Do units tire out to quickly when using slow?

[AttorneyAtWar]

I decided to put this topic here but it would obviously work in any of the other CM game forums.

Ive started to use slow quite a bit more as I become better and more patient with the game, the problem is most troops "tire out" after moving only two action squares, its a bit annoying and I am wondering if anyone feels the same way. Does CM model units carrying lighter weapons or less ammo tiring out slower when crawling?

Of course anyone can jump in with real world experience and prove me completely wrong here!

[Lethaface]

Making sure to only crawl only one AS per waypoint with added pause does help. 

[[MyIS] Buffpuff]

I could be totally off base here but I would assume that the slow function is so tiring for the following reasons:

 

- Crawling in a prone position is pretty exhausting work (considering the weapon you are carrying and the noise discipline you're trying to achieve)

- From a mental standpoint it should be the height above all other moves as to the caution indicator (in other words you are REALLY expecting the Boogeyman to appear in front of you when you finish this move)

 

"Hunt" if I'm not mistaken has a slight fatigue penalty. However, I don't think I've ever seen a unit go to tiring from an extensive hunt mission. As for the less tiring out with lighter weapons or less ammo again I'm going to assume not. It's been my experience that a fully rested squad will go from rested to ready in a 1 action square move and go from fully rested to tiring in a 2 action square move.

[AttorneyAtWar]

1 minute ago, Lethaface said:

Making sure to only crawl only one AS per waypoint with added pause does help. 

This is true and I do it, but when your on a strict time table it can be a bit tricky, this isn't a huge deal honestly but I am curious what other people have to say.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Raptorx7

[[MyIS] Buffpuff]

1 minute ago, Lethaface said:

Making sure to only crawl only one AS per waypoint with added pause does help. 

I agree. Anything past 1 AS I will usually add a 30 second pause between each segment.

[Lethaface]

6 minutes ago, Raptorx7 said:

This is true and I do it, but when your on a strict time table it can be a bit tricky, this isn't a huge deal honestly but I am curious what other people have to say.

Well they do tire a little quick imo, but I also don't have real world experience crawling around with heavy gear. I did do some paintballing in the Ardennes and it was tiring enough trying to walk fast in the hilly, snowy and slippery terrain. I did once hit the ground involuntarily (my punishment for wearing airmax ;-) ). Although I did often go prone for cover, I didn't try crawling large distances.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Lethaface

[The Steppenwulf]

There has to be a consideration of  real world vs game mechanics for game design reasons. There must be a severe enough forfeit for using crawl, (to sufficiently offset the clear advantages)m otherwise there would be less incentive to adopt other movement types - resulting in a less interesting game.

[womble]

First off, "Tired" is not "Tired out". Just means your troops can't hit their maximum theoretical dash speed.

Second, Hunt tires troops out pretty fast too. I rarely use it as much for that reason as the difficulty of keeping them moving. It's pretty easy to get them to Fatigued or worse in that movement mode. Sure, holding still for a bit in between movement legs will restrict the depth the guys get into their wind, but by the same token it slows them even further. You have to judge each occasion as to whether it's better to have your troops arrive sooner, and then recover in place (often entirely acceptable if all they're going to be doing is observing), or whether you think you're going to want them to move Fast immediately they arrive, even if arriving takes twice as long. Mostly, IME, it's better, in all movement modes, to get them there sooner and have them recover at their destination. Fast is an exception, as it exacts too high a Fatigue cost for the benefit in speed of arrival; only use Fast if you absolutley need to.

Third, crawling around in heavy gear at high alert through rough terrain in combat conditions is, indeed, fatiguing.

[[MyIS] Buffpuff]

10 minutes ago, womble said:

Second, Hunt tires troops out pretty fast too. I rarely use it as much for that reason as the difficulty of keeping them moving. It's pretty easy to get them to Fatigued or worse in that movement mode. Sure, holding still for a bit in between movement legs will restrict the depth the guys get into their wind, but by the same token it slows them even further.

Maybe I've never used Hunt extensively enough to tire my troops to a fatigued level. I thought Hunt did give a slight fatigue penalty but I wasn't aware that extensive use can cause a big fatigue hit. Good information to know!

[Michael Emrys]

16 minutes ago, womble said:

First off, "Tired" is not "Tired out". Just means your troops can't hit their maximum theoretical dash speed.

