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Troops using HUNT do not stop when fired upon


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I'm going to go ahead and report this as a bug:

When issuing a HUNT comand to troops, they do not stop moving immedaitely when fired upon. Only if they spot an enemy unit, or if their suppression meter starts to fill up. This makes he command quite useless and causes unnecessary casualties because troops will keep walking forward as the enemy enjoys some free target practice.

Before any of you start to get creative with explanations why everything is working perfectly, please refer to the 4.0 manual:

HUNT
Infantry  -  this  command  maximizes  the  unit’s  awareness  for  possible  enemy  contact. 
Soldiers advance slowly, weapons ready. Upon seeing an enemy unit, or when 
fired upon (even if the enemy is not seen)
the unit stops immediately.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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1 hour ago, c3k said:

I'll toss it into the internal Beta Hopper and see if it gets spit out as a bug, or if the manual gets changed.

Thanks for taking a look at this.

My personal opinion is that it would be better both from a realism and gameplay perspective if troops did go prone immediately or at least very fast when taking fire while using HUNT.

There could be a small delay for conscript/green troops, who might be slower to react to an ambush.

Just my two cent.

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The behaviour certainly has changed. I ran some tests with CMBN, with a squad under fire from an unspotted SMG at maximum range. The squad stopped moving on the third burst.

They will stop moving immediately if they see a target, or if someone actually gets hit, but it takes them a while to react to incoming fire itself.

Now, I don't know whether that's strictly a bug. It's observably less sensitive than it used to be, but the functionality does work. It's reasonable to state something like "they aren't behaving as I think they should", rather than "this is broken".

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1 minute ago, domfluff said:

Now, I don't know whether that's strictly a bug. It's observably less sensitive than it used to be, but the functionality does work. It's reasonable to state something like "they aren't behaving as I think they should", rather than "this is broken".

 

On 9/14/2020 at 5:59 PM, Bulletpoint said:

Before any of you start to get creative with explanations why everything is working perfectly, please refer to the 4.0 manual:

HUNT
Infantry  -  this  command  maximizes  the  unit’s  awareness  for  possible  enemy  contact. 
Soldiers advance slowly, weapons ready. Upon seeing an enemy unit, or when 
fired upon (even if the enemy is not seen)
the unit stops immediately.

 

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Just tried again in CMBN, 1st mission of the Scottish corridor, split all the squads and gave each team a HUNT order towards the German lines. They will stop and go prone as soon as they are fired upon, 1 or 2 bursts, even when the enemy is unspotted. Not one took any casualties before going prone.

You can test it yourself right now and see for yourself. The behaviour looks very realistic to me.

I think the issue, and you have to check each team to see, is whether the fire is aimed at them or targeting other teams.

 

Edited by Sgt Joch
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17 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

You can test it yourself right now and see for yourself.

I made two savegames a couple of days ago that show the behaviour. In both cases, a team kept walking for 5 seconds while under direct aimed fire. They only stopped once they took a casualty. This was in the otherwise great campaign "A Bloody Ride"

Also I just opened up the scenario you tested, and did the same test as you did.

I observed one team going prone very quick after one burst of MG fire. But their neighbouring team kept walking for 12 seconds from the time of the first burst, and it was only after third burst that they ducked down. 12 seconds is a long time in combat.

These timings are from MG fire, and what seems to happen is that it's the suppression level that triggers the teams to go prone. But they only go prone if the suppression meter gets more than halfway full, which takes a lot of fire.

Especially when taking fire from a single rifle, suppression takes so long to build that the team keeps walking unless they take a casualty (which then fills the suppression meter).

Edited by Bulletpoint
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7 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

Ok, so your issue is not the behavior but the sensitivity to fire?

That is always a tricky issue since you dont want a squad to stop just because of any firing in the general area.

This sounds more like a design issue than a bug.

My issue is that I think they should behave like described in the manual: drop down immediately when taking fire, not count bullets and say "no sarge, the sniper only shot at us three times, let's keep walking".

If you compare to the MOVE command, while walking using MOVE, troops will immediately start running when taking fire - they won't wait till their suppression builds up.

This is also how the HUNT command used to work.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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59 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

My issue is that I think they should behave like described in the manual: drop down immediately when taking fire, not count bullets and say "no sarge, the sniper only shot at us three times, let's keep walking".

If you compare to the MOVE command, while walking using MOVE, troops will immediately start running when taking fire - they won't wait till their suppression builds up.

This is also how the HUNT command used to work.

I'm going to use your statement as an example. Don't get upset. ;)

"Drop down immediately": so, when 6 men are behind bocage (or whatever) and 1 man is close to the enemy and 3 men are in the middle of the open street, you want them all to "drop down immediately".  You know, and I know, that would lead to issues. The one man who is close will die. The 3 men in the open will die, the 6 men "back there" will drop and not contribute any suppressive firepower or spotting that could've aided the rest of the team/squad. Bad idea.

"when taking fire": what does this mean? Bullet striking flesh? A single round of 9mm 30 feet away? Four bursts of MG42 in the squad center? Etc.

This is why SHOWING a savegame is so much more helpful than a statement.

HUNT is a problematic movement command in that it is more like the old "Move to Contact". There are an infinite number of combinations of events that could be construed as "my men should've sought cover" or "my men should've kept moving". If there is an egregious issue, it should be fixed. If there is a consistently wrong borderline case, it should be fixed.

So, savegames help.

I have an hour or two of playing this series. I have not seen anything that strikes me that HUNT is broken. Not saying it isn't: just saying a savegame would help.

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I ran some more quick tests in CMBN, U.S. regular infantry HUNT towards single shooters. Ignoring situations where there was a hit, it seems to take an average of 2-4 shots before they stop and go prone from an unseen enemy. There may be some tweaking required with single shooters since they do not generate much suppression, unlike MGs or automatic weapons.

Watching the suppression meter, I see the guys go prone as soon the 2nd line lights up, so way before 50%.

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6 hours ago, c3k said:

 

This is why SHOWING a savegame is so much more helpful than a statement.

I can show savegames of course.  But it needs someone to say hey, here's my email, send your savegame to me.

 

4 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

Watching the suppression meter, I see the guys go prone as soon the 2nd line lights up, so way before 50%.

I'm seeing guys keep walking with the suppression meter nearly halfway full.
One thing that might confuse you is that the suppression meter updates a bit slow. So, a team takes a burst of MG fire, they drop down prone, and only then the meter updates to show the suppression.

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