Where did the "move until contact, engage, move again" command go?

[Oddball_E8]

I might be wrong, but wasn't there a movement command for tanks in the old CMx1 engine where they would move until they saw another tank, then stop and engage that tank until it died or dissapeared and then move again?

What happened to that command? Was it deemed unneeded?

Because i really could have used it in a mission i played today against my friend...

[YankeeDog]

Gone. Now all you get is move, stop to engage, and stay there until further orders.

Personally, I don't miss it. But others feel differently.

[iMolestCats]

I think i vaguely remember that order. May have been called "Attack Move"?

[ZPB II]

It's been ages since I played CMx1, but the old Hunt command was resumed after contact was lost.

Move to contact was the same as Hunt is now.

I sorely miss this command, but my guess is that it's not implemented (yet, hopefully) due to it being difficult to define exactly when contact is lost with the new relative spotting mechanic.

(Unit sees nothing. Sound contact at 120 meters. Resume moving or not? Proceed. Stop. Platoon HQ reports contact inside LOS/LOF but not spotted by unit, resume moving or not? Battalion HQ reports a contact 5 meters behind unit, not spotted. Continue or not? Atleast this is how I see it as being troublesome.)

Even just the normal hunt command is a bit tricky. Sometimes a tank stops hunting because a mortar round lands 100 meters from it.

[Oddball_E8]

Ah, that explains alot then Zeb... thanx for the (very quick) answers guys.

personally i dont like the idea of having a vehicle stop at a precarious place for an entire turn if i happen to spot an infantryman moving in a woods 500 meters away...

I would have loved a hunt command in the style of the old one where vehicles (and im only talking about vehicles with cannons here) stopped to destroy enemy vehicle contacts but then moved again afterwards.

[Waffen_PL]

So if it is too hard to make old hunt order they could at least make such two orders:

1. standard "move to contact"

2 . something like "move to threat" where tank will not stop when crew will see some enemy soldier pissing under the tree 500 m ahead but only in case of contact with other vehicle, gun or AT team.

[noxnoctum]

You mean hunt? The current "Hunt" in the game is move to contact.

There have been several threads in the past asking for CMx1 hunt, but I don't think BFC has replied yet (could be wrong):

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=96629&highlight=hunt

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100325&highlight=hunt

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=103778&highlight=hunt

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=73292&highlight=hunt

(not posting this to discourage posting on this topic, the more it gets brought to BFC's attention the more likely it is to get fixed).

This and the the inability to select waypoints by clicking on their lines (other than the unit you have selected) are the two areas that need to get fixed before CMx2 will have a superior interface all around to its older predecessors. My guess is it must be harder to define the parameters for when to stop and when to keep moving because the game is more complex. But I would really like to see it in the game by the time Bagration comes out.

Some people seem to not care at all that it's not in the game, which is surprising to me because I found it a very useful order.

It's unfortunate, but now you have to use some guesswork and give timed stops along the route of your tank. Or use move-to-contact with an armor cover arc (definitely a good option now that we have armor cover arcs). That won't get it to stop for AT guns though I don't think, and once it sees one tank, it's stopped for the rest of the turn.

[Oddball_E8]

It's my understanding that the standard principle for firing on the move for most tanks during WWII (even shermans with gyros) was to stop when engaging a target, and move whilst reloading.

Maby something like that could be implemented and that way it would only apply to enemy targets that are spotted by the tank crew itself, and the relative spotting mechanic wouldnt matter as much.

And if you only wanted them to do that with enemy armour, you would have the target armour arc up.

Maby that would be possible?

[MikeyD]

This question reminds of those times when I wake from a happy dream, reach across the bed and think "Hey, where did Christie Brinkley go?"

Stopping to fire for tanks as been 'abstracted', I guess you'd say. Inserting stop-fire-resume animation sequences would be a bear so for slow moving tanks hit probability has been upped slightly to account for (unseen) braking to a halt then resuming.

[womble]

personally i dont like the idea of having a vehicle stop at a precarious place for an entire turn if i happen to spot an infantryman moving in a woods 500 meters away...

