Improvement suggestions

[Kaunitz]

Hello! 

I'm a big fan of the series and have released some videos of my latest battles on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheKaunitz/videos). However, in my games, I came upon a few things that I think might be improved. Not CM:FB-specific, more related to the engine/whole series:

1.  I'd like to be able to chain multiple "target briefly"-commands (i.e. multiple area targets) together in one turn for a stationary unit. Some weapons should be able to "spray" more than a single actionsquare in one minute/turn. E.g. in 1 minute, a MG should surely be able to control more than a section of 5 meters? Right now, the only way to do so is by moving units back and forth "on the spot" to give them multiple waypoints with a new target for each waypoint. Needless to say that this is fiddly and does not work for certain weapons (infantry-handled MGs that have delploy-times). Alternatively, I've often wondered what would happen if one changed turn-intervalls from 1 minute to 30 seconds.

2. I'd like to have control over infantry's stance (prone, kneeling, standing). LOS of a unit (to determine whether it is allowed to area-target or for indirect-fire-missions) seems to be calculated according to the current stance (of the majority of soldiers of? the unit leader?) a unit which is almost entirely a matter of contingency. It's not impossible but rather unelegant and very fiddly to get the desired results sometimes. E.g. if I want my FO-team to have a LOS over a ridge (so it needs to be standing), I need to give the unit a movement command after a 45 seconds pause so that it will be moving DURING the turn intervall, so that at the start of the next turn it will be moving=standing and have the desired LOS. Other than that, soldiers do whatever they like: some stand, some lie prone (even though this means they have no LOS and don't fire like the rest of their unit). The only way you can influence their stance is the "hide" command (which will make the whole unit go prone reliably). I think that LOS is by far too important to leave it to chance and coincidence.

3. Certainly more ambitious and more "fluffy"/superfluous: Some kind of incentive to evacuate wounded soldiers. Buddy aid is nice, but I'd like to see some incentive to and some way of transporting wounded soldiers (to an exit point?).

[Kaunitz]

4. What about peeking (or even shooting - with one man) around a corner in urban settings? I assume it would be incredibly hard to get that into the engine and might be consiedered a bit too "micro" for the engine's scope. But I think it would be nice if a unit positioned at a corner would get some LOS around the corner - it could very well be low quality LOS, only giving you suspected contacts, not confirmed ones. The current method - moving the whole unit "around" the corner blindly and potentially exposing them to devastating fire - has little appeal. 

5. I applaud CM to the relative spotting- and also the information-sharing system. As we all know, however, it can't be brought to full effect because the player can still let units area-target spots without good reason (the firing unit has no suspected contact-marker there). The player = god problem prevails. So I still wonder if the whole information-thing could be enforced to actually produce effects and have a high influence on how the game is played. There is such an awesome communication-system under the hood, yet players don't really have to pay attention to it if they don't want to. I guess it has been discussed ad infinitum, but why not allow area-targeting only on/close to spots with suspected contact markers? For precautionary fire on suspected positions, players could make use of target reference points. The maps are not that huge so that a few TRPs should suffice to cover all the obvious spots on the map?

 

Or else, what I'd like even more: give area-fire directed at a spot at which a unit has no "suspected contact-marker" a chance to be directed at an adjacent spot (instead of the original target) or make the fire much less effective to simulate the same effect.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Kaunitz

[Bulletpoint]

I like all your suggestions (actually most of them have been suggested before, by myself and other people on the forum).

I'm sure somebody will be around shortly to tell you why they are bad ideas and/or technically impossible to do, but nevertheless I think they are good suggestions in theory at least, and I hope some of them might be included in the game some day.

