Paper Tiger
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Posts posted by Paper Tiger
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It's been a while since I updated this as I've been hard at work playtesting the early missions with v1.10. The first mission in particular was affected by the new patch inasmuchas the conscripts were putting up a harder fight. However, I manged to force the enemy to surrender before time expired without taking casualties that would make most of you reload and start again. Then I moved on to 'Orchard Road'.
I first playtested it a couple of times without Red receiving any reinforcements and I found the battle to be fun but a bit easy. It was fairly simple for Blue to capture all the VP locations within the 2 hour time limit. So I added the planned reinforcements on Saturday and ... OUCH... I got my ass handed to me. I had to decide whether I was going to omit the reinforcements and keep the battle simple but fun, or make it a potential killer. Naturally, I couldn't accept the second option so I decided on a third solution... a prequel.
New Mission 2 - Hit and Run
This is another very large map, (2km x 1.2km) and it's going to be used twice in this campaign. You'll first encounter it before Orchard Road and you'll get the chance to kill some of those reinforcements scheduled for 'Orchard Road'. It's going to have some VERY strange victory conditions so you should prepare yourself to 'lose' this mission even though you definitely won it. You will also get to use a few of those new BRD-M 2 ATGM vehicles equipped with the AT-5. So far, I'm finding them quite challenging to use but I'm sure in the course of further playtests I'll find the best way to use them.
Since it's a large map, I really want to use it again as it looks like it will be a good map for a more mobile battle. Since this map is located to the west of the Orchard Road map, I'll probably use it again as a group 2 battle as Group 2 attempt open the road to Amarah and the 'Perdition' stage of the campaign. Obviously, this second battle will require me to make some changes to the map to facilitate a better battle and those changes will be incorporated into this battle.
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I have to agree with the OP. I play on Iron settings and it seems to me that there are just two levels of info on spotted units: occassionally you will spot a '?' which then turns into a full icon or, more usually I get the full icon straight away. That full icon tells me if the unit is an standard infantry unit, an ATGM unit, a machine gun team, or a FOS, or whatever. And if I select that enemy unit, I get a pretty good idea which formation it's part of too. Now, personally, I think that's WAY too much information given to the player in too short a space of time. I'd prefer it if we have an intermediate level of intelligence, say a generic infantry counter that further observation reveals it's specific type. And now that FOS units are No1 priority targets for the player, they should be much harder to identify fully than say a machine gun team or an ATGM team that are actively wielding their weapons in the face of the enemy.
Please note that all of the above refers to spotting infantry units only. I have no objections to the rapid identification of vehicles in the game as I feel that's realistic.
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Secondbrooks
Biggest problem in current StratAI is it's inability to react to anything. This is what CMx1 AI did better (maybe i sucked at playing, but it gave me supprise or two with it's counterattacks)
Agree with the first part but definitely not the second. I used to get frustrated that the AI would just abandon a nice defensive position to go and counterattack some pokey little flag, often suicidally and with no effect. As a result, the flag they were supposed to be protecting was much more vulnerable.
Sure, the total non-responsiveness of the AI to the player's actions during a mission is a pinch but I believe that BFC are working to include scripting into the AI programming at some point in the future. In fact Moon almost said as much earlier in this thread. No doubt, it will enable the AI to react to players actions more effectively during a mission. Then we'll all be happy
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Normal Dude. Good points...
Other AI things that would be nice to see:
- Ability to name AI plans.
I would LOVE to see that too. I often name my plans on paper and it would be nice to have this feature to remind us what each plan is designed to do as well.
- Ability to switch off AI plan 1 (As in "not used"). It's kinda annoying when trying to test the other AI plans by themselves.
This is on the to-do list. I believe it was Moon who told me that it might make the Brit module. It is SO frustrating setting Plan 1 to use rarely to playtest a new AI plan but after 20-30 minutes playtesting, you notice that you're playing plan 1 AGAIN!!!
- More than 8 AI groups.\
Absolutely. I think this one change alone would improve the quality of the AI in missions exponentially. I'm sure you meant to include more than 16 orders per plan too as without extra orders, those extra groups would just do squat. It's been brought up before but it didn't get noticed by BFC.
- A better explanation of how the "exit before/after" works. I've experimented with it, and it STILL confuses me.