Then you have the option to not use Hunt. I tend to use it only for very specific instances where the Hunting unit won't be in danger if it stops early due to spurious contacts and where the unit I'm Hunting has been localised so that I know it'll have a good chance of being spotted first. An example was sneaking a TD into a very narrow keyhole LOS between 2 buildings where it could shoot at a tank. It took 3 turns before Hunt let it get far enough along that it had LOS, but it was behind the buildings it was trying to keyhole between (and had defilade to the enemy to left and right) so was safe from other AT assets.

For my money, the old Hunt command is more like "Rampage", and the new one is more like I'd expect tanks to operate in Real Life .

[Oddball_E8]

Then you have the option to not use Hunt. I tend to use it only for very specific instances where the Hunting unit won't be in danger if it stops early due to spurious contacts and where the unit I'm Hunting has been localised so that I know it'll have a good chance of being spotted first. An example was sneaking a TD into a very narrow keyhole LOS between 2 buildings where it could shoot at a tank. It took 3 turns before Hunt let it get far enough along that it had LOS, but it was behind the buildings it was trying to keyhole between (and had defilade to the enemy to left and right) so was safe from other AT assets.

For my money, the old Hunt command is more like "Rampage", and the new one is more like I'd expect tanks to operate in Real Life .

Of course i have the option to not use hunt. Just like you would have the option to not use the old hunt command. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game.

In Real Life ™ I would expect a tank that is advancing to halt and engage if an enemy tank appears.

But i would not expect it to keep staying in that same position for up to 55 seconds once that enemy tank was destroyed.

Thats my point.

It seems that it might have been abstracted a bit to make slow move work as if you actually stopped to engage targets, but I still want my tank to actually stop, engage a target until destroyed and then move again.

Since that is how i would expect a tank to operate in Real Life ™.

But since you used an example, i should do the same.

It cost me a panther tank once because i used the hunt move to advance and try to engage a group of shermans on the other side of a village.

But the panther stopped because it spotted an enemy scout squad some 6-700 meters away to the left.

It then stayed there behind the village for the entire turn. And it wouldnt move up the village to engage the shermans unless i used a different move command. I did this, and the tank moved too far and got killed because it spotted a sherman on its right when trying to move past the village, but instead of stopping to engage it kept moving... and subsequently got destroyed by that sherman...

If i could have used a "move until threat" type of move the outcome would most likely be different.

The Panther would have stopped to engage the sherman, but ignored the pesky scout squad 700m away. AND it would have kept moving to the other side of the village once the sherman was destroyed too.

But if you are satisfied with the current hunt command, then thats great. But does that really man that those of us who want it shouldnt have it?

[Apocal]

I think i vaguely remember that order. May have been called "Attack Move"?

No, that's from a different game you're thinking about.

P.S. Leo 2A4 is No.1!

P.P.S All the publords love to feed their T-80Us/Leo 2A4s/M1A1s/etc. into U-shaped ATGM ambushes. Its pretty bad and they should feel bad for doing it.

[Mord]

Try hunt with a long 180 target armor arc...that will at least keep you from stopping for infantry...or real short move waypoints with said arc.

Mord.

[Oddball_E8]

Try hunt with a long 180 target armor arc...that will at least keep you from stopping for infantry...or real short move waypoints with said arc.

Mord.

I was under the impression that you would still stop if infantry was spotted, you just wouldnt fire on them.

I will have to test this.

[poesel]

I was under the impression that you would still stop if infantry was spotted, you just wouldnt fire on them.

I will have to test this.

I'm pretty sure it is like you said. Its impossible to 'mask' hunt with a CA although it would be desirable.

[Waffen_PL]

Yes, i think there is no way to go around this.

I don't understand why some people say they don't need it. I have many times situations just like Oddball_E8. I wanted to hunt enemy tank or move my own to new position but carefully because of possiblity of enemy tanks and the effect of using hunt order was that my tank simply stopped for a whole minute because they saw some infantry. Using normal move order in this case can result in wrong behavior against enemy threat.

If there is important problem with implementing old style hunt order, the solution is "move to threat" order. It's not the same, tank still will not continue its movement when contact is lost but it's still better than what we've got now and it shouldn't be hard to do

[Oddball_E8]

For me it is an important part of a game that uses the WEGO system.