About the LOS thing about standing or being prone, I think an alternative to manual controls would be to use the unit facing command. Say your guys are on a hill and they could get LOS to a location if they just stood up. You could then click "face towards" and click the exact square you want them to have LOS to. The TacAI could then decide to stand up the guys in order to achieve the LOS, but still have them drop back down if they took incoming fire. This solutions doesn't currently work in the game - as far as I know, clicking unit facing and then on a specific place on the map just changes a unit's compass direction towards that point, and doesn't take into account LOS.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Michael Emrys]

2 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

5. I applaud CM to the relative spotting- and also the information-sharing system. As we all know, however, it can't be brought to full effect because the player can still let units area-target spots without good reason (the firing unit has no suspected contact-marker there). The player = god problem prevails. So I still wonder if the whole information-thing could be enforced to actually produce effects and have a high influence on how the game is played. There is such an awesome communication-system under the hood, yet players don't really have to pay attention to it if they don't want to. I guess it has been discussed ad infinitum, but why not allow area-targeting only on/close to spots with suspected contact markers? For precautionary fire on suspected positions, players could make use of target reference points. The maps are not that huge so that a few TRPs should suffice to cover all the obvious spots on the map?

While I think most of your ideas are at least worth thinking about, this one I don't like. Recon by fire was a common practice during the war and SFAIK still is. I'd say leave the current system alone for now.

2 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

4. What about peeking (or even shooting - with one man) around a corner in urban settings?

 

It may no longer be part of the game, but I could swear that after CMSF came out someone posted screenshots of exactly this happening. Since I avoid playing heavily urbanized battles, I've had no opportunity to see if this is still included.

Michael

[Kaunitz]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

About the LOS thing about standing or being prone, I think an alternative to manual controls would be to use the unit facing command. Say your guys are on a hill and they could get LOS to a location if they just stood up. You could then click "face towards" and click the e

xact square you want them to have LOS to. The TacAI could then decide to stand up the guys in order to achieve the LOS, but still have them drop back down if they took incoming fire. This solutions doesn't currently work in the game - as far as I know, clicking unit facing and then on a specific place on the map just changes a unit's compass direction towards that point, and doesn't take into account LOS.

This would be nice. I don't know which one would be (theoretically) easier to implement: a "stance-switch button" or "stance-selection according to desired LOS".

45 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

While I think most of your ideas are at least worth thinking about, this one I don't like. Recon by fire was a common practice during the war and SFAIK still is. I'd say leave the current system alone for now.

I think recon by fire would not suffer a lot if the effectiveness of fire at "non-contacts" was reduced or had a chance to target an adjacent square (with the exception perhaps of obvious landmarks, such as buildings). There would still be some suppression, just not as much. The question is: What is and what should be the purpose of "recon by fire"? 

Since target area-commands can be used for both, "realistic" recon by fire/precautionary fire (I use it myself a lot!) and "unrealistic" targeting of enemies that your own units should not even be aware of, I think a middle ground would be a good compromise:

confirmed contact: very effective fire  /  suspected contact (or a square close to it): effective fire  /  non-contact: comparatively ineffective fire

Maybe it would be good to automatically make "area-target" target an actual area (5 squares?) instead of a point (single square), unless it is a landmark/building. This would still make area-fire effective, but it would take more time and give the "defender" better chances to get away.

 

45 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

It may no longer be part of the game, but I could swear that after CMSF came out someone posted screenshots of exactly this happening. Since I avoid playing heavily urbanized battles, I've had no opportunity to see if this is still included.

Shooting or spotting? Sounds interesting!

Edited June 23, 2016 by Kaunitz

[Bulletpoint]

7 minutes ago, Kaunitz said:

confirmed contact: very effective fire  /  suspected contact (or a square close to it): effective fire  /  non-contact: comparatively ineffective fire

I think this is halfway in the game already: When you do area fire, some of the bursts will hit surrounding squares.

It would be nice if it were possible to target the actual contact marker and get 100 pct of the area fire hit the square where the marker is on. To make area fire against a known contact location more effective, reflecting the advantage of having better intel to know where to shoot exactly.

[Anthony P.]

#3: Buddy aid is just there as first aid, which is why there aren't e.g. medics or stretcher bearers in CM.

#5: As stated before, nope. That'd make recon by fire completely impossible, or any direct fire support by units that haven't seen anything there. It's already a lot less effective than targeting of actually spotted units.

[A Canadian Cat]

I am not sure why @Bulletpoint seems so jaded Those sound like very reasonable ideas...

