ClarkWGriswold

Glad you were able to resolve or figure out most of your issues. I think that figuring out the how's and why's of the game mechanics are often more problematic than actually developing and employing an effective strategy. That is more or less true. However, hiding units receive what is, in essence, a spotting penalty. Often times they get suppressed and slaughtered before they even know they're in trouble. It seems that's what happened to some of your men. As far as the tank that was area firing, I wonder if he even saw the threat before he was shot up, or if the crew was spending most of its time and energy looking at their ordered area target. It would be interesting to know how many seconds the enemy tank was in view, without being fired upon, before your tank was destroyed. My guess is, your commander didn't spot the threat until it was far too late to take action.

Please, please, please! Not having a default cancel target key and not being able to assign it in hotkeys.txt is a real pain.

It's definitely a good thing. Had the OP not given his tank an explicit order to target the dismounted enemy tank, it more than likely would have taken out the active enemy tank, then dealt with the dismounted tank later when it wasn't under direct threat.

Those look amazingly good, especially the first and third images (I think I like the 2nd one better stock, honestly). The red brick wall looks so much more detailed and less "computery" and the third wall looks old and weathered, like a wall in Normandy should. Very different from the pristine stock texture that looks like it's fresh from the construction site. I really wish BFC would take some of these community textures and incorporate them into the game itself, they look that much better.

I'm curious how global morale works. The last two PBEM games I've played, my opponent has been down to just a handful of men left with the rest of his forces wiped out. One of the games kept going until the very last turn and the other one we finally called a mutual cease-fire. I would think that once you've lost 90% of your forces KIA/WIA, the remaining men should simply refuse to fight. I find it pretty "gamey" that you can have almost your entire force wiped out in under 30 minutes, but the half squad or bailed tank crew that are left gladly run into the meatgrinder as though nothing bad has happened. Even if a unit has taken no fire and is healthy, they should really think twice about running into a firefight after they've seen the rest of their Company wiped out.

Sure, you can string together all sorts of commands. But you can NOT string together any sort of command that will cause your tank to stop when an enemy tank comes into view, fire, take out the enemy, then continue. You can either stop and shoot OR you can manually put in pauses which most likely will not coincide with the timing of shots. It is IMPOSSIBLE to do what the old Hunt command used to do just fine. We'll have to agree to disagree on what constitutes drastic. I am positive that I could have a situation that would turn out one way 9 out of 10 times in CMBB could turn out *completely* different in CMBN. Not because of some random factor or "programmed by design" changes, but because we no longer have the control that the simple Hunt command gave us before. Drastic changes in the ability to control vehicles = drastic changes in potential outcomes. That's how I see it.

Limiting the effectiveness of fire on the move is not a problem. In fact, it's a good thing. Outside of very close shots, tanks generally shouldn't be very effective at making shots on the move. The problem is that CMBN does not give you tools to effectively control whether or not your tanks will stop and fire effectively. The ONLY way to force your tank to stop and take an aimed shot is to use the Hunt command. Unfortunately, that has the nasty side effect of canceling ALL movement orders for the entire rest of the turn. And how do you propose a player is supposed to perform this Hunt-to-Stop movement effectively? You can't simply use Hunt because your tank will stop as soon as it is engaged, then will not move for the rest of the turn. It takes ages to get anywhere because your tank is constantly stopping and doing nothing for half (or more) of the turn. You can't use Move, Pause, Move because there's no way to prevent firing during the movement phase. You're just as like to fire on the move, then pause during reloading, making yourself a sitting duck. Vehicles need to be able to move, pause to fire, neutralize the threat, then continue with their orders. That's not as good as the "short halt" behavior that Steve talked about several pages back, but it's at least what we had in CMx1 and a huge increase in flexibility and control over what we have right now.

