Steiner14

Too bad to hear that, Hunter. Hats off for trying! I'd be interested, where the problems were? Too view specifications, to huge scale, too many features, no documentation in the code? And what i don't understand, why wasn't the game developed like an onion from the core of import/export to CMx1 (Incremental development) ? The community primarily asked for import/export to CMBB. So a first version with import from CMBB, export to an Excel-sheet and vice versa, would have been enough already to get it rolling. Why wasn't this route taken?

Kulik, your idea sounds fantastic to me. This could boost WEGO up another level.

I don't know what you are talking about.

Idea: I don't know how it is handled already, but i'd like to see the sound information given to the player (i.e. from a unspotted ATG) being reduced to the amount, that fits to the real situation and does not give way to much information about the enemy's position away. Although spotting by sound may not be that much of a problem playing RT, since the replay feature is missing, but playing WEGO, recon by sound was a great gamey help.

I don't know how it was in other armys, but in the Wehrmacht when ATGs were the backbone of defensive positions, they were always supported by MG42s, often several of them. The HMGs make it in most cases impossible for the tank-crews, to think about giving signs to friendly tanks. They have to run for their lives and seek cover ASAP, like the infantry, that comes along with the tanks. The tank-commanders of the remaining tanks, do not have the time to look for possible signs, too. When an ATG opens fire and the first tank is hit, they are under extreme pressure of decision-making, because usually they see nothing, they know nothing, but in the case of a direct hit with an explosion or blowed off turrets, they have to decide in less than 10 seconds what to do next. Waiting for bailing out crews in the hope to get some signs, is not an option.

IMO that is not a good example, because that's not supressive fire. That's useless waste of ammo. Who should be supressed from a Striker driving by and doing a fireworks? The women in the kitchen from cooking?

Steve, if you don't want to reduce the effectiveness of area-fire against AT-guns that much, could it be a solution, if the shield of the AT-gun and it's position would offer a (much) better protection against area-fire effects that appear somewhere in front of the gun? Since CMx2 can consider the extremely small silhouette of well dug in ATGs and faster movements and turning of ATGs are considered, could that maybe be already enough for more realistical results?

Maybe it would help, if we could find numbers, how realistical the use of area-fire against heavy weapons was? I want to raise an additional aspect why area-fire in CMx1 is so effective: it's the immobility and slowlyness of ATGs (also HMGs). Therefore someone only needs to have two 81mm mortars available for each attacking group and every ATG is toast without any chance to escape and without own losses. With almost 100% success. But in reality they could change their positions quite quickly if cover was available. For example, Otto Riehs in his famous fight, was positioned only beside a street with his PAK, and even during the rolling attack on his position, he considered to change the position. But he couldn't bring the Kübelwagen to the gun, because there was no cover for it. What i want to say with that example: the unrealistical success of area-fire against heavy weapons can be seen in conjunction with other aspects, i.e. the undermodelled responsiveness of ATGs (and HMGs) to threats in CMx1. Turning around was already mentioned, but also retreating quickly is one aspect. Or seen from the other way around: knowing as attacker about the extreme effectiveness of my area fire, already makes certain defensive weapons less effective. If i imagine that area-fire is less effective against heavy weapons AND that they maybe are no longer bound to their positions like they are in CMx1, i would REALLY think twice before i would order my tanks forward with area fire until they get LOS/LOF to the old expected position. Maybe the ATG will welcome me again 10 meters beside it's old position? The same applies for mortars: if i as attacker do no longer know, that my 81mm mortar fire will have almost 100% sucess against single ATG positions, but instead there is a good probability the ATG can retreat and come back later, things will become much more uncertain and therefore ATGs more dangerous. A problem is see, if area-fire is reduced too much in it's effectiveness, that certain weapons could become too strong (i.e. dug in HMGs). The correct balancing between the several measures seems important and one measure can be traded against another (i.e. quicker retreat be traded against a slighter reduction of the area-fire effect). Another effect, why area-fire is so effective against ATGs in CMx1, is the bahviour of the ATG-crews. I don't know if it is possible to model it differently from infantry, but while normally self preservation against incoming fire has a very high priority in the field, the situation for ATG-crews can be very different: when engaged in battles against tanks, the crew even has to ignore incoming suppressive fire. While neighboring units already put their heads down, the ATGs (in conjunction with their protecting HMGs) are not allowed to care about own losses in that moment. Therefore i'd encourage to see solutions of too effective area-fire against heavy weapons in a package of possible additional measures.

Steve, ofcourse I can accept it, if you don't want it in the game. It's your game, you're the boss. But the arguments you brought up against it, are not convincing at all to me and therefore i wont let them leave uncommented: 3-4 more shots of unspotted ATGs before "god" can suppress them, do not change anything? If recon by fire is brought up as argument against area-fire delays, how can this be backed by reality? Recon by fire needs dedicated commands with exact description of the target, given to single soldiers, while supressive area-fire as reaction to an enemy action can in some situations be ordered much quicker, since the target area can be logical from the action's context. And how does a delay of say 20 seconds affect the outcome of recon-by fire? Not at all.

