Tanks and Roads

[captiva]

Hello all. I have a question. If I have multiple numbers of tanks and halftracks that I  want to move down a winding road (A December Morning scenario) what is the best method for doing so? Do I have to plot each individual tanks route and turns down to the bottom of the hill, or can I line them up; select them all; and then plot one course so that they follow each other? As always, thank you.

[Erwin]

No they will not follow each other.  It's a feature many have requested for as many years as CM has been around.  Presumably too complex to program.

To be certain that units go where you want them and don't do silly things you have to plot em individually.

[MOS:96B2P]

There is no "follow" command for road movement so you must plot waypoints for each vehicle independently. 

In theory if you want vehicles (or infantry) to move abreast like a skirmish line across a field: Double click the formation and waypoints can be plotted for all vehicles/squads at the same time.  However this seldom works well so I never really use it.  

Ninja ed by Erwin. 

[Erwin]

Am taking advice from Sgt S re the importance of monitoring every forum every few minutes so am ready to pounce on any new post. 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Another thing to remember is that if they're well spaced, no delays are needed, but if they are fairly close to each other, you will want to give the second vehicle a 5 second paue, the third a 10 second pause and so on.

[Michael Emrys]

5 hours ago, Erwin said:

Presumably too complex to program.

Possibly so, but I have always wondered. TacOps accomplished it quite well, but the terrain in that game was greatly simplified compared to CM and that may have made the difference.

Michael

[Erwin]

The scale of TACOPS was completely different as well.  More operational-level IIRC.

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

The scale of TACOPS was completely different as well.  More operational-level IIRC.

Not so much IIRC. You could break units down to individual vehicles and fire teams. The map scale may have been a bit bigger though, I don't recall just what it was. I think turns were single minutes.

Michael

[MikeyD]

Convoys shouldn't proceed nose-to-tail. Standard real world convoy intervals between vehicles are pretty large, no closer than 50 meters between vehicles, more often 100 meters. That gives a player plenty of room to plot waypoints for individual vehicles to go down a stretch of road without being interfered with by the vehicle in front of it.

[A Canadian Cat]

3 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Convoys shouldn't proceed nose-to-tail. Standard real world convoy intervals between vehicles are pretty large, no closer than 50 meters between vehicles, more often 100 meters. That gives a player plenty of room to plot waypoints for individual vehicles to go down a stretch of road without being interfered with by the vehicle in front of it.

Yep, our convoys were built around vehicle packets. Each packet was around 5 vehicles and in the packet we followed each other by 2 to 5 seconds. With drivers responsible for keeping the vehicle in front and behind in view. The packets would have more space between them - sometimes lots but usually 10 to 20 seconds. That was peace time and the separation between packets was so that we didn't clog up the highway too badly. I recon if civilian traffic was not an issue then we would have tightened up the separation between packets.

In game I try to keep my vehicles 5s apart (or a bit more). So, when I watch a replay the convoy gets a check each turn to make sure jams are dealt with and what I do is look for cases where a vehicles had to automatically pause as it is driving. When I see that I give it a 5s pause and the same for all following vehicles. If one vehicle starts getting too far ahead (12s or more) I'll give it a pause to let the rest of the convoy catch up.

If the convoy is moving well it can handle sharp turns or terrain transitions (shell holes in the road or transitioning from road to field) fairly well with just a little adjustment needed. You want to avoid the situation where an automatic pause turns into a driver's decision to go around. As soon as that happens that vehicle will slow down significantly and likely cause the same behaviour in the following vehicle causing a cascade effect. If I get a jam like that I tend to give vehicles more pause time than I think they will need - the more vehicles get into a jam the worse it will be to untangle.

[banned]

Well it isn´t that easy to setup waypoints for a road with multiple vehicles especially if there are bends to overcome. BF should add some sort of toggle (shift key) to the movement commands which disables the (otherwise really useful) relative placement of waypoints but instead "focuses" all waypoints onto your designated tile. This would allow for somewhat convenient and effective convoy waypoint routes. I am pretty sure we´ll soon see this feature as programming-wise it isn´t really that hard to do.

Edited May 30, 2018 by MANoWAR.U51

[Vergeltungswaffe]

55 minutes ago, MANoWAR.U51 said:

I am pretty sure we´ll soon see this feature as programming-wise it isn´t really that hard to do.

In my experience, any statement like that typically ends up to be incorrect.

But hopefully, one day, Charles will find a way.

In the meantime, with many years of experience, I can move a ton of vehicles down that twisty, dusty, lonesome highway pretty easily.

[Kozlice]

+1 to "Focusing"

[banned]

8 hours ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:

In my experience, any statement like that typically ends up to be incorrect.

But hopefully, one day, Charles will find a way.