Ha ha. I'm glad you 'fessed up' first. I have to confess that I'm still a bit vague about it too. Since this has been the subject of more than a couple of threads, it's remarkable how it has been ignored by BFC. Steve is more than happy to spend hours of keyboard time explaining other, frankly, less important aspects of the game to people who don't understand them. And I was disappointed to see that the new V1.10 manual hadn't received an update. I suspect that they don't know how it works either.
No comments on your next two points.
- Ability to dictate a time for AI artillery to begin a fire mission. Useful for getting it to use smoke screens correctly, since timing is everything. Also, ability to define particular AI artillery batteries/sections to particular targets.
Yes, a nice optional delay for the support target zone would be fantastic, just like the player has when he is making his pre-planned artillery barrage. Immediate or 5 minutes sir? It would make AI artillery even more effective and keep the AI honest too.
I'd also like to have AI artillery support plans integrated into an AI attack plan so that the artilery hits/interdicts those areas that are important to that particular plan. I'd also like a Porche.
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Sounds like you're playing 'Ambush'. Those are AT-14 Kornets and they have a mnimum range of 100+ metres. You must have moved them to the rooftop so they will require 3-4 minutes to deploy. You'll know this because when you have the unit selected you can read what they're doing in the bottom left of your screen
Team Ldr: deploying
Anti tank: deploying
Soldier: deploying
Once they've deployed the weapon you'll find they're more than eager to fire those precious missiles off at any vehicular target so watch them carefully. When the AT guy is aiming he will stop if he loses LoS to his target and he must start over again. If he loses LoS when guiding, well, sometimes it hits and other times it misses.
In 'Hasrabit' you'll encounter the AT-14 in the Special Forces missions and AT-13's in the Republican Guard missions. The AT-13 is different from the AT-14 in that you must ORDER the team to deploy their kit. Otherwise, they'll just sit, and sit and eventually die. Both the AT-13 and AT-14 will usually kill any Red tank with one hit. Just watch out for tanks in trees as trees can prematurely detonate he warhead and the tank survives. AT-7 (Republican Guard Recon) and AT-4 teams deploy automatically.
As for vehicle mounted systems, the BMP-2 has the AT-5 system installed. It's VERY effective against IFVs and about 50-50 with the majority of the Red tanks you'll encounter in the campaign. I can't remember it's min/max range but it probably won't be much of an issue for you. Hope that helps you a bit
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When playtesting, I found that the Special Forces missions were a bit easier to win, especially 'Strong Stand', but I figured that was a good thing to keep people's interest alive in continuing with the campaign. However, at least for me, part of that increased ease came from familiarity with the missions. I suspect that a Hasrabit newbie will still find these missions quite challenging. I'm really curious to see how you guys get on with the Republican Guards missions though as I found them tougher to complete, especially 'The Barrier' and 'Saudara Part 2'.
Adam. He he, I want you to expend those precious artillery assets needlessly in the earlier missions.
Red Rage
I'm exclusively working on Dimas now and so far, I'm finding that the missions I'd playtested to my satisfaction with v1.08 are now more difficult with v1.10 because the opposing conscripts and green troops are a little bit more resiliant. Also, unlike the first incarnation of Hasrabit, most missions have two or more AI plans and that keeps me guessing each time I playtest a mission.
BTW, I'm not planning on putting T-90s or BMP-3s into the Red v Red version of the Dimas campaign as I figure they'd be too tough for your rebel forces in this particular situation. However, they will definitely make it into the Marines version and I'm planning a third red v Red campaign using a Syrian Mech Airborne company or two with some T-90s in support.
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In the first mission, it's an ambush, why not give the player the option to defend the river too? It'd be cool to see the setup area expanded quite a bit.
It's been a LONG time since I first set up this mission but I can still remember the creative impulse behind it. It was originally intended to be a meeting engagement with Blue arriving on the north east edge while Red comes in as he does now from the south west. The two forces would then move to meet each other and contest the river crossing. Now, Blue get's to start with his forces on the forward slope of the valley so he's much better placed than Red. As it happens, you have PLENTY time to deploy your force to defend the river crossings. I have actually counterattacked across both the bridges and into the woods successfully a few times when I've placed the ATGM teams in good supporting positions. It's a slightly more costly strategy but it's one other way to win the mission.
There is a problem with Hill 142...
Part of the problem with this situation stems from the fact that Red equipment (which is quite good actually) can't see squat in the pre-dawn light which is practically the first half of the mission. There are plenty of MG teams, BMP-1's and tanks set up with LoS to the crest line of that ridge but they can't see anything until it's too late.