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

1.  I'd like to be able to chain multiple "target briefly"-commands (i.e. multiple area targets) together in one turn for a stationary unit. Some weapons should be able to "spray" more than a single actionsquare in one minute/turn. E.g. in 1 minute, a MG should surely be able to control more than a section of 5 meters? Right now, the only way to do so is by moving units back and forth "on the spot" to give them multiple waypoints with a new target for each waypoint. Needless to say that this is fiddly and does not work for certain weapons (infantry-handled MGs that have delploy-times). Alternatively, I've often wondered what would happen if one changed turn-intervalls from 1 minute to 30 seconds.

Yeah, that would be nice.  As you already said the way "around" this is to move back and forth but the down side, as you already said, is it really only works with vehicles.

 

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

2. I'd like to have control over infantry's stance (prone, kneeling, standing). LOS of a unit (to determine whether it is allowed to area-target or for indirect-fire-missions) seems to be calculated according to the current stance (of the majority of soldiers of? the unit leader?) a unit which is almost entirely a matter of contingency. It's not impossible but rather unelegant and very fiddly to get the desired results sometimes. E.g. if I want my FO-team to have a LOS over a ridge (so it needs to be standing), I need to give the unit a movement command after a 45 seconds pause so that it will be moving DURING the turn intervall, so that at the start of the next turn it will be moving=standing and have the desired LOS. Other than that, soldiers do whatever they like: some stand, some lie prone (even though this means they have no LOS and don't fire like the rest of their unit). The only way you can influence their stance is the "hide" command (which will make the whole unit go prone reliably). I think that LOS is by far too important to leave it to chance and coincidence.

Yeah, this comes up every now and then. It sucks when your guys are moving through a wheat field and can see the enemy shooting at them and then they all hit the deck and prompt loose sight of the enemy.  Doh!

No one has really come up with a perfect solution for this.  The added micro managing required is not welcome by some players and even if you go with "it would be optional" the Tac AI cannot make use of it so the player gets another advantage.  Oh wait I am starting to see why @Bulletpoint might be getting jaded...

 

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

3. Certainly more ambitious and more "fluffy"/superfluous: Some kind of incentive to evacuate wounded soldiers. Buddy aid is nice, but I'd like to see some incentive to and some way of transporting wounded soldiers (to an exit point?).

People have asked for this.  The basic message has been that BFC is not very interested in creating a whole medivac aspect to the game.  Mainly because they don't think we want it either.

Oh man I did it again now I am truly living up to @Bulletpoint's expectations .  In my defence I'm just trying to fill you in on the past conversations that have happened and poke a little fun at my self and @Bulletpoint - hopefully he will not be too annoyed cause that's not my goal (and he probably knows I can be damned annoying if I want - trying hard not to be as annoying this week).  

There actually is a little bit more of an incentive to perform Buddy Aid.  At the end of a game there is a calculation made over how many of the wounded soldiers actually end up dying and those that are buddy aided off the battle field are less likely to end up that way plus if they are off the battle field due to buddy aid they cannot be killed by events later in the battle.  Yes, guys who are wounded can still get killed - pretty amazing even when you notice it happening actually.

 

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

4. What about peeking (or even shooting - with one man) around a corner in urban settings? I assume it would be incredibly hard to get that into the engine and might be consiedered a bit too "micro" for the engine's scope. But I think it would be nice if a unit positioned at a corner would get some LOS around the corner - it could very well be low quality LOS, only giving you suspected contacts, not confirmed ones. The current method - moving the whole unit "around" the corner blindly and potentially exposing them to devastating fire - has little appeal. 

Yes, yes and yes that would be great.  Sorry @Michael Emrys actual peaking is not in the game (there are a ton of instances where it can appear to be happening just because of the way soldiers are positioned and how the geography works out but it is just luck right now no one is actually peaking around corners).  This a much asked for feature.  Probably the number one ask from your list.

