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Excess of accuracy?


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Some would. Some would not. We've been down this road before.

Is Infantry Weaker In CMBB?

 

Hehe. That first thread was a trip down memory lane, Vanir. Members were processing the shock of the new brittle morale factors in CMBB. Some opening comments, pro and con:

 

OK, maybe I'm just dumb- or novelty resistant but so far I find it impossible closing with the enemy with infantry in CMBB. I tinkered with a few scenarios and QBs but so far all my side ends up with is routing, demoralized grunts hugging the ground or scampering off the map edge. This applies to both sides and all experience levels. I know BFC offers the new harsh environment as more realistic, but... Maybe they got carried away. 

 

I had the exact same problem as you described until I started using the real-world tactics of utilizing suppressive as fire and bases of fire to support the advance.

 

 

I might have agreed with you after first tinkering around. I too was a little shocked at how quickly my men went to ground/broke. The only thing I might say is that they do seem to rout a bit quickly (rather than just "going turtle"), but I need more research. Now, I am generally very pleased.

 

 

hey've been detesticled. I've tried most of the suggestions in this thread- thanks, guys!- and have come to the reluctant conclusion that a patch may be needed to boost the troops' morale above girly-men levels. Or Siegfreid and Roy need to toss them some red meat. Or steroid shots. (They didn't check back then).

Edited by Childress
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This is the single biggest factor. If you want more realistic games and causality rates then you need to slow down, spend more time taking care of all wounded, bringing up more support and most importantly stop fighting once your casually levels tick up.

Sounds like what you need is more house rules :)

If I could snap my fingers and change anything I would increase the micro terrain cover values for prone infantry. For all the talk about nerfed HE in the game, non-airbursting fire is too lethal against soldiers with their faces in the dirt. Also, soft ground does not reduce explosive effects as it should.

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Oh, and another major factor that people are completely overlooking: spotting. Infantry in CM are, in general, much easier to spot than in reality. This is a deliberate design decision so that scenarios don't last 12 hours.

Wait...What!  Really?  This is the first I have heard of this.  I know there aren't hard spotting numbers you can compare to, but what exactly does this mean?  Is it 10% harder, 20% harder, etc.?

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8%. Not a big deal.

 

Actually I don't know. It's something BFC mentioned once. It has to be that way or games would last way too long. I mean, there are reasons why you can play out a battalion-sized battle in 1 or 2 hours when in reality it would usually take all day.

 

EDIT:

 

And note that when I say "easier to spot" what I really mean is faster. AFAIK, BFC did not deliberately make infantry able to be seen in situations where they should not seen at all.

Edited by Vanir Ausf B
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EDIT:

 

And note that when I say "easier to spot" what I really mean is faster. AFAIK, BFC did not deliberately make infantry able to be seen in situations where they should not seen at all.

 

I dunno man, tanks spot, ID and engage non-firing dismounts in a building pretty damned fast compared to reality.

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The reason that infantry get spotted better than they would in reality is that the AI won't fire at unspotted troops.  Most firefights would probably be conducted using area fire and that would lead to the AI being unable to function properly.  I seem to recall that when the CMBB demo was first released you almost couldn't even get a solid contact if the enemy was beyond 100 meters or something like that.  Almost all infantry combat was area fire, but BFC dialed it back a bit so that the AI would auto engage troops.

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The reason that infantry get spotted better than they would in reality is that the AI won't fire at unspotted troops.  Most firefights would probably be conducted using area fire and that would lead to the AI being unable to function properly. 

Interesting. If that's the case the difference between player-vs- AI battles and H2H battles is extreme to the point of unfolding on different planets. Because the human player has no restraints in applying area fire.

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Interesting. If that's the case the difference between player-vs- AI battles and H2H battles is extreme to the point of unfolding on different planets. Because the human player has no restraints in applying area fire.

The AI has never had the ability to use area fire.  I don't even think the AI used area fire in CMx1.

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I got a different opinion again. I think suppression is too low, accuracy is fine but the movement of troops are way to slow. They get themselves suppressed half the time because they are slow.

 

Sometimes I think they are old grandmas with memory loss. instead of popping up squeezing a few rounds, ducking back in to cover, they knee think about it for a 10 seconds or so, then aim for another 3-4 and then shoot then wait for a while as they looking for where their shot went. 

 

Actually I want to get my poor troopers some knee pads cause they look like they have achy bones each time they get up and down, or crawl in a general direction. These pixeltruppens are not in the prime of their life.

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  • 3 weeks later...

If you want to have a real good modelling of time and space in combat and want to scream at the monitor because your attacking Bn has again bogged down then there is a other game i cant mention here...

 

Can you at least drop a hint for those of us not privy to the secret handshake?

 

If you want to point the finger at high casualty levels in Combat Mission you would be better off looking towards artillery and mortars, which are too precise by far and at least in the WW2 titles too flexible.

 

 

Oh, and another major factor that people are completely overlooking: spotting. Infantry in CM are, in general, much easier to spot than in reality. This is a deliberate design decision so that scenarios don't last 12 hours.