In the meantime, with many years of experience, I can move a ton of vehicles down that twisty, dusty, lonesome highway pretty easily.

In my experience, any statement like that, typically contributes nothing except the usual "kissing butts" you see here.

+2 to "Focusing"

Edited May 31, 2018 by MANoWAR.U51

[mjkerner]

17 hours ago, MANoWAR.U51 said:

BF should add some sort of toggle (shift key) to the movement commands which disables the (otherwise really useful) relative placement of waypoints but instead "focuses" all waypoints onto your designated tile. This would allow for somewhat convenient and effective convoy waypoint routes. I am pretty sure we´ll soon see this feature as programming-wise it isn´t really that hard to do.

In my experience, these types of comments typically contribute nothing to the discussion, since BF has already tried with much difficulty to create a "Follow Me'" command for vehicles which simply did not work, and informed us of that fact. So programming this feature is in fact "really that hard to do".

[banned]

Nobody here is talking about a "follow me" command

Edited May 31, 2018 by MANoWAR.U51

[Mord]

8 hours ago, MANoWAR.U51 said:

In my experience, any statement like that, typically contributes nothing except the usual "kissing butts" you see here

He wasn't "kissing butts" he was respectfully replying to you. There's a LOOOOONG history on this forum (and many others) of players thinking they know how easy something is to program. They never stop to think that if it were so easy then it would probably already be in the game. Then when they get told by the developer it's too much work or not possible, it usually devolves into an argument.  Hence; " In my experience, any statement like that typically ends up to be incorrect." @Vergeltungswaffe has always been a fine member of these forums, and a gentleman, so how bout you remove the chip from your shoulder, and treat him with the same courtesy he afforded you. Not every post that disagrees with you is an attack.

 

Mord.

[mjkerner]

My apologies to you, MANoWAR, my bad, but I do know that re-programming almost any feature of this game is a bitch.  But then, what would re-focusing the waypoints actually do?  How does that help allow for convenient and effective convoy waypoint routes?  Like Vergeltungswaffe, I don't have any real trouble marking out waypoint routes, leaving appropriate spaces between the vehicles, although timing things correctly can be tough to avoid jams.

[banned]

Yes you guys are right, wrong choice of words here. My apologies to Vergeltungswaffe and to you mjkerner.

Look what I mean mjkerner when you give group movement orders you pretty sure noticed that you get waypoints that are in relation to each other like the units are, which is a wonderful function. However sometimes when setting waypoints trough corridors or you want several vehicles follow the road the classic RTS "all waypoints go to one place, to a single tile" function would come in handy especially for curvy roads. Could be toggled with Shift like the Target Arc command.

Edited May 31, 2018 by MANoWAR.U51

[Mord]

Well played, my friend. Thank you for the correction. That was a fine show of character.

 

Mord.

[banned]

I should be thanking you.

Btw great work on the high vis decals, love them.

[mjkerner]

Ohhhhh, I didn’t realize you were talking about group orders.  I see...but I bet it’s still a bitch to program, lol!  And I agree with Mord. Fine show of character.

[Mord]

Thanks, man! Glad you like them. They sure help when you get one of those really odd angled penetrations. I've been surprised many a time, actually finding stuff I didn't even know happened. Hit decals are one of my favorite additions to the game. Something I am really looking forward to seeing in SF2. On the whole they are such a simple thing but the immersion they bring is through the roof.

 

Mord.

[sburke]

The bigger issue (at least to me) isn’t so much where I place the movement point, but what happens when I get a traffic jam. That is the real killer - timing.   And of course unexpected events that cause a vehicle to react and suddenly my well planned traffic flow goes to hell.  Even a single bogged vehicle can cause a pile up and begin the vehicle dance.  

This tends to make me very conservative in my large scale vehicle movements. I move smaller sections maybe 4-5 vehicles tops if they are following the same route. 

Edited May 31, 2018 by sburke

[Rinaldi]

8 minutes ago, sburke said:

That is the real killer - timing.   And of course unexpected events that cause a vehicle to react and suddenly my well planned traffic flow goes to hell.  Even a single bogged vehicle can cause a pile up and begin the vehicle dance.  

This tends to make me very conservative in my large scale vehicle movements. I move smaller sections maybe 4-5 vehicles tops if they are following the same route. 

^This.

Once in a PBEM, due to the restricted terrain, I had to force-feed half a battalion through on a relatively short frontage. I went through with column's of platoons, hoping the wall of artillery fire would cover them - and it did, for the most part. One of the lead vehicles in the column got immobilized. Absolute carnage followed for that particular platoon as they all bunched up on one another.

Frankly, the result was realistic - while its a pain in the ass to micromanage road marches and columns-of-x it's also part of the strengths of CM: I trust myself more than AI and have only myself to blame when it goes poorly. 

Edited May 31, 2018 by Rinaldi