[accuracy/efficiency of machine gun fire]

No surprise really on flat ground. I'm entirely not saying they shouldn't be, but IME (and I know your tests are showing something different), that's the way the current mechanic would be expected to work.

So is it confirmed that rounds that snap by but don't impact near a squad don't cause suppression? This would be kind of a let down for me.

I'm not offering any comment on whether or not that's a surprise, or whether your assertion is or is not true, but is "long range firepower" (one of) an HMG's purpose in doctrine? Long range suppression, I'm sure we can find evidence for, but were HMGs expected to cause casualties at that range?

I think that against targets in cover/concealment HMG's wouldn't have much chance of causing casualties, especially if the target is actively using the cover to protect themselves. But against targets in the wide open (if there really is such a thing in CM) - I think eventually they would get a hit and that you could "expect" to cause casualties at a very slow rate even at ranges up to 600 - 700 metres. And I would argue that if the MG was not capable of causing casualties at this range, in the open, its ability to suppress opponents would really be quite poor at this range as well.

At 200 metres and less, against targets on cover-less ground, should an HMG not be able to effectively "mow down" squads. Maybe I am overestimating it but based on WW1 stories/articles, HMG would be able to take a squad out in a matter of minutes if were exposed in the open at close ranges, especially if they were actually advancing directly towards the weapon.

The problem I see with HMG is that they should be more lethal against troops in the open yet not too lethal against troops hiding/in cover. By simply increasing the accuracy of the gun we will start to see machinegunners are too good at killing troops in cover as well. Thus I suggest making the ai more capable of using cover and then upping HMG accuracy a bit. That way when engaging troops in the open the weapon is effective as it should be but when engaging troops in cover it is more a tool for suppression similar to reality.

Whatever the case, HMG teams are really no more than a glorified rifle team+LMG imo. Even when I set them up properly and catch troops in a killzone with them, they usually get no more than 3 - 5 kills a game. I think their effectiveness is lacking in FI no doubt about it.

Also of note, I find HMG to be very accurate when engaging stuff like vehicles and bunkers. Only against infantry to they have such bad aim.

[accuracy/efficiency of machine gun fire]

I'm skeptical. That might happen if the battle were simply one squad on one side against one squad on the other side, but that's not what our battles are like. Instead, the advantage would even out across the engagement front. The only way to achieve an overall superiority would be to use superior tactics, which is what I would call a fair win.

Exactly.

More detail in the terrain is down to the designers of maps.

To a degree you are correct, but no matter how much detail you put into your map you can only jam three bushes/tree into an AS. That's three trees in a 64m^2 area - I can find denser foliage in my backyard.

Micro terrain is abstracted to a "terrain save". No more is necessary than is currently generated by the terrain system. Perhaps there could be some tweaking of values. Perhaps it's getting applied to upright troops when perhaps it shouldn't be. But there's no need to kill our poor CPUs with having to render more of it.

Interesting. I agree that actually rendering microterrain is not necessary. But it would be nice if a mission editor had more control and was more informed about it. Also I wonder if this "terrain save" takes into account differences in elevation between the target and shooter, as well as the stance and movement of the target. And can a unit fully protect himself not only from being shot using this abstract micro terrain, but can he also prevent himself from being seen if in the correct stance? I think all these things are important to include if they are not already.

US infantry which normally only fire bursts at the enemy, really let go once the enemy is close enough or when their stress level is sufficiently high

I have only observed changes in ROF due to range to target, never due to stress (though I think it would be a great addition).

And besides vehicle mounted MGs I have never seen a HMG go full auto even on units very close to them. I think that this should be changed. Rate of fire should not only be changed based on proximity to the target, but also on how endangered the crew feels (stress) and how many targets/how much area fire he is trying to shoot. If he is only shooting at 1 squad at 350 metres than the current ROF is fine. But if he is now trying to shoot at 3 squads simultaneously, or trying to also spray nearby AS with bullets his ROF should increase. Instead of a burst every 3 seconds ROF should be a burst every 1 second, taking advantage of the rapid fire and large supply of ammo of a HMG. This alone could make HMG's much more effective. Overheating would also have to be modelled.