For one full minute i have no control over my units. During that minute it could be crucial for one (or more) of my tanks to move to position A for my attack to work.

In that case i want it to move there even if it encounters enemy infantry while moving (at a distance of course).

BUT, if a tank or AT gun shows up on its flank, i want it to stop, engage the threat, and then move on.

Currently there is no way to do that in-game unless you play real time (which alot of us really do not like).

Now, this might very well be the reason for why some feel no need for the order.

If they are playing in real-time mode, there is no huge need for the order, but in WEGO i feel that there is definately a need for it.

The current hunt order does not fulfill this need. And using a standard move order will endanger the tank in alot of situations.

Standard procedure for tanks during WWII was to stop before engaging a target (IIRC).

Hunt works for that in real-time, but in WEGO, it is severely lacking sometimes.

Please, please, please give us the old hunt command back Battlefront

[George MC]

Try 'slow' - tanks still engage. Or have your 'move to contact' start near the end of the turn i.e. issue a pause command. That way when the turn ends you are in a better position to decide what next.

I must admit I've gotten used to changing my tactics and don't really miss 'hunt' In fact i used to er exploit opponents who used hunt by having decoys attract the tanks attention so I could have another unit nail it in the flank when it stopped.

I'm also careful about having armour just keeping moving forward. Now I tend to have better overwatch, whilst the attacking armour moves 'fast' from cover to cover.

Another ploy I use is issuing staggered pause commands so two tanks out of a platoon move then stop (with the pause) whilst they are stopped the next two move and so on. This allows my units to keep moving forward but helps maintain 'situational awareness' NOTE: this works better in Gustav due to changes into accuracy whilst stopped when paused. It's not so effective in CMBN as paused vehicles are still 'seen' by the game as moving.

[womble]

Of course i have the option to not use hunt. Just like you would have the option to not use the old hunt command. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game.

Didn't say it "shouldn't" be anything. I'm commenting more on the "It doesn't work how I think it should work: change it!" attitude.

In Real Life ™ I would expect a tank that is advancing to halt and engage if an enemy tank appears.

But i would not expect it to keep staying in that same position for up to 55 seconds once that enemy tank was destroyed.

Then don't move tanks using Hunt when there's a chance they'll stop in the first five seconds. Simples. Use short halts between short legs of Slow.

...I still want my tank to actually stop, engage a target until destroyed and then move again.

Which means you're trying to do too much in the 60s of a WeGo turn. Hunt is for the last bound to contact. If you're prowling your armour forward without having infantry eyes looking at potential ambush spots, you're doing it wrong, and the game doesn't support you very well.

I'll concede that tanks are too skittish under Hunt orders. A "potential infantry contact" 500m away should be ignored: there's nothing it can do except geek the TC, and the TC wouldn't button just for having seen even an MG contact at that range. The cutoff point should vary with experience and leadership (and I reckon it does), but at the moment, even greens stop too easily. And changing that doesn't need anything like a "Hunt to Threat" button, it just needs some parameter tweaking.

Since that is how i would expect a tank to operate in Real Life ™.

Maybe it's you expectations that need adjusting rather than the game. It's usually going to take 30s or more before the shooting vehicle is "happy" its target is destroyed, so even if the engagement starts almost as soon as the turn begins, it's not going to get very far by the end of the minute, and half the time it won't even have finished off the first target.

It cost me a panther tank once because i used the hunt move to advance and try to engage a group of shermans on the other side of a village.

But the panther stopped because it spotted an enemy scout squad some 6-700 meters away to the left.

It then stayed there behind the village for the entire turn. And it wouldnt move up the village to engage the shermans unless i used a different move command. I did this, and the tank moved too far and got killed because it spotted a sherman on its right when trying to move past the village, but instead of stopping to engage it kept moving... and subsequently got destroyed by that sherman...

Should have used short Slow/Quick/Fast bounds with pauses.

If i could have used a "move until threat" type of move the outcome would most likely be different.

As it would have been if Hunting tanks weren't quite so skittish.

But if you are satisfied with the current hunt command, then thats great. But does that really man that those of us who want it shouldnt have it?

