Suppression Squad Splits vs Assault Command

[MOS:96B2P]

In the CMBN thread Moving under fire - tips (link is below) the discussion evolved into the pros and cons of manually splitting a squad into fire teams or using the Assault command and the resulting effects of suppression.

http://community.battlefront.com/topic/122750-moving-under-fire-tips/

I ran some experiments on how suppression works with split squads vs Assault command.  I used my CMFI test map so I posted the results the CMFI forum.  The results with screen shots are below. 

1st Squad was split into three fire teams.  A-Team was ordered through a minefield to see if B and C teams would be effected by suppression when A team sustained casualties. 

A-Team takes casualties and is pinned when the mines detonate.

B and C teams shows one tick mark on the suppression meter.  I think this is because they were within 50 meters of the explosions.  I later moved B and C teams 125 and 300 meters away from the minefield detonations, where they still had LOS to C team, and they showed no suppression at all.     

 

At the end of the turn B team still has only one tick on the suppression meter.  (Just in case there was a delay in showing up on the meter.)

For the second part of the experiment 1st Squad was given the Assault command along the edge of the minefield so only part of the squad would step on mines.

As the turn ended the entire 1st Squad had heavy suppression from the mines.  At the start of the next turn they showed rattled. 

 

 

[womble]

That's really interesting, and a clever way of isolating the phenomenon that I thought I'd identified in normal play for demonstration.

Given the assertion about suppression being tracked individually, I wonder whether what we're seeing is down to casualty effects, and if "pure" suppression (by bullet splash) is what is tracked per soldier.

[A Canadian Cat]

More cool testing by @MOS:96B2P

 

15 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

 

Here is what I would be interested in.  In the above situation where B team has encountered mines other teams have not yet directly.  If you split this squad in the next orders phase and then see what the suppression meter says for each team. The meter for the entire squad is pretty high I would expect that the B team would be the highest and perhaps even pinned, while the other teams would be less suppressed depending on how close to the blast they were.

[MOS:96B2P]

10 hours ago, womble said:

<Snip> Given the assertion about suppression being tracked individually, I wonder whether what we're seeing is down to casualty effects, and if "pure" suppression (by bullet splash) is what is tracked per soldier.

The following is a team taking bullet splash suppression with no casualties.  The other two teams in the same squad show no suppression.  Not sure if this helps much but it appears that split teams do not incur suppression from each other.  

[MOS:96B2P]

3 hours ago, IanL said:

<Snip> Here is what I would be interested in.  In the above situation where B team has encountered mines other teams have not yet directly.  If you split this squad in the next orders phase and then see what the suppression meter says for each team. The meter for the entire squad is pretty high I would expect that the B team would be the highest and perhaps even pinned, while the other teams would be less suppressed depending on how close to the blast they were.

After splitting the teams seem to have the same amount of suppression.  The one thing that was a little surprising was that by the countdown clock of 03:58:30 (about 10 seconds after the last screenshot) all teams including the one with three casualties had recovered to one tick mark on the suppression meter.

 

 

[A Canadian Cat]

Humm.  Not quite what I was hoping to see.  On the other hand those two other teams are really close to the guys that set off the mines.  Perhaps if you juggled the initial position and assault way points to arrange it so that the fire base teams have not moved and as far from the mines as possible when the first guys step on the mines.  Right now those other teams are too close to the explosions - they are in the range that it makes scene for them to be suppressed at that range.

[womble]

1 hour ago, MOS:96B2P said:

The following is a team taking bullet splash suppression with no casualties.  The other two teams in the same squad show no suppression.  Not sure if this helps much but it appears that split teams do not incur suppression from each other.  

That would certainly be the expected consequence of "pure suppression" being assessed on a "per trooper" basis. Is it possible to keep teams from an unsplit squad separated spatially for long enough to assess whether "pure suppression" is as contagious as "casualty effects" are within an unsplit squad (your first test seems to show they're no more contagious between teams of the same squad which have been split apart than they are between separate squads)?

[akd]

Once you split teams, the game no longer has any concept of them being a squad except for purposes of recombining if co-located.  They all become mini-squads subordinate to the platoon HQ.

If an unsplit squad takes fire / casualties, the squad incurs suppression regardless of the separation of the men in the squad.

Edited April 29, 2016 by akd

[womble]

1 hour ago, akd said:

Once you split teams, the game no longer has any concept of them being a squad except for purposes of recombining if co-located.  They all become mini-squads subordinate to the platoon HQ.

If an unsplit squad takes fire / casualties, the squad incurs suppression regardless of the separation of the men in the squad.

What's under discussion is the assertion by IanL [that the coders of the game reckon] that suppression (just suppression, that's all that was mentioned) is tracked for each individual trooper. What I think has been shown is that your assertion is true for casualties, but I've not seen any evidence presented that suppression without casualties being inflicted is shared across the entire squad if part of it is not being affected directly by the stimulus causing the suppression.

Ian's no more infallible than the rest of us, but I trust his account of this discussion to be accurate.

[akd]

44 minutes ago, womble said:

What's under discussion is the assertion by IanL [that the coders of the game reckon] that suppression (just suppression, that's all that was mentioned) is tracked for each individual trooper. What I think has been shown is that your assertion is true for casualties, but I've not seen any evidence presented that suppression without casualties being inflicted is shared across the entire squad if part of it is not being affected directly by the stimulus causing the suppression.

