Spotting still too easy!

[slysniper]

Good idea. I will Test Heavy Woods with 3 trees and run some more tests. But I know if nothing has changed in spotting ability since CMBN the results will not be good.

TREES ARE NOT THE IMPORTANT PART OF WHAT IS NEEDED, MAKE SURE YOU SELECT THE CORRECT GROUND TILE, GET THE THICK BRUSH.

But I have to agree with others in that in general I am not having problems with infantry poping up unless they are firing lately. (which should get them revealed) So what you are discribing does sound interesting compared to what I have been seeing. Without images, it is normally hard for others to help figure out what might be going on.

[skelley]

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=102595&highlight=skelley

Here is the thread I thought I started on CMBN but it was actually started by xian

[stikkypixie]

I did a quick test (no repeats) to get a feel of the situation. This is done in CMBN mind you.

I place my sniper team on rocky + brush (in contact with its HQ).

I placed the US rifle squad about 600m out of a perfectly flat map (in contact with its HQ as well).

The first thing that struck me is how bad the spotting is:

- At first I didn't give any orders to the rifle squad or the sniper squad and neither one of them spotted the other. Mind you this is on a perfectly flat, grass plain. I waited five minutes before proceeding and still no contact.

- Then I gave a single Hunt order to the rifle squad, moving straight to the sniper's location. The sniper team spotted the rifle team right away, but the rifle team was still oblivious to the presence of the sniper team.

- It is only when the sniper team started firing that they were spotted (about 10s after the shot hit the dirt). However if the lull between the rifle rounds was long enough, contact would be lost and only the marksman was spotted, not his assistant. Although on the fast side, this did not seem too out of the ordinary to me as visually the combination of rocky + brush does not seem to offer much concealment.

I'm curious what you guys think. I'll definitely do something more extensive the coming days.

[SlowMotion]

stikkypixie: your description sounds quite realistic to me. At least if the sniper team was trying to stay undetected. If they had a properly camouflaged position and did not move, I'd assume it would be difficult to detect them from 600m. Much better than the CMFI description of Skelley.

[Sublime]

skelley I wasnt trying to be rude or hostile in my post, in reading it I feel i may have come across that way.

Emrys, Ive read US military survival manuals that claim a flying aircraft can spot someone shining a mirror from over 50 miles (!) away on a bright clear day. Not sure if thats true or not, but survival kits do come with them.

There are other factors that could give someone away to someone looking for them. The spotting indeed is not perfect, however my experiences have not been near as extreme as some of the other posters.

[skelley]

No worries sublime:) I'm not posting to tell BFC their game sucks or anything... I actually enjoy it. BFC has entertained me for 12 years running at very little expense. My thoughts on this are that 99% of troops that here the zip of the bullet go by will go to ground keeping their heads down. They would be waiting for the green replacement to stick his head up to find out what's going on, only to be shot. My tests show that 11 seconds is the average time to pinpoint a sniper. That seems unreasonable to me. I may be wrong but I think self preservation is a strong motivator to let somebody else find the sniper. Anyway... If I can figure out this dropbox thing I will post the scenario and let everybody that wants to download it and see for themselves. Be back soon with a link.

[Michael Emrys]

Emrys, Ive read US military survival manuals that claim a flying aircraft can spot someone shining a mirror from over 50 miles (!) away on a bright clear day.

I don't really doubt it, but signaling mirrors are not telescope lenses. On the other hand, acrashb's post was interesting.

Michael

[skelley]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/96889540/Spotting%20Test%201.btt

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/96889540/Spotting%20Test%202.btt

Here are 2 different tests. I have run tests on #1 which is rocky. I created #2 to test heavy woods with thick shrubs. Please feel free to test this.

[skelley]

I may have screwed up with#2. Sniper may not have good LOS to the squad. Half the time they won't fire. Will check. BRB

[skelley]

Yep..Limited LOS to squad (gray line). Fixed it and here is the new linlk

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/96889540/Spotting%20Test%202.btt

[JonS]

Having said that, I have no opinion as to whether or not the game is modelling lens reflections as spotting tools... well, some opinion: likely not. The game would need to include sun, scope, and spotter positions in its calculations, which seems... not like something BFS would model. As the model would also need to include any issued and ad-hoc anti-reflection devices.