Quite drastically, yes. Right now tanks fire on the move no matter what their speed, and their shots hit far more often than they should. This is evidenced by the many tests that have been done and by the fact that Steve has said the accuracy was too high and will be reduced. v1.01 will give us reduced accuracy, but tanks still fire on the move regardless of speed, rather than stopping to give the best chance of a hit, as would happen in real life. This assumes that BFC reduces on-the-move firing accuracy (which they said they would) and doesn't change movement behavior (which from all reports seems to be a much bigger change and unlikely for 1.01). When using any movement command other than Hunt, your ability to hit will be much lower. Sometime down the road vehicles will (hopefully) stop, take a well aimed shot, then continue when the target is destroyed. Steve has said they want to do this, but it's difficult (which I still don't understand since CMx1 did this). Imagine for a moment you have a Sherman and you're trying to sneak up on an enemy Panzer behind a clump of trees ahead. The three behaviors above are likely to give very different results in the outcome of whether or not you win the engagement. If your tank fires on the move and is very accurate then the stationary, ambushing vehicle does not have as much advantage as it should (shooting from a non-moving platform). If on-the-move accuracy is reduced to where it should be, then the only way you have a good chance of a first shot kill is by using the Hunt command. Unfortunately, the Hunt command will make your tank stop at the first threat. If you're lucky, the first threat will be the enemy tank and you'll get off a good shot. If you're not lucky your tank could stop when it is engaged by some other unit, making it a prime target for the enemy. Or, worse, you might stop and engage the unit you wanted to, then end up sitting there for the next 40 seconds while the enemy advances on your position. Now imagine that you've got a Panther breathing down your front lines and nothing more than an AT gun and a bazooka to deal with it. If on-the-move fire is accurate (as it is now) you're in trouble. Your AT gun has to get a good shot against a target that doesn't need to stop, and the target will more than likely kill your gun crew with its first or second shot (since even a reasonably close shot will do). Your bazooka will have a slim chance of being employed unless he's in exactly the right spot, because the Panther has no reason to stop to take a shot (time that would allow you time to move your bazooka closer; You'd also have a better chance to hit since you're firing at a non-moving target). In this type of situation the defender really needs to get that tank to stop, even for a moment, so his bazooka/AT gun can get a good shot. If tanks never stop to fire, that's unlikely to happen. Whether a tank moves or not is going to have a drastic effect on both the ability of the moving tank to hit AND of the ability of enemies to hit it. If AFVs can just drive along, firing at will and hitting without stopping it can severely unbalance the game. If you require tanks to stop to get a good shot (which you should), then you also really need to give commanders the tools necessary to employ those tactics. The current Hunt command doesn't cut it because it's the only way to get a vehicle to stop, but it then punishes you by not moving again until the following turn.

I don't care about the semantics of what a "short halt" is, I just care about the behavior that I see in the game. In CMBB my tanks would (when using the Hunt command) drive, halt, shoot, kill the threat, then continue driving. When my tanks would stop they would be very likely to hit on their first or second shot. When my tanks don't stop (moving on Normal, Fast) they would be very unlikely to hit. This is the type of behavior I think most everyone expects, and what seems to be missing from CMBN. Good to hear that it's being worked on. Hopefully we'll see the changes before too long, because I think it would drastically change how the game plays out.

It would be nice, but I personally think it's unnecessary. We don't really need extra-fine control of speeds of AFVs, since you're basically only going three speeds (slow to stay with infantry, "normal" speed to get where you're going, and "get there NOW!"). If you're moving quickly, you probably aren't expecting there to be enemies in the vicinity or there are enemies in the vicinity and you want to get away from them. So, you probably only need to stop and engage when you're already moving fairly slowly. I think most people would be happy with tanks stopping to engage at one or two speeds (say, Hunt and Normal) and firing on the move at other speeds. Assuming this sort of change could be done to the guts of CMBN it would probably make most people happy, would allow much finer control of units, would alleviate the "fire on the move" issues, and wouldn't require any UI changes.

Thankfully, CMx1 gave you the Move and Fast Move commands, if you want to keep your armor moving and prevent it from stopping. Also, since Hunt (in CMx1) engages when it sees a target, the only way you're going to stop in a kill zone is if your unit doesn't see the enemy units that are targeting it (if it did see them, it would have stopped and engaged before it got surrounded) or if your opponent is able to converge multiple units against your single unit simultaneously (in which case you're probably screwed no matter what). In CMx2 this problem is made worse, because your only options are 1) keep moving, possibly going deeper into the enemy's trap, firing while moving (giving you poor chances of hitting), or 2) stop as soon as you encounter the first unit, then sit there for the rest of the turn, making yourself a sitting duck. In CMx1 you had the option of a "short halt" with the Hunt command. In CMx2 you do not have the option at all. The Hunt command in CMx2 isn't a "short halt", it's "stop and don't move again until you receive new orders".

Perhaps it's been too long since you played CMx1, Steve. Tanks most definitely do stop, take a shot or two, then keep moving. When using the Hunt command in CMBB tanks will stop, engage the threat, then continue moving once the threat is neutralized. When using the Hunt command in CMBN tanks will stop, engage the threat, then do nothing until the next orders phase. VERY different behavior. Again, perhaps it's been a while since you played CMx1. It's a bit strange to have to explain how the game works to one of the people who designed it, but you are incorrect, Steve. Here's a screenshot from a test I *JUST* ran in CMBB 1.03: I had Shermans positioned behind each clump of trees and one Tiger. The Tiger started at the far South end of the map and I gave exactly ONE order. On the very first turn I ordered the Tiger to Hunt directly North. The Tiger would proceed north until a Sherman came into view, stop (yellow circles) and fire once or twice to kill the enemy unit, then continue. Generally only one shot was needed, at which point it would continue on its way. Sometimes the first shot was a miss or didn't kill the target, so a second shot was necessary. But in either case the Tiger most definitely DID stop, take 1 or 2 shots, then continue with the orders it had been given! Doing this exact same thing in CMBN would require either a fresh Hunt order each and every turn (and probably several more turns to go the same distance, since half of each turn would be spent sitting there doing nothing) or a Slow/Normal/Quick order, in which case the Tiger won't stop and aim his shots. So, you basically have the choice of moving and having poor shooting ability (and a drastic change to how the game worked from before) or stopping to get better shots, but constantly having to issue new orders and moving much more slowly because the vehicle doesn't continue on once the threat is neutralized. I'm struggling to see how you can possibly think these two behaviors are the same.

