Pelican Pal

Yea, overhauling the acquire function would be great. The current system is busywork heavy.

small arms fire in general is not overmodeled. However, automatic weapons, and especially SMGs, are more useful than they should be. Because infantry moves in a tight column formation nearly constantly a quick burst from an MP40 can rack up half a squad in casualties with ease.

The Tamiya Model Kit dichotomy. If you've ever seen a model tank kit you think CM is inexpensive. If you haven't seen a model tank kit you think CM is expensive.

So a while back I posted about making a scenario at a 1:1 scale. I finally got around to throwing one together. Right now it is pretty bare bones and consists of: A German platoon of about 50 men: 1st squad 2nd squad 3rd squad (close assault squad) a sniper 2x mortars 1x 37 mm armed HT and an understrength Russian Platoon in defense. It is currently only playable from the German side and could be played H2h. Although the objectives aren't super balanced. It plays quite a bit differently than a normal CM scenario. I'm mostly using this post as motivation to fix it up over the coming week, but if anyone wants to mess around with it shoot me a PM.

If it isn't clear you should play this as the Germans. Also I would appreciate any feedback you could send me even if you;ve not finished the scenario. Post it or PM me

oops, posted at the bottom of the main post.

Hello all, So I've finally decided to start work on my first scenario again and at this point I'm in need of some user testing. The Battle: Sicherungs Semi-historical, days after the start of Bagration 1310hrs, June 24th Length: unknown size: Medium You are in command of a second line Security Company tasked with defending a river crossing against Soviet attack. My goals for this scenario were to provide a fun defending experience for the player. As I don't see many scenarios in which the player is in a defensive stance. And to allow the player to use units that are not often seen in scenarios. This includes the Panzer Mark 2 Lynx, the sicherungs rifle company, and various other units. I also wanted the player to make tactical decisions which have strategic effects within the span of single scenario. Unfortunately I cannot fully do that justice with triggers, but I feel that I have reached a good balance. Situation: You are the Commander of 3 Company of the 61st Security Regiment, 286th Security Division. Your unit is part of the 4th Army and is located west of the initial breakthrough points that occurred on the 22nd of June. By the end of the 23rd Soviet forces had reached the Eastern bank of the Luchessa river and were threating to cut the main road between Orsha and Vitebsk. A scratch Kampfgruppe under General of the Infantry Paul Völckers was formed in the early hours of the 24th and has managed to retake the river crossing and has since pushed farther east. Attempting to relieve beleaguered troops surrounded by the initial assaults, and spoil further attacks long enough for a new defensive line to be formed. Your unit was swept up as part of the Kampfgruppe and was deposited at the crossing to hold it indefinitely. Your one and only goal is to hold the river crossing. Your Company, reinforced by the Weapons Company, has taken up the river crossing positon and spent the better part of the morning clearing up Soviet stragglers and digging in. 2 Company is defending another crossing farther South. However, from 1130 hrs to 1230 hrs the sounds of intense battle came from their position. You’ve not heard from them since. Kampfgruppe Völckers situation is also unknown, however if 2 Company has been engaged the worst must be suspected. What I am particularly interested in testing: -Whether the scenario is fun, and any feedback related to that. -How long the scenario should be. Right now it is set at 3 hours. It doesn't take that long to play, but I want more battle times from other players before a set a ending time. Since the AI is attacking I feel that I can't really press it for time the same way you might a player. My testing took me 2 hours to get through. -Feedback on briefing information and any other info I give the player. - I also have a few unusual things happening in this scenario which I would consider pretty heavy spoilers. So I don't want to mention them here, but if someone does play through the scenario I would like their opinion on it. Other items of note. Currently I have no images attached to the scenario in any manner. I don't really have the skillset/software to put anything up right now. The scenario is also geared towards turn-based play. Although it is possible to do it in wego. It isn't that there is too much to command, but that there can be significant downtime which a real-time player may find frustrating. download link: https://iu.box.com/s/05lt3uvw04fftn4asn3i

Why? Play a scenario and remove a basic tactical capability. It will be a frustrating experience and depending on the situation greatly change the outcome of a battle. Play a battle without the ability to enter one story buildings. Play a battle without the ability to use the target ability. Sure you can do it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't ruining the game in a fashion. I've designed scenarios and I don't put houses around for ****s and giggles. They are there because they create tactical problems for the player and on occasion I design unit balance based on the location of these houses.

