Spotting Issues

[weapon2010]

I've played CMBN almost everyday since the demo.Hundereds if not thousands of wego turns mostly against human opponents .The new engine has an amazing and sensitive spotting system that overall is far superior to CMX1.There are a couple of things that I think need to be looked into as far as spotting.Below are my observations and opinions on spotting.

1. Buttoned Tanks ability to Spot.

Buttoned tanks ability to spot in general needs to be downgraded for all targets except other tanks.I think tank to tank spotting is just right .Not alot.Im guessing a 5-10% overal reduction in spotting ability.More reduction to the sides and rear of buttoned tanks only. Small teams in cover, especially deep woods should almost be invisible to buttoned tanks.At guns in woods should almost be invisible as well, even after they fire several rounds.This is for buttoned tanks only.

2.Too Much information.

This is for all units.To much information is given after the spot has occured.If I spot a Panther for a second moving between buildings,it will tell me its Panther 2.Now I know he has at least 3 Panthers by a split second spot.Hq Panther,Panther 1,Panther 2.Ive spotted infantry for a split second at a thousand yards telling me its an mg ammo bearer or xo unit or tank crew or mortar teams.These guys have amazing eyes and unbelievable binoculars.The spot should say infantry, or Panther, not 2nd Panzer Granadier squad.This to much information is taking away from the fog of war effect.The CM1 engine actualy gave out very little information until you closed and closed on the enemy.

3. Super Spotting

Super spotting is what I call it.Im sure you guys have seen this.Your halftrack is snuggled nicely next to a large thick forest clump.Safe right, no one can see me right, its impossible for anyone to see me here,wrong.Somehow you were spotted by a tank 1500 yards way and his shell also managed to go through about 60 trees to take you out.It does'nt happen often.But it does occur.I have a great save file on super spotting if a beta tester wants it.

[weapon2010]

Also, I am in full agreement with Treadhead on his topic "Spotting to Easy".My post was a little different so I thought it needed a different thread.

[SelfLoadingRifle]

Agreed. In CM1 I really liked those general purpose graphics that told you that you had spotted armour, but not the exact type. Another feature that could be borrowed from the old engine is that in many cases when spotted, German armour was wrongly identified as Tigers. This happened historically and IMHO should be included in CMN.

SLR

[Pak40]

In response to your points above:

1. I have found the opposite. Every time I've used armor I've had a hell of a time spotting infantry from tanks, especially behind hedge rows. I'll have infantry easily spotting enemy targets and freely engaging them while my tank next to the infantry can't even spot anything - I have to resort to area fire.

2. Isn't this what the difficulty levels are for? I always play on Warrior but assumed the two harder levels offered less info.

3. I haven't seen this type of spotting. If I PM you will you email the saved file to me?

[A Canadian Cat]

2.Too Much information.

This is for all units.To much information is given after the spot has occured.If I spot a Panther for a second moving between buildings,it will tell me its Panther 2.Now I know he has at least 3 Panthers by a split second spot.Hq Panther,Panther 1,Panther 2.Ive spotted infantry for a split second at a thousand yards telling me its an mg ammo bearer or xo unit or tank crew or mortar teams.These guys have amazing eyes and unbelievable binoculars.The spot should say infantry, or Panther, not 2nd Panzer Granadier squad.This to much information is taking away from the fog of war effect.The CM1 engine actualy gave out very little information until you closed and closed on the enemy.

This is so true. I am OK with this uber information being available at some of the playing modes, say from Warrior and down. When I read the mode descriptions it sounded like Elite was a good place to play. But there are two problems:

First, as you pointed, out while it is nice that contacts only show the generic infantry icon you can still select them and see way to many details.

The second problem is that some non infantry contacts show up as infantry and you don't realize it until you select them. For example once you spot an AT gun it will show the infantry icon. You will only know it is an AT gun if you click on the infantry icon to see (or get a good look with the camera because you can see the gun). BTW I think it would be good that if you spot one crew member you only see an generic infantry icon. I am talking about when your guys spot the gun it self, I should know it is a gun by looking at the icon.

I would really like to see Elite (and Iron) tweaked to get rid of this extra squad / vehicle / type / number details but make sure the infantry icon is not used for guns. MGs and HQs should also just use the generic infantry icon too. It would take a long time of good spotting before you could tell the difference between a squad, platoon HQ and an MG team (unless the MG starts firing of course).

