Hunt Command suggestion

[JonS]

Do you believe that's an appropriate reaction when using the hunt command?

No.

But, happily, it's not true either.

On average they will be there for 30 seconds, not 60. Furthermore, there's a reasonable likelihood that instead of "doing nothing" they'll pop smoke and reverse.

But, you know. Don't let the game get in the way of a good rant

[MattMulder]

my 2c here.

I have been constantly frustrated by the famous 60-second gap and all, watchnig as my Panthers get 4 or 5 shots in a single turn and just stay there when not panicking and running for it. This is circumventable by using the slow command ( for a few metres ), and reverse order, to prevent to much damage to be done in case of spotting by an ATG for example. It is pretty weird to see a tank go back and forth, but in the end, it prevents a nasty 75mm gun-disabling shot or some other crappy consequence for standing still in the middle of a gun sights.

So what can BF do? err...nothing. They won't , because this is a minor issue, only the really really frequent players will have something to say about it. I don't really complain, because there was a time when there were 3 little guys symbolizing a squad and no one was complaining about this AT guy carrying a panzerfaust on his shoulder or not. We have evolved, the game has evolved, and our requests too. However, never forget this is probably the most accurate simulation ever made so you can be forgiving for a couple of things. I mean they already corrected a lot of very bad issues, and we give them money to do so anyway, but please look on the bright side and set this aspect aside, maybe it's gonna be implemented maybe not, but if we keep on demanding impossible things, when are we gonna ask for a medic with morphine syringes as equipment to alleviate a casualty's pain ?

This thread is interesting in any case, old-timers opening their hearts and minds

[sburke]

However, never forget this is probably the most accurate simulation ever made so you can be forgiving for a couple of things. I mean they already corrected a lot of very bad issues, and we give them money to do so anyway, but please look on the bright side and set this aspect aside, maybe it's gonna be implemented maybe not, but if we keep on demanding impossible things, when are we gonna ask for a medic with morphine syringes as equipment to alleviate a casualty's pain ?

This thread is interesting in any case, old-timers opening their hearts and minds

LOL it's all good. Yes we are a passionate and at times cantankerous bunch, but this would be a hellaciously boring forum otherwise. If we didn't have varying viewpoints it would be scary...cult like even. We just all have our personal peeves and playstyles.

But regarding the game, Broadsword and I are currently engaged in a brutal slugging match on a pretty stunning map. We expect to be posting some screenshots and an AAR when we wrap up as it is really reflecting the strengths that are in CMBN. If we could post the entire game as something viewable we would as I have yet to have a single moment where the command structure/UI has been a real issue and the TAC AI provides some truly cinematic moments. We had one a couple turns back where the Germans and GIs confront each other over a hedgerow and trade casualties. One lone surviving German flees the fight racing for safety across a wheatfield and runs smack into a couple GIs cowering in that same wheatfield on the other side. A high noon episode ensues with the landser trying to fight with a bolt action rifle against a couple GIs with Garand and SMG. The Landser buys it finally when a tank round hits him from behind (and I think taking out one of the GIs as well).

Tanks burning, artillery exploding, tracers rounds zipping all over the place, the occasional casualty far from the front line from a stray round. The game is simply jaw droppingly good. Yeah we all have things we would like, but that comes in the context of a phenomenally amazing game.

[skelley]

HarryB... A lot of us have been complaining about this since CMSF and BFC has shown no interest in fixing it. Hunt worked well in CMX1 but they chose to substitute it with move to contact and it doesn't look like they are willing to code it. I almost never use the hunt command except in heavy forest with infantry. The hunt movement is far too fast IMHO for vehicles anyway. I use slow command for all vehicles 90% of the time since the CMX1 hunt command was omitted.

[sburke]

HarryB... A lot of us have been complaining about this since CMSF and BFC has shown no interest in fixing it.

Wait, are you saying.. no you couldn't, yet it does sound like...yes I think it is.. It was that way in CMSF?

Sorry I just couldn't resist and I am bored waiting for a turn to come back.