One thing that I don't mention often is that my scenarios are restricted by the performance of my computer. I play Real Time, not WEGO and there is a definite limit to the number of bodies that can be on the map at any time. It's a shame it has to be that way but there it is. Yeah, those are excellent suggestions and I'd have loved to have scattered a few more platoons around to do what you described and with the improvement in game performance since it was made it might just work too. But Blue has the best part of two full Republican Guards mech Infantry companies with some tanks and a Recon platoon in support on the board half way through the mission. That really was pushing my computer to the limit.
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I've been doing a lot of work with this new AI artillery system and it's proving VERY HARD to get the AI to use it during a mission. I have read somewhere that the AI won't start using it's artillery until roughly half way through the scenario. Since I have lined my guys up in plain sight of an AI FOS in the early stages of a mission to bring it on with no result this certainly seems to be the case.
So this begs the question, WHY??? :confused:
For me, it's the first half of the battle where I'm likely to be careless as I'm setting up support positions and probing for enemy positions. I really can't understand the reason for thie decision. If I want the AI to have artillery to use exclusively in the second half of the mission then I'll add it as a reinforcement. Please BFC, undo this with the next patch.
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I was playtesting a mission of mine with v1.10 last week where a Syrian Mech Company makes an assault on a small town. Playing as the defender, I used to be able to position my troops to have lanes of fire down the roads where the attacker would have to come. I would open fire, pin them and they would lie in the street until they died. Not so with v1.10. Okay, they still took a big hit from my defensive fire, but instead of hunkering down and dying in the street, they ran into the buildings from where the survivors would return fire on my defenders. Wow. It's a whole new game.
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Yes. 'Strong Stand', a night mission where some Syrian conscripts make an attack on a fortified Red position. It used to be a difficult attack to manage because of the FF issue. After v1.10, it plays completely differently.
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For Red, it can make a huge difference, especially with the older models. I often get a buttoned up tank into overwatch position and it spots squat. Then I unbutton it and the TC very quickly spots his target and it's clobberin' time.
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Ah, when a mission I'm working on gets like that, it gets changed very quickly. I had to adapt them to prevent that slow down. Once I'd done that, the old versions were off my hard drive to prevent any chance of confusion. However, they are mission numbers 6 and 11.
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The two maps I noticed this on were 'Buying the farm' and 'Hasrabit' from my Hasrabit campaign. Neither of these missions have large maps and prior to v1.10, I never saw this happen once. And believe me I playtested the HELL out of those two missions. As it happens, 'Orchard Road' is more like the maps you're describing and it all runs very smoothly with v1.10.
I occassionally have FRAPS running when I'm starting up a mission and in the briefing screen I'm getting 0 or 1 fps and the mouse is SO turgid. Yet when I pause the game when frames are like that, they usually shoot up. Same if I get the briefing back up as the game is temporarily paused. Something weird is going on at start-up and I suspect it's AI artillery related. However, that's 100% PURE speculation on my part and worthless to BFC.
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Hey, I just remedied that situation for you. I just rated your two Faces of Syria mods. Sorry, I couldn't give you anything else but praise for them so it won't be of much help. I certainly do appreciate the work that goes into doing work like this.
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Wiggum: That means that i can play this Campaign without the Marine Modul ?
Yes, as long as you have the v1.10 patch installed it will work. There are no Marines module units in the campaign.
handihoc: I just love that guy's face in the second pic.
I have M1A1TC's Faces of Syria mods 1 & 2 installed. One of the best mods for this game ever. 'Toothy' is in Mod 2.
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Now that I've got Hasrabit finished and posted, I am free to devote pretty much all my time now to this project and it's Marines equivalant which I'm going to develop roughly side by side. Since they will be sharing quite a few of the same maps, this shouldn't slow me down much. Besides, I still haven't played a mission with the Marines in it yet. Anyways, after I finished posting about Hasrabit, I fired up the Orchard Road mission. O-M-G! Really good frames per second even on a huge map and it looks really good up close too. I'm learning a whole new set of combined arms tactics too. This is shaping up to be WAY better than Hasrabit, I kid you not.
Please note that I intend to include a single platoon of BRDM-2 ATGM vehicles in this campaign which will effectively make it a Marines campaign. There won't be any T-90s or BMP-3 though.
Expect to see some new screenshots posted here in the next few days.