 

7 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

5. I applaud CM to the relative spotting- and also the information-sharing system. As we all know, however, it can't be brought to full effect because the player can still let units area-target spots without good reason (the firing unit has no suspected contact-marker there). The player = god problem prevails. So I still wonder if the whole information-thing could be enforced to actually produce effects and have a high influence on how the game is played. There is such an awesome communication-system under the hood, yet players don't really have to pay attention to it if they don't want to. I guess it has been discussed ad infinitum, but why not allow area-targeting only on/close to spots with suspected contact markers? For precautionary fire on suspected positions, players could make use of target reference points. The maps are not that huge so that a few TRPs should suffice to cover all the obvious spots on the map?

 

Or else, what I'd like even more: give area-fire directed at a spot at which a unit has no "suspected contact-marker" a chance to be directed at an adjacent spot (instead of the original target) or make the fire much less effective to simulate the same effect.

Yeah I see that is already getting a lot of discussion - we have talked about it a lot.  Currently the Tac AI does not do any recon by fire or shooting at ? contacts.  Several of us have asked to level the playing field and have the Tac AI fire at ? icons on its own.  That would be cool.  The other thing you can do is check out Bil's Command Friction rules:

 

[Michael Emrys]

22 minutes ago, IanL said:

Yes, guys who are wounded can still get killed - pretty amazing even when you notice it happening actually.

I witnessed an example of this just the other day. A German soldier was red wounded by a burst of MG fire, then a shell landed nearby and put the Paid In Full stamp on his forehead.

Michael

[Sailor Malan2]

Half of the suggestions in this thread seem to err on the side of what i would call 'role playing', or an individual skirmish game. I guess it is the age old battle between the gamers who want maximum control over everything and the simulators who are more interested in 'being the leader (company, Btn, platoon or whatever). I accept the occasional 'he's over there you  idiot' moment as the price to pay to get to have this game, and offsets the obscenely all powerful god PoV we have. 

 

As to medevac... well, that strikes me as even more specialized role play... kind of like wanting to be play the merchant who runs the shop that sells gear to the adventurers in D&D!  A bit like the poor player who ran the logistics in a game of SPIs Campaign for North Africa I played (briefly) once - the main role was practically to beg the force commanders to sto moving stuff because of the supplies it burnt up! But who knows.Maybe there is a market for a 'Theme Combat Medic/MASH' game out there!

[kevinkin]

Thanks for the videos. A lot of time goes into those. I should have spent more time listening in AV class instead of drawing Shermans knocking out Tigers with stick figures. Nicely done. 

On 6/23/2016 at 0:02 PM, IanL said:

chain multiple "target briefly"-commands (i.e. multiple area targets) together in one turn for a stationary unit.

You can sort of get there in real time play with a bit (at times a lot) of micro management. It can be cool to spray (with clear target/target cycles) an enemy trench line while watching you troops conduct an assault you re-plotted. 

Kevin

[womble]

7 hours ago, kevinkin said:

You can sort of get there in real time play with a bit (at times a lot) of micro management. It can be cool to spray (with clear target/target cycles) an enemy trench line while watching you troops conduct an assault you re-plotted. 

 

Chained sub-minute area fire with small arms might not be as desirable as you think. Dividing the suppression from one HMG, say, or a single LMG team amongst multiple targets risks diluting its effect to the point that your assaulting troops would be under greater threat of return fire than you'd like. It's a different matter with a tank, say, firing HE, where 15-20s fire from the main gun and the two or more MGs is probably enough to get the defenders' heads down in one AS, but that's already manageble if you can stomach the micro. Personally, I'd be loath to send my Assault teams across if I hadn't got enough base of fire teams to put at least an LMG-minute's lead onto every identified enemy location immediately before the Assault teams expose themselves, with half that many available to maintain suppression.

[kevinkin]

Oh, I have to agree that spraying fire is an not an ultimate tactic and will dilute FP. Just something something to pull out of the tool box when appropriate and illustrates a facet of real time. 

[cool breeze]

You could bring back the old command delay but only for area fire and only if the troop has no contact info in the area.

although planning the area fire order ahead by adding it to a way point should start the command delay countdown before getting to the way point, or at least reduce it.