This would make a significant positive change to the immersion and FOW. Right now it bothers me every time I see an enemy platoon setup on the opposite hedge row and I can see the three squads, the HQ and the MG position. I should not have that much information.

[Tread Head]

Agreed, even just making the higher level game more realistic would be great... if guys want to have all thses god-like abilities let them, but let them on easy mode.

[YankeeDog]

I would love to see the grey "Tank?" graphics from CMx1 make a comeback, Unfortunately, we probably won't see this anytime soon because of the way graphics and hit calculations interact in the game. AIUI, the game actually literally uses the 3D render of the unit to calculate its place in space, and whether it gets hit by a bullet or not. So they'd have to code a whole new routine for the game to be able to display a generic grey "Tank?" to the player, but still track the actual tank's shape and place in space for the purposes of hit calculations. Certainly not impossible, but time-consuming to code.

But I totally agree about the unit info thing. I don't see any reason why the unit info panel in the UI couldn't be blacked out when an enemy unit is selected for at least Elite and Iron play. Or even better just have the unit info panel show very generic information on enemy units at Elite and Iron, like a simple non rank-specific enemy unit avatar, and very simple text like "Infantry" or "Tank" or whatever.

I've brought this up several times, but it never seems to get enough traction.

[Wreck]

I totally agree about the unit info thing. ... have the unit info panel show very generic information on enemy units at Elite and Iron, like a simple non rank-specific enemy unit avatar, and very simple text like "Infantry" or "Tank" or whatever.

I've brought this up several times, but it never seems to get enough traction.

Well it is a good idea. As it is I don't really see the point of Elite -- you can still get the info, you just have to click on every unit you see to see what it is. If you are into pointless busy-work clicking, then Iron is better.

[weapon2010]

In response to your points above:

1. I have found the opposite. Every time I've used armor I've had a hell of a time spotting infantry from tanks, especially behind hedge rows. I'll have infantry easily spotting enemy targets and freely engaging them while my tank next to the infantry can't even spot anything - I have to resort to area fire.

2. Isn't this what the difficulty levels are for? I always play on Warrior but assumed the two harder levels offered less info.

3. I haven't seen this type of spotting. If I PM you will you email the saved file to me?

1.You should have a hell of a time spotting infantry from tanks, and especially

from behind hedgerows.That sounds likes spotting working properly to me.I am not refering to the circumstances that you are.

2.I dont know the difference between levels, I only play Iron mode.

3.Yes I can send you the super spotting file.Are you a beta tester?

[weapon2010]

I was hoping that Steve or someone from the team might address my 3 spotting issues.Possibly , "Yes Weapon2010 you are lord of all spotting issue knowledge, everything you have pointed out will be immediatley evaluated if not tweaked in the next patch."Or ,"Weapon2010 your points are not based on reality go back to playing Panzer General and lay off the valium."Or somewhere in between.

[weapon2010]

It also gets the thread up top ,where it belongs.

[sand digger]

Agree with all the OP's points, particularly with the X-ray vision spotting by buttoned up tanks.

[Paper Tiger]

I was hoping that Steve or someone from the team might address my 3 spotting issues.Possibly , "Yes Weapon2010 you are lord of all spotting issue knowledge, everything you have pointed out will be immediatley evaluated if not tweaked in the next patch."Or ,"Weapon2010 your points are not based on reality go back to playing Panzer General and lay off the valium."Or somewhere in between.

Well believe it or not, these issues are brought up regularly by Beta testers . I made a post specifically about issue 2 myself a couple of weeks ago. Let's just say that BFC are well aware of these issues and we're all waiting for them to find the time to address them.

[John1966]

Regarding issue 1, I'm going to take a (controversial?) guess that this is a gameplay issue to do with the AI.

I think most of us would agree that a buttoned up tank's ability to spot infantry is unrealisitically good. Lets also bear in mind that tanks spend most of their time buttoned up (especially considering that the AI will fire on an unbuttoned tank pretty sharpish with MGs etc in order to make it button up).

So if the buttoned tank's ability to spot is drastically reduced to a more realistic level, what effectis this going to have?

