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stikkypixie

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Posts posted by stikkypixie

  1. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on it.

    I just don't waste the money on the "big" artillery. I'd rather buy another platoon, or a couple more mortar teams. Sometimes my opponent will buy some big guns, and they end up killing some of my troops - but it never seems enough to be worth it.

    You can't put a price on the firework show that comes with it :D.

  2. We are often told it isn't a module. Therefore it's a young gripe in the context of this release.

    I've accepted that there are some things that will not change in CM2, not unreasonable to hope that this isn't one of them.

    I do have reason for hope though, the introduction of new contact icons is a step in the right direction I think.

  3. In addition to what MikeyD wrote, I recall Steve also mentioning that with 1:1 modeling, there would be problems in calculating just who on a tank would have cover from incoming fire and who wouldn't, keeping in mind that fire could be coming from multiple directions. It would be a real resource hog for that reason alone.

    Michael

    Are you sure about that? The whole idea of the model based ballistics is that stuff is taken care of naturally.

  4. That's the thing though isn't it. The added variety in the terrain does not make it harder to play the game. Just as in CMx1 you plot your movement order to it and the guys will do their thing. There is no need to memorize anything. What you seem to be after is to be able to know that if I'm on tile "XYZ" my cover will be a definite 13% and this will affect my assault, this way or some other way.

    It's a different style of play than mine for example, where I only roughly gauge the characteristics of the terrain, not precisely but enough to know whether I want to risk putting guys there or not. If things go well, they can stay, otherwise I just tell them to pack up and run away.

    A lot of the scenarios ARE very hard to win, but I've noticed that when I lose it was due to my lack of planning and patience rather that something the game isn't telling me. If I lost a scenario it isn't because I picked a tile with only 15% cover instead of the one with 17% (or whatever). It's usually because of something larger than that.

    I don't know about your background, I have no military background whatsoever (and I like to keep it that way), so to me it's no surprise I mess up so often as it takes years to learn the tactics, doctrinal concepts of an army and implement the correctly in battle. And I don't expect to be able to do as well as a real army commander would just by playing a couple of hours a week.

    [edited] To say that, the added "realism" of CMx2 is not its variety of terrain. You could do the same to CMx1, and it would still play the same way. But rather in the introduction of 1:1 soldiers, relative spotting and C2.

  5. Well the key thing is patience and luck. The ATGM vehicles are not great in offense, you want them sitting in the back just far enough until the target cursor indicates hull-down or partial hull-down, and leave them there. It helps if they are in communications with other units doing spotting.

    The problem is, that not all scenarios that have ATGM vehicles are suitable for their optimal use. But try the Gung Ho campaign (in the repository), the second mission gives you great opportunity to practice being patient :). And be sure to relocate them once the sun is up ;).

  6. The issue is that knowledge of RL capabilties is a hindrance in this instance. I can't recall how many "mast-equipped" ATGM and FO vehicles etc I lost cos I had no idea that the safety (and added visibility over obstructions) of the mast wasn't modeled. An example of the schizophrenic nature of CM2.

    Of course one learns to adapt and still enjoy the GAME. But, it gets real tired fast listening to wonks going on and on about how "realistic" a sim it is.

    It is realistic in the sense that if you employ real world tactics you will get the right results, but to each his own. Personally I don't see how putting in the capabilities of a piece of equipment that has only marginal advantage at the distances (or even the max distance for that matter) of a typical scenario would make this a better sim/game. If somehow that spoils the game for you well there's not much anyone can do about that. And to the point, there is only 1 mast equipped vehicle in the game and that mast does NOT allow you to see pas obstructions not in real life and not in the game.

  7. Hmmm. Not sure. It's spotting capabilities seem no better than anything else, including a scout team dismounted from a jeep.

    It won't spot better under "normal" game circumstances. However if you play night scenarios or scenarios in any other that degrade normal vision you'll see an increased capability.

    Check this link:

    http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1217524&postcount=28

    The other advantage is that when you call in artillery with this sucker, it will be quick and precise and you'll need less spotting rounds to drop lots of tnt :).

