von Luck
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Posts posted by von Luck
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Michael,
Every single American radio call has the telltale sincgars beep. Every. Single. One.
von Luck
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Chris,
Were you able to look at minefields and the host/client dynamic that affects their deployment?
Thanks,
von Luck
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To add to what Hate has posted here. I consistently, across every CM2x platform, have issues with minefields. I play TCP/IP turn based exclusively and I am typically not the host. Issues with minefields are consistent - once placed the mine placards stay in place, however, the mines themselves seem to end up in different parts of the map. On one occasion my opponent discovered my AP mines in his spawn. As hate has described in this game though is a first. We typically play our games in one session and I so consistantly have issues with mines I rarely bring them. However as he described here once the save file for the game was loaded my AP mines across the Hotel area immediately began to take their toll whereas prior to the load they might as well not have been there. Please take a look at all of the "fortification" type objects as we consistently have a variety of issues.
Thanks,
von Luck
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I too have had this happen. Recently I was playing a game with a friend and his Icons started flickering in CM Red Thunder. After about 5 or 6 turns mine began to flicker while his were disappearing completely. An annoying bug to be sure as it made the units difficult to see, interact with, and the constant flickering was quite distracting.
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3 hours later and my installer is throwing errors and wont complete. P-P-P-P-P-Perfect!
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I must gush great tears of first world grief. Listening to them play is physically painful.
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Why on god's green earth does my download cap @ 600 Kb/s. Two friends with equally capable internet finished the download in less than 15 minutes. Mine is clocking at 3 hours ............ whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
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Having gradients of accuracy or suppression would justify allowing area fire to be more flexible.
von Luck
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Gentlemen,
I seem to have gotten some of the juices flowing and encouraged some thought into this matter. Discussing and thinking about this is certainly better than doing nothing so I'll take it!
Now to provide some of my opinions on a few of these reply's
"its a game learn to live with it" -- This attitude is something every gamer adopts. Anyone who has ever watch a movie, a play, read a book, or played a game suspends their disbelief to enjoy what is happening in the portrayal. I bring this up because, like crafting a defensive position, the work is never complete. I am merely recognizing that there is indeed room for this to improve and encouraging discourse to further explore the issues. Yes this is a game and it has limitations but lets explore how to mitigate those efficiently.
Rockin Harry,
I hope you can trust me when I say that the fusiliers spotting the advancing American infantry were completely out of sight. I'll endeavor to provide you with some context with shots from either side of the battlefield to underscore the difficulty of the spot. But to better understand my dismissal of this you could envision a man with binoculars camped behind a hedge row. Now this man is looking 300 Meters down range - relatively close all considered. However his view is obstructed by several stands of tree's and a waist high bush. Further down range an even taller hedge and more tree's make it nearly impossible to see anything advancing through all this mess. That standing infantry target becomes a needle in a haystack amidst swaying leaves and branches. Then remember that binoculars offer a rather small FOV and scanning the area before them is easier said than done. Possible ... sure, likely ... considerably less so.
shooting the ground is a predictably difficult maneuver for units. That old familiar face of reverse slope no aim point really makes it nearly impossible to shoot at the ground any distance away. It is worth trying sometimes but I would not call it a reliable work around unfortunately. Area Fire being modified to allow for this would be a huge step forward. Giving the command is very similar to ordering your units to suppress the enemy. Whether they see them or not rounds are traveling down range to investigate for them.
Thanks for the reply's and please continue to explore alternatives with this. I think everybody has experienced some of these events and exploring workarounds might be an efficient way to resolve some of these issues.
von Luck
As a parting gift I give you Afghanistan "Corn Fields"
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For the reverse slope no aim point - this is something that you should encounter pretty regularly so I'm surprised that is an issue for you. From what I understand, that means that the spotting unit doesn't see the 'ground' where you are drawing the LOF line to, but the unit can spot 'above' the ground level. So, for example, if you have a unit in a wheatfield you may not be able to spot the ground where you draw the LOF line to because the wheat is obstructing your view, but you can spot anything that rises above the level of the wheat - such as walking soldiers and vehicles. So if you were drawing a LOS from your soldiers walking in the wheatfield to a tank sitting in that location or some kneeling or standing troops you would see them. Just drawing a LOS line to the ground of a location outside of the wheatfield will always have the reverse slope tag because you can't see the ground at that spot. So for all practical purposes you can't area fire to that location, but if something pops up your troops will engage it because they will be above ground level. I mean, seriously, that's pretty basic stuff about how the game works and I've got to think that if you are having trouble with that then you aren't trying very hard to adapt to what the game does or how it does it.