Ian's no more infallible than the rest of us, but I trust his account of this discussion to be accurate.

Just tested to make sure, and suppression is delivered to both teams in an assaulting squad if one team takes fire without casualties, but can be avoided for the other team in the same circumstance if you split the squad.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/36437512/remote%20suppression%20no%20casualty.bts

And while there should definitely be morale effects from casualties for both teams in an assaulting squad, these should not translate in to direct suppression for the other team, but rather a morale drop that makes them more prone to suppression.  The effects should also be the same for split squad that is otherwise in the same relative position (can see / hear each other) regardless.
 

 

Edited April 29, 2016 by akd

[MOS:96B2P]

5 hours ago, IanL said:

<Snip> Perhaps if you juggled the initial position and assault way points to arrange it so that the fire base teams have not moved and as far from the mines as possible when the first guys step on the mines.  Right now those other teams are too close to the explosions - they are in the range that it makes scene for them to be suppressed at that range.

Okay, gave it another run-through.  Also learned something about the Assault command bounds.  If given a long (about 150 meters or more) distance to the first Assault waypoint the first team will assault six Action Spots (A/S) the second team will assault five action spots past the first team (11 total) and if a third team it will assault five A/S past the second team 16 total).  Then repeats with last team always bounding out five A/S past the furthest forward team until the destination.  The bounds can be made shorter with closer spaced waypoints but the above seems to be the max.  

Back on topic.  

With the Assault command the further spaced apart the fire teams were the suppression was somewhat less in the different teams but still significant.

With manually split teams with the same team spacing (as used by "Assault Cmd. teams") the suppression was almost not noticeable.  One tick on the suppression meter for the closest team and none at all for the furthest.  (The team that actually did the stepping on mines was of course suppressed and had a casualty)

Below are the screenshots.

Second run-through with manually split teams.

     

 

 

[womble]

That last test seems to show very well that a squad's suppression status is an average of the three teams'. When the squad splits, A and B are less affected than C.

I think it also demonstrates that there is greater separation of effect when the teams are administratively split.

An interesting observation is that the squad which suffers the casualty while unsplit shows a better morale state for having suffered that casualty than the C team which was split off before running into the minefield.That might be explained, though, by the fact that it's the team specialist, or by the casualty in one case being a lethality and in the other being only an incapacitation. This is contrary to what I thought I'd observed.

[womble]

Just managed to engineer a test situation with a spatially separated but unsplit team taking ineffective MG fire (Hide-ing behind a stone wall; no chance of casualties on a flat map). After a minute, the squad as a whole was showing just 3 bars of suppression. When I split the teams, though, the team taking the fire was Pinned with a full suppression meter, and the other teams were entirely unsuppressed. Not even one bar.

So, for sure, suppression isn't contagious, but the effects of casualties are more contagious between unsplit teams than between split ones.

I tried to see whether the morale effects of casualties on split teams were greater, but got large variability in my results; haven't got time today to run 'em over again for statistics...

[MOS:96B2P]

4 hours ago, womble said:

<Snip> I think it also demonstrates that there is greater separation of effect when the teams are administratively split. <Snip> 

 

3 hours ago, womble said:

<Snip> So, for sure, suppression isn't contagious, but the effects of casualties are more contagious between unsplit teams than between split ones. <Snip>  

I think these are two of the more interesting and revealing points to come from this experimenting.  When you come to a conclusion reference your stone wall/morale effects I would be interested to hear your opinion on if you think it is better, in general, to use administratively split teams vs. the Assault command.  

[akd]

Suppression is contagious in combined squads.  It may not be split evenly between the two teams, but the team separated from the team taking firing will incur suppression that is not applied if the squad is split in the same situation.  Even if it is only a few ticks, that will get members of the team periodically cowering which reduces their ability to spot and fire on contacts.  This means it is always more effective to split teams than use the assault command.

Edited April 30, 2016 by akd

[MOS:96B2P]

2 hours ago, akd said:

<Snip>  it is always more effective to split teams than use the assault command.

This is what many of my current TACSOPs are based on and I think at the end of the day (unless someone has a new revelation) they will remain so. 

[womble]

16 hours ago, akd said:

Suppression is contagious in combined squads.  It may not be split evenly between the two teams, but the team separated from the team taking firing will incur suppression that is not applied if the squad is split in the same situation.  Even if it is only a few ticks, that will get members of the team periodically cowering which reduces their ability to spot and fire on contacts.  This means it is always more effective to split teams than use the assault command.

I think the effect you're observing is real, but it's not because suppression is "contagious" between Troopers.

I think it's because the element's actions are determined, not by the suppression status of the individual troopers, but by the overall average status of the element. Which amounts to the same thing, I agree, but doesn't accurately state the problem for the Powers That Be to be able to analyse and rectify. Seeing A and B team of the unsplit squad have cowering troopers when (when you split the squad) it's C team that carries all the suppression (and is only a "?" icon for A and B, because of intervening walls) is inconsistent with the effect fire is actually having on the individuals.

I took some screenies, but somethings getting in the way of uploading... maybe later? Can't share the save game for [reasons].

[Bulletpoint]

What difficulty level did you do these tests at?

On Iron mode, troops need to spot friendlies, so maybe they wouldn't be so affected by their mates getting into trouble, if they don't see it happening? Just a thought.

[A Canadian Cat]

Considering that squads on the other side of the map can become shaken when their, out of communication  platoon mates take casualties i don't think iron will have a large effect.