Infantry TAC AI - trying not to rant

[womble]

I find my guys get suppressed on first contact, from another enemy team.

The guys that get suppressed should be a two man scout team. When they get opened up on, the rest of the platoon that they should be working with hails fire in the direction that the suppressing fire came from. Even blindly firing in the right direction sends rounds past the AS you're "Target Area"ing and suppresses along the entire bullet track to some degree. 5 or more autofire elements should thoroughly pay those suppressing troops back in kind and allow you to maneuver close enough to see and kill them with grenades. If you're not able to concentrate 3 or more to 1, then you probably don't have the strength to clear the woods. This is a feature. It's how woodland fighting ought to be.

Perhaps due to the woods close nature, there suppression is almost instant.

Not really a surprise in the "everyone's got a full auto selctor switch" environment.

...I do have support units, but sometimes the viewing range take a while before they are in action...

Perhaps they should be a bit closer together? You only need 1 AS between teams, and it's okay to have them adjacent some of the time, especially if it's just while a Pause ticks out its last few seconds.

however I do feel the squad very rarely fires back...

Maybe you meant team here, but it's worth emphasising that you should only be making contact one team at a time, and the rest of the squad should be close enough to be able to fire in support. Tiny, tiny little movement legs, caterpillar inching your way forward one or two AS at a time.

 

- I did use last night the pause command outside the house and then move into a building it seemed to work a bit better, so will include this is my standard breach.

Works even better combined with some area targeting of the ground floor by the "stacked" team. One additional advantage of having your teams split, at least in the WW2 titles is that if you split an Assault team off, they take the hand grenades. All of them. The TacAI is much more willing to use assets which it has in copious supply, so an Assault team in grenade range of a building with 17 grenades will generally chuck a couple in a 10s pause. If you split the squad evenly, each team would "only" start with 8 or grenades, so is more likely to not throw any, at least that's the way it seems to me. A full squad with 17 grenades still seems to count that as "only 2 per guy" and remain more reluctant to throw 'em than a split-off team where they can hardly run without dropping one...

 

I think also the closeness of the troops suppresses the 4 man team or an 8 man team...

BFC recognise that their troops are a little more closely spaced than doctrine considers optimal. They even tone down the effects of HE a little to compensate for the "bunching effect". However, it's worth recognising that even well-trained regular modern troops tend to bunch more than the manual says, once they're taking or giving fire. And for the moments they're "stacked" outside a door, RL truppen are much more crowded than your pTruppen ever get. On the whole, it's not murderously wrong.

...realistically they would have a little more spacing...

This is one of the things where splitting your squad's teams up can help. Putting an AS between your fireteams makes the average dispersal 50% wider. And splitting your squads means the teams are suppressed individually, rather than the suppression of half the squad pinning the other half.

Cont...

[womble]

...cont.

The building people of course spot my troops first, no I never move to the edge just enough to get target on the building...

Who were you up against? If they had IR and you were trying to sneak through foliage, you were probably standing out like a sore thumb.

They instantly come under fire (I guess I could of done slow) but I thought hunt was being careful like slow, I think there is no difference between move and hunt on spotting.

I believe you are mistaken, and should have been using Slow to get from "can't see the target" to "can just see the target" in concealing terrain. At the very least, Slow moving means your troops are making the best use of any undulations in the terrain and any higher vegetation. However careful you are while "Hunt"ing, you're still upright, and presenting a larger area to the observing eye.

I had bad experiences with slow when moving to a spot, they keep crawling until they go suppressed and die.

And now you've had bad experiences using Hunt. It probably depends on exactly what you're trying to do and the precise circumstances in which you're trying to do it which is the most appropriate movement mode. There is no "one size fits all".

Anyway they never fire back at the building which fire is coming from, they just lay there for 40 seconds and get chewed at taking casualties.

If they'd been Slow moving, IME they would have fired back once taking fire, if they could spot their tormentors.

My other team not more then 20 meters away cannot spot the enemy but can see the tracer rounds but not the enemy and do nothing.

Sometimes, the battlefield sucks.

This type of scenario is not unusual, this is regular occurrence how the TAC AI could be improved.

