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As a result of a thread over at The Few Good Men (FGM) gaming club I did some experiments with "Buddy Aid".  Below is some of the information that was learned and shared at The Few Good Men.    

I did some experiments in CMBS v2.1 Engine 4 where I saved a game after taking casualties and then ceased fire and recorded the AAR results.

I then loaded the save, completed buddy aid, ceased fire again and recorded the AAR results.

The score did not change.

 

3 WIA, (out of 10 total troops) then cease fire.

No buddy aid - 1 KIA, 2 WIA = OpFor Minor Victory 25 points.

With buddy aid - 0 KIA, 3 WIA = OpFor Minor Victory 25 points.

 

2 KIA, 3 WIA, (out of 17 total troops) then cease fire.

No buddy aid - 4 KIA, 1 WIA = OpFor Tactical Victory 45 points.

With buddy aid - 2 KIA, 3 WIA = OpFor Tactical Victory 45 points.

                                                                                                                                                

WIA (red base) can turn to KIA (brown base) from additional hits.

Buddy Aid is one on one however a team can treat multiple casualties in the same A/S concurrently.

A team administering Buddy Aid will recover ammo including ammo for weapons they do not have in the team.

Buddy aid on KIA (brown base) was about 15 - 35 seconds. On WIA (red base) about 1 minute – 2 minutes 30 seconds.

Casualties only disappear if they receive Buddy Aid. I tested 2 KIA & 2 WIA for 1½ hours game time. They never disappeared.

Experience of the teams administering buddy aid did not affect the length of buddy aid or the amount of equipment recovered.

Lightly wounded (yellow base) are not counted as casualties on the AAR screen.

To share ammo recovered in buddy aid the medic team must be part of the unit (“highlighted” unit) needing the ammo.

During testing on average about 2 grenades and 170 rounds of ammo were recovered per casualty. I know from playing the game other                                equipment (radios, binoculars, some weapons etc.) can also be recovered but I did not try for that in the experiments.

WIA (red base) incapacitated wounded are not counted in Parameter/Condition but are counted in Parameter/Casualties.

Buddy aid does not make a difference to the score in Quick Battles or in Scenarios.

Buddy aid does not make a difference to the score in a Campaign.

Buddy aid may only make a difference as a tie breaker in a CM tournament ;)

If I got anything wrong let me know but as best as I can tell that's the way it works. A little disappointed that Buddy Aid has no affect on the score but I will continue to order my teams to administer aid. Seems like the realistic, correct thing to do.

Edited by MOS:96B2P
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23 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

Not that it's directly related, but you can use 'Rockin Harry's' Medic Mod...It will make the Medic 'Prone' while giving Aid (less chance of Medic being a Casualty).

Joe

How so?  Please elaborate.  I thought the Mod only changed the animation and not any underlying code or logic.

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25 minutes ago, Badger73 said:

How so?  Please elaborate.  I thought the Mod only changed the animation and not any underlying code or logic.

Your actual Animation Stance (which is one factor) will determine on how you will become a Casualty...Rockin Harry, essentially changed the Animation Code (which, anyone can do by carefully manipulating the 'Strings').

Edited by JoMc67
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On top of that, 'Rockin Harry', has several different Animation Mods (not sure how many are online) to slightly help reduce casualties...He originally owned CMBN when he made these Mods, but said they should work for all WWII Titles (Players will need to Test these Mods on each Game Title to see how well they work).

Edited by JoMc67
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@JoMc67 thank you for claryfying.  Here are 2 I found

@Erwin, I'm concerned you may be correct.  Even if an unintended consequence, this does put non-mod using players at disadvantage in their H2H matches.

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That's what it seems, and both players would need to use said Mods.

*Side Note...Wish CM had an 'Crouch Animation'. I Think this would apply to troops that use the 'Quick' or 'Evade' Commands, while 'Run' would still use the 'Stand' Animation...This might also help in reducing casualties a little.

Actually, the exact Animation is not as important to me as would giving a slightly better 'Saviings Roll', if you will, for 'Crouched' troops advancing.

Edited by JoMc67
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I don't believe the animations one chooses to use affect the "combat" results. I assumed they were eye candy similar to the many GFX mods most use for terrain, vehicles, foxholes, etc...

You can mix modern and WWII animations where common. Otherwise, you'll need to rename the files to force fit as desired.

I'm not on my gaming system at the moment but I think I simply renamed one of the prone animations to unattended(?). I think I used the m4 one...

