A Canadian Cat

That does sound wrong. Tell us about how your test is designed please.

I still have not read @Sophist_13's links but the confined vs unconfined explosion question was one that I had. Thanks for those additional thoughts.

I'll try the explanation as to why again. @c3k does this one better than me. Here is the problem with the test broken down: 1) we know that the M1 has better visibility than the T90: Therefore the M1s will spot the T90s faster. 2) we know that the fire control system in the M1 is faster than the T90: So the M1s will acquire their spotted target faster 3) we know that the M1 can shrug off a hit or two (at long ranges anyway) and the T90 will only shrug off a hit once and a while: Which means T90s are more likely to die on a first hit Please note I am *not* saying the T90 is a bad tank. There are three or four top tier tanks in the world and the T90 is one of them. I am just talking about comparing the M1 to the T90 since that is germane to your test. So the problem with your many to many test is those three points cause a cascade the favours the M1 and running that test over and over and stating it is wrong that the M1 should always win and therefore it means that the T90s are not spotting well enough is not valid. The point you have been making is that you feel the T90 is spotting worse than you think it should. So you should test point 1 above. Heck many would say forget the M1 start with T90s spotting T90s and see if the numbers seem right. Then compare that the the M1. Eliminate the target acquisition and the armour projection / projectile properties. Focus on spotting. If you think that other things are wrong then test for those. Separatly. The game works by simulating real life capabilities and then seeing in scenarios how the equipment and commanders perform. It does not work by saying X M1s should win 70% of the time vs Y T90s and therefore we tweak the game parameters to get that.

Excellent thank you. OK I will review that and put together a comparison test and see what the powers that be think about it. Unless you feel like giving it ago? Something like comparing RPO, vs 40mm grenades vs 155mm artillery. Ideally we would want a repeatable test where one round of each lands on a similarly spaced squad. I'm thinking as I write now that could be setup. I am already not sure how a single 40mm grenade could be fired. So, perhaps a different design. Or perhaps the 40mm should not be part of the comparison. I'm going to have to think about that. If you do decide to take a crack at this I recommend starting another thread since this one has a lot of topics swirling around and testing something should be more focused. Understood. I actually agree that having more options would be nice. This kind of thing might come in a module I'm no expert so I'll say only two things. 1) some second line equipment (eg T64B1) may very well make it into a module. The current game is focused first tier forces and they had to put some kind of box around what was in and what was out. 2) others suffer from a problem where they are official equipment and some number were purchased but are not in large scale use. If I recall correctly the PPG 30 is in that category. I seem to remember reading on here that the RPG 22 was actually given to front line units in significant numbers while the 30 was not. That specific example is from my memory but I now that was behind more than one decision about what was in and what was out. Yeah, its way more grey than black and white. In a night fight that usually helps the US forces even more. So, well done.

Well, thanks but I'm not perfect by any means and I have let my frustrations show through many times. I am trying to do better but see I already crossed the line I was hoping not to this morning with my snowflake comment. I should apologize for that to @The Steppenwulf because that was out of line. See the problem is that I could not resist the irony of our (and older) generations criticizing the younger generation for being soft and entitled when I read so much on here that seems like our generation is just as soft and entitled too with phrases like " paying premium prices for CM games" and the idea that such and such is obviously broken. I should not have singled out @The Steppenwulf because many do it. And it was totally counter productive, which I pledged to avoid. It was just so tempting and I thought it was clever but it was wrong. Sorry.

Right, it wasn't meant to. This thread was about a power balance, that was what I was referring to.The failure to spot firing enemy tanks is something that would be worth investigating, clearly that is something you want to work on my comment about points was simply address in the power imbalance. I think we can say that an M1 will perform better than a single T90 and a Bradley will perform better than a single BMP 3 or that a T90 will out perform a T64. There seems to be at least a perception that quick battles are harder to win as the Russians the way to fix that problem is not to make the T90 more powerful or the M1 less powerful because the game is supposed to reflect the real life capabilities of those tanks. The solution, to a QB balance problem, would be to tweak the point values in quick battles. Having said that if there are also spotting, shooting or armour protection problems with any of those vehicles then the should be looked at as well. But not from a balance perspective but from a is the game simulation reflecting real life or not. Two (or more) separate things.