[accuracy/efficiency of machine gun fire]

Don't you think, though, that if this were implemented games would tend to generate even more lopsided run-away results?

It seems to me that would allow a katamari-damacy-like snowballing where whoever acheieved suppression first would be able to leveraged that to destroy enemy cohesion - and enemy units - in any given sector, and eventually across the whole game map. If CM units were to become suppressed easier and stay suppressed longer, then esentially whoever pulled the trigger first would win a scenario.

Okay just to clarify, By "should become suppressed easier", by suppressed I mean when an individual infantry unit ducks down behind cover rather than try and return fire or carry out orders. This doesn't necessarily mean cowering, but simply ducking down to a lower stance in order to protect himself. This in my opinion should happen more often.

By "should take longer to recover from suppression" I mean the squad as a whole should take longer to recover from being pinned or under heavy fire. I don't mean soldiers should be ducking down for a minute every time a shot goes by but rather that a squad shouldn't be to willing to leave their cover 30 seconds after coming under fire.

I think I may have misworded that in my original statement or left it far too open for misintrepation. But your points of "snowballing effect" still stand even under these conditions although I think to a lesser severity no?

You point on snowballing is true - If you place all your men together and someone happens to see and start shooting at them first, thus suppressing them, then yeah you will have a hard time ever winning the battle - but that is why you plan ahead and make sure not to put all your eggs in one basket. Keep men in reserve and use them to try and relieve pressure off your frontline troops taking fire, Use recce teams to find out what's what before committing an large forces etc. If anything, more severe suppression system will only force players to play tighter games.

So basically I think that your snowballing effect is more prone to happen, with more severe suppression effects, but can regularly be avoided by proper tactics and planning.

And it is not as if the effect you describe isn't already present in CM to some extent already - the more engagements you win the easier they become to win, no matter what degree of suppression is in game.

While that might be more realistic (for some definition of 'realistic'), but it doesn't sound like much fun, especially when you end up on the wrong side of the snowball.

To some people fun is realism. For others it is a degree of realism. As I mentioned, having this limited by difficulty setting would be a great way to appease all crowds.

Infantry would become largely immaterial, with results determined solely by who used their artillery and/or armour better. Attacking with infantry would become utterly frustrating.

This is a good point and I agree with you concerning Armour as it would become much more powerful in comparison to infantry. If it takes 20 minutes to advance 20 metres with infantry due to suppression they would be totally outclassed by tanks who are able to span the same distance in less than a minute and return accurate and deadly fire while doing so. The only thing I could offer to try and rebalance things would be to make tank crews have significantly worse spotting and making infantry even harder to spot (which I also partially suggested in the last post via more peeking in and ou of cover). Denser, more detailed terrain would also help rebalance the two.

As for artillery, I think that more severe suppression would actually help balance the artillery. Currently it is not needed as much as it is/was in reality.

[accuracy/efficiency of machine gun fire]

I think that infantry should be suppressed for longer periods by typical fire and typical casualties caused by such fire. I think our pixeltruppen should seek cover more aggressively, with less regard to our boneheaded orders and none at all to action spots or miniature bases glueing them to one another.

I don't think the primary problem with CM as it stands is that it isn't bloody enough.

I see fights in 20 minutes between companies that turn in casualty rolls appropriate for entire rifle divisions for entire days in heavy combat.

In the real deal, not as many men were hit per unit of time or per unit of fire available to the enemy, as we see in CM. Not more. But this wasn't because all shots missed men in the open. It is because fewer shots occurred, fewer men saw each other, fewer men were in the open and for less time.