Agreed: I doubt it is modelled directly, but then a lot of things are modelled even though they aren't modelld directly. Vehicle engines are an obvious one; vehicles can move even though the engine isn't modelled, and vehicles stop when the not-modelled engine is damaged. Same with lens flare, I think. It's not modelled directly, instead it just gets lumped in with a whole bunch of other stuff under the generic heading of "why things are seen."

Or, to flip this around 180°, when one of my units is spotted I assume it's because they made one of any number of possible mistakes, including emitting a lens flare.

That's the way I think about it, anyway

[skelley]

I may have to rethink both tests. I need to put the squad on level ground with no shrubs so that the sniper will always fire. With #2 I had countless runs that they didn't engage. It does look like the heavy forest with shrubs offers much more concealment. Of the 6 rounds that I got the sniper to fire the spotting time averaged 40.1 seconds after the first shot. The ultra rocky terrain looks like it would offer much more cover than it actually does.

[skelley]

I did a quick test (no repeats) to get a feel of the situation. This is done in CMBN mind you.

I place my sniper team on rocky + brush (in contact with its HQ).

I placed the US rifle squad about 600m out of a perfectly flat map (in contact with its HQ as well).

The first thing that struck me is how bad the spotting is:

- At first I didn't give any orders to the rifle squad or the sniper squad and neither one of them spotted the other. Mind you this is on a perfectly flat, grass plain. I waited five minutes before proceeding and still no contact.

- Then I gave a single Hunt order to the rifle squad, moving straight to the sniper's location. The sniper team spotted the rifle team right away, but the rifle team was still oblivious to the presence of the sniper team.

- It is only when the sniper team started firing that they were spotted (about 10s after the shot hit the dirt). However if the lull between the rifle rounds was long enough, contact would be lost and only the marksman was spotted, not his assistant. Although on the fast side, this did not seem too out of the ordinary to me as visually the combination of rocky + brush does not seem to offer much concealment.

I'm curious what you guys think. I'll definitely do something more extensive the coming days.

To me 10 seconds seems fast...you gotta think most on the receiving end would have their heads down hoping they weren't visible to the sniper. Also the really rocky terrain CMFI is much more rocky than roughest terrain in CMBN. Looks more like boulders than rocks.

[stikkypixie]

To me 10 seconds seems fast...you gotta think most on the receiving end would have their heads down hoping they weren't visible to the sniper. Also the really rocky terrain CMFI is much more rocky than roughest terrain in CMBN. Looks more like boulders than rocks.

Well there is muzzle flash, sound report and dust being kicked up. Using hunt also tells the guys to be extra on the look out. So it does not seem *too overly excessive*, although it does does feel quick. Also remember that besides the sniper team, there isn't much to distract the squad.

Anyway, it's all a bit academic really as we don't really have real life numbers to compare, other than stories of squads having trouble spotting snipers or stories of how snipers have to relocate after every shot, but I'll run some tests anyway for the heck of it .

I'm planning to do 3 variations: the one you described, one with a wheat tile instead brush and using quick instead of move. That way we should be able to know the influence of having really good concealment and the Hunt command.

[skelley]

I ran tests last night on a 3rd option. A platoon hunting from 700+m on flat grass tile. Each time they dropped I got them moving again with the hunt command. The sniper is on a hill 50m above the flat ground, in heavy woods with thick shrubs. The sniper remained concealed up to 8 minutes after the first shot. By that time the platoon was about 400m away when they spotted him. Heavy woods and shrubs gives great concealment. That seems realistic to me.

I overestimated the concealment of the ultra rocky tile. It offers very little concealment but probably good cover.

I am going to try this test with various terrain tiles for the sniper and different movements for the platoon. Then I want to test AT guns in similar situations.

