A Criticism of Sound Contacts.

[weapon2010]

Vehicle Sound Contacts.

  While i do believe they belong in the game and have a useful purpose, I feel they give up far to much information on the make up of the Vehicle and the direction they are going.They need to be more random and much less revealing about direction.

Sound Contacts in General.

 When battle is going on around you , which i can only imagine to be extremley loud , how much could you really hear? or have the focus to recognize that sound or the direction of that sound.Sound plays tricks on me in my own house,lol. So sound is relative to how quiet you are being , just a platoon in a standard moving motion would create alot of residual sound around them to not hear much , let alone next to tanks or in the tank itself you would not be able to hear anything.

 I know this is all very complicated with engine and coding.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I don't think they are neccessarily sound contacts, I believe they are 'tentative contacts', usually originally generated by a fleeting glimpse of the target (study your playbacks carefully to see if this is the case).

I just watched a T-55 get briefly spotted by several units at up to about 2km when it fired it's main gun in a night battle (with no NVG).  On checking, the units had clear LOS to its position, but they couldn't see it (no contact) until it fired (full contact/target) and they lost sight of it again shortly after it fired (tentative contact).

FWIW

Edited November 27, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[weapon2010]

no they are sound contacts not tentative contacts,  big difference

[Erwin]

Back in CM1 days the sound/tentative contacts were quite inaccurate as to location.  Not sure why in CM2 they were made accurate.  In CM2 if one sees such a contact for enemy inf for example, one can get a good effect by area firing at the icon - about as effective as if it were a confirmed unit.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

20 hours ago, weapon2010 said:

no they are sound contacts not tentative contacts,  big difference

Pray tell.....How does one hear an empty bunker? 

But they still leave tentative contacts.....After your units see them.

To quote the game manual (you should probably read it one day):

SPOTTING AND CONTACTS
Spotting is a rather complicated affair in CM:BN, but it
basically consists of seeing confirmed enemy units, which
are signified by a floating icon that can be selected, and
contacts, which appear as question marks. A confirmed
enemy unit is straightforward: at least one of your units
can see it, and confirm its basic type, such as a soldier, an
anti-tank gun, or a vehicle. Your units will automatically
fire upon these units as they see fit. The machine gun
team by the crossroads is a confirmed enemy unit.
Contacts, on the other hand, are merely possible enemy
units: your units think there might be something there. Your units will not
automatically fire at contacts. The opacity of a contact will tell you how confident
your troops are that something is there: a very translucent contact is
less certain than one that is fully opaque. Contacts can be upgraded to confirmed
units over time, by moving closer to the contact, or if the enemy moves
or fires at your units. Units that move or fire are much easier to spot. Contacts
can also be the last known location of confirmed units.
Unlike CMx1’s “Borg” spotting, units do not automatically share their spotting
with all friendly units: this is known as relative spotting. For example, if one
of your units spots an enemy anti-tank gun, a nearby unit might not see the
same anti-tank gun at all! The unit will have to spot the anti-tank gun on its
own, or have the information passed to it through the C2 network. You can
tell which of your units can spot an enemy unit by clicking on the enemy unit
icon. Your units that have currently spotted and confirmed it will have highlighted
icons.

TBH this should be obvious enough.....If they really were 'sound contacts', everyone on a 1km x 1km map should get one when a tank fires its main gun.  But they don't. 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Bozowans]

They seem to represent both sound contacts and tentative contacts. Contact icons will still pop up if an enemy tank is roaring around at high speed on the other side of a hill where no one has LOS to it. I've also seen sound contacts pop up for enemy infantry units that are very close by but with no LOS, like if they are right on the other side of a wall or something -- presumably to simulate footsteps and voices coming from the enemy.

I agree that the game gives you way too much info about the enemy though. Like Erwin said, the CM1 games were much better about this. They would deliberately lie to the player about where enemies were, showing an enemy unit 50+ meters away from where they really were sometimes. If an enemy MG was firing from a cluster of buildings in the distance, you might not be able to tell from which building, or you might even be misled into thinking it was one building but it was really another. Then you would plaster that building with fire and blow it up, only to find the enemy was in the house next door all along. I loved the way the game did that, and it's a shame nothing like that ever made it into CM2. I guess it was too complicated for them to code that into the new engine where every single bullet and every single soldier is tracked in detail.

Even aside from sound contacts though, the game still gives you too much info, even on maximum difficulty. If you click on a single enemy soldier you spotted from 2000 meters away, the game will still tell you whether he's from an HQ unit or not, or from an AT gun team, or whatever. Now that's just silly.

[MikeyD]

This brings up the topic of what is the 'ideal' map size for the game engine. There's a certain map and force size that's right in the game's 'sweet spot'. If you go very much smaller or very much larger strange things can occur. I expect CM uses the same game mechanics whether an unseen enemy in 500m away or its 2.5km away. In the former a sound contact being 40m off to the side feels appropriate, in the latter being 40m off seems like pinpoint accuracy.

In the game a sound contact can be left behind. You briefly hear something, a (?) icon pops up and lingers there while the units displaces far away from it. If multiple units are getting contacts you can find yourself looking at a sea of (?) icons spread across the map caused by just 2-3 vehicles.

[weapon2010]

I can quote the manual as well, which I have read , pg 43 under Floating Icons

 

"as well as pure sound contacts"

[Lethaface]

So you are both wrong

[Erwin]

11 hours ago, MikeyD said:

This brings up the topic of what is the 'ideal' map size for the game engine. There's a certain map and force size that's right in the game's 'sweet spot'. If you go very much smaller or very much larger strange things can occur.