It'd help if you said exactly what you wanted your troops to do of their own initiative? Do you want them to open fire at the apparent source of incoming fire? Assuming they could even get a Target line to it. Or do you want them to displace so they can get a target line to where they think the rounds are coming from, and then bring that location under fire? Getting the TacAI to even use area fire in a sane and rational manner that doesn't leave us tearing our hair out at the foolish overexposure and waste of ammo by our own troops, and smirking at the very same from the opposition AI (which would have to be taught the proper use of Target Arcs to mitigate its hair trigger, and that's a learning point that appears to be beyond some human players) is going to be close to impossible. Adding judicious offensive repositioning would just have people ragequitting at their overaggressive pTruppen's reckless behaviour. At least if the pTruppen are natively cautious, we can learn to work within those constraints, and the AI doesn't just throw its troops away trying to sneak into places it really shouldn't.

Yes, it's really complicated. Really, really complicated. Given that the game is currently CPU-bound and single-core, I don't think there are the processor cycles available to deal with that sort of calculation realtime, even if the algorithms could be implemented in a reasonable manner. Maybe after an architecture change. "CMx3" or "CMx4", perhaps. Don't expect it in CMx2 v4, though. It's worth noting that BFC have said that AI improvements will tend to be secondary to other engine improvements and new content, because they provide inadequate return in terms of dollars players are prepared to pay per programmer-hour spent wrangling with AI.

[Pelican Pal]

This has more to do with the weapons modeling than bunching up. Automatic weapons and unstabilized automatic weapons in particular are too accurate when fired rapidly.

 

I don't think that is the issue here. Regardless of the accuracy, when the automatic weapon does hit center mass of the target there will be sizable number of rounds hitting that area before the weapon tracks out of target zone.

 

So the target soldier is being hit, and then every bullet that didn't kill him is flying into the rest of the conga line that squad decided to form. This problem is compounded by the increasingly long bursts that occur at closer range.The result being that at close-ish range a squad under automatic fire will take absurdly high casualties. To the point that  a single shooter can, within the time hit takes him to fire a burst, totally destroy a squad or reduce it to a point of combat ineffectiveness.

Edited February 5, 2015 by Pelican Pal

[Jock Tamson]

The OP may find this useful - http://community.battlefront.com/topic/82077-assaulting-a-building-fierce-and-agille/ 

[Jock Tamson]

 

Anyway they never fire back at the building which fire is coming from, they just lay there for 40 seconds and get chewed at taking casualties. It is not until I get a new turn that I set the building on target so they fire back. 

 

Did they spot any targets to fire at?  Or did you, the god like player, discern that that was where the fire was coming from?

[MOS:96B2P]

Re. The Assault Command.

 

The current assault command horrible. Both elements share the same morale so anyone heavy fire on the bounding unit will suppress the overwatch elemtn, the bound is often too large or through intervening terrain, it is an exhausting command, and it exposes the overwatch team to over shoot fire from enemies to the front. Splitting elements and  using pauses with quick or fast is infinitely more useful.

 

I read somewhere on the forum that the assault command (not to be confused with the administrative assault team split) was meant for Real Time play.  Since I play in WeGo I don't use it.  I always split my squads into separate teams and control the bounds/assaults.  This gives me good results most of the time.  

 

I didn't know (since I don't use it) that the assault command teams share the same morale.  This alone is reason enough not use the assault command.   

[Melchior]

It makes little difference as far as i've seen. What matters far more is troop quality and morale state. I think something people get wrong about the assault command is they set too few waypoints, and the teams advance very far from eachother before regrouping so they can't cover eachother well. More way points are better than fewer and they should be set so the squad is always in sight of itself.

 

Keeping squads whole or breaking them up is just situational to me. The greatest use I find for keeping the squads as one though is their concentrated fire. Usually when i'm moving on an objective i'll break two of the squads into fire and assault elements and leave one squad whole, sitting on the start point to serve as overall firebase and reserve. I noticed the other day that a big disadvantage of teams is that they can use up their ammo very fast and can't suppress much. 

[womble]

I read somewhere on the forum that the assault command (not to be confused with the administrative assault team split) was meant for Real Time play.