I personally like the idea of the pack, but I won't be purchasing it because it just isn't really worth it. The whole thing is only $15 away from a module, which has infinitely more content than this pack does, and I personally don't find much of the content that interesting. Flame weapons are great in theory, but I hardly ever use them in CM:RT as it is, and while the Sherman flail is cool I don't find mine clearing all that interesting. The old French equipment pushed into service is what interests me and there just isn't enough of it at that price to justify a purchase. Especially when I don't own all the modules. Now I would buy it if it came bundled with the 3.0 upgrade at $20, but it doesn't so there went that purchase plan. If I had to bet I would guess that this pack won't make enough to continue doing them which is unfortunate and a bit of a loss. As I think the idea of small vehicle packs is really interesting. Especially with the new multiplayer system BFC is going to implement. The thing is people understand prices differently. Consumables are generally not judged the same way other items are, and people consider the price of items differently. Last weekend I spent $20 some dollars at a bar with friends. You might think that I should then be fine buying this vehicle pack. But the reality is that the CM Vehicle pack =\= a night at the bar with friends. They are not equivalent items even though the cost is equivalent. The whole "but a model tank cost X amount more!" is always interesting to me too. I've never in my life even seen a model tank kit, much less thought about buying one. It kinda brings up the two different audiences of CM. If you are tabletop wargamer or modeler CM seems an amazing value. While if you are someone who plays video games CM is on the expensive side.

I get that, and the bug doesn't personally effect me so I've been able to enjoy CM:RT since release. I was just defending some people getting a little testy. Which, I think, is fair in this situation.

There is a bug that does not allow players to enter single story buildings. It breaks a large number of scenarios, both campaigns, and many quick battle maps.

No, those Belgeitgrenadiers are in CM:RT. I don't think they show up in the QB menu but they are in the scenario designer formations list.

Aragorn, there is a unit formation called Belgeitgrenadier which contains SMG heavy units. IIRC the squads are nine men strong with at least 6 SMGs 1 LMG, and the remaining men usually have semi-auto rifles.

Additional question, will these units be added into an existing OOB for a formation, or will they be standalone in the editor?

I suspect, from recent discussion, that it goes to a damage table of some sort. Rather than actually modelling any sort of internal interaction. So it probably rolled a "knocked out" or whatever the CM equivalent is.

It technically does. What I'm trying to say is that as ranges increase the dispersion of what is fired increases and the time between fire hitting the target also increases. SO you need to think about how much fire is actually hitting the target and the time it takes it to do that. Two imaginary examples of what I am talking about. Lets say at 100 Meters a squad can fire 100 bullets and 80 of those will be on target, while at 200 meters 40 out of 100 bullets will be on target. This effectively means that the amount of suppression is halved or that you would need 2 squads at 200 meters to equal the firepower of one squad at 100 meters. So as your range increases the amount of your fire that will be effective is reduced. Thereby requiring more fire to make up for the lack of accuracy. Secondly, as range increases the time between rounds hitting the target increases. This is due to the lack of accuracy as range increases, the time it takes bullets to travel, and the additional aiming time required to hit the target. So at 200 meters not only are you only have 40 out of 100 bullets hitting a target, but it is taking 90 seconds to fire those 100 bullets. Whereas at 100 meters it only takes 60 seconds to fire 100 bullets and 80 of those are hitting the target. This allows the unit being fired on to recover from suppression more quickly. Overall what this means is that the farther away the target is the more firepower is needed for the same effect on target. As far as HE is concerned this is still all true. However, it is important to consider what is firing the HE shell and how big the shell is. In the ranges present in most CM maps you don't really need to worry about it because tanks can effectively hit targets quite quickly out to, and probably beyond, 500 meters. Although smaller autocannons can definitely suffer at those ranges. Really the best way to judge this is to try it out in game. When you have a unit firing at a target how many shells are hitting? how rapidly are they hitting? How does this compare to closer engagements? Edit: To give you a less military way of thinking about this: Imagine that someone is dropping 1 pound bags of flour on you. If they are dropping 1 bag every 30 seconds it isn't really a problem is it? You can easily deflect them away and they are just a minor annoyance. Now imagine that they are dropping 30 bags every second. Now that is a real problem and you are quite liable to get hurt by them.

I think the way artillery currently works is a legacy from CM:SF. If anyone recalls CM:SF doesn't list the number of rounds remaining for most weapons and instead had a bar. People didn't like it and it was changed in CM:BN. However, attached to that system was a way of determining ammo available to artillery. The system goes: that artillery, especially anything that would be available off-map, would almost never be firing their entire complement of ammo at the request of a Company or lower commander. Instead that commander would be given a period of time to fire, a weight of fire, or number of rounds available to him. So what you are doing is using your allotted firing time/number of rounds on smoke rather than HE.