I suppose in reality maybe you could make the argument that you would be able to area fire 'above' the ground level of that location but it doesn't work that way in the game so you have to work around it. I have no idea if it would be possible to alter the game to allow for area fire in those situations, but perhaps you could make a suggestion and see if one of the BFC staff can give you an answer on whether it can be done or not.
ASL - I don't have a bone to pick with most Reverse Slope No Aim Point's. However very consistently in each game I play there is at least one that is completely bogus. The example of soldiers coming under fire in the field was one such event. In the American Civil War soldiers were known to have cut down corn fields with musket and cannon fire. Could they see their opposition? Probably not, however, that did not stop them from engaging through the terrain in an attempt to harass or otherwise engage the enemy. Not every reverse slope event will fit this situation however they do exist and there should be some capacity to work around it. I know that machine gunners would regularly engage targets they could not see in order to provide suppressing fire. In this game Area Fire is a command driven event which would simulate such - having LOS down to the grass should not be mandatory.
This Image is graphic but it provides an illustration of an even less flexible army overcoming a soft obstacle.
As for the Spotting in my latest screenshot the units identified with a question mark are sound contacts. That the unit identified a squad advancing through all the LOS blocking terrain was more my point of the imperfection of the current system. identifying a walking human target through hedgerows and tree's at a distance exceeding 300 meters across flat terrain is ... unlikely.
von Luck
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we play entirely on Elite.
von Luck
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This shot provides some additional perspective on the first and another interesting long range ID. Again we see a soldier spotting advancing Americans through woods, bushes, and wooded hedge rows. Seems a little optimistic.
von Luck
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Those bushes aren't hedgerows, if they were your units would definitely not be able to spot the Jagdpanther.
To clarify I am not counting the bushes as hedge's. What you cannot see is the vast space beyond the immediate area of the Jagdpanther which is indeed occupied by actual wooded hedge rows.
von Luck
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I believe the clutter of urban environments is abstracted somewhat. What the player sees as a clear LOS is really (abstractly) cluttered with street signs, mail boxes, the detritus of city streets. Units on the street have an increased concealment value that they wouldn't have laying on bare dirt out in the open. I don't know by what %. As to losing LOS in the middle of a wheat field, That example looks like he trying to spot someone lying prone on the far side of a distant hedgerow. So yeh. The camera position looks about 8 feet up, take it down to 5 ft 8 and you'd probably find yourself trying to peer through the waving wheat trying to see that distant prone enemy.
Abstracted environments is all this game creates. That being said it would be nice to have some clearer concept of what is happening within the abstraction. When I hide a unit in a woodline and it cannot see out I would expect the same for units looking in. That is not, however, what happens. It would be better if it were more transparent as to what exactly was happening.
von Luck
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The problem here is an engine limitation - when you don't have a contact marker in an action square, LOS checks between squares are done from centre to centre. The line from your square to the middle of the house passes through another house.
However, when you have a contact marker, the game will begin to track LOS/LOF between individual soldiers, so it's very likely that you would get LOF to any enemy troops appearing in the windows of that house. You would still be unable to do area fire though.
So would you not agree that this could be made better?
von Luck
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Here's a great spot from my last game. Advancing US soldier spots Jagdpanther from 750 meters away through 3 hedge rows and two forests. A little fishy no?
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In the last case there´s a number of variables to consider
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Using the targeting tool is sometimes tricky when applied from long ranges and just from POV of the targeting unit. One oftentimes can find a snapping point (for target area fire) if the camera is moved very close to the to be targeted AS. A few millimeters of mouse movement might make the difference of "reverse slope target" and blue targeting line.
One of my concerns with moving my target point away from the location of known enemy opposition is a significant decrease in the affect of suppressing fires. If I wand my LOS across the hedge and the LOS I achieve is far enough away from the spotted enemy I will try to close to find a better spot. This was certainly what I was attempting to achieve in the scenario I played out. When 1st PLT became bogged I was hopeful that spreading a second PLT across the field would reward me with usable positions to fire on the hedge. Unfortunately this was not the case. It was not until my men had closed to under 60 meters that they could even engage any useful location on the bocage. Thinking the obstacle to my success was the simulated crop I decided I needed to move armor up to provide an elevated platform with which to suppress from. This proved not to be true.
as for mapping infantry on the move or stationary I tend to map from the terminus of an order to judge the value of the move and the visual from its destination. What frustrated me most about this was that my men were under very effective fire the entire trek across the field yet they could not offer ANY resistance.
von Luck
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That's where you lose credibility with me,losing a company of men is way more then "your" los issues with the game.You may want to brush up on your basic tactics.I too have been playing since 2000, and never had "such a loss of men" due to los.