I look forward to your test results.

[slysniper]

I posted this on another thread in CMBN, but I think it applies to the spotting issues and what might be the area that needs tweeked. It basically shows to me that the area that might need testing is that of how fast should a unit be able to spot a enemy unit if it is moving and the enemy is not firing and motionless. Most of the time if you think about it. this is where the issue lies.

As for this thread and the sniper being spotted. In general, if he is shooting. he has about twice as long as it is taking him to spot your open units moving in the field. So not long to get identified. But what I am saying, that this is how all units are working in the game maybe.

Here is the other post

Ok, I finally sat down and did a little bit of testing last night to see what I would discover under the latest version of the game.

I saw some good and some not so good things. And by far, this is not enough testing to mean anything. But it was enough to get me a feel for what is going on and now I can try some other set ups to see how it impacts things. But as of yet, I do not have anything worth running a large number on that would show some issues.

The setup is this. I have a moving Sherman M4A1’s in the open, moving from cover to cover at 800 meters away from an enemy Sherman in tall grass under trees with heavy cover and trees behind it. (This might not be considered to be much concealment in the game-I need to test other types of hexes) but it is what I went with to see if it impacts play. Which I have not tested yet. The crews were Vets. With no mods and all units.

What I found the game does well is, Moving target in open are sighted very quickly. I saw no problems there. Within 13-15 seconds from the start of the game I always had sight of the moving Tank. I saw nothing in the test to think anything needs changed here.

Now the fun stuff.

At first I tested the moving Sherman with a hunt order and let both tanks fire at will. The results were the tank in the woods managed to shoot first every time. Spotting in 15 seconds and firing a few seconds later. With the enemy shooting at them the moving Sherman adv. spotting time were 28 seconds and then stopping and returning fire. So in general, not bad. Except for one thing, I had a battle where both tanks almost spotted each other at the same time.

So I adjusted the test so no firing would take place. Then I set the moving tank to not move to cover, but to zig zag moving towards the enemy. Let’s see what happens running at different speeds and see how long it takes the moving tank to spot the motionless tank in some concealment.

The motionless tank did fine with an adv. of 13 seconds to spot the enemy, nothing longer than 19 seconds.

But it is the moving tank that might have issues.

Here is what I saw. On the adv. It normally was taking twice as long for the moving tank to spot the motionless, tank. With 50% of the test taking over a minute for it to spot the tank. But that was the adv. Where I see a possible flaw is that 25% of my test had the moving tank spotting the enemy tank in 20 seconds or less.

With two tests actually having both tanks spot each other at the same time. This is not good.

Now I understand, that I should think of a tank in hunt mode as stopping at times and looking for the enemy.

So I ran some test at quick and fast to see if I could get similar results (there does appear to be added penalties). But I did get results of fast moving tanks still spotting the enemy tank twice in less than 23 seconds. (Now that is really bad- no fast moving tank should be seeing things all that well).

So In general, the moving tanks in the game adv. twice as long to spot something with a little variance for speed - not bad, at least there is a good difference (but similar results as if the enemy was firing, there should be much more of a difference). They have the ability to spot way to fast. Non motion targets at times. So I think a detailed test focused on this one issue might be what is needed.

So I was glad to see in principle it works, it just comes down to how often should a moving tank get eagle eye abilities where nothing is preventing it from seeing the enemy. (It is almost like it was sitting still and the enemy is not in any concealment either.

this shot shows what the moving sherman is trying to see

note: even if using Binos, this would not be easy to pick up quickly

Where as, even not in motion, it is pretty clear that we have a enemy tank out there

I do not expect the game to be totally realistic, but Some additional tweeking could be done to prevent moving units from picking up non firing units so quickly at times

[Redwolf]

Thanks, slysniper.

[slysniper]

Oh one other thing I wanted to mention. I started the test with clear skies at noon, I switched it thinking maybe overcast skies might change spotting the tank in the woods, which is what you are seeing. It was not the point of my test, but if it was a factor, it appeared they were spotted quicker when it was overcast. but based on the number of runs I would say there was no real difference. or not enought that I can say the engine was impacting the sighting because of it.