Suppression can definitely be a fuzzy thing. Pinned units generally won't move, but they may return fire. Whether they return fire or not and for how long is, as far as I can tell, kinda random. Sometimes, even under withering fire, a few men will be brave enough to keep returning fire. In these cases the weight of fire is usually enough to kill them, but at longer ranges and in good cover this is not always true. One thing to keep in mind though is as range increases the weight of fire needed to suppress someone increases pretty dramatically.

I suspect they will be addable in the editor, but unavailable otherwise. Is there a price point for the release and will there be a 3.0 bundle with it?

I remember a post a few months ago of a bullet ricocheting into an abandoned T-34 and causing a catastrophic explosion. Without us personally viewing what happened we can't really be sure of what caused the vehicle to be knocked out, and without actually viewing the logic that handles vehicle damage we probably won't ever know for sure. Is it possible for the crew to be panicked and assume their vehicle was knocked out when in fact it wasn't?

Largely because you are forced to demand a specific type of movement and a specific type of reaction to fire. Movement when in dynamic situations is .... dynamic. Something that CM can't really do right now. More importantly a speed of movement is tied to a fixed SOP for coming under fire. So while you have all these different speeds you have a really strict reaction to engagement which really cuts down on what these movement speeds can do. Womble, I've tried that and largely find it a unhappy solution. In sufficiently dynamic battlefields your ability to properly use hunt is essentially non-existent. I also would like to know an explanation for the high fatigue cost of hunt. It seems odd that moving cautiously is more tiring than quick. As far as assaulting buildings. I like to recon by fire and then transition into either an overwatched approach or suppressing fire + a team moving up to the building to fire into the windows of the first floor/grenade it. In nearly all situations I avoid using hunt and prefer a overwhelming number of small teams with short quick commands. Any surprises result in small losses and you have enough fire and maneuver elements to effectively pin and maneuver on a target. Also a pair of tanks using 15 second pauses and 15 second firing orders can hit 6-8 houses per turn and usually a round or two of HE will get men to vacate a position. If I'm trying to get troops into a building that may be under observation from a distance. In sufficiently built up areas you can usually find corridors where there is little or no LOS. Alternatively if you want to put a half team into a building. Send a whole squad in, split the squad, and have half the squad hide for a period of time and the other half run back outside. It doesn't always work, but it can create the impression that the building is unoccupied.

Yes, I am familiar with the "saving throw" system. I used to play Warhammer 40k extensively and am very familiar with the mechanic. However, the important thing here is that a 75% saving throw is still worse than no saving throw. Once again the most important factor is straight up not being hit. No saving throw means no danger of being killed at all. Which is obviously the best choice. I strongly disagree with you here. It isn't important that the AI be able to adequately match player capabilities. They currently can't and should not be expected to match human capabilities. All the AI needs to do is to put up a show of competency. That is it. We just need it to appear intelligent, to appear to give a challenge, to appear competent. It will never, or at least, never in our lifetimes be better than humans. So what is the harm in an SOP system that allows us some basic commands based on engagements that are occuring? It will give the player some more commands with which to navigate the battlefiend and come out with them feeling more in control of their units than would otherwise be possible.

CM models thing 1:1. Even if you allow for some amount of fudging (which there is) the actual stance and location a soldier takes does matter. The vulnerability of men in half-tracks is a solid example of that. But they are not. Or to put it differently. CM's hard coded movement commands do a poor job of replicating intelligent movement. This is largely an issue of SOPs so we are probably **** out of luck when it comes to a solution being found.

It is very possible to run cautiously. It won't be as quick as a flat out run but you can do it. You are doubled over and your eyes are watching to your front and scan left and right of you. You put cover or concealment between you and where you suspect enemies are and try to maintain a piece of cover nearby that you can dive into.

Check out the men who spotted the unit. If they are all visually unaided riflemen it does seem like an odd situation. However, most US and German squads will have a couple pairs of binoculars and a possibly a scoped rifle, and any armor will have a scopes through which to view targets. With these visual aids it isn't unusual to spot active men once attention is brought to their position. It is really easy to forget how much a scope or pair of binos can help you see something in the distance when you are just flying around the game map. But most squads will have at least a few items that will help them improve their long range vision. If you happen to have one of the Arma games installed you could easily setup a little editor scenario to help you visuallize the benefits of binoculars and scopes. As far as spotting moving men in a building. I suspect it is largely because most people use quick or faster commands to move around. Eight or more men running quickly though a house will be pretty easy to spot. Frankly I think the game would be really improved by a movement command that combined hunt, quick, and assault into a sort of move quickly but stay low and be prepared for combat command. There isn't a reason that a squad of men can't run quickly though a house without being spotted. We just don't have a command to represent that. All of our movement commands are of pretty extreme types of movement. A nice inbetween would be helpful.