It's inherently a "convenience" command, since its function isn't as refined as microing the split squad, so it's certainly a lot easier to use in RealTime than split squads. It also works on "squads" that aren't splittable, like Italian formations, giving them additional, plausible tactical options without the carte blanche freedom to separate that more finely-grained formations get.

[womble]

Keeping squads whole or breaking them up is just situational to me. The greatest use I find for keeping the squads as one though is their concentrated fire. Usually when i'm moving on an objective i'll break two of the squads into fire and assault elements and leave one squad whole, sitting on the start point to serve as overall firebase and reserve.

Can you explain the firepower difference between having a 2-team squad whole and on overwatch and having two separate teams sitting in the same adjacent ASs? I can see that it's easier to handle the intact team, needing manipulation of only one element, but IME, the members of each team will be standing in the same places, whether the squads are administratively split or not, so their opportunities for shooting, in either case will be exactly equal. Of course, this setup doesn't help with separation, but I'm asking it as a simplified case.

I noticed the other day that a big disadvantage of teams is that they can use up their ammo very fast and can't suppress much.

Again, the two teams combined carry precisely the same number of rounds as they do in total when split up. So the extra ammo use has to be down to the situations they're in, not that they're split up. Indeed, if 4 ARs are getting through their half-load (compared to 8 rifles) of ammo twice as fast, it means they're chucking twice as much lead per pTruppe downrange, which will have the proportional terminal effects. Or maybe it's that split teams get up to closer ranges (cos that SOP is a shade more effective), and so their fire rates go up. Sure, a single team firing in the same opportunity space as a 2-team squad won't suppress as well as the squad, but they should have that other team there to help them if they need it. Another factor might be that if you have a squad in a position where only 4 men can shoot at your preferred target, they might be constrained to throwing the same amount of lead as a single team (though they'll be able to keep it up for longer, as the ones with "muzzles-on" will be able to cadge ammo off their unsighted squadmates). Whereas a pair of split teams can maneuver more freely and find two, possibly fairly widely-separated, perches where they can both bear with all their rifles.

[c3k]

So much good stuff. On a phone, so brief...

MOUT: Suppress! Move the assault element adjacent to building, target (or light) into the building along with 15 to 30 sec pause. Quick into it with a 360 arc. (Otherwise your troops will continue to area fire and be slow to react.)

Similar in woods. Massive area targeting (loght) and many pauses. Split everyone. Eyeballs.

[Melchior]

Can you explain the firepower difference between having a 2-team squad whole and on overwatch and having two separate teams sitting in the same adjacent ASs?

 

None. That's not why I keep them together. They're together because as one squad they share spots and lines of fire better. When I order fire on a target I want a lot of fire placed on it all at once, tapering off into suppressing fire. I don't feel I get that same weight of fire in those crucial 2-3 seconds of "opening the can" from split teams as I do from a whole squad. 

 

 

Again, the two teams combined carry precisely the same number of rounds as they do in total when split up. So the extra ammo use has to be down to the situations they're in, not that they're split up. Indeed, if 4 ARs are getting through their half-load (compared to 8 rifles) of ammo twice as fast, it means they're chucking twice as much lead per pTruppe downrange, which will have the proportional terminal effects. Or maybe it's that split teams get up to closer ranges (cos that SOP is a shade more effective), and so their fire rates go up. Sure, a single team firing in the same opportunity space as a 2-team squad won't suppress as well as the squad, but they should have that other team there to help them if they need it. Another factor might be that if you have a squad in a position where only 4 men can shoot at your preferred target, they might be constrained to throwing the same amount of lead as a single team (though they'll be able to keep it up for longer, as the ones with "muzzles-on" will be able to cadge ammo off their unsighted squadmates). Whereas a pair of split teams can maneuver more freely and find two, possibly fairly widely-separated, perches where they can both bear with all their rifles.