Second, Hunt tires troops out pretty fast too. I rarely use it as much for that reason as the difficulty of keeping them moving. It's pretty easy to get them to Fatigued or worse in that movement mode. Sure, holding still for a bit in between movement legs will restrict the depth the guys get into their wind, but by the same token it slows them even further. You have to judge each occasion as to whether it's better to have your troops arrive sooner, and then recover in place (often entirely acceptable if all they're going to be doing is observing), or whether you think you're going to want them to move Fast immediately they arrive, even if arriving takes twice as long. Mostly, IME, it's better, in all movement modes, to get them there sooner and have them recover at their destination. Fast is an exception, as it exacts too high a Fatigue cost for the benefit in speed of arrival; only use Fast if you absolutley need to.

Third, crawling around in heavy gear at high alert through rough terrain in combat conditions is, indeed, fatiguing.

Good advice. Regarding Hunt, I seldom use it because of the fatigue factor. Mostly I use it at the end of a long trek when I think the troops are in imminent danger of coming under fire. Otherwise, I prefer short legs of Quick with ten or fifteen seconds pause at each WP. This keeps them from getting tired and also allows them a moment to observe and maybe take a shot at any spotted enemies.

Michael

[Lethaface]

Funny, I very often use hunt. I think hunt is especially useful when scouting with point teams, preferably with other teams in overwatch. Although when moving from point A to B under cover I generally use either quick or move. With sufficient waypoints and pauses fatigue can be managed quite well.

[mbarbaric]

i have no experience in crawling since i was kid so i am completely uncompetent but yes, i think it is veery slow and tiresome in game. mostly because slow movement, as game names it, is basicaly what i would call stealth. sneaking up to enemy position. 

most of times i really don't need that kind of movement. i want normal crawl, not stealth approach, when i get close to a ridge, end of woods and similar situations in which enemy is quite fare but i want to remain undetected. i believe crawling when you don't care about noise too much but still want to remain  unseen isn't represented in the game and you end up tiring your troops for no real reason most of the time. 

[sttp]

Sounds like everyone is pointing out the disadvantages of Hunt, so maybe it's worth mentioning its advantages, too? To me, the troops seem hyper-aware during Hunt movement. They spot more quickly, They fire or return fire more quickly. So I use it more and more all the time.

I'm playing Cutline to Grosshau right now -- beautiful mission -- and I just (today) ended up losing an MG42 over on the right side... because I got impatient and tried to "Quick" the MG team over to their new spot, instead of using the "Hunt" command I really kinda knew I should be ordering. Time is starting to look like a real issue in this mission, so... yeah, that'll happen. But I'm pretty sure that gunner would still be alive if I'd used Hunt.

Quick obviously is the perfect command for many situations. But Hunt is perfect (IMO) for others, when awareness and reaction speed are more important than ground speed.

[A co]

An anecdote about a successful use of the 'slow' command. This was in CMBN but the dynamic is probably the same for all of CMX3 - I sent a small team to move 'slow' into a building. Just behind the building, unknown to me, was a pair of enemy troops apparently hiding in ambush. My men, while still crawling, spotted the enemy and killed them, apparently without ever being spotted themselves. 

Granted troops moving in buildings benefit from some concealment, but the slow move really 'sealed the deal'. If it had been a 'hunt' move, they might have stopped and regrouped before ever getting LOS from more than one man.

[iluvmy88]

Well easy way to find out. stick your face in the dirt and start low  crawling, no stickin your butt up thats cheating, high crawl is a little less exhausting. we had to low crawl with a casualty in full kit and it exhausting.

[Bulletpoint]

I dont think it tires them out too fast, but I think they actually crawl a bit too, well, slowly. 

[LukeFF]

8 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I dont think it tires them out too fast, but I think they actually crawl a bit too, well, slowly. 

They aren't moving too slowly. As others have already said, low-crawling truly is slow and tiring - even more so if you're trying to move a crew-served weapon at the same time.

[Wicky]

15 hours ago, iluvmy88 said:

Well easy way to find out. stick your face in the dirt and start low  crawling, no stickin your butt up thats cheating, high crawl is a little less exhausting. we had to low crawl with a casualty in full kit and it exhausting.