The forces were in reality much more paralyzed, on average, than our pixeltruppen. They were not much more deadly than our pixeltruppen. They lived considerably longer than our pixeltruppen live. Their morale was abysmally lower than our pixeltruppen's typical morale.

Now, some of that is a deliberate adaptation to the sensibilities of video gamers, who don't like frustration and expect to see an action movie. Or at least, something closer to an action movie, that also takes slightly less time to resolve as a game, than World War Two took to resolve, as an actual war. They also expect it to require less effort on their part.

Here is one possible but wrong correction to the game as it stands - dial the lethality up by a factor of 10. Not what I want to see. Not the direction in which CM gets things wrong.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. In Essence...

Pixeltruppen...

• need to expose themselves less when in cover (constantly peaking in and out of cover even under minimal fire)
  

• become suppressed easier
  

• take longer to recover from suppression
  

• have a harder time spotting enemies (in part because spotters and targets are constantly peeking in and out of cover, see above point)
  

TacAi...

• needs to take over more
  

• have the main intention of keeping the pixeltruppen alive
  

Terrain...

• should be more detailed (denser foliage, objects, etc.)
  

• have more micro terrain
  

Once these are implemented than it would be fine to make HMG and firearms in general much more accurate without having unrealistic firefights. But until then shortcuts like horrible weapon accuracy must be in place in order to keep firefight dynamics somewhat realistic. Even now firefights are far to short - with much more advanced equipment, in the modern-day platoon sized fights can last hours. In CMFI they may last 15 minutes or so depending on the terrain.

I do agree that MG effectiveness is a little low in comparison to other infantry weapons but simply upping their deadliness/accuracy is not the best way to fix the problem at the moment. In the current state of the game I believe making the suppression from HMG's more effective would be a better way of balancing them to have a more useful role in one's army.

And of course slower more realistic fights might throw off some player but that is why there are difficulty options.

[Some proposals to enhance infantry control experience]

the mounting idea is a good one. And, although I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the engine, from a technical standpoint it may not be all that impossible. They could basically have "invisible" first floor balconies to all buildings, and invisible windows at the corners of buildings. That way if you mount your soldiers they would form up like they would on a blacony, only at the first floor and some of them will go to the invisible windows to peek out and fire. of course new animation would be required for the leaning action. here is a picture of what i mean if you don't follow

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/4880/invisiblebalconyandwind.jpg

See how the team on the balcony (which is slightly transparent) seems to be stacked up against the wall? you'll also notice the slightly transparent window at the corner. If a soldier were use a lean animation to look/fire out this window and it were to be fully transparent, he would appear to be leaning around the corner.

Basically what I am trying to say is that better stacking up and leaning around corners of buildings might be possible wihout making huge changes to the game and simply designing buildings in a decieving way.

[Waiting to buy CMBN]

$10 isn't that much to pay for new features. It does depend on the quality and quantity of these "upgrades" however. if you have to pay 10 bucks per and each upgrade only marginally improves the game then it isn't really worth it, especially if there are several upgrades as I assume they can stack up in price.

For me, the upgrades in CMFI are not actually worth buying Normandy now and upgrading it later. I would rather buy CMFI, enjoy the new features and then buy Normandy when it gets upgraded hopefully saving $10 (but I notice normandy is currently $10 cheaper than FI so maybe they will hike the price up again after the upgrade...).

But what some people seem to be forgetting is that BF is actually being very generous just by giving you the option to upgrade. Nobody is forcing you to pay $10 to upgrade. If you don't think its worth it don't upgrade it and pretend you never had the option to. But if you do think its worth it than BF has given you an opportunity to do so - this is something that you rarely get in other games. That in my opinion is awesome (though I do wish shockforce was included) and when I have Normandy and FI and another game comes out I will be very grateful for that option.

Also keep in mind that BF is a bussiness and its main goal is to make profit. It is quite obvious that they make fairly niche games so they will often have to hike prices up a bit.