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In my original post in this thread I speculated that the AI waiting to fire it's artillery in new v1.10 missions was a feature. I have since discovered that it was caused by very poor frame rates and that when the game was stuttering at the start up, it was unable to effectively handle it's artillery. Since reworking these missions to substantially improve frame rates at the start, the AI has fired off it's artillery in the usual fashion, i.e. after 25 seconds or so. I was mistaken.
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The final version of the Hasrabit campaign has been uploaded to CMMODS. Here follows a list of the changes that have been made to the earlier version.
Obviously, the most important change is that most of the missions have been altered to allow the AI the possibility of using it's artillery during a mission.
Core Forces changes
all core forces have been synched with the original file.
Republican Guards Recon Platoon and the whole of C Company have been upgraded to Crack experience.
Both Special Forces and Republican Guards mortar batteries start with full ammo which should allow the player to use artillery more frequently during the campaign. However, apart from mission 1 there will be no artillery resupply so don't go overboard with it.
During phase 2 battles, most of your core forces will start the mission with 'tired' status and 'exhuasted' in the final mission.
I have also made some of the reserve units in the later missions part of your core units so you should take more care of them.
The missions
Ambush has a whole new map but the forces remain the same. Blue gets artillery too.
Strong Stand - the map has been retextured to make it greener. The farmhouse complex is now denser and Red has been given an extra mission objective; namely to touch the reserve assembly area at the back of the map. Needless to say, you should not allow this to happen as it's almost a guaranteed mission loser. However, I doubt many of you will ever let the AI get close to doing this.
One of the changes I noticed when playtesting this new version is that the Green troops handle themselves much better and his has made this mission substantially more enjoyable (for me at least).
The Guards Counterattack - Red's AT capability has been enhanced slightly to make the mission a bit more dangerous but nothing too drastic.
Hill 142 - some small changes to the AI set-up and settings to make it a bit more challenging.
The Barrier - Added some extra artillery to the Red side to enable AI use of artillery during the mission. reduced Blue's set up zone slightly to prevent you from accidentally setting up within a Red artillery zone. I suspect that this mission will be a bit tougher now.
Buying the farm - OMG, where to begin?
The map has been retextured to make it greener.
The farmhouse complex has been changed to add a small orchard on the red side of it.
The road leading from the centre of the board to the pump house has been removed to allow the AI to attack the pump house on a broader front rather than just running it's troops down the road into the teeth of your defensive fire.
The timing of the AI attack has been changed somewhat to allow for some changes made to the reinforcements schedule. Red had too many troops onboard at the start of the mission and it was causing the mission to start running at 0-2 fps. As a result of this incredible temporary slow down, the AI artillery was firing erratically at the start of the mission. You should see some slowdown at approximately 1.54. 35 when the reinforcements arrive. Be patient if it slows down as it only lasts about 20-30 secs most of the time.
If you won the Hill 142 mission, you shouldn't see much change in the opening artillery barrage. However, lose Hill 142 and you'll probably lose all of your reserve forces in the opening barrage.
Blue set up zones have been removed. You can't change the reserve start up positions but you can give them orders to run like hell.
Breakout - the map has been retextured and the terrain has been enhanced somewhat, some new roads added and some new buildings introduced.
The opening AI artillery bombardment has been reduced in strength. However, this is only to allow it the possibility of using it during the mission. Your Special Forces start the mission as tired. It's not going to get any better for them from now on.
Heavy Metal - Replaced some of the red units to make it hopefully more challenging. Some of the Red tanks have been upgraded to provide your tanks with a slightly better challenge although during playtesting , I didn't notice much difference. the T-72 TURMS still rules the battlefield.
The Blue reinforcements that arrive on the east board edge arrive in a depressed location that is definitely out of sight of a Red ATGM team.
Saudara Part 2 - The building density in Saudara town has been substantially increased, almost four-fold in fact. Some buildings, like the mosque for example, have been completely redone. This means that the AI forces are better spread out in good cover and so making them less vulnerable to your air strikes. BTW, I noticed that the huge blasts do much less damage in V1.10 so most of you are going to have to fight for control of the village this time around. The Islamic cemetary has been redesigned too.
The old AI plan that set up Red's ATGM teams behind the hill is gone. This one change alone will probably increase the difficulty of this mission for those of you who have only experienced the old one.
Your Republican Guards units should start out the mission as tired. It's been a long day for them after all.
Hasrabit - While A Company starts out the mission rested, both Company B and C will arrive exhausted and will require very careful handling.
There is the possibility of receiving some Reserve forces from an earlier mission in one version of this mission. If you recieve notification that some Reserve forces have arrived but you don't get anything, it means that they're already dead.