LOS measuring might be accurate, but covered arc distance definitely is not.

Right. Which is what I think most everyone is advocating. Shooting on the move when appropriate (very close shots, tank in imminent danger, shooting low priority targets) and stopping to fire when appropriate (virtually all the rest of the time). Tanks in CMBN seem to always move while firing. I don't recall ever seeing any of my AFVs stop to take a well aimed shot unless they were on Hunt. And then, of course, they stop but don't start moving again until you've given them fresh orders. So, even if the rate of hits is abstracted for this, it still throws off the game because armored vehicles don't stop as they should. I can't run my panzerfaust over to take out a sherman if the sherman never stops to fire. My AT gun can't get off a good shot from his covered position because the enemy tank is constantly on the move. Stuff like that. It changes the dynamics of the game and it just plain doesn't match reality, which is what most people playing a game like CMBN are looking for.

I must be misunderstanding what you're saying here. Were we all hallucinating tanks stopping to fire for the past 10 years? Allowing them to fire on the move is no problem. I think everyone's in agreement that firing on the move took place in the actual event, under the right circumstances (close range, firing to suppress, firing at soft targets, etc). The problem is that tanks in CMBN don't seem to ever stop to fire, unless they just happen to reach the end of their ordered waypoints. This is a big contrast to real life where tanks would prefer to stop before firing, so that they actually had the chance to hit something. The complaints that are being lodged are less about tanks being accurate on the move and more about being moving in the first place. Having tanks that don't stop to fire dramatically changes the flow of how the game works compared to what we're used to in CMx1 and what we've all read about happening in real life. We expect tanks to stop, line up their shot, fire, then move along. The exceptions to this would be when something else is more important (ie: they've been ordered to move very quickly, so the destination is more important; they have the opportunity to fire but are also under imminent threat and are trying to save their own hides).

That looks amazingly good. Very realistic and gritty. Details like burning vehicles and flavor objects really make the map, especially when they look naturally placed, as they do in your picture.

The real question is, do the tanks now stop to shoot? Making firing on the move less accurate is a good thing, but if the tankers never bother to stop (and, therefore, don't give themselves the best chance of hitting), then it could wind up being almost a step backwards. If the tanks don't stop on their own to fire, it's going to be fun (read: frustrating) getting your men to stop and take a shot when they should. Should be especially "fun" in WeGo. I've no idea how you'd even attempt to time orders to maximize your chances of a good shot.

I noticed the exact same thing while playing today. I was confused as hell at first when the points of my arc were shown as >100m away, even though I was making very short arcs. My guess is this behavior is related to the way that when you try to target from a waypoint the line is shown from the unit's current position. Sure would be nice if this were fixed.

This shot would be really awesome without the see-through buildings (and perhaps if there were a smoking tank nearby )

Nobody ever wants to commit to a date since things always slip, but a general time frame would be nice. I've been hesitant to start a new PBEM game because I don't want to get stuck on v1.0 once the patch is out. People with games in progress will either have to install two versions, abandon their games in progress, or refrain from installing the patch (which is bound to have a ton of fixes) until all their in-progress games are finished. If it's not gonna be out for a month, that's fine. It would just be nice to know, since I sorta expected it to be out by now, to be honest.

I think the suggestion of <modifier key>+mouse for speedier movement is a fantastic one. I really dislike Ctl+click because it is disorienting and I usually end up overshooting where I wanted to be since the camera goes to that spot rather than looking at that spot. The option to scroll faster would be really handy. Perhaps even an option to change the scroll speed when dragging around the map.

Very nice work. It runs pretty long, but should be very helpful for newbies trying to learn the ropes. Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed the "ghost rhinos" attached to American tanks. I notice it all the time, but when you zoom in it disappears.

Definitely don't think we need more commands. We've already got plenty, they just don't act all that differently. I'd much prefer Move to Contact, Hunt (stop, shoot, continue), Slow, and Quick than what we've got now. At least that way you've got significantly different movement speeds and rules of engagement. If you want your tank to stop when it sees the enemy, engage, and NOT continue on afterwards, you can do that. If you want to engage, neutralize the threat, then continue, you can do that. If you want to fire on the move and keep pace with advancing infantry, you can do that. And if you want to get there as quickly as possible (firing when opportunistic), you can do that. Right now Hunt has behavior that is essentially Move to Contact, and the other three commands act the same other than speed. The ability to control if/when/how tanks engage seems more important than slight changes in speed.

You can do a lot more than just pause and face, too. I've setup complex strings of commands where I move, face, pause, move, target a specific building (while pausing for several seconds, move, clear target, etc.

The perfect reason not to do buddy aid unless you actually need to scrounge a particular weapon.