Yep, if it means it gets in the way of stuff I want. Seriously, though, there's no need for a new command to satisfy your needs. Just some TacAI parameter tweaking. ATM, mid-C20th armour is reacting to mid-C20th infantry as if that infantry is armed with early C21st MANPAT, which is somewhat daft.

[Oddball_E8]

Didn't say it "shouldn't" be anything. I'm commenting more on the "It doesn't work how I think it should work: change it!" attitude.

Then don't move tanks using Hunt when there's a chance they'll stop in the first five seconds. Simples. Use short halts between short legs of Slow.

Which means you're trying to do too much in the 60s of a WeGo turn. Hunt is for the last bound to contact. If you're prowling your armour forward without having infantry eyes looking at potential ambush spots, you're doing it wrong, and the game doesn't support you very well.

I'll concede that tanks are too skittish under Hunt orders. A "potential infantry contact" 500m away should be ignored: there's nothing it can do except geek the TC, and the TC wouldn't button just for having seen even an MG contact at that range. The cutoff point should vary with experience and leadership (and I reckon it does), but at the moment, even greens stop too easily. And changing that doesn't need anything like a "Hunt to Threat" button, it just needs some parameter tweaking.

Maybe it's you expectations that need adjusting rather than the game. It's usually going to take 30s or more before the shooting vehicle is "happy" its target is destroyed, so even if the engagement starts almost as soon as the turn begins, it's not going to get very far by the end of the minute, and half the time it won't even have finished off the first target.

Should have used short Slow/Quick/Fast bounds with pauses.

As it would have been if Hunting tanks weren't quite so skittish.

Yep, if it means it gets in the way of stuff I want. Seriously, though, there's no need for a new command to satisfy your needs. Just some TacAI parameter tweaking. ATM, mid-C20th armour is reacting to mid-C20th infantry as if that infantry is armed with early C21st MANPAT, which is somewhat daft.

I get the distinct impression that you didnt play the old CMx1 games much.

Im not asking them to change hunt because its not working how i think it should work.

Im asking what happened to the old hunt command that worked the way im describing.

They had the current hunt command too back then, but it was called move to contact (IIRC).

Using paused stops between short movements with slow still doesnt mean that the tank is moving the way it should (ie. move to contact, engage contact, start moving to target again).

And you also (in CMBN) get a movement penalty for firing even if you are paused between move commands.

In other words you are telling me to use a halfway-working and convoluted way to approximate a feature that was in the old game just because... actually... i dont know why you think its so bad to introduce this feature.

What do you have against the old hunt command anyway?

As for the "its gonna take 30s or more" comment... how many times have an enemy tank brewed up on you on the first shot? (especially when playing as axis)

Do you still think your tank needs 30 seconds of shooting at a burning enemy tank to be satisfied?

[Holman]

Honestly, I don't get worked up over lack of precise control in CM. I think we usually have too much control already.

Your tank on Hunt stops when he sees enemy infantry at 500m not because the enemy infantry might be a threat but because where there is enemy infantry there might be enemy armor or AT guns.

Your TC is exercising prudent caution; let him have a few seconds. He knows *you're* not looking out for him!

[YankeeDog]

OK, here's my $.02 on this (and speaking as a pretty much exclusively WEGO player):

Having a command with the old CMx1 Hunt functionality sounds nice on the surface.

Thing is, I'd probably almost never use it. For a variety of reasons, the pace of combat in CMx2 is a lot slower than in CMx1 (realistically so, IMHO). One of the major reasons for this is that with CMx2's Relative Spotting and better terrain fidelity, contacts drop in and out of sight a lot more.

As a result, 98% of the time, if my HUNTing unit spots an enemy, takes a shot or two, and then the enemy drops out of contact or is destroyed, I want that unit to sit still for at least 15-20 seconds to try to re-spot the unit, and/or make sure nothing else pops up in the same vicinity.

Only very rarely do I see situations where I want a unit to continue to charge forward after engaging or spotting; I'd rather the unit wait until the start of the next turn.

Actually, I did miss the old HUNT functionality a little more in CMSF -- when you're playing with modern MBTs like Abrams and Challengers, you have a much better "one shot, one kill" ability, so you can run and gun more. But WWII tank combat is a much slower affair,

But anyway, I certainly wouldn't complain if a command with this functionality were added to the game; I just wouldn't use it very often and there are definitely other improvements/additions that I would place higher on "the list". For now, I feel there are reasonable substitutes, such as moving SLOW and allowing the unit to fire on the move, or plotting pauses at waypoints to spot and fire, on the rare occasions when I do need this functionality.