[Amizaur]

I'd like to clear something for Jon.

The issue "if a tank should move to first contact by TC only, or move further untill it's main gun has LOS to the target" is a separate issue I didn't even touch.

I was talking purely about another issue: "should the hunting tanks stop and cancel their route after seeing a target, or maybe better would be they countinued the hunt, if the target disappears and becomes a "?".

The LOS issue is important too, but it's more complicated and harder to fix. Some decisions about wanted behaviour and much testing would be required. I don't touch it.

I'd like to fix the "hunt route canceled by momentary contacts" issue which is MUCH more simple.

I'd like correcting the "Hunt" command in a way, that if the tank stops after seeing a target, and the target disappears and becomes a "?", the tank can wait a moment but then it CONTINUES on it's route. That it doesn't stop for a rest of whole turn after seeing ANYTHING.

If you feel the current "Hunt" logic is useful, the "new" Hunt logic could be made a separate new command, and the name of current one changed to "Move to contact" (or to "Go find something" if one doesn't like CMx1 names).

Now Jon, tell me why would that be wrong ? To have the Hunt order working like that (better yet - while retaining the "Move to contact" logic in another command). How often would be the "continue" logic worse than "stop and stay" ?

Let's see.

First example, very frequent situation:

As it is now: a tank moves and sees a distant infantry contact. It stops. After one second the infantry contact disappears and becomes a "?". The tank sits there for a rest of WEGO turn.

New logic: a tank moves and sees a distant infantry contact. It stops. After one second the infantry contact disappears and becomes a "?". The tank waits 5-10s and continues hunting forward, on it's designated route.

I like the second behaviour better. It's neded much more often than a "scouting" first one. I can scout with infantry better.

Second example - a guess, a rather rare one:

As it is now: a tank moves and sees an ATG gun, but only the TC spots it, the main gun has no LOS. Tank stops. It can not shoot at the AT gun, the AT gun maybe can and is shooting the top of it's turret. The tank is either killed, or doing nothing, or popping smoke and reversing after talking few hits.

New logic: a tank moves and sees an ATG gun, but only the TC spots it, the main gun has no LOS. Tank stops. It can not shoot at the AT gun, the AT gun maybe can and is shooting the top of it's turret. The tank is either killed, or doing nothing, or popping smoke and reversing after talking few hits.

Now, in the second example, including mentioned LOS problems - why would the new logic - "continue if the target is lost for more than 5 or 10 seconds" - be WORSE here ? The tank would be doing exactly the same things like now.

Nothing improved here, but nothing broken either - regarding LOS problems.

What I propose isn't a solution for LOS issues - it's solution for Hunt routes being "canceled" by momentary contacts. The LOS issues, the difference between spotting by TC and gunner is a separate issue I'm not even coming into. So please don't bring it as an argument against, if the tank behaviour in both cases would be exactly THE SAME. So not worse for sure.

And if you, personally, don't want the tank to continue on the route after the target disappears, if you prefer it to stay there, well, then you could use the "Move to contact" order. And if there is no "Move to contact" order (because the new "Hunt" replaced old "Hunt" and no orders were added) then.... maybe you are expecting too much ? Maybe you could get this behaviour you need in some other way - for example using a combination of other orders, or - better - just spot the target with another unit (infantry) and then move the tank with ordinary movement order to that place ? Well, use your creativity. Just as you are suggesting to me.

Yes. Exactly. That's what I've been trying to tell you and Harry. The current solution isn't perfect, but yet you reject it.

If I have to explain what a "perfect solution fallacy" is, then: it's not when someone "rejects the reality" - there is a differen word for that Jon - but when someone likes the current state of some things so IN A DISCUSSION he rejects any proposed improvement argumenting that "it's not perfect". Only perfect solution would please him. (But we know, they wouldn't - he just likes the things to stay as they are, and demand for perfect solution is for him just an argument against any imperfect changes, so - in reality - against ANY changes.... because there rarely are any perfect solutions...).

Now, it doesn't really fits that situation, does it ?

