GreenAsJade

Even regular HE: at 100+ meters?

FWIW, relative spotting has nothing to do with this. The question is "is it reasonable for covered arc to function as a means to stop anti-tank teams opening fire too early?" How are you supposed to set up a 90m tank ambush if shreksters are always going to decide for themselves that a tank is a threat at 100m? I do want the TacAI, and I think it is wonderful. I just think that it should respect a covered arc. I think that right now either covered arc has some sort of bug, or the perception of threat that breaks the arc way too high. "A theat" is not something out there that might maybe shoot at you. "A threat" is something already shooting at you, and looks like it will kill you if you don't do something. A threat is something that will definitely see you and shoot at you. A tank at 100m is not an immediate threat to someone hiding behind bocage with orders to ambush it at 90m. In my opinion. GaJ

I don't agree with this. No self-preservation was necessary. Even if that tank was not already abandonned, they had no reason to think it was a particular threat. They were nicely hidden behind bocage till they shot at it. Nothing, including especially that tank, was firing at them. This to me is the time when covered arc _should_ work. If that tank opened fire on them sure they should shoot back. If a shrek team is going to think that every tank it sees is "a threat", then covered arc is never going to work, is it? That would be rather pointless... GaJ

I just don't understand what circumstances you expect "covered arc" to actually work in, if you don't expect it to work in this circumstance? That said, if someone comes along and says "yep, 50% of the time they will ignore covered arc due to panic", then we know where we stand.... I can live with that, if its deliberate. gunnergoz thinks it's the latter... but based on what, I'm not clear. Anyone else have something more factual to offer? GaJ

I dunno. Suppose they didn't realise the tank was not abandonned. So they see a tank and feel "threatened", this is an excuse to fire? In that case what's the point of covered arc at all? A tank is _always_ going to feel threatening. And note that these guys weren't even rattled. I think I would agree with you if they had been under fire, rattled, or in any way battle-affected. But they just ran up from cosy cover into another cosy cover. There was no fire there at all. What was the threat? I guess it comes down to "what's your point?" If your point is "there is a way that you can rationalise this as a player"..... sure. I can rationalise it. _My_ point is that at this early stage in the game's life we're all providing feedback about whether everything is "working just right", and my feeling is that this was a surprise, and didn't feel right. If I later discover that most times covered arcs work fine, and these were just trigger happy dudes... great, no worries. If it's your experience that it usually works fine. ... great, let us know. Meantime, I table this as one data point that maybe it isn't working quite right... GaJ

Am I right in saying that the table on the left says that by about 80 feet out, which is less then 30m, there are stuff-all fragments-per-square-foot, and so the chance of being killed by one is slim-at-best (if you do get hit it will be heavy and fast enough to hurt a lot, there just aren't many). At 100m, 300ft, there are 0.0002 fragments per square foot. Like "no way you're gunna get hit"... GaJ

So... last turn I gave this shrek team that just arrived at the bocage line the following orders: - Do _not_ shoot at that nearest tank, it is already abandonned - Wait till the other two come in range, then shoot them I did this by giving the guys a covered arc. They are in command, and they are not rattled. What's the first thing they do? Shoot the abandonned tank, giving away their position... rats! GaJ

Trenches aren't _always_ useless: ... I was encouraged to see them survive the direct hit on the trench wall...

So ... I wanted to set up a smallish infantry only QB. I can't find a suitable map! I've been looking at various maps in the editor, and one thing I'm not really understanding is that some of them don't have terrain objectives for one side. Does this mean that there's an automatic victory condition operating for the other side, where they will simply get points for kills? Does that apply in scenarios as well: do you get points for kills even if it's not part of the "mission objectives"? It's interesting how although there appear at first glance to be stacks of QB maps, in fact the options available for something like "a small inf ME" are remarkably limited. By the time you rule out "I've already played on that map" for each player, and "these ones are really too open for inf" or "these ones are too wooded for combined arms" ... it seems like we're going to run out really quickly.. GaJ

Thanks Chad! That sort of testing takes time, much appreciated. One thing that would be helpful to clarify: I think that you were describing the _round_ and not the smoke itself? So it seems that your experiment confirms that normal smoke rounds are as deadly as HE. What about the smoke itself? Is it definitely deadly to run through WP smoke after it is floating around in the game? What about normal smoke? On a separate related topic, it seems to me that in general HE is too effective at distance from the blast. It's almost as if all those little pieces that explode from the blast are being modelled as if they travel without slowing down to their final destination, making it as deadly to be 100m from a blast as next to it. I have to say I totally doubt whether blast shrapnel is being modelled piece by piece, so it's actually an abstraction that's out of wack, right? GaJ