If there's anything I forgot, well who can blame me. That's a pretty big list of changes. I hope you guys appreciate the new campaign and enjoy it even more the second time around. And for those of you who have yet to try it, good luck
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I have fixed the problem with the campaign finale 'Hasrabit' but the problem with 'Buying the farm' is proving a much tougher one to fix. I have no idea what changed in v1.10 to make this mission so SLOW at the start. However, I've 'fixed' the at-start crawl and replaced it with a crawl between 5-10 minutes into the mission. After that, everything is just fine and it's business as usual. However, the fix has 'broken' the timing of the AI attack plan so I've spent the whole afternoon reworking it to make it as good as the original. I've also taken the opportunity to alter the map slightly to allow the AI to approach the pump house through the fields. I was just sick of watching the AI channel it's entire force down that narrow road. It was so easy to take advantage of that to kill lots of them. Now, they will approach the objective on a broader front through the wheatfields although I haven't actually watched this happen yet. That's for tomorrow. Once I get this mission sorted, I just have to make up the seven special versions and make sure that the extra AI artillery doesn't stuff everything up again. That should hopefully take less than an hour tomorrow morning and then it's finished. I am SO desperate to get back to work on 'Dimas'.
BTW, handihoc, I can't promise you that you'll see the artillery use it's artillery during the missions in Hasrabit although I did see it used to VERY good effect in another mission yesterday and so there's a good chance that you'll see it used here too. I am going to exploit that knowlege when I'm crafting my next set of missions.
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I ask this because I've seen the game practically freeze up at the briefing screen. The mouse is almost totally unresponsive and the only way I can get out of this without too much frustration is to hit the 'ENTER' key. Then that takes me to the set-up phase where the problem persists.
Now, I am not a programmer but I'm curious to know what is causing this huge slow down when the game is 'apparently' doing nothing. Here's some more info.
In both these missions, the AI side starts the game with a slightly reduced battalion on the map. They start out of LoS of all Blue start locations. In both cases Blue has a very small force on the map at the beginning of the mission.
There are also about 6 artillery support zones on each map, each with an artillery module.
Now, after about 4-5 minutes of the game starting,the game is playing just fine. It's just the first few minutes of the scenario where it's a problem. I can certainly understand why the game slows down so much when I'm playing it as it's calculating paths, making Los checks for each unit etc but during the briefing? What is the CPU doing?
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It's almost finished. I've redone every mission in the game to some extent and I've playtested everything. Now, I'm just redoing some of the tac maps and the briefings to bring things up to date. However, I am experiencing some MAJOR slow down on two previously fine missions, The Farm and Hasrabit. The problem is at the start and I think it's the AI artillery that's eating up the cpu cycles. I want to retry both of them again tomorrow and see if I can reduce the number of artillery fires in these missions.
BTW, I saw the AI use it's artillery VERY effectively during one playtest today. I was stunned.
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I'll bump this for you Mark seeing as how I knocked it off the front page.
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I know it'll never happen but might I suggest that you reduce the delay time for calling in missions for the Syrian AI side, perhaps by up to three minutes? It's certainly fair that the AI doesn't get to cheat but, until you guys work out some way to program the AI to 'follow' it's targets, reducing the delay time for AI controlled Syrian (NOT US) artillery would help to make it just a bit more effective in the game.
Lest some object, just consider that when we use our artillery, we can quite happily dump our artillery on known enemy positions, reverse slope positions for example, just by keeping placing the radii on the visible side of the crest. Or watch the AI's movements and dump a load in it's path. This isn't cheating, it's just intelligent speculation and it probably happens in real life too. The AI can't do any anticipating. Another example of the Iron Man rules AI player.
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I'd be very surprised if a stand-alone mission didn't have at least two or three AI plans and, as it's a stock mission, it 's extremely likely that it has five. However, even if it does have 5, there's always a chance that you'll get the same set up again.
Strike Three
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
25 min of watching an empty screen later I win a "Total Victory" and examine the map to see every one of the AI's troops hunkered down in a corner. They never moved, fired, did anything. This would be one of the big gripes when the game was first released! And honestly, unforgivable then a over a year ago? (I honestly forget when it was released).
Sounds like you played a quick battle on a crap map... ie no AI plans. If it WAS a scenario, get rid of it as it's useless too. There's no need for you to reply, just try playing a scenario and you'll see a big difference. Good luck.