[A Canadian Cat]

As a result, 98% of the time, if my HUNTing unit spots an enemy, takes a shot or two, and then the enemy drops out of contact or is destroyed, I want that unit to sit still for at least 15-20 seconds to try to re-spot the unit, and/or make sure nothing else pops up in the same vicinity.

Only very rarely do I see situations where I want a unit to continue to charge forward after engaging or spotting; I'd rather the unit wait until the start of the next turn.

It must be agree with @YankeeDog day today because +1 there. I used to miss the old hunt command too but really I don't find I need it any more. I use the new hunt command for the final leg of a move - just so the tank will stop moving when it has eyes on the target. So, in the example of the Panther trying to get eyes on the Shermans on the other side of the buildings I would have used quick (or fast) for most of that and Hunt for the last bit - just so the Panther would move such that it would stop once it saw a Sherman to shoot at and no further.

I do sometimes find it frustrating that a vehicle stops early because it spots some other unit instead of the one I was hunting. But if you keep the hunt commands sort and at the end of your paths the downside of that happening is greatly reduced.

[Waffen_PL]

Your tank on Hunt stops when he sees enemy infantry at 500m not because the enemy infantry might be a threat but because where there is enemy infantry there might be enemy armor or AT guns.

So i think he should stop when he would be sure that this could be tank or AT guns. IMO during battle usually there was lot of enemy infantry running there and back and tanks where not stopping for a whole minute because they saw some suspicious guy.

Stopping to fire for tanks as been 'abstracted', I guess you'd say. Inserting stop-fire-resume animation sequences would be a bear so for slow moving tanks hit probability has been upped slightly to account for (unseen) braking to a halt then resuming.

Does it really work that way? I had sherman moving on slow and he drastically missed two times the panthers back from something like 50 m. Panther that was stopped hit him with first shot. Also i saw that while he was moving he wasn't be able to point his gun at panther all the time. He fired then turned he's turret to the right. Than he made correction, fired and once again turned the turret.

And I'm just curios what's the problem in making animation for halting tank and resuming?

I also noticed that sometimes while using cover arc the turret is pointing somewhere random within that arc. As I remember in Cmx1 turret was pointing in the center of arc. Sometimes i want to point the gun on exact position of known threat but despite that tank's crew is aiming somwhere else where they for example saw once infantry few minutes earlier

Also miss shift key with cover arc from CMx1. It's not necessary but it was a lot of easier and faster to make cover arc at 180 degree that would cover big portion or even whole map.

[A Canadian Cat]

I had sherman moving on slow and he drastically missed two times the panthers back from something like 50 m. Panther that was stopped hit him with first shot. Also i saw that while he was moving he wasn't be able to point his gun at panther all the time. He fired then turned he's turret to the right. Than he made correction, fired and once again turned the turret.

And I'm just curios what's the problem in making animation for halting tank and resuming?

Steve has explained some of this before on the forum. Basically firing "on the move" by stopping briefly and then continuing is what has been abstracted into the tank firing while moving. Their accuracy is lower than a stationary tank.

I also noticed that sometimes while using cover arc the turret is pointing somewhere random within that arc. As I remember in Cmx1 turret was pointing in the center of arc. Sometimes i want to point the gun on exact position of known threat but despite that tank's crew is aiming somwhere else where they for example saw once infantry few minutes earlier

That is because you don't get to *be* the tank commander in real time:-).

By default the tank gun will be pointed in the middle of the arc. However soldiers and tank crews also spot, aim and fire at things that they have not even told you about yet. Often when you see tank aim a few moments later a spotted unit appears in that direction. Sometimes they never fully spot it and nothing is reported and the gun goes back to the centre of the covered arc.

Also miss shift key with cover arc from CMx1. It's not necessary but it was a lot of easier and faster to make cover arc at 180 degree that would cover big portion or even whole map.

<shift> key cover arc is there - it creates circular covered arc. I forget what it did in CM1.