Sure. It's a matter of weighting. IMO 10-20 seconds do not matter that much in infantry area-firefights in reality. And if seconds matter in the game, then something is planned wrong anyway. The effective delay in the game can be imagined as giving detailed orders who and where to fire. In case of loud surroundings, questioning back will already give several seconds of delay. Your example of immediate additional area-fire is valid only for a very small portiuon of tactical situations. I cannot imagine that another group opens fire on a location, only because a group is already firing on it. Maybe in 100 times 1. But what is much more usual, that the first group has to signalise the second group, that they need supporting fire. And here the delay increases realism, too. And last but not least, a 10-20 seconds delay for area-fires commands does not have a big impact in infantry firefights but should make a HUGE difference when it comes to guns and their efficiency. Sorry i can only see a very small portion of disadvantages under very rare situations, and then not having much negative impact on realism. But i see some drastic improvements on a broad variety of common tactical situations.

Will fieldguns be capable of indirect firing?

IMO WEGO without command delays is like a person without character.

Gents, therefore i suggested to put a delay of a few seconds on area-fire commands. For example 20 seconds mean that a fast german ATG-crew has 5 more shots, before the god-like area-fire will show any effect. That would make a huge difference in the outcome (and can be perfectly fineadjusted by the amount of delay). And no Steve, i can't remember your invalid arguments against it anymore.

Steve mentioned recently, the are trying to implement command-delays for CMN.

Thanks for the info. Superb!

Stupid me. Ofcourse.

Cool! Idea: Although trenches will become visible after setup, wouldn't it be nice, if the scenario designer could decide, if he wants certain trenches being visible during the setup-phase already? (i.e. representing a well reconnoitered area, or the battle of a counter-attack)

JasonC, very interesting post and numbers. Idea: To further increase realism and unpredictability, dummy dugouts/bunkers would be very nice. I mean objects that look identical to the real ones, but offer no protection. The enemy must be already adequately close to identify them as dummy positions. When it comes to artillery barrages on own positions, the existance of dummy positions could make a big difference.

The main problem i see is the predictability, if most of the defensive positions are always visible from the beginning. I can understand, why Steve doesn't want to invest too much labour into spottable trenches because of the reasons he explained. But if one thing is out of scope, maybe a kind of (easier to implement) substitution can help to go into the same direction? 1. Spotting option for foxholes. Steve already stated, they will have a look into making foxholes spotable. If that can be achieved maybe it can also be achieved, to give the scenario designer the option to define which foxholes should be visible from the beginning and which ones need to be spotted. 2. Spotting option for bunkers. Offering a flat bunker-abstraction for that kind of bunker. A bunker-object that does not change the underlying terrain, just sit's as very flat spottable "vehicle" on the terrain. Again the scenario designer can decide, if he want's it being visible from the beginning or being spotable.

Here's another idea regarding spottable trenches (or other objects, that should not be visible from the beginning): How about offering a second kind of object, i.e. a 2D-trench, for the problematic objects? So the scenario designers can decide, which one they prefer for the battle. What seems very interesting to me is the positive side effect, that uncertainty could be increased dramatically. The battle starts with the reconnoitered trenches (and/or foxholes, bunkers,...), but it is possible that unknown fortifications could appear during the battle. Or not. Just like the designer needs/wants it.

+1 Or as luxury option: viewing heights made selectable, so the player(s) can determine, if they want an additional map overview, for example. Playing with those CMx1-iron man rules was very exciting, but it takes very high self discipline in difficult situations not to break the rules. Therefore i never had played them against human oponents, only AI. But those battles were the most exciting ones. If that options could be made permanent as soon as the game starts, that would be fantastic. I'd love to play that way against human oponents, too.

Thanks for the detailed info. Because vehicles can hide undulations in the terrain below them, maybe permanent and fixed "sound objects" for the enemy player could be used, to hide the undulations in the map? They sit on top of the undulations. They would disappear as soon as LOS is established.

Moved to the trenches discussion.

Here's another idea about foxholes (trenches): What about separating the visual representation of foxholes from the object "foxhole"? To be more precise: creating a new class "visible foxhole" (inherited from vehicle class) and instantiate a "visible foxhole" object for each "map foxhole" as VEHICLE object. Now: Foxhole (MapObject class) Then: MapFoxhole (MapObject class) & VisibleFoxhole (Vehicle class) Additionally the original map-object "map foxhole" is made invisible without any texture. And the new foxhole object, the "visible foxhole", is created for the visual representation only and is created as a special vehicle object, i.e. without height and unmovable. Therefore for the visibility of foxholes the rules of vehicles would apply: fully visible to the friendly player, while for the opponent's side, they stay invisible until adequate LOS is established.

That's not true. I already mentioned, that it takes time for the NCO to give area fire orders. So even under the best possible circumstances, a delay is realistic. IMO it's not correct, that even the unit's TacAI always simulates the amount of time to aquire and identify targets, but area fire works instantly.