 

Edited September 8, 2016 by cool breeze

[Kaunitz]

I've been playing a bit lately (engine version 4 just came out? Yippie!) and I came upon two things that I wished were part of the game: 

1. "Dug-in" tanks. I'm not really a modern warfare expert, so I don't know the proper name of it. I'd love to see if we could buy and place some parapets made of earth for our tanks - artificially made hull-down positions protecting three of the four sides of the tank. Often, as the defender, I get the feeling that I would not let that tank stand in such a position concealed but not covered at all. I feel that this is really missing from the list of fortifications at our disposal.

2.  This is something that came to my mind while playing Black Sea:  I think it would be interesting to have some kind of "bail out/re-man" option for infantry-manned support weapons (recoilles AT guns, deployable ATGMS, AT guns, etc.). Often, I get into a situation in which the crew dies horribly because, instead of seeking cover and hiding asap after having fired their weapon, they start to pack up their weapon (otherwise they can't move!), while one of their tank-targets has all the time of the world taking its aim and knocking them out. Also, would an unmanned support weapon be more difficult to spot?

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Kaunitz said:

I've been playing a bit lately (engine version 4 just came out? Yippie!) and I came upon two things that I wished were part of the game: 

1. "Dug-in" tanks. I'm not really a modern warfare expert, so I don't know the proper name of it. I'd love to see if we could buy and place some parapets made of earth for our tanks - artificially made hull-down positions protecting three of the four sides of the tank. Often, as the defender, I get the feeling that I would not let that tank stand in such a position concealed but not covered at all. I feel that this is really missing from the list of fortifications at our disposal.

2.  This is something that came to my mind while playing Black Sea:  I think it would be interesting to have some kind of "bail out/re-man" option for infantry-manned support weapons (recoilles AT guns, deployable ATGMS, AT guns, etc.). Often, I get into a situation in which the crew dies horribly because, instead of seeking cover and hiding asap after having fired their weapon, they start to pack up their weapon (otherwise they can't move!), while one of their tank-targets has all the time of the world taking its aim and knocking them out. Also, would an unmanned support weapon be more difficult to spot?

Btw peeking around corners is now in 4.0. :-D. 

[Kaunitz]

I'm looking forward to peeking around corners!  

I'm currently working over some weapon-sounds that I'm not happy with. The vanilla sounds are unfortunately rather bad. Mods help a lot, but some sounds are still a bit weird. I'm going to collect my additions here and at some point I might request to register as a modder at the cmmods site and "release" them as a package. 

Here is my first attempt: the MG 42 sound. I got the base sound from a reenactor's video on youtube and edited it with audacity. I tried to come up with an okay mixture of "pop" and "noise". Judging from videos, the MG 42 seems to be rather "noisy" though. Sorry for the clipping, but if you want make firing sounds drown out other sounds (engines, voices, etc.) and if you want to make them audible over the whole battlefield, you need to amplify them over the top - otherwise the engine fades them out by far too quickly. 

 

 

Kaunitz_MG42.rar

[Kaunitz]

More sound-files: the MP 40 and Soviet SMGs (PPSh and PPS-43 use the same sound-file): 

MP 40 video

Russian SMGs video

I'm not entirely happy with the Soviet SMGs. It's tough to make them sound good because of the sheer quantity that are being fired off by those SMG squads. 

 

Kaunitz_RussianSMGs.rar

Kaunitz_MP40.rar

[PanzerPajamas]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing.

[Kaunitz]

Thanks, Panzer Pajamas! I know your name from youtube-videos! 

There is an issue I just came across which effectively halted my left flank (  ) :

One of my squads was not able to mount a truck that had been immobilized in the terrain (the squad was small enough to fit in). Why would you want to mount a truck that got stuck you ask? The squad's task was supposed to take the ammo from the truck and carry it over to their depleted platoon. You need to get on the vehicle in order to unlock the acquire command. So my suggestion is to allow troops to mount immobilized vehicles. 

 

[MOS:96B2P]

1 hour ago, Kaunitz said:

<Snip> my suggestion is to allow troops to mount immobilized vehicles. 

I thought I have had troops mount an immobilized transport to Acquire ammo.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering?    

