They gained LOS to a T-62 in motion around 600 meters away. Perfect. I targeted the T-62; they let rip with everything - including all the AT-4's. Everything missed. Ach. Here's where my thought came in. I would never have wanted them to use the AT-4's. The range was too far and the target was moving. I would think the odds of hitting would've been very low. The Javelin was the preferred weapon. The T-62 never targeted my squad. Hence, there was no threat to them. The raining of AT-4's was fun to watch, but quite a waste. I would like to be able to designate certain weapons as "HOLD", so they will not be fired. I am not speaking about organic weapons (M4's, M240's, M249's, M203's, etc.) but the extra weapons added into the slots next to the command status area. Ignoring the coding complexities, I'd think hovering the cursor over the weapon loadout portion of the user interface could open an option: HOLD or RELEASED. By default all additional weapons are RELEASED. Also, I'd think as HOLD would only become an option AFTER selecting TARGET. As soon as TARGET goes away (either through elimination or CLEAR TARGET or pinning or selection of a different target) all weapons are RELEASED. TacAI retains discretion in event of a threat to the unit. The most common circumstances would involve infantry units with many various engagements. If I am equipped with rockets of whatever form but don't want to have them wasted on area TARGET firing, I cannot withold them now. If I TARGET an enemy in a building, often every single Javelin goes "whoooshing" in. Whether I want them to or not. The only way to keep infantry from firing rocket weapons is to use TARGET LIGHT, yet that witholds a significant portion of small arms fire. HOLD would let me TARGET instead of TARGET LIGHT any enemy unit or suspected position. If I only wanted one Javelin to nail a bunker, I could HOLD the remaining missiles. That would prevent the Javelin equipped unit from exhausting its supply on a non-armor TARGET. On the other hand, by not specifying HOLD when I TARGET an enemy, that would allow the AI to fire whatever it deems correct. That would allow the game to play as it is right now. So, if anyone thinks it's a "control-freak" issue, they would be free not to use it. In-game I am the squad leader. I choose its path. I choose its target. I choose whether it rearms, hides, loads a vehicle, etc. In real life wouldn't a squad leader have just a little bit of input into whether or not a Javelin or AT-4 gets fired? I'm sure there would be lots of other circumstances which others have faced where the indiscriminant AI use of the squads add-on assets has resulted in sub-optimal outcomes. Thoughts? Thanks, Ken

Cpl Steiner stated it exactly as I would.

akd, Those are all good suggestions. I'm sure there is room to tweak them, but adopting commands like that would certainly be a great start. Thanks, Ken

Hmmm, I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. In fact, I don't remember you mentioning anything at all... Thanks! Ken

Yeah. However, as a control freak (only at specific times in game), I feel that I should be able to lay down coax fire on any point I choose. That would save my autocannon ammo for the times I need it, as well as the other weapons. In the case of suppression fire on suspected positions, the coax is the best choice, especially when considiering the ammo loadouts. I should not have to wait until I am out of ammo for one weapon before I can fire the other. Of course, getting the AAV right is a first step. The AI should be able to use any and all weapons at its disposal as it sees fit. I am not trying to override an AI decision to FIRE. I am trying to override an AI decision to HOLD FIRE. If the AI does not see a target, but I, the vehicle commander, understanding the tactical picture and trying to support a FUTURE move by my troops, should be able to FIRE on points I choose. It could be an area of trees and brush that I THINK could hold an ambush team, or it could be to fire on a house before my troops rush it. That decision is MINE. The AI is out of its depth in those situations. Why should I be limited to blasting with autocannon instead of coax? Regards, Ken

Yeah, something. Of course, which is TARGET and which is TARGET LIGHT? Minor, but still needs to be addressed. That solution would sidestep the need for BF.C to re-examin their approach with regards to Bradleys (and other combat vehicles with multiple weapons) where the TARGET/TARGET LIGHT toggle merely inhibits the ATGM (or other special-use weapon) firing on a target, leaving the player powerless to use the coax only. Thanks, Ken