"Hide" in foxholes is a good suggestion, except it too is not realistic. It goes too far in the other direction: completely cuts of the possibility of spotting enemy from there and returning fire. As I started out saying: the troops need to "hide" (duck) _when there's a threat_. Prior to that, as someone else said, they need to expose only their heads, not their torso (either explicitly or abstractedly). I'm too scared to put my men in trenches: they look too exposed GaJ

Darn ... _that's_ the problem: inexperienced foxholes!!! I _knew_ there must be an explanation!

Is it really the case that more can be done we-go? Why is it the case? Is it because RT players leave units lying around doing nothing because they are too busy to give them orders? If so ... that would seem to suck on the realism front. If not ... then they should be able to get the same amount done. Or even more, because We-go players have to wait till the next minute passes before they can adjust to changing circumstances... GaJ

Its my tanks that are dieing like flies in our game. My men only seem to die appallingly when trying to take the house And I thought I already sent a turn... I'm waiting for yours! GaJ (wanders off to check) re-edit: damn, I'd played it already, just forgot to send! doh! I sooooo miss PBEMH!!! All your games listed, with status visible, one-click entry into the game... sob

Systematic experiments trump casual observation, for sure. If this is repeatable, it's a good start. On the other hand, I think the ratio is way too low. Guys in foxholes should be able to survive MG fire indefinitely by not poking their heads up. One problem with the experiement described is that it doesn't mention the difficulty of getting the guys to get in and stay in the foxholes in the first place. That is a separate woe in addition to the perceived lack of cover that they provide. I say "perceived" because this may be one of those representation things. When some guy dies in the open, you think "damn, that had to happen". When some guy takes it in the chest standing up in a foxhole you think "WTF?!", which overwhelms any objective sense of "how much fire did he avoid before he died". The video I posted has another curious aspect to it. There appears to be no incoming fire directly associated with the guy's death. Some fire zings by just before he dies, but this is actually aimed at, and going towards, guys behind him to the right. Why did he actually die?! GaJ

I think that I will always have a save file of any situation that I describe: just ask. I play PBEM and don't tend to clean up old files that often... GaJ

Good observation: I feel like that too: I'm amazed how much my guys die in fortifications and don't die in the open!

Good to know. So it's hard to tell whether the abstract cover for foxholes is not enough, or whether the ducking behaviour is not enough ... but something is out of whack. It may be that in the movie, that guy was just going to die anyhow... like he took his cover dice roll and bought it. The "grating" thing is watching him sit up there just asking to die. The "accumulated experience" thing is that guys die like flies in foxholes, so it feels wrong... GaJ

Interesting that you say this. In some other thread Steve said (I thought he said) that the cover from things was physical, including foxholes: the comment at the time was in relation to "if it looks like they are exposed, then they are exposed". It seems "unreasonable" that a shrek guy would let himself get killed by MG fire while in a foxhole reloading... GaJ

Note: this particular game is using the demo... its a game that started before the full version came out. But I haven't seen anything better in the full version. Script: Oh! A tank! Quick Shoot! (blam) "Hmm - missed, better reload, now where did I put that ammo?" "Oh th ...." Why didn't this guy duck down into the foxhole before reloading? From my limited perspective as a player, it seems that where in the old days foxhole cover was entirely abstracted, it has now become something that is soley modelled by the physical obstruction of the mound. This is proving not enough, because the AI troops aren't smart enough to make proper use of the cover. It seems that a solution would be "easy" (easy to say )... like houses, foxholes could provide abstract cover: roll a dice to see if actually the guy managed to duck. Failing that, guys have to _actually_ duck much better. GaJ

Sequoia posted a new Mod at the CM Mods Warehouse: More Visible Mine Markes, by Sequoia Description: More visible Mine Markers by request.

Lots of valuable info here. Can someone summarise: - It seems like any smoke round, tank or arty, will burst doing damage, right? - Is it safe to run through smoke after the round has popped? - Are there some smokes that are OK and others that aren't? GaJ

Good job! Great to know!

Bloody great news, great input! Thanks Sgt Joch! When it's working like this it will really really feel _right_ !!

note: it's worth sprucing up your mod with a pretty preview image, even if it's a sound mod, because mods with no image tend to go to the bottom of various lists at CMMODs: the pretty things get displayed at the top GaJ