 

They do carry the same ammo overall, but they don't share it anymore. If one man in a 3 man team has a BAR, that's now 1/3 of the population instead of 1/12 that uses inordinately more ammunition than the rest of them. IE: We now have a proportionally bigger mouth to feed and less food for it. They are carrying overall much less ammunition though so the period of time that they can put heavy fire on at target is very short. Possibly a minute or less. Sure that's not too big a deal if the maneuver i'm planning is in a 200-300m space. Anymore than that though and my teams may very well be depleted before they can arrive on an objective. I need them to have staying power because when I seize objectives I usually expect to have to clear the space around the objective from stragglers or enemies I simply haven't broken yet. 

 

Note, I haven't bought CMBS yet, i'm talking mostly from a 1944 perspective. Although I did play CMSF and largely handled my teams the same way. The only time I split every platoon into teams completely is basically for urban fighting. 

Edited February 5, 2015 by CaptHawkeye

[Oakheart]

  However, it's worth recognising that even well-trained regular modern troops tend to bunch more than the manual says, once they're taking or giving fire. 

 

I'm going to disagree with you on that one. Out of personal experience, the only time we didn't keep intervals was when there was hard cover in open space that could accommodate a base of fire element. Woods, OT, or urban you keep your distance from your brothers because if you don't you put both of your lives at risk.

[womble]

I'm going to disagree with you on that one. Out of personal experience, the only time we didn't keep intervals was when there was hard cover in open space that could accommodate a base of fire element. Woods, OT, or urban you keep your distance from your brothers because if you don't you put both of your lives at risk.

Fair enough; I amn't goin; to dispute someone who's seen the heffalump. I'll chalk the videos and photos that popped up supporting my prior viewpoint down to exceptions, troops not being trained to the requisite standard, and viewer misinterpretation of context. And happily so, for the modern title at the very least. Of course the standard of training in WW2 wasn't quite what first rate armies these days achieve.

[womble]

None. That's not why I keep them together. They're together because as one squad they share spots and lines of fire better. When I order fire on a target I want a lot of fire placed on it all at once, tapering off into suppressing fire. I don't feel I get that same weight of fire in those crucial 2-3 seconds of "opening the can" from split teams as I do from a whole squad.

Maybe I'll do some tests. I don't feel my perception agrees with yours. 

 

They do carry the same ammo overall, but they don't share it anymore. If one man in a 3 man team has a BAR, that's now 1/3 of the population instead of 1/12 that uses inordinately more ammunition than the rest of them. IE: We now have a proportionally bigger mouth to feed and less food for it. They are carrying overall much less ammunition though so the period of time that they can put heavy fire on at target is very short. Possibly a minute or less. Sure that's not too big a deal if the maneuver i'm planning is in a 200-300m space. Anymore than that though and my teams may very well be depleted before they can arrive on an objective. I need them to have staying power because when I seize objectives I usually expect to have to clear the space around the objective from stragglers or enemies I simply haven't broken yet.

Aww, and here was me trying not to get too WW2-y

In the case of the BAR, or MG42 (whether a brace or a singleton per squad), since I split my teams, in order, Assault (A), AT Team or Scout © (if it's a three team splittable squad), leaving B team the rump with the LMG(s), I find the riflemen of the not-B teams carry only their personal weapon allocation, leaving all the rest of the ammo with the B team. Ami B teams carry as much more per trooper in the B team than the Assault teams as the Germans do, but the BAR has less of a fire rate. So the proportion of rifle ammo that departs from the MG-equipped team is very small. Add to that loading MG sections with all the spare rifle ammo from any jeeps and trucks at setup, and trying very hard to pillage any that show up as reinforcements, and the contributions of the separated riflemen become even less significant. Beyond that, if the battle is still raging at the point the SAWs are running out, and I'm desperate for bullets for the long range hoses, I can remerge the squad and divvy up the remaining rifle ammo from the previously-separated teams. I'm not sure why you're only getting a minute of fire out of a BAR-equipped team plucked out of a 12-man rifle squad. I reckon on about 7-10 minutes of "Target" at normal firebase ranges. Even a tripod mounted heavy MG tends only to run through 100 or so rounds in a minute; LMGs use less.

