realism of mortars

[Steiner14]

1. the TacAI doesn't presently seem to recognize fortifications as "cover terrain" (they're more like some kind of vehicle). So you might get men leaving their entrenchments to crawl to buildings or forests when the most sensible thing would be to keep your head down.

2. that aside, you could also easily get unintended consequences where troops are crawling into the grazing fire of MGs in their overriding routine that says get out from under the stonk. The calculus of survival is a complex one.

What if units could be given a single emergency waypoint? A sleeping movement order that would be activated from the AI, once it decides that it would be better to leave the current spot. Maybe with the ability to choose between two or three threshold levels, when this order will become activated (percentage of losses, morale status, activate for artillery only).

Maybe that could also be useful for simulating ambushes & fallbacks?

To avoid problems with forgotten emergency orders after the player had moved the unit to another place, this command could be auto-cancelled, if the unit is actively moved a certain distance.

[Sublime]

Thats actually a brilliant idea. it could be a option you could click and give. Just like hunt is basically move to contact, you could have a hunt order, and perhaps some key to hit when the waypoint is highlighted, with a move order to follow if fired upon.

[Broadsword56]

The emergency waypoint idea would be excellent for scouts and recon, too. A kind of SOP for when they encounter the enemy.

[Bartokomus]

I think mortars are dramatically more powerful in CM than they should be. The reason is the LOS model. It's not borg anymore, but from the realism POV the problem of the player knowing all is still there. Call it semiborg. Your units are taking fire. You see a ? -- what can it be but a team, at least 4-5 juicy bugs including a MG42 bug -- worth eating. So, without the mortar or its HQ or indeed any unit except one having seen anything, the mortar opens fire on the exact action spot containing the enemy unit. 1-2 minutes later -- no enemy unit.

I would make one comment; the mortar team in my mind isn't firing at the enemy, they are firing at the piece of ground. Why should the mortar be unable to fire at a piece of ground relayed to it at a certain height and distance from their location. if i can see the hedge to drop rounds on, do i need to see the infrantryman at the base of the hedge?

Of course they want to hit the enemy, but coordinate are for a location...

i think off-map arty is the real problem in the game personally in terms of lethality and balance, but i have no idea how to fix it other than in my pbem games on a medium map the attacker gets max 300 rounds of off map 81mm and the defender gets 200 rounds rounds. on map mortars/guns are unrestricted.

[Wreck]

the mortar team in my mind isn't firing at the enemy, they are firing at the piece of ground. Why should the mortar be unable to fire at a piece of ground relayed to it at a certain height and distance from their location.

The mortar should be able to fire anywhere it can in range. The question is not about ability. The question is about the realism of firing on a spot for no reason. We know that WWII mortars did not, in fact, fire at random spots where the mortar team had zero reason to believe the enemy was. (They would have been out of ammo continually had they done that, there being an almost infinite number of places that they could see, where their enemies were not locaetd.) And yet, in CMBN, that is what they do. A unit spots an enemy; a mortar fires on the ?'s area, which it can see, even though it cannot see the enemy unit, or even a ?; and before it could have possibly communicated with the spotting unit. This is a problem.

[Steiner14]

The emergency waypoint idea would be excellent for scouts and recon, too. A kind of SOP for when they encounter the enemy.

Indeed. :cool: But then auto-cancel would need a different solution since scouting units would always trigger it.

Maybe two different kinds of emergency waypoints would do the trick?

a) Absolute EWP (this is auto cancelled if the unit is moved a certain distance [user definable: after plotting the EWP, a circle around the unit is drawn and the player defines the radius] - best for dug in or defending or ambushing units)

Relative EWP (no auto cancelling, but the EWP is moving relative with the unit's position - good for scouting)

[WynnterGreen]

IMO adding a whole new layer of waypoints is going to be seen as a massive over complication from the designers point of view.

I think, of course, a unit being hit by indirect fire should initially all take cover, cower, stop spotting etc, where they are.

If, or when, they hit a casualty or barrage intensity threshold (without actually being 'broken') in their current location, they should retreat along the direction of their previous waypoints path.

Bounding in much the same way an assault works. Half the unit breaking and running for cover and hitting the dirt in the direction from which they came. The other half cowering/hiding where they were, too frightened to risk it or hesitating, then making the dash to follow the rest of the unit. This bounding retreat should continue until the unit stops taking casualties, or clears the barrage area, at which point they regroup.

Heading back along their previous waypoint path should go some way to mitigate the 'running for cover into some yet to be contacted direct fire'. If it takes them 'back' into direct fire, it simulates a preference for that over the artillery.

Having them not retreat out of the 'zone' until they take casualties, or an intensity threshold is reached, means that the AI is 'considering' the potential that 'staying put' is safer.

The same bounding away reaction could be used for units being strafed.