 

Ditto on both. While CM has far less Borg spotting than other games it still has better C3 than Reality , and especially compared to the WWII variety where communication was often via runners and broken down radios, using maps that were not exactly state of the art. The effect is that we still can coordinate fires much better than a real WWII commander.

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I've played this game for thousands of hours since CMBO... but this is only my opinion.  Please don’t roast me for it. 

 

CMx1- I was regularly incredibly frustrated by how much ammo it took to achieve casualties on infantry.  You always had to suppress to breaking and force them to run, hopefully into open ground.  Only then could you sort-of reliably eliminate them.  Also, I was 10x more frustrated how inaccurate tank guns were.  So many times I would work into a flanking position on enemy armor, a StuG 50m away perhaps, my T-70 would stop, fire- miss, fire- miss, the StuG would start to turn, fire- bounce off, start backing away, fire- bounce off, have to turn slightly to back up, BOOM.  It's dead.  Spending maybe a thousand hours testing ballistics in CMx1 (don't judge me!  :P  ) I knew I had to accept SUPER degraded accuracy from what tests showed, combat results indicated, and- for me- anything that was reasonable.  Still, not my choice, Battlefront made it the way they felt was most realistic and I appreciate that.  All guns would run dry by the end of many battles, and there was no resupply available.

 

CMx2 feels much more realistic to me, but yes, now slightly too quick.  Infantry now usually gets slaughtered the moment they are spotted.  Battles concerning infantry seem to be over often in seconds with high casualties instantly.  In my opinion it is now a bit too quick.  Now, you have extra ammo you can go get (sometimes), but rarely need!  Though I haven't done more than maybe 100 hours of dedicated ballistics tests for large guns (I've made specific ranges for testing moving while firing, etc)- I am happy with it.  I am also happy with RPGs (of all eras) in CMx2- I really think they are perfect.

 

The CMx2 ballistics engine is light years ahead of CMx1, but everyone knows that.  (And CMx1 was so good 10 years ago that I’m still playing CM games!) In short, I feel that the while accuracy might be slightly too high now, it is far more playable than before.  Few on here (not me) have actual experience on this topic, especially enough experience to give a statistically significant opinion on the matter.  I would love to hear from them (if we haven’t already).

 

Mike

(Feel free to check out my website link below for a small bit of what I have done with CM!)

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I've played this game for thousands of hours since CMBO... but this is only my opinion.  Please don’t roast me for it. 

[snip]

CMx2 feels much more realistic to me, but yes, now slightly too quick.  Infantry now usually gets slaughtered the moment they are spotted.

[snip]

I have to say this doesn't seem to match what I see; most casualties I see inflicted on infantry are by HE, or when they get up to flee... I'm playing in Bocage or houses for the most part; getting an elevation advantage at close range can be murderous too, even if the target is in a hard house. Casualty rates have increased since the MGs got adjusted, cos they put more lead up in the air, but the only time I see infantry get slaughtered the moment they're spotted by small arms is when they have no cover (for whatever reason, whether that be ill-advised withdrawal along non-covered routes, or because I surprised them from a flank).

 

The presence of numerous light mortars at the platoon level in Allied and Italian forces and the use of medium mortars in direct lay mode by all forces could, though, reasonably be characterised as slaughter of infantry: a light mortar at less than 100m can drop its nasty little eggs in a pretty tight pattern behind whatever cover is saving the targets from all the MG lead.

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I've been thinking and please allow me to revise.  I did do a lot of tests in CMSF where I would use buddy aid to allow a truck driver (thus, a single man) to acquire a single weapon, then test how well he did with it at different ranges.  I don't know if in game giving a sniper rifle to a truck driver is any less accurate in the game than giving the sniper rifle to a trained marksman... but I was testing differences weapon to weapon.  The sniper rifles actually did horribly, as did small arms.  Against a suppressed or surprised, prone enemy (aka, not shooting back), laying in sand, it often took 40-50 rounds to cause a casualty against a small group at close-ish ranges, and I don't recall the results but the sniper rifles were inaccurate.  A "regular" truck driver, under no indicated stress, at maybe 400m, would fire shot after shot after shot, steadily missing.  So accuracy overmodeled across the board, maybe not.

 

What I was basing my earlier response on was that I have been playing almost exclusively dense urban combat for a while now, and just like CMBB (my all time favorite game), squads can get shredded instantly crossing a street... which is probably realistic.  The difference I see is at normal combat ranges in trees or grass.  My soldiers do seem to get shot up more quickly than before, and my shooters more effective. 

 

Don't misunderstand, I am happy with the current system, but I think if I could mod the game I would turn down the accuracy for close quarters engagements or any other stressful confrontation, and I might slightly reduce accuracy throughout the game.

 

Makes me want to do more testing!

 

Mike

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tests in CMSF where I would use buddy aid to allow a truck driver (thus, a single man) to acquire a single weapon, then test how well he did with it at different ranges. I don't know if in game giving a sniper rifle to a truck driver is any less accurate

I know nothing about CM SF but I believe that in the newer games the marksman designation does make a difference.

if I could mod the game I would turn down the accuracy for close quarters engagements or any other stressful confrontation, and I might slightly reduce accuracy throughout the game.

Thankfully no one can mod the game in such a way. Can you imagine the mayhem :)

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