[mvp7]

I was playing second US campaign mission and in the big four building church I lost 6 men out of a squad to a single Russian with assault rifle, not entirely impossible result but the event as whole was a frustrating combination of the biggest flaws of TacAI:

 

At first I didn't know in which part of the building the enemy was and so used a team to move from building to building in hunt mode because it's the only mode that makes the AI attack when he spots the enemy rather than trying to run to the other side of the building first. Because hunt is too slow for MOUT the first man to walk through the door (from one part of the building to another) got shot and the rest of the team was pinned in the previous room.

 

I then moved the teams to the front of the building to combine them into squad and had them breach into it, the squad then ran into the building (there was no point in anyone waiting outside because the enemy was not in the "room" that I was breaching into but in the one behind it. Squad moved in, one man got shot pretty quickly but because the entry after breach command is 'quick' and there is no movement mode that prioritizes shooting other than hunt (which doesn't give you enough speed and firepower in MOUT) the entire squad tried to run to the farther "wall" of the room (because TacAI can't really handle several connected buildings or large floored spaces with enemies in them as it tries to go to the "walls" as if it were a single building).

 

Soon after another man fell the squad (smartly) decided to 'fast' to another "room" of the church but because of their suppression, half of the team crawled and covered under fire and consequently got killed, now this would be understandable if the enemy was tearing down the furniture with machine guns but this lone enemy was simply firing short well aimed burst with an AK at the three covering men, killing them in a period on 20 seconds or so. Good example of how the infantry reactions, which are good for long range exchange in cover, do not work directly in close quarters situations.

 

The reason I wasn't shooting effective area fire into the building was that I hadn't secured the area beyond the building so I only had one "safe" side to work with. Retrospectively I should have just leveled the building after I lost the first man but I kinda wanted to test this as I usually avoid fair fights in buildings to the last. Again, I'm not saying that losing 6 men in badly supported attempt to breach and clear isn't acceptable or even deserved result but it would be nicer if the men were gunned down trying to valiantly rush unto the breach rather than goofing around. I already wrote a post about these but I thought this was pretty good example of why we need aggressive movement command and tweaks to the covering logic in the open, inside buildings and at short ranges in general.

 

 

 

By the way, are you people sure that assaulting squad technically "shares" it's suppression? I don't remember ever seeing the supporting element getting pinned from advancing element being shot at (unless bullets were flying past them also of course) and I have always thought that suppression is unit or team level value that is just roughly shown in the squads suppression indicator. And even if the suppression is shared by the entire squad then the amount of received suppression should be lesser as only few men are taking fire, which could mean that it gives a sort of morale boost for the advancing team in comparison to doing the same with detached team. I use assault quite often and it usually works fine for me.

Edited February 5, 2015 by mvp7

[Pelican Pal]

I've watched a lot of combat footage. Both from American forces in Iraq/Afghanistan, the fighting in Syria, and now the fighting in Ukraine. What I've tended to notice is that people, regardless of training do bunch. However, the important difference is how they bunch up.

 

American troops (and generally the people who seem more competent) seem to bunch up behind some sort of hard cover. You'll see a bunch of soldier's with a few feet between each other in a deep ditch. Or you'll see some soldier's meeting together discussion the situation. The general similarity in all these situations is it isn't a ton of guys, while close they still would have to lean out and reach to touch someone, and there is hard cover around them.

 

Meanwhile if you watch footage, especially from early in the Syrian Civil War, you'll see 15-20 guys milling around in the open. There isn't hard cover, there isn't great coordination about who is shooting around their new combat corner, they are almost all standing straight up. If someone was able to fire an accurate burst it would almost certainly catch 5 or more of them.

 

Mvp7,

 

I remember very distinctly watching the maneuver element come under fire from a key holed enemy HMG during a wego turn. They became pinned and took a few losses, and I also noticed the overwatch element begin to cower. They were not taking any fire whatsoever.

 

As for the need for a nice tactical pace advance that prioritizes shooting. I 100% agree with you. Right now there are two viable combat movement orders. Quick, and hunt.

 

Quick, will very often result in a squad taking fire switching to Fast and continue moving to their destination. If the shooter happens to be in between them and their destination you have the squad participate in the suicide train and run ever quicker to their deaths. The tacai reaction for quick is geared towards fire from 100 meters or farther out. The closer you get to incoming fire the worse this decision becomes. What is more frustrating is that the squad will often spot their killer and choose to ignore him and just run faster.