[skelley]

Good test Slysniper. It would be very difficult to spot a tank in trees in real life I would think. Especially from another tank. Infantry may be better at spotting them with no friendly tanks around, so that they could hear the enemy tank and get general direction of where they should look.

On my original game (played over and over) I had an enemy spotter set to hide in the AI planning. The longest it took to spot him was 3 minutes at over 450m. I think 2 platoons, Company HQ, and an FO had LOS to his hiding spot. Maybe the spotter pops his head up every so often and this causes him to be spotted? It seems to me that they should not be able to be spotted in hide mode unless really close even if one in the team pops up every now and then. Maybe that is what happens with guns as well.

[cool breeze]

On the other hand that is a lot of eyes and binoculars looking for him.

[SlowMotion]

I would think the driver concentrates on driving and only commander spots things further away from the tank.

[skelley]

On the other hand that is a lot of eyes and binoculars looking for him.

I would bet I could remain hidden from that many people, at that distance especially if they were trying to kill me. I'm sure that the Rocky terrain as opposed to heavy woods hurts the stealthiness but I think if they are hiding they should get more of a stealth bonus. What is the hide command good for then? Is it just to ensure they won't open fire, but not to remain concealed?

[Erwin]

Spotting and LOS issues are problematic in CM2. One needs to learn from experience (cos you won't find that sort of useful info in any CM2 manuals) that certain terrain features like foxholes and other things that appear visually to be cover or concealment do not provide much of one or the other.

Moving units should be pretty blind regarding anything that needs to be spotted via binoculars. Try looking thru binocs when traveling in relatively stable platforms, let alone a tank moving (even slowly) offroad. I recently tried it from a gently rocking boat looking for large objects (whales), and it's tough.

Similarly, there have been many posts re the difficulty of placing ATG's. Apparently we have to know how many meters into woods or trees etc we need to place em so that they can see out, but not so easily be spotted from outside. This is akin to the "bad old days" of CM1 where good players were able to gauge exactly what distance from the tree edge was optimal.

Of course CM1 had tree bases so that you knew pretty accurately what terrain a unit was in, and more importantly from the perspective of optimal shooting out, how far from its edge the unit was. In CM2 it's much harder to judge both. The irony is that the RL troops on the ground would be able to easily ascertain this sort of info.

[cool breeze]

My comment about the lots of eyes and binoculars was only directed at the scenario with 2 platoons+ trying to spot the sniper. I'm not saying I know BFC has it just right right now, and I hope I'd be able to stay hidden when ordered to from that many people at that range, but they say that what you see is what you get, and the game shows the hiding soldiers regularly getting up to crouch to spot. They also arn't wearing modern bush looking sniper gear or using modern sniper training. The way the game displays the spotting during hiding it seems reasonable that with that many guys with that many binoculars all with LOS, someone, someone would see them in 3 minutes or less. Maybe we can get a new height level added some day to allow the pixeltrupen to do a "peek" about half way between crouch and prone?

[eltorrente]

Moving units should be pretty blind regarding anything that needs to be spotted via binoculars. Try looking thru binocs when traveling in relatively stable platforms, let alone a tank moving (even slowly) offroad. I recently tried it from a gently rocking boat looking for large objects (whales), and it's tough.

I used to be in the Navy, stationed on a submarine. When we were on the surface, I spent a lot of time as lookout up in the sail, with binoculars. Submarines don't have keels, so they rock quite a bit, even in the smallest waves. With the sail so high up, it moves a significant amount back and forth. Spotting never seemed to be an issue for us with binocs, and I didn't find it too difficult unless it was a heavy sea state.

HOWEVER - that is on the ocean with professional sea-legs.

I can't imagine how hard it would be in a tank with a rough suspension, going over bumps and dips and things, and being jostled around constantly. I would probably put the binocs down and just use my eyes unless I was on a flat road or something.