Never, once could I not complete a game due to the LOS mechanics.
If this were the case, there would be hundreds of complaints about it, including me, but there are not hundreds of complaints, your blowing this out of proportion,
I had mapped LOS prior to game start after which it had changed dramatically altering my plan without much forewarning. As for credibility there is precious little I can say in a thread that will change most opinions in this forum. That said I'm here to report that LOS is a frequent issue I confront with varied affects in game. The fact stands that the field in that map is completely broken in terms of LOS allowing the defender free reign to fire on targets without ANY reply. That was by far the worst situation I had experienced where LOS had hamstrung what should have been a powerful offensive force by preventing suppressing fire on a hedge row in clear view. Tell me that you can stand 150 meters from a hedge row on a flat field and be unable to fire on it. Then tell me that a tank and a SPAAG cant support the troops from the same field.
I encounter an LOS issue every single game I play. I'm not saying that every LOS issue is as substantive as the one aforementioned however I am saying that there is room to improve and I would like to see it change. I have made this post to report my displeasure and call upon others to recognize there is indeed room for improvement.
I know I am not alone in this as the 6 players in my clique who have played these games have all had frustrating LOS experiences. Every single game has a reverse slope no aim point moment which when closely inspected should not exist. If half of these were fixed the game would be that much better for the effort.
von Luck
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The point of my posting this here, Weapon2010, was to express my righteous indignation over several games some of which could not be completed because of the absurdity of the LOS mechanics. I would like to remind people that while this game has many fun aspects - I have a long standing love/hate relationship with Battlefront - there is room for improvement. Some of these shortcomings are egregious enough to end games prematurely. Losing a company of men to what ended up being a depleted platoon of Americans because of poor LOS mapping is most certainly NOT entertaining. At the end of the day there is room to improve and there should be impetus to do so. When every game features an issue with LOS it might be worth looking into.
von Luck
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I have a long history with battlefronts products. I have owned and played many of the CMX1 titles and I purchased CMX2 titles very close to their release. You could say I have been at this awhile. I have fond memories of playing Barbarossa to Berlin during my 2010 tour to Iraq. Each game has its unique quirks and character. CMX2 seems to sport more issues with LOS, spotting mechanics and strangely minefields. I cannot get minefields to work no matter how dense. I am fairly certain the mines are moved once the deployment is sent to the host.
von Luck
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you wont get an argument from me in this case that not being able to area fire on that building is an engine limitation,however that doesn't mean enemy within that building wont be suppressed by your unit once spotted, but I still disagree with your original comment ,"Why is spotting and LOS so poorly represented in this?".I truly do not believe that is the case.We forget all the times the los/spotting works as expected.Is it perfect?No.
Perfection is not my goal. I do feel that LOS and spotting could be better though. I cannot play a game without an issue in concerns to this. As I posted above some of these issues can be more damaging than others.
von Luck
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This is a picture from a game I could not complete. I chose to advance through a planted field which prior to the game I had mapped LOS from the near hedge row to the enemy hedge row. With this in mind I placed HMG's in advantageous positions to cover my advance. Once the game started and my men began to advance the plan of action was the first casualty - not surprising at all. However I found that no matter where my men were in the field or behind it they could not fire upon the enemy hedge row. It wasn't until advancing to within 100 meters of the hedge row could they even lay suppressing fire on the obstacle. This proved to be an impossible task which quickly resulted in the loss of a company of men struggling to reach a position to even fire. Its worth mentioning that during this time the enemy had unobstructed fields of fire and put down very effective fire on my men. Struggling to right this situation I called upon a Panther and a Flakpanzer38(t) to provide fire support. Despite this they suffered from the same inability to even lay suppressing fire on the hedge row until they were 150 meters away.
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Or how about spotting a stationary KT buried in the middle of the woods from 742 Meters away. Pretty sharp eyes on that commie if you ask me. And before you blow me up for Binoculars being present I would remind you that this tank was buried in the rear of my deployment zone. Infantry casually walking to the front are not likely to survey something like that. If the observer is stationary it should be possible but it would require some time to take in the battlefield.
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From another angle. This MG could only fire on enemies inside the building after it had spotted them. It could not provide suppressing fire to great determent of all units attempting to navigate the area.
Work on Patch v1.01 has started
in Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg
Posted
Having been an Army "commo guy" this beep is actually rather distracting mostly because I know exactly what it is.
von Luck