In CM1 it seemed like the long range guns like the German 88mm were not accurate to use at the ranges they were supposed to excel at (ie 2Km-3Km+) - instead of it being a "dreaded AT weapon in the desert, it was hard to hit anything at that sort of range.  In the NA scenario I designed I had to make em Elite with the best possible CO to get even mediocre hit results. This was mitigated by the fact it was rare to have that LOS range in a typical map.  

Am wondering if CM2 has similar phenomena - esp the WW2 games.  In CMSF we see something else strange:  A two man scout team with only a little thermal sensor mounted on one of their rifles and no binoculars is as effective at spotting enemy armor at 2.5Km-3Km as a Javelin Team with its much more sophisticated optics/sensors.  An FO or HQ unit is unable to spot anything at that range (at least not in the length of time that was tested).

So, yes, the CM game engines may start to break down at extreme ranges and the only reason this is not more apparent is that the maps rarely allow for those long ranges. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

12 hours ago, weapon2010 said:

I can VERY SELECTIVELY quote TWO WORDS FROM the manual as well, which I have JUST read , pg 43 under Floating Icons

FTFY. 

Explain those empty bunkers to me and you have a point, until then.....

Edited November 28, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[weapon2010]

19 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Pray tell.....How does one hear an empty bunker?

well one wouldn't hear an empty bunker , so a contact marker for an empty bunker would be caused by spotting it previously or  intel strength decided by the scenario designer

[Sgt.Squarehead]

So why did you feel the need to type this:

On 11/27/2020 at 3:26 AM, weapon2010 said:

no they are sound contacts not tentative contacts,  big difference

[weapon2010]

you just dont get it , im referring to the mechanics of sound contact only , nothing else

not talking about any other type of contact of which there are several

[Sgt.Squarehead]

So how does one tell these mythical sound contacts from any other tentative contact?

[weapon2010]

When you see a generic tank sound contact moving behind a hedgerow with no los to that tank . Units are close enough to hear it but not see it.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

So you are deciding that they are sound contacts, based on common sense.....Fair enough. 

But as I said, check your replays carefully, these contacts can equally often caused by just a fleeting glimpse.....I know this because I've been performing very thorough LOS & C2 related testing on a very large map while we've been having this 'discussion'. 

Edited November 29, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Bulletpoint]

On 11/29/2020 at 2:06 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

So you are deciding that they are sound contacts, based on common sense.....Fair enough. 

But as I said, check your replays carefully, these contacts can equally often caused by just a fleeting glimpse.....I know this because I've been performing very thorough LOS & C2 related testing on a very large map while we've been having this 'discussion'. 

It's well known that tanks and other vehicles can be heard from hundreds of metres away in this game. Which makes the player able to pinpoint their exact location and where they are heading. I agree with@weapon2010when he says this is not really realistic.

I'd prefer the location of the marker to be scrambled at long distance, and get more and more accurate the closer it gets.

[Erwin]

And it would be more realistic to have one's units be able to react to sound contacts.  Right now (unless an update changed this) an inf unit hiding on the other side of a low wall from a noisy tank, will not ambush that tank.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

Right now (unless an update changed this) an inf unit hiding on the other side of a low wall from a noisy tank, will not ambush that tank.

Very wise.....Because they wouldn't be able to hear any accompanying infantry over the noise of the tank.

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

It's well known that tanks and other vehicles can be heard from hundreds of metres away in this game. Which makes the player able to pinpoint their exact location and where they are heading.

Now that's what I thought too.....But so far my testing suggests there's more to it than that.  Turns out the more distant spots that I had assumed were down to tank gun noise, were actually visual. 

Assuming you guys are right, for the sake of argument, does anyone know what the upper limit for sound detection actually is and does it vary by sound intensity? 

I'm not sure any of us fully understand the mechanics of this.

[Bulletpoint]

41 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

6 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

It's well known that tanks and other vehicles can be heard from hundreds of metres away in this game. Which makes the player able to pinpoint their exact location and where they are heading.

Now that's what I thought too.....But so far my testing suggests there's more to it than that.  Turns out the more distant spots that I had assumed were down to tank gun noise, were actually visual. 

Assuming you guys are right, for the sake of argument, does anyone know what the upper limit for sound detection actually is and does it vary by sound intensity? 

I'm not sure any of us fully understand the mechanics of this.

I wouldn't claim to understand the mechanics fully, but it's obvious that if there's an enemy tank moving about, you see a moving contact icon if you have infantry within a couple hundred metres. Doesn't matter if the tank is in a forest or in a city, you will know exactly which tree it's behind or what street corner it just passed.

I believe the distance you pick up the contact depends on the speed and type of the vehicle.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Doesn't matter if the tank is in a forest or in a city, you will know exactly which tree it's behind or what street corner it just passed.

Broadly accept your point (but it does rather argue against your complaints about 'sound contacts').

However I'd disagree beyond a certain distance, indeed I'd suspect that sounds could become very confusing in those environments especially in darkness.

[Bulletpoint]

3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Broadly accept your point (but it does rather argue against your complaints about 'sound contacts').

How does it argue against my complaints about sound contacts?

I'm saying I agree with the OP that sound gives too much and too accurate info in this game - at long ranges.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I guess we'll each have to live with our interpretations.

[Erwin]

4 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Because they wouldn't be able to hear any accompanying infantry over the noise of the tank.

Well... that's possible in any situation.  Am pointing out that otherwise good ambush setups don't work due to units not reacting to sound contacts cos CM2 units all have serious hearing issues.