Yes I am trying to help and be straight with people. Sorry if my frustration is showing through. I have been around these forums for a while and I have seen this pattern repeated: people complain about how their favourite piece of kit is not uber enough, how such and such is hampered and under performing or how some perceived defect in spotting cost them the game. More than 99 times out of 100 it's just sour grapes or a lack of understanding of how things work in the real world. However the odd time there are real issues and the people on these forums are the ones that find them. We need to keep doing that. Finding those few gems of oops that's not right out of all the chaff is hard. We have seen it play out time and time again on the forums. Many times it leads to frustrated players who remain unsatisfied, sometimes it leads to arguments and hurt feelings and occasionally it ends with the game better. I'm going to do my best to ignore the first minimize the second and maximize the last. But I'm not perfect so who knows... Real commanders have to deal with the limitations ofreal equipment and the imperfections of humans all the time. The good ones recognize their equipment's and personnel's limits and strengths and try to place their forces in the best possible situation they can. That is what is so fun about these games. Like I used to tell my kids when I was coaching: we are here to win but if you cannot have fun when you give your best effort but still loose, you are in wrong game and its time to find something else to play. Thank you for that. I am trying to skip being snarky and focus instead on engaging with people that want to actually show they have found an issue. So, you are correct I am *not* trying to be rude but I have to admit I am being a bit dismissive but in a good way . If the snowflakes here can't handle the heat they shouldn't be commanding forces in battle - even pretend forces . Yes, BFC does believe that the behaviour reflects reality. I don't have an official explanation but as far as I can tell the performance it is based on assessments from professionals who work hard to set their personal biases aside and perform honest assessments of performance from multiple sources. No one can be perfect but they try.

No he is correct it is a very poor test. What we want is statistics on how long it takes units to spot each other. So isloated lanes and cover arcs so they don't shoot and time how long it takes tanks to spot. Generate statistically rellevant numbers and then decide if it makes sense.

I will take this opportunity to say well done @Mad Mike he correctly blocked up the main road so a rapid advance was impossible and slowed me down at ever bocage line while withdrawing most of his force intact while giving me a bloody nose each time. At least that's what it felt like to me.

So I said we are done but @Mad Mike and I have exchanged more turns after this. Like I said I was not keeping a running total of casulties and only noticed I was "done" as I was writing this up and thinking to my self after writing up that artillery strike that I should check my casualty levels. Regardless of what happens with the campaign discussion I'll post the remaining turns and any more we decide to do...

So I said we are done but @Mad Mike and I have exchanged more turns after this. Like I said I was not keeping a running total of casulties and only noticed I was "done" as I was writing this up and thinking to my self after writing up that artillery strike that I should check my casualty levels. Regardless of what happens with the campaign discussion I'll post the remaining turns and any more we decide to do...

The Situation at 3:18 We are done! I have been tracking casualties but I didn’t keep a running total. After this last turn I decided I should be so I totaled up the casualties my men have suffered up to this point: 61. As you recall the casualties needed to be kept to below 6% which is 50 men. I actually passed that a few minutes ago. Here is where we are now: In summary E Co managed to get to phase line Able but they have not cleared the enemy from their right flank. At the same time F Co managed to push to phase line Baker. Again though there are areas to their left that are not clear. I would think now that the casualty numbers have been reached F Co would pull back and secure their flanks. Meanwhile the battalion should look at either holding there or push to clear E Co’s flanks. The problem with that is there are fortifications there that would probably best be dealt with by pushing past them along the two current attack paths rather than pushing head on.

Minute 3:19-3:18: Artillery continues to rain down. Mostly on top of bodies and wrecked vehicles from earlier in the barrage. The men trying to clear the farm track are hit by an enemy MG on the far side of the next field as they run through the gap. Minute 3:18: Orders E Co begins to reorganize from the chaos. F Co brings up more tanks to pound that newly spotted MG.

Minute 3:20-3:19: Artillery continues to fall. An enemy MG opens up on members of E Co who were fleeing the artillery. F Co’s tank support fires some HE down the farm track. Minute 3:19: Orders Most of the artillery area is clear of troops only on squad from E Co is under fire from an enemy MG. They move out of the line of fire. Pull the tank back and send in more infantry.