[HarryB]

Well Amizaur, I think you said it pretty well. The differences in spotting between the two games have an effect on the Hunt command whether the unit continues forward after losing sight of the unit that caused it to pause or not. I think that in general, having to choose between the options of continuing forward vs. staying put; more often than not it is better to keep moving along the assigned path than to stop and stay there for the rest of the 60 second turn.

Cheers

[cool breeze]

The thing is, in the example I gave at the beginning of the thread, my tank was driving around some bocage and spotted enemy infantry I'll guess about 20 meters to its left. It then instantly lost sight of them and came to a complete halt, just sitting there doing nothing. About 30 seconds later he exploded, most likely from a panzerfaust. I knew the enemy was there before the Hunt command was issued, and the path I had set was to enable my tank to get a clear line of sight to them so he could take them out. By stopping, he put himself if much more danger than if he would have continued along his assigned path. If he continued, he would have had a good chance to regain sight of the infantry, but, sitting where he was, his chances were slim.

In the post after yours, Amizaur pretty much says what I have been saying. It is true that sometimes continuing along its assigned path will put the tank in greater danger, but most of the time that is preferable to just stopping and sitting where it is the second it sees an enemy.

Thanks for responding to me HarryB.

If your driving your tank through dangerous territory but you don't want it to stop until its gets to the special spot you picked, you should use an order other than HUNT. A quick or move order to the firing location would have had better results. But in the normal situation of a tank hunting down a cover lined road, where you dont already know about an infantry right there that you are trying to maneuver to kill, it is more appropriate to have the current cmx2 HUNT behavior. you don't need one advancing unit to find and kill more than one unit per turn. if you give hunt to find a new enemy unit (kinda like the name suggests) then the "new" behavior is perfect. You dont need to keep advancing forward after finding someone and having him duck, finding him and probably being able to shoot him and if so shooting him and relaying the info up the cc is all good for one turn of hunt. why does he need to stop worrying about this new threat and continue on with reduced spotting (from moving) for the rest of the turn? Why do i want my tank coming into contact with additional threats at the same time? why do i want it reducing the range to or even driving past the newly found but ducking rocket guy by the road? "Alright sarge we were ordered to hunt down this road and engage any enemies we find, we got engaged from both sides by heavy fire, but our return heavy fire made them duck on both sides for about 10 seconds, seeing as they are transitory threats Its obviously high time we plunge further down the road into they abyse....."

[HarryB]

Thanks for responding to me HarryB.

If your driving your tank through dangerous territory but you don't want it to stop until its gets to the special spot you picked, you should use an order other than HUNT. A quick or move order to the firing location would have had better results. But in the normal situation of a tank hunting down a cover lined road, where you dont already know about an infantry right there that you are trying to maneuver to kill, it is more appropriate to have the current cmx2 HUNT behavior. you don't need one advancing unit to find and kill more than one unit per turn. if you give hunt to find a new enemy unit (kinda like the name suggests) then the "new" behavior is perfect. You dont need to keep advancing forward after finding someone and having him duck, finding him and probably being able to shoot him and if so shooting him and relaying the info up the cc is all good for one turn of hunt. why does he need to stop worrying about this new threat and continue on with reduced spotting (from moving) for the rest of the turn? Why do i want my tank coming into contact with additional threats at the same time? why do i want it reducing the range to or even driving past the newly found but ducking rocket guy by the road? "Alright sarge we were ordered to hunt down this road and engage any enemies we find, we got engaged from both sides by heavy fire, but our return heavy fire made them duck on both sides for about 10 seconds, seeing as they are transitory threats Its obviously high time we plunge further down the road into they abyse....."

The problem was that the tank spotted infantry briefly, lost sight of them and then just parked where it was, in a position that was obviously vulnerable if the infantry it spotted had any kind of anti-tank weapons. If the commander was a real human being he would most likely start blasting away with HE where he last saw the threat or back away to a safer distance. He did neither because the AI in the game doesn't recognize anything it has lost sight of as a threat. He just sat there in the danger zone polishing his helmet and waiting to be killed. The reason you want him to continue on is so that he will have a better chance to regain contact with the threat he lost sight of.