 

Hunt, hunt is incredibly slow and very easily disrupted. In dense terrain it isn't unusual for the lead man to be spotted, shot and killed, and then the rest of the squad go to ground. The squad then takes additional casualties as searching fire comes in from the enemies who shot the point man. Even if the hunting team successfully finds and kills the enemy the point man spots it then requires another turn for you to get them going again and for the process to repeat. If this hunt command is part of a coordinated move with other elements it can leave a deadly hole in your line.

 

An order in which the men advance at a decent pace that prioritizes shooting the enemy in the face over continuing to advance would be invaluable. Clearing fortifications, woods, buildings, any sort of dense terrain right now is incredibly hit or miss, and a single shooter can easily cause heavy casualties even if the shooter is spotted first.

Edited February 5, 2015 by Pelican Pal

[A Canadian Cat]

By the way, are you people sure that assaulting squad technically "shares" it's suppression? I don't remember ever seeing the supporting element getting pinned from advancing element being shot at (unless bullets were flying past them also of course) and I have always thought that suppression is unit or team level value that is just roughly shown in the squads suppression indicator.

I do not believe that it is. I am sure the suppression indicator shows the "worst" experience of the squad. I have on more than one occasion had a squad "pinned" that I split and then I have one team "pinned" and the other team(s) are not. They are usually close by and have some suppression but not as bad as the pinned guys.

[womble]

I do not believe that it is. I am sure the suppression indicator shows the "worst" experience of the squad. I have on more than one occasion had a squad "pinned" that I split and then I have one team "pinned" and the other team(s) are not. They are usually close by and have some suppression but not as bad as the pinned guys.

It would make programming sense that if (say) the fire support team was largely unsuppressed, but the moving element had been pinned down, when you split the squad, the pinned formerly moving element stays pinned (because every man in the team is pinned) but the fire support element reverts to whatever its average suppression state is. But if the squad is being kept track of as one unit, the Pinned (unable to give orders, and probably cancelled its movement order) status has to apply to the whole squad. My recollection from the days before I started splitting my squads, and from using Italian formations in Assault, is that what will pin one team will pin an entire squad, but a split-off team in an adjacent AS won't necessarily be pinned. Similarly, if a team would go from OK to Rattled for losing one pTruppe, so would the intact squad. At least if they're split one half retains most of its morale (it'll lose some by "contagion", in the same manner as squads from the same platoon would).

[Jock Tamson]

one man got shot pretty quickly but because the entry after breach command is 'quick' 

If after a breach your guys are "quicking" into a room and you don't want them to, you aren't breaching properly.   A breach waypoint does not have to be set on the other side of the wall, if you do a search on the CMSF forum you will find lots of good examples of how to breach without then running to your death.

[Melchior]

In the case of the BAR, or MG42 (whether a brace or a singleton per squad), since I split my teams, in order, Assault (A), AT Team or Scout © (if it's a three team splittable squad), leaving B team the rump with the LMG(s), I find the riflemen of the not-B teams carry only their personal weapon allocation, leaving all the rest of the ammo with the B team. Ami B teams carry as much more per trooper in the B team than the Assault teams as the Germans do, but the BAR has less of a fire rate. So the proportion of rifle ammo that departs from the MG-equipped team is very small. Add to that loading MG sections with all the spare rifle ammo from any jeeps and trucks at setup, and trying very hard to pillage any that show up as reinforcements, and the contributions of the separated riflemen become even less significant. Beyond that, if the battle is still raging at the point the SAWs are running out, and I'm desperate for bullets for the long range hoses, I can remerge the squad and divvy up the remaining rifle ammo from the previously-separated teams. I'm not sure why you're only getting a minute of fire out of a BAR-equipped team plucked out of a 12-man rifle squad. I reckon on about 7-10 minutes of "Target" at normal firebase ranges. Even a tripod mounted heavy MG tends only to run through 100 or so rounds in a minute; LMGs use less.

