Waypoint targeting - likely bug

[markshot]

You can set an area target (like an ATG) location on way point.

 

You can then fire smoke shells in front of the way point before arriving.  Upon arriving at the way point LOS is blocked, but the area fire is on target and continuous.

 

Seems a little gamey. 

[Vanir Ausf B]

True. But I was recently told there is no such thing as abuse of area fire

[Thewood1]

I would think that IRL, even if you have smoke in front of you, you can still fire through it at a suspected position...this is just a work around for that.

[eniced73]

Why should smoke act as a force-field?  Would it not be a little a gamey to spit a wall of smoke in front of your men and then march them up to the enemy without worrying about casualties.  Two sides of the camp on this one.  My opinion is to allow firing through smoke but with accuracy penalties. 

[sburke]

I don't think it is gamey, but it is unexpected. The primary issue is your opponent can not fire back.

Edited September 9, 2015 by sburke

[A Canadian Cat]

Unless they see the smoke forming and setup some area targets to locations that the can still see before the smoke screen becomes fully formed.

[markshot]

It gets more interesting.

 

I later tried to reproduce the situation without smoke.  Just stacking a targeting order on top of a way point, and I could not repeat it.  I don't know how or why it worked the first time.  It is a somewhat reasonable thing to want to do, since you want to know if where you stop a tank will have LOS to point X.  (as there is no general point-to-point LOS tool)

 

Furthermore, this generation of CM does behave different.  As it seems that as long as the area fire order is in prior to the smoke, the unit shoots.  I believe in the previous generation (CMBB/CMAK) lose of LOS meant cancellation of the target.

 

As a side note:  (as I just switched) previously area fire was accurate, but just not aimed at a unit/tracking.  In this generation, area fire is much more diffuse.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't recall how diffuse area fire was in CMx1 but in CMx2 it is aimed at a 8m x 8m area (one action spot).

[markshot]

Well, I am not talking about the aiming, but where the fire goes.

 

Now, of course, I am making an assumption that WYSIWIG and that tracers are not simply an abstraction.  HMG tracers will cover a much wider area than in the previous generation where they pretty much impacted in a tight pattern.  So, there are a number of questions here:

 

* Are the tracers an abstraction or a representation?

 

* If they are representation is area fire now intended to be more diffuse?

 

* Or is area diffuse, because the prior modeling was too accurate for such fire?

 

Ha ha ... once you ask one question ... it leads to a series of questions.  Well, I know what to do.  Just play the game.  Because in the end, the only question which counts is:  Is it fun? 

[Vanir Ausf B]

Well, I am not talking about the aiming, but where the fire goes.

 

For stabilized platforms such as tank cannon (not moving) that is where the fire goes, at least until dispersion becomes significant at very long ranges. Small arms fire has more dispersion at much shorter ranges as you would expect.

 

Tracers are literal in CMx2, but again I don't recall what area fire dispersion was like in CMx1. Whatever it is in CMx2 I doubt it is a bug.

[Holman]

Area fire will definitely continue into smoke, which is important when the smoke/dust on the target was created by the first few rounds of area fire.

 

if you cancel the fire and then try to target again, however, the smoke now blocks targeting.