  8. Yep, quite happy with that. How it's abstracted I don't mind. But, a mast equipped vehicle should be a) better at spotting (in some cases), and B) more importantly, quite a lot harder to kill while doing so. I'm no programmer but one would think that should be doable. It's when the vehicle doesn't even proximate the performance of it's RL counterpart that it's a bit of a let down. Better leave it out altogether if it cant be modelled IMHO.

    The vehicle IS equipped with other special optics that is correctly modelled, so its inclusion is justified in my opinion. From what information I can find about the mast, is that its advantages usually fall out of the scope of the game. It is still just a radar you know :).

  9. I am playing "The Main Event" right now, and my Shermans finally spotted <?> after sitting for 8 minutes in overwatch, while my infantry is getting cut to pieces by enemy MG fire. The distance is only 600m mind you, so they are in the thick of things.

    Edited to say: I wonder why experiences differ so much among players?

  10. I believe that a ? is spotting it. Until they implement false contacts like in CMX1 it will remain a spotting incident. I have yet to see a ? where the unit actually wasn't located except when moving.

    Was 00:01:12 from the time of the first shot or just the start of the test? Sometimes I have had the sniper just not open up for a minute or 2. I set up a test giving 700+ meters between sniper and squad and I didn't see the sniper fire until they were about 600m away.

    Are you using the heavy rock from CMFI?

    I agree with dieseltaylor. Maybe we need the median times or maybe throw out the outliers.

    Are you HUNTING your rilfe squad towards the sniper?

    There weren't false contacts in CMx1 either, you had false sounds contacts and those a in CMx2 as well. A <?> means that it "knows" a unit is there, but it cannot spot it yet. You can get <?> by being in C2 with other units which then pass the information on to you, without you even having LOS to the target.

    So spotting times, is when you can actually identify the unit.

    The times I've given, are times from the first shot. I'm using CMBN (cause I don't have the fancy new toy yet).

  11. 12 seconds is very quick I would think. Regardless of that if the variance is 12 seconds to over 360 seconds is that not rather ball breaking? Incidentally it helps if you enter the commonest scores so:

    12233444556612233555 =71/20 gives an average of 3.5 but the commonest time is 5

    if we have the series to play with we can see if it is actually

    1616161616 the average is 70/10 and the average time is 3.5 but that will never occur

    I was never taught stats but I know its great for messing things up :)

    What is a ball breaking about a large variance? There are so many factors involved even in such a simple setup, that you cannot control all of them. That is why I'm planning to run some more to get a better feel, time permitting of course.

    By the way, if you see a series like 1616161616 (and if there are no other constraints) and you think 3.5 will never occur, you might be in for a surprise ;).

    The average gives you an indication for what to expect if no other information is available, and even if only 1's and 6's are allowed, this still gives you useful information in the sense that it's 50/50 chance.

  12. Ok, had some time to run some tests.

    Here is the setup:

    - Conditions are default.

    - Axis: ONLY 1 regular (across the board) sniper team on a rocky + brush tile

    - Allied: ONLY 1 regular (across the board) rifle squad HUNTING across 680m of grass towards the sniper team

    - If the rifle squad hit the ground, I left them there.

    - No cover arcs for either squads.

    - I noted the time of the first shot, the time of spotting a <?> and the time for spotting the sniper

    - 10 tests until I got bored :)

    * On average it took 00:01:12 (HH:MM:SS) to get a <?> and 00:01:48 to get a full identification

    * There some deviation on the spotting times: 00:01:45 for <?> contacts and 00:02:01 for

    full contact

    * The minimum to spot was 12 seconds and the maximum time was over 6 minutes

    Although the sample size is quite small, I don't see evidence of spotting being too quickly. The brush and the rocky terrain hardly give any concealment, yet it took on average 1 minute and 48 seconds to spot a sniper. At about 20 seconds per shot, this means that the sniper team could unload 5 rounds before being spotted by a 11 man squad.

    I'll try with a higher concealment tile later :).

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