Apparently it also had various screen capture capabilities for your normal windows screen (like recording for presentations etc.) and those features stopped working with windows 10 and they have not updated the program to make them work again. Since I only use it for in game capturing I never even knew about those features let alone noticed that they were missing.

So, assuming you actually want to help, can you tell me what you meant for that test to show? You offered no explanation, no discussion of what you saw happening, no statistics, nothing. At the risk of being honest again I like to spend time playing this game just like you guys so I don't just randomly run stuff not knowing what the author thinks it shows or how they designed their test.

OK not sure if you are serious or not so in case you are only joking I'll just respond to the (my) bold part - agreed, it is, we do and they do.

If there are bugs in the spotting capabilities of specific units then report them. By report them I don't mean rant and rave about the Russian equipment being nerfed because you cannot win a fight vs the US. I don't mean anecdotal descriptions of the time X didn't see 10 Ys right in front of them and got killed. I don't mean saying hey haven't you been reading the forum clearly its broken. None of that helps and none of that will get anything changed. You guys are all welcome to continue to complain and kibitz I will not even ask you to stop but if you want changes you need to have some specific, statistically reproducible scenarios that show the problem in game. Saves, scenarios etc. The testers cannot make reports like: so and so on the forum says spotting for vehicle X is broken please fix. It doesn't work like that. Be prepared for questions to be asked for your testing methods and requests made to refine your tests so something actionable can be determined. Note you can complain all you like that testers should be doing that not you. I'll simply say we are and we do - all the time. Collectively we only have so many hours to do that work so if there is some issue that matters to you: investigate and respond constructively to the discussion. If you feel offended by any of that - that is not my intent in any way - I'm just telling you the reality. Anyone is free to rant and rave - and I'll just ignore that. On the other hand if you choose to start a thread to investigate a problem I'll be there to help and I will not be alone.

Several people have mentioned this. I have no particular knowledge one way or another so I am not defending the way the game is or supporting what you are saying - I just don't know. What I do know is that I am unaware of any logged issue that says that RPO rounds are under performing. That means that there will be no fix because it is not acknowledged as a problem. Can you, or anyone else, provide sources for the capabilities that these rounds should have? Sure why not. They add it when the feel they need it. Yeah, choices would be nice agreed. I don't know what to say exactly on these kinds of topics. BFC had to draw a line some where to have reasonable sized project. On one hand there is room to add different gear for new units in expansion modules. On the other hand they wanted to only include equipment that was already deployed with real units or were very close to being deployed and might actually make it into action in 2017. Again decisions were made it is what it is. You do have a pretty nice combined arms battalion formation that you can pare back to a company + size. I suspect they felt that was good enough. Yeah, there are probably some issues with projectile deformation not being modelled enough. I look at it as a way to remember not to bunch up too much. (I know not really helpful :-) Wow, I was not thinking that while reading your post - your English is pretty darn good.

I think this post speaks to what we really need to consider - points cost. People seeking to dump down vehicle X's capabilities or beef up vehicle Y are going about things in the wrong way. The vehicle / system capabilities should be modelled like in RL. The balance of QBs needs to be in the points not in tweaking capabilities. Those that are arguing that the US capabilities are too strong because they always beat the Russian forces are barking up the wrong tree.

?? the game models known equipment and a few added models and features that were in either known to have been experimented with as add ons or about to be deployed. I am sure that top attack missiles is something that the APS designers are looking at addressing but if such an enhanced APS system is not on tanks now why would it be in the game?

Should APS even intercept AMP rounds though?

No there is no way, other than what you noted, to pick the op for yourself. Correct. You will notice they perform worse than men at 100 percent. They don't move as fast and they tire quicker Don't worry about it at all. The qb system will swap the sides automatically just fine.

I didn't see anything, no idea what he's talking about I'm just happy to hear it got fixed.

LOL, no probably not. That was probably too much of an inside joke. I have several friends that made the switch to Mac s, and back for one, and I like to tease them about it. I'm south of Ottawa so in the global sense pretty close but not in a going out for ?'s sence.