When you say that I should have used a different command you are absolutely correct given the way the command is currently set up in the game. That is why I am arguing to get it changed back to the way it was in CMx1, so that my tank may continue moving

The key here is the AI. If, to the AI, units it lost sight of didn't just cease to exist and it could respond to them appropriately, it wouldn't need such detailed instructions. I am asking the AI to trust my orders rather than just sit there and do nothing.

[von Kleist]

Very well said!

I'd like to clear something for Jon.

...

First example, very frequent situation:

As it is now: a tank moves and sees a distant infantry contact. It stops. After one second the infantry contact disappears and becomes a "?". The tank sits there for a rest of WEGO turn.

New logic: a tank moves and sees a distant infantry contact. It stops. After one second the infantry contact disappears and becomes a "?". The tank waits 5-10s and continues hunting forward, on it's designated route.

I like the second behaviour better. It's neded much more often than a "scouting" first one. I can scout with infantry better.

Second example - a guess, a rather rare one:

As it is now: a tank moves and sees an ATG gun, but only the TC spots it, the main gun has no LOS. Tank stops. It can not shoot at the AT gun, the AT gun maybe can and is shooting the top of it's turret. The tank is either killed, or doing nothing, or popping smoke and reversing after talking few hits.

New logic: a tank moves and sees an ATG gun, but only the TC spots it, the main gun has no LOS. Tank stops. It can not shoot at the AT gun, the AT gun maybe can and is shooting the top of it's turret. The tank is either killed, or doing nothing, or popping smoke and reversing after talking few hits.

Now, in the second example, including mentioned LOS problems - why would the new logic - "continue if the target is lost for more than 5 or 10 seconds" - be WORSE here ? The tank would be doing exactly the same things like now.

Nothing improved here, but nothing broken either - regarding LOS problems.

What I propose isn't a solution for LOS issues - it's solution for Hunt routes being "canceled" by momentary contacts. The LOS issues, the difference between spotting by TC and gunner is a separate issue I'm not even coming into. So please don't bring it as an argument against, if the tank behaviour in both cases would be exactly THE SAME. So not worse for sure.

And if you, personally, don't want the tank to continue on the route after the target disappears, if you prefer it to stay there, well, then you could use the "Move to contact" order. And if there is no "Move to contact" order (because the new "Hunt" replaced old "Hunt" and no orders were added) then.... maybe you are expecting too much ? Maybe you could get this behaviour you need in some other way - for example using a combination of other orders, or - better - just spot the target with another unit (infantry) and then move the tank with ordinary movement order to that place ? Well, use your creativity. Just as you are suggesting to me.

If I have to explain what a "perfect solution fallacy" is, then: it's not when someone "rejects the reality" - there is a differen word for that Jon - but when someone likes the current state of some things so IN A DISCUSSION he rejects any proposed improvement argumenting that "it's not perfect". Only perfect solution would please him. (But we know, they wouldn't - he just likes the things to stay as they are, and demand for perfect solution is for him just an argument against any imperfect changes, so - in reality - against ANY changes.... because there rarely are any perfect solutions...).

Now, it doesn't really fits that situation, does it ?

[womble]

IMO, as it stands, and from a WeGo player's perspective, "Hunt" is pretty much a complete waste of programming effort. I can't think of a single thing that a combination of stuttering movement and targeting arcs can't do better than Hunt. The causes of Hunt stopping are too small, and the consequence (stopping where the enemy can see you, without regard to the enemy's ability to hurt you) can be disastrous.

Perhaps it's useful in RT play; I can imagine it might be, but the few times I've tried it out, it's not achieved the results I wanted in WeGo.

But changing it is effort that even if it's applied, won't give us players any results until Bulge.

[sburke]

IMO, as it stands, and from a WeGo player's perspective, "Hunt" is pretty much a complete waste of programming effort. I can't think of a single thing that a combination of stuttering movement and targeting arcs can't do better than Hunt. The causes of Hunt stopping are too small, and the consequence (stopping where the enemy can see you, without regard to the enemy's ability to hurt you) can be disastrous.