For example, I copied the CMBS files over to CMSF so that the boys there now hunt similarly. They used to be more rigid and now look more reasonable.

Edited by Howler
typos and added CMSF reference
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1 hour ago, Howler said:

I don't believe the animations one chooses to use affect the "combat" results.

<snipped>

According to @JoMc67, what you and I believe appears to be untrue.  In this case, he states that these particular animation mods include string alterations which change the animation "stance" processed by the code besides the normal skin changes you and I see in the game.  Stance establishes target profile.  Diminishing the profile reduces the probability for being damaged / taking hits.  That would affect game play.

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6 hours ago, JoMc67 said:

That's what it seems, and both players would need to use said Mods.

*Side Note...Wish CM had an 'Crouch Animation'. I Think this would apply to troops that use the 'Quick' or 'Evade' Commands, while 'Run' would still use the 'Stand' Animation...This might also help in reducing casualties a little.

Actually, the exact Animation is not as important to me as would giving a slightly better 'Saviings Roll', if you will, for 'Crouched' troops advancing.

From Rockin Harry's Alternative Buddy Aid Animation page;

"Since H2H/PBEM play is untested, players should be aware that only one player using the mod probably gains an advantage the other player has not (better stealth/survival for medics)! Unless there´s no confirmation on likely problems or cheating opportunities with this mod, I recommend NOT using this mod in H2H/PBEM play."

Testing would be required to confirm or not if this is a real effect. Because if it is, then unlike any other mod it will give rise to circumstances where one player has an unfair advantage.

If it is found that it does give a benefit to survivability for medics then it should become a feature of the base game so that everyone is on a level playing field.

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@MOS:96B2P as always useful information but my read on this is that there is underlying data that you have not covered in the post. As an example you state that Parameter/Condition and Parameter/Casualty effects are different, yet present raw data that doesn't support the assertion because we don't know how the VPs were allocated in the editor. From my POV this is the key discussion rather than rehashing the discussion about medic animations.

Thanks for looking into this and I'm not calling you out on things btw ... just doing my job mate ;).

 

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5 hours ago, Combatintman said:

<Snip>  you state that Parameter/Condition and Parameter/Casualty effects are different, yet present raw data that doesn't support the assertion because we don't know how the VPs were allocated in the editor. <Snip>  

No problem, my friend.  Insightful questions and meaningful discussions are one of the ways that we learn.  I would expect you, of all people, to keep people in a G2 briefing on their toes :D :lol:.  Now, lets see how well I can tap dance around your question and run out the clock ........ ;)

Mission / Parameter / Casualty: This counts casualties which are both KIA (brown base) and WIA (red base) also referred to as incapacitated.  (And this is probably one of the reasons buddy aid makes no difference.  KIA and WIA are separated on the AAR screen but counted the same as casualties for scoring) 

Mission / Parameter / Condition:  This counts units that are walking wounded (yellow base), panicked (high level of suppression) and tired.  The manual also says routed but that only applies to CMSF1 I believe (and has nothing to do with buddy aid). 

Casualties and Conditions are also described in the 4.0 Engine Manual page 86.  Of course these conditions only kick in after a certain percentage (set by the designer) is reached. 

I did the experiments with a very low number of troops and no vehicles.  I started with 10 troops and 100 points.  At one point when I was using unit objectives I increased to 17 troops total with 10 of those as unit objectives and 1000 points.  I set the parameters percentages so they would be reached easily. 

Parameter / Casualty is different from Parameter / Condition because they count different things. When I had all KIA I would get a Parameter / Casualty score on the AAR screen but no Parameter / Condition Score.   When I had all WIA or a combination of KIA and WIA I would get a Parameter / Casualty score on the AAR screen but no Parameter Condition score.  When I had only walking wounded (yellow base) then I would get a Parameter / Condition score on the AAR screen but no parameter / Casualty score.  (Heavily Suppressed units would also show on Parameters / Conditions.)    

I also did something similar with Unit Objectives.  Ten troops, no vehicles and 100 points.  Unit objective only counted casualties.  Didn't matter if the casualty was KIA or WIA.  A casualty is a casualty and buddy aid did not change that fact.  Buddy aid did recover some grenades and ammo though.  