 

You're right I really had SMG squads more in mind when I was saying less than a minute. I have seen teams with SMGs empty out their ammo in about a minute of fighting though. Teams equipped with machine guns of almost any kind though just aren't able to kick out fire for very long before they need to be merged though. I've seen BAR squads get low on ammunition after a few minutes and the BAR has a low rate of fire. I pretty much feel that the default ammo load infantry carry is good for basically one major encounter with a unit of equivalent size, then they need to resupply. The nature of a given scenario's objectives or time limit may force me to minimize downtime. Sometimes you just need to keep the pressure on. 

 

Another problem is the proportional effect of casualties on the teams. A 3 man team loses a lot more from 1 KIA than a 12 man squad does. I personally do not believe squads and teams suffer casualties at any rate or likelihood different from each other at standoff ranges. Luck is the biggest factor there. In close encounters certainly, but squads are obviously unwieldy in tight quarters. 

 

Anyway, I split squads into teams all the time. I just prefer the teams carry out the maneuver part of "fire and maneuver" because like I said, their ammunition distribution doesn't seem to favor prolonged fighting.

[mvp7]

If after a breach your guys are "quicking" into a room and you don't want them to, you aren't breaching properly.   A breach waypoint does not have to be set on the other side of the wall, if you do a search on the CMSF forum you will find lots of good examples of how to breach without then running to your death.

 

I know how to just blow the wall and then do something else. The point here was that in that particular situation there was no movement option that would have been better than quick for entering the building. The wall I blew already had plenty of windows and doors, I was just hoping that the explosion would have been enough to pin the man in the another part of the building.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Something I would like to have is a unit formation button allowing selection of infantry squad formation (eg Line, File, V) so I have the option of ordering that squad int a specific formation if I choose to do so. 

[A Canadian Cat]

It would make programming sense that if (say) the fire support team was largely unsuppressed, but the moving element had been pinned down, when you split the squad, the pinned formerly moving element stays pinned (because every man in the team is pinned) but the fire support element reverts to whatever its average suppression state is. But if the squad is being kept track of as one unit, the Pinned (unable to give orders, and probably cancelled its movement order) status has to apply to the whole squad. My recollection from the days before I started splitting my squads, and from using Italian formations in Assault, is that what will pin one team will pin an entire squad, but a split-off team in an adjacent AS won't necessarily be pinned. Similarly, if a team would go from OK to Rattled for losing one pTruppe, so would the intact squad. At least if they're split one half retains most of its morale (it'll lose some by "contagion", in the same manner as squads from the same platoon would).

 

I'm just pointing out that some of this stuff is tracked per solider because you can combine an OK team and a Nervous team and get some thing for the whole squad and then you can split them apart and still have an OK team and a nervous team.  Just like you can have some members of a team surrendering while other keep fighting.  Pinning is the same if you split a pinned quad they will not necessarily all be pinned (obviously sometimes they are all pinned it depends on the situation).  I think we are seeing a status in the UI that reflects some kind of summary or worse case but that underneath all this stuff is tracked per solider.

[womble]

I'm just pointing out that some of this stuff is tracked per solider because you can combine an OK team and a Nervous team and get some thing for the whole squad and then you can split them apart and still have an OK team and a nervous team.  Just like you can have some members of a team surrendering while other keep fighting.  Pinning is the same if you split a pinned quad they will not necessarily all be pinned (obviously sometimes they are all pinned it depends on the situation).  I think we are seeing a status in the UI that reflects some kind of summary or worse case but that underneath all this stuff is tracked per solider.

Yeah, absolutely. What I'm saying is that if one half of a squad is Pinned, so is the other half, no matter how distant, if they're the same entity. I think it has to be this way, or you could have a team up close as part of a long "Assault" move that's been under serious suppression, but if the status were an average across the whole squad, they'd remain unpinned when they really should have been forced to ground. I think it has to be counting "suppresssion average within teams" and pinning the whole squad if either/any of the unsplit teams reach the Pinned threshold. Anything else would produce too-favourable a result for people rushing in close.

[Imperial Grunt]

Hey Phil. One thing we might do to improve HUNT would be to make it not trigger on nearby friendly fire, especially the HUNTing unit's own fire. This would make it possible to use HUNT in conjunction with suppressive fire in MOUT.

Absolutely support this!