Perhaps it's useful in RT play; I can imagine it might be, but the few times I've tried it out, it's not achieved the results I wanted in WeGo.

But changing it is effort that even if it's applied, won't give us players any results until Bulge.

For me, hunt is primarily an infantry command. I do occasionally use it, but frankly yeah I'd agree that for armor it is probably my least used command. If I want a tank in a hull down position that I have picked out, the last movement in is usually slow. The last thing I want is the TC stopping the tank while the gun is still below the hull down line. Using the terrain and speed are generally more effective at keeping my guys alive more than trying to spot whatever is gonna shoot at me with a moving vehicle.

[womble]

For me, hunt is primarily an infantry command...

Even for infantry, I find myself only using it when I can't bear to Quick through some terrain that I know is likely clear, but the pTruppen would have to treat as potentially hostile. Cos then I know I won't come back at the end of a minute and find they've gone 8m, spooked at a breaking twig and gone to ground... If there's a real chance of actually finding something on the Hunt, other movement modes are very nearly always more appropriate. I do not want my troops to hit the dirt and stay in a kill sack they've inadvertently entered; they should proceed to the next cover rather than make like fish in a barrel...

[sburke]

Even for infantry, I find myself only using it when I can't bear to Quick through some terrain that I know is likely clear, but the pTruppen would have to treat as potentially hostile. Cos then I know I won't come back at the end of a minute and find they've gone 8m, spooked at a breaking twig and gone to ground... If there's a real chance of actually finding something on the Hunt, other movement modes are very nearly always more appropriate. I do not want my troops to hit the dirt and stay in a kill sack they've inadvertently entered; they should proceed to the next cover rather than make like fish in a barrel...

for a little more detail I tend to use it as I approach a hedgerow. Go slow and hit the dirt if you spot anything kind of behavior. I do not use it to cover a lot of open ground.

[Sarge]

i did a search and came up empty for the exact 'suggestion' i'd like to make... that is in doing a covered arch, could we not have a secondary menu ask " armor - soft veh - men " ?? it disappoints me when my MG's covering a zone open up on Armor.. or an ATG on a group of men... when i want them to stay hidden for the tank that is creeping along behind the men.

[JSj]

Then I am seriously questioning your searching skills. Having a cover arc for armor added is probably the most requested feature ever. Every other thread seems to be about this.

[sburke]

Then I am seriously questioning your searching skills. Having a cover arc for armor added is probably the most requested feature ever. Every other thread seems to be about this.

LOL I think it just overwhelms the search engine.

[Sarge]

i'll admit my search skills are less than acceptable.. maybe i used the wrong wording to 'search'? but good to know i'm not alone

[JSj]

You certainly are not alone in that wish.

Here is one of the many threads dealing with this topic:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=103967

[Broadsword56]

I used to use HUNT all the time for tanks, in any area where contact was likely. But because any fire -- even an MG burst from infantry -- cause the tank to halt and discard the rest of its orders, I've evolved a more subtle mix of commands.

I prefer SLOW with some pauses (no less than 15 sec) and very short segments, with area fire on different spots at each one. Then HUNT at the very end segment to be able to acquire any unexpected targets.

If the enemy ahead is more dangerous and unknown, then I might use all HUNT but with lots of short segments and pauses to increase the chance of being able to fire from a stationary position, spot targets, etc.

And lately I've discovered the virtues of the FAST command. I used to think it was suicidal to ever use it with tanks in contact, but actually when used in short dashes, mixed in with pauses to spot/shoot and a HUNT here and there, it can be the most effective of all. I find my tankers more often can surprise the enemy and use the shock effect of armor better with the well-timed FAST dash than with the slow, predictable creep forward. In WEGO, especially, a slow creep can let the opponent predict the time and direction of your advance, then maneuver to counter it and set up an ambush.

How about you? What's been your experience with the best armor commands (other than to whine about the lack of CM x 1 HUNT and MOVE TO CONTACT) ?