 

Edited by MOS:96B2P
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10 hours ago, Josey Wales said:

From Rockin Harry's Alternative Buddy Aid Animation page;

"Since H2H/PBEM play is untested, players should be aware that only one player using the mod probably gains an advantage the other player has not (better stealth/survival for medics)! Unless there´s no confirmation on likely problems or cheating opportunities with this mod, I recommend NOT using this mod in H2H/PBEM play."

Testing would be required to confirm or not if this is a real effect. Because if it is, then unlike any other mod it will give rise to circumstances where one player has an unfair advantage.

I do not think this will give an advantage to one side over another. In PBEM play only one computer is used to generate the turn. That computer will be generating the turn with its models and animation. The other machine will be viewing the turn with its own models and animation but at view time the who dies and who lives is baked in.

No, using this animation *does* change the survivability of medics. It does so because their model is used for hit testing and if they are lying down they will get hit less. Especially with a low wall involved like the mod page's screen shot.

 

10 hours ago, Josey Wales said:

If it is found that it does give a benefit to survivability for medics then it should become a feature of the base game so that everyone is on a level playing field.

Nope. People should not mess with the game. That would be like saying - hey someone released a mod that makes Sherman tanks a quarter of their size and therefore much harder to hit: the game should be changed so all tanks are now smaller. I'll pass on that thank you.

One thing that could be done - and I personally would love to see - is soldiers dragging their wounded friends to safety. That would be a change worth making to the game to increase the survivability of the guys giving buddy aid. Mind you a change like that would likely cause casulties while men acted as heroes trying to save their comrades. Like I said I think that would be cool.

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Am certain that originally one got less penalty for WIA so one was rewarded for giving Buddy Aid.  So, that has changed with newer versions.

"...soldiers dragging their wounded friends to safety. That would be a change worth making to the game to increase the survivability of the guys giving buddy aid... ...that would be cool."

+1

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4 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Am certain that originally one got less penalty for WIA so one was rewarded for giving Buddy Aid.  So, that has changed with newer versions.

But did we get less penalty or did we all just assume we did and now it's remembered as fact?

 

Mord.

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20 minutes ago, Mord said:

But did we get less penalty or did we all just assume we did and now it's remembered as fact?

^^^ this. It has always been this way. Some of us, myself included, were misunderstood.

18 minutes ago, Muzzleflash1990 said:

What commander needs points for buddy aid? Bahh.. Isn't the current reward for saving your pixeltruppens life enough: that you get to sleep just a tiny bit better at night?

LOL - yes!

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1 hour ago, Mord said:

But did we get less penalty or did we all just assume we did and now it's remembered as fact?

 

Mord.

I definitely recall there was substantial discussion about this years ago and that was the conclusion.  But, it's all a long time ago now.  And it may well have been apocryphal. 

Found this from Crushingleeek    10

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Crushingleeek said:
I think in past discussions they said wounded, KIA, MIA are casualties. and for scoring purporses casualties are casualties. no difference between any of them.

 

Also:

antaress73    69

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I have a question.. when they say in the victory conditions that you get X number of points for keeping your casualties under 30%, does it count only the killed or does it include killed and wounded (total incapacitated soldiers). I ask this because in my last battle, I received the Bonus for keeping casualties under 30% but in the AAR, when I calculated the killed and wounded, it added up to 41% casualties by my calculations. Also, It would be logical to buddy aid to reduce the number of dead soldiers if only the dead is counted for the score.

My mistake. Figured out yesterday that, at least as far as parameters go for dolling out victory points, wounded men are not included as casualties. That's great because this way, buddy aid can be important for victory. (Wounded men who are not attended to by the end of the battle have a chance to become KIA's after the last turn.)

*******************

So, lots of opinions...  I wonder if it was tied into the campaign concept where (again) IIRC, WIA and damaged vehicles were more likely to return as replacements/reinforcements than KIA ones.

Edited by Erwin
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2 hours ago, Mord said:

But did we get less penalty or did we all just assume we did and now it's remembered as fact?

 

Mord.

The manual is pretty clear and there is nothing there to support any difference between wia and kia.  Wia are in fact included as casualties. Lightly wounded (yellow base) are not.  That is not opinion. If anyone wants to argue different (and against the data presented by the OP) feel free, but you’ll need more than a feeling of recollection. 

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Oh, I'm not arguing. I  was saying that most of us went by assumption without ever knowing and now that assumption is being remembered by some, as fact. Not my fact. It never even occurred to me all these years to question where that assumption came from. I think it was a collective illusion that a lot of us bought into, up until this thread.

 

Mord.

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