[Kaunitz]

MOS:96B2P! Maybe it was a unique bug in my game. Here is a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueZJ2DkzHBY&feature=youtu.be . I guess I should try to recreate the problem to investigate further. 

Taking cover behind tanks? 

I wonder if you guys ever came into situations in which you were trying to make your infantry advance (or retreat) in the cover of their own tanks? Even with smaller teams (teams that fit into a single action square), I'm having troubles to keep them close enough to the tanks and coordinate the movement of tanks and infantry accordingly. I wonder if this can be tackled somehow? Especially now that peeking around (tank? :D)-corners has become a real? 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by Kaunitz

[MOS:96B2P]

5 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

MOS:96B2P! Maybe it was a unique bug in my game. Here is a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueZJ2DkzHBY&feature=youtu.be . I guess I should try to recreate the problem to investigate further. <Snip>   

From the video it looks like CMRT with Soviet troops and a Gaz MM truck.  I just loaded my CMRT test map and the same thing happened.  The crew is bailing out on their own as soon as the truck becomes immobilized (without the player hitting the Bail Out or Dismount button).  When troops are loaded back into the vehicle as soon as they have loaded they immediately bail out also.  Making it impossible to Acquire ammo.  Normally troops can Acquire ammo from an immobilized transport.  So I think we can call this a bug.  

I tested this in CMRT v1.03 Engine 3.  (I have a few PBEMs I am waiting to conclude before downloading Engine 4.)  In what version and engine of CMRT did you see this behavior?  If you saw this in CMRT v1.03 Engine 4 we should probably take steps to get it reported.

I was a Beta tester for CMFB and am able to report problems for that title however after I reported a problem in CMBN (US Platoon HQs able to call in directed air strikes) it seems my reporting ability was restricted to only CMFB .  So while I could try again I don't think it will let me report a problem in CMRT.  If you answer that you saw this behavior in CMRT v1.03 Engine 4 then we should give @IanL a heads up and ask for his opinion and help on this one.  

   

5 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

<Snip> Taking cover behind tanks? 

I wonder if you guys ever came into situations in which you were trying to make your infantry advance (or retreat) in the cover of their own tanks? Even with smaller teams (teams that fit into a single action square), I'm having troubles to keep them close enough to the tanks and coordinate the movement of tanks and infantry accordingly. I wonder if this can be tackled somehow? Especially now that peeking around (tank? :D)-corners has become a real? 

In theory this can be done.  OpFor fire will be stopped by friendly armor (not so much soft skin transports however) and friendly fire will go through friendly armor.  (See screenshot below)  However with rounds ricocheting and explosions near by I don't find it very practical to try to have a team follow a tank up a street.  They are bound to take casualties and suppression.  It is sometimes useful for a team to take temporary cover behind a knocked out friendly tank (waypoint with a 10 second Pause or something) before bounding to the next cover.  But not more than this IMO.  

The below screenshot was taken in Engine 3.       

[A Canadian Cat]

37 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

....  Normally troops can Acquire ammo from an immobilized transport.  So I think we can call this a bug.  

I tested this in CMRT v1.03 Engine 3.  (I have a few PBEMs I am waiting to conclude before downloading Engine 4.)  In what version and engine of CMRT did you see this behavior?  If you saw this in CMRT v1.03 Engine 4 we should probably take steps to get it reported.

I was a Beta tester for CMFB and am able to report problems for that title however after I reported a problem in CMBN (US Platoon HQs able to call in directed air strikes) it seems my reporting ability was restricted to only CMFB .  So while I could try again I don't think it will let me report a problem in CMRT.  If you answer that you saw this behavior in CMRT v1.03 Engine 4 then we should give @IanL a heads up and ask for his opinion and help on this one.  

Yeah, this is not ideal behaviour but I don't remember getting this to work. I agree we should log it. Do you have saves? Even for version 1. I'll load them up in 2 and verify that the same thing happens. I'll pm you my email.

[akd]

20 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

I thought I have had troops mount an immobilized transport to Acquire ammo.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering?    

IIRC trucks and other unarmored vehicles are treated differently than APCs / IFVs and have always forced a dismount on immobilization.