Sean Duffy, CC'06, and his friend Leo Chau, a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder, crawled 32.26 miles and into the Guinness World Records this summer to raise nearly $20,000 for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

The crawl, which took just over 44 hours through hail, lightning, rain and freezing temperatures, exceeded the previous world record of 31.44 miles set by two Scotsmen in 1992. The grueling crawl pushed the pair to their physical and mental limits. Duffy suffered from hallucinations and motion sickness and Chau experienced severe dehydration. Both were treated at a local hospital at the conclusion of the crawl.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/05/08/guiness_world_record.html

[Combatintman]

11 hours ago, Wicky said:

Sean Duffy, CC'06, and his friend Leo Chau, a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder, crawled 32.26 miles and into the Guinness World Records this summer to raise nearly $20,000 for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

The crawl, which took just over 44 hours through hail, lightning, rain and freezing temperatures, exceeded the previous world record of 31.44 miles set by two Scotsmen in 1992. The grueling crawl pushed the pair to their physical and mental limits. Duffy suffered from hallucinations and motion sickness and Chau experienced severe dehydration. Both were treated at a local hospital at the conclusion of the crawl.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/05/08/guiness_world_record.html

The picture at the link does not show them on their belt buckles so it would be important for people to remember that before setting up a test to start calculating crawl times using the time they took to crawl 32.26 miles as a data point. Based on my real World experiences, the way the behaviour is modelled in the game is just fine.

[cool breeze]

I think its easy to think the distance in game are shorter than they really are.  I'm sure not everyone is making that mistake but I am pretty sure 16 m seems a lot farther through the mud and brush.   Oh on a personal experience note, I once took a firefighter physical test practice test, while very unprepared and out of shape, and Ill note it was the 16ish m crawling course that took me from winded to completely gassed, then I fell down during the following event, the body drag.

Edited April 27, 2016 by cool breeze

[iluvmy88]

On 4/26/2016 at 2:21 PM, Wicky said:

Sean Duffy, CC'06, and his friend Leo Chau, a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder, crawled 32.26 miles and into the Guinness World Records this summer to raise nearly $20,000 for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

The crawl, which took just over 44 hours through hail, lightning, rain and freezing temperatures, exceeded the previous world record of 31.44 miles set by two Scotsmen in 1992. The grueling crawl pushed the pair to their physical and mental limits. Duffy suffered from hallucinations and motion sickness and Chau experienced severe dehydration. Both were treated at a local hospital at the conclusion of the crawl.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/05/08/guiness_world_record.html

That is not a low crawl that is a high crawl, entirely different. not even a proper high crawl more like a baby crawl. everything you have in the mud if you aint eatin dirt your dead.

this is a proper low crawl and it is exhausting https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiCtdOW26_MAhVBcT4KHWpFD50QjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fganatlguard%2F13888127846&psig=AFQjCNG5xaz6Ez_KDJ86oWhmEpva0FjecA&ust=1461877220470754

Edited April 27, 2016 by iluvmy88

[Andrew H.]

On 4/26/2016 at 9:27 PM, A co said:

An anecdote about a successful use of the 'slow' command. This was in CMBN but the dynamic is probably the same for all of CMX3 - I sent a small team to move 'slow' into a building. Just behind the building, unknown to me, was a pair of enemy troops apparently hiding in ambush. My men, while still crawling, spotted the enemy and killed them, apparently without ever being spotted themselves. 

 

Crawling into buildings is my SOP for entering them unless I know they're safe. 

[iluvmy88]

2 minutes ago, Andrew H. said:

Crawling into buildings is my SOP for entering them unless I know they're safe. 

Huh my sop is to make it disappear lol. What building?

[Michael Emrys]

42 minutes ago, iluvmy88 said:

Huh my sop is to make it disappear lol. What building?

I've done a fair bit of that too. Pull up a tank or two and blast the hell out of it until it is reduced to a pile of rubble. I can barely wait until I have occasion to lay my hands on an M12.

Michael

[Duckman]

I think games in general underestimate the effects of crawling. It is very tiresome, and even more so with gear and weapons over uneven terrain. So kudos to CM on that issue.

While on the subject, I think games also tend to underestimate the effect of mud and especially for leg infantry. Simply crossing a muddy field with gear is tiring and very, very slow.