I'd have thought the most obvious effect would be that buttoned tanks would rarely engage infantry at all, unless the infantry stands in the open in front of the tank waving flags in the air. Wouldn't this take the edge off the power of a tank? Well, perhaps not because what would happen is that we'd get them to area fire suspected infantry positions and, indeed, known infantry positions that have been spotted by other units. This dependency on area fire might even be considered to be an improvement in realism.

However, the problem is when you are playing against the AI because, as far as I understand, the AI isn't capable of doing this. Or at least that's what other threads seem to be saying and it would fit with what I've seen. Certianly they don't area fire suspected positions.

Soooo, what that means is that the AI's tanks would become effectively neutralised against your infantry. The only solution would seem to be to give them a better than actually realistic ability to spot. Which is what we have; a compromise not disimilar to what BFC have said about tanks shooting on the move.

Just a thought. Could be nonsense, I suppose.

[Michael Emrys]

Soooo, what that means is that the AI's tanks would become effectively neutralised against your infantry.

I think that in the close country of Normandy that does become a problem, as indeed it did historically. Really, the only way it can be adequately addressed is by closer coöperation between armor and infantry, as occurred in some formations in the later stages of the campaign. If the armor is closely accompanied by infantry, the latter can indicate in various ways the location of targets needing to be neutralized by tank fire. They can also protect the tanks from enemy infantry approaching close enough to threaten damage or destruction.

The other solution to the problem is for the tanks to operate in what is more their natural environment: more open country where they can bring targets under fire from outside the effective range of return small arms fire, and can thus persist unbuttoned.

Michael

[John1966]

Really, the only way it can be adequately addressed is by closer coöperation between armor and infantry, as occurred in some formations in the later stages of the campaign. If the armor is closely accompanied by infantry, the latter can indicate in various ways the location of targets needing to be neutralized by tank fire.

Well that's fine for player controlled forces. But what about the AI player? Or are you suggesting that the AI side should perhaps share its spotting information more freely than it currently does? Actually, doing something like that to make up for its inability to use area fire effectively isn't a bad idea. Although I suspect people won't like different rules for the AI than for the player.

[Michael Emrys]

Well, ultimately gamewise, the solution would be some way to account for the amount and effectiveness of the training of the troops in armor-infantry coöperation. Thus, if they were well experienced in the technique, they could readily share spotting information. Otherwise, not. But this would require major programming time on the part of BFC, I suspect.

Michael

[sand digger]

Some of you are missing the point which is all about time, how long it takes buttoned up tanks to spot. At present, as anyone who has played the game much should know, buttoned tanks regularly spot a nearby threat or whatever almost immediately. With a threat the spotting and reaction becomes one, damm quick and usually faster than a threat unimpeded by a surrounding armoured box can react.

So a solution has no negative implications for the A1 at all because a buttoned up tank could still spot, it's just that realistically it should not be able to regularly spot with such immediacy all the time. Although an experienced crew could quite legitimately be able to spot more effectively than some greens so there we have another realistic tweak that can be made.

[aka_tom_w]

This should be on the front burner of issues looked at.

[Sgt Schultz]

I am wondering how much folks are taking the C2 net into account for the most glaring examples of uber-spotting by armor.

For the most part, armor is in constant C2, unless radios or HQ are dead. If they are singletons assigned to an infantry formation then the C2 net is even more robust.

Depending on where in the net the armor in question is, it could have very good intelligence, by way of the CM2 engine, of who is where.

My singles are usually attached directly to Btn, so the info the Btn HQ gets from downline gets reported to the armor rather quickly.

I am not propsing that this is the cause of the issue at hand. It may be a contributing factor in some instances though.

just a thought

[hoolaman]

The "problem" with these spotting issues (and a lot of other issues at the moment) is that we are down to the point of tinkering around the edges.

This can mean that what one person subjectively thinks is too easy there may be a dozen others who think it is ok or even too hard. It is pretty hard to prove/justify making a change to BFC without a LOT of statistical info that shows terrain x,y,z or unit z,y,z to be a real problem.

Doing this is extremely time consuming and even the beta testers do not always get a chance to do this kind of work. My suggestion, if you want a change, provide scientific statisitcal evidence. Isolate as many factors as you can and vary one at a time, then do it 1000 times.

[skelley]

Yes... These issues should be addressed before any new release of the next mod. I understand the need for new revenue but first fix the major problems. This has been a problem for 4 1/2 years now. Time to address it no matter how difficult. Just my 2 cents.