Some tank duel tests (CMBN)

[Bulletpoint]

8 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I'm not sure this is exactly how it works. I'm quite sure that the second position will still apply concealment bonus based on terrain if for example it is in the woods. 

Yes it will, and your opponent will still need to actively spot your tank, but no matter where you reposition to, he will still get the "known enemy unit" spotting bonus, which is huge.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[Bulletpoint]

On 1/23/2021 at 4:58 AM, Drifter Man said:

Table 4. Effect of using Target Armor Arc and Target Reference Point (TRP). Both AFVs are stationary on Grass and the crew hatches are open.

Attacker		Defender
No arc [R1]	48%	50%	[R1] No arc
Target Armor Arc	50%	49%	No arc
TRP on Defender	72%	28%	No TRP

Whoops, just noticed this one!

The attacker is moving into view of the stationary defender, right? And the attacker has placed a TRP on the defender's location? And this is effective? It's supposed to not be effective.

Because the TRP accuracy bonus is supposed to only be applied to units that have not moved. This is to represent finding the range before the battle. Once the unit moves, this range will no longer be accurate. But in this test, it seems like it still is.

[Lethaface]

Just now, Bulletpoint said:

Yes it will, but your opponent will still get the "known enemy unit" spotting bonus, which is huge.

AFAIK it matters if he has someone with an actual tentative 'spot' on the new location, who is in c2 to your 'other guys' (which can be hard to determine giving the issue with the contact icon not updating).
Otherwise anyone who had a spot/tentative contact previously, just knows there is a tank around, somewhere, last seen/heard/suspected at X. The actual position of X can differ between units and will get updated if c2 is maintained. The 'bonus' for having an actual 'tentative contact' differs from 'a tank has been spotted here once', at least in my experience. 

So 'your guys' won't always know where the enemy tank is after it has been spotted once, they just know that there is a tank around. 

Of course this is also true for the other side, so imo basically this means maintaining good c2 works and will help your troops spotting (and engaging) first.

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Whoops, just noticed this one!

The attacker is moving into view of the stationary defender, right? And the attacker has placed a TRP on the defender's location? And this is effective? It's supposed to not be effective.

Because the TRP accuracy bonus is supposed to only be applied to units that have not moved. This is to represent finding the range before the battle. Once the unit moves, this range will no longer be accurate. But in this test, it seems like it still is.

I don't think the TRP bonus is dependent on whether a unit has moved or not. For example, you can move around a mortar team and make use of the TRPs. 

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Lethaface said:

Otherwise anyone who had a spot/tentative contact previously, just knows there is a tank around, somewhere, last seen/heard/suspected at X. The actual position of X can differ between units and will get updated if c2 is maintained.

The point here is that the location a unit thinks the enemy tank is located doesn't matter. Your tank thinks the enemy tank is still next to the church. In fact, it moved to the bridge. Your tank still gets the same spotting bonus no matter where the enemy tank actually is.

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Lethaface said:

I don't think the TRP bonus is dependent on whether a unit has moved or not. For example, you can move around a mortar team and make use of the TRPs. 

This would also be a bug. Once you move your mortar, it would need ranging in again from its new location.

[Lethaface]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

The point here is that the location a unit thinks the enemy tank is located doesn't matter. Your tank thinks the enemy tank is still next to the church. In fact, it moved to the bridge. Your tank still gets the same spotting bonus no matter where the enemy tank actually is.

And I think that's only true if there is someone in c2 who actually relays the updated info to your tank. The current issue with the icon not updating hasn't always been in CMx2, I've first come across it in CMFI R2V I think.

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Lethaface said:

And I think that's only true if there is someone in c2 who actually relays the updated info to your tank.

I think this testing shows that no C2 info update is necessary. If a unit just once obtained a contact marker for an enemy unit, it will always have a big bonus to spot that unit, no matter where it tries to move and hide.

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

This would also be a bug. Once you move your mortar, it would need ranging in again from its new location.

A bug is something not working as designed, I'm not sure whether the way it works now is different compared to how they designed it.

And I understand what you mean and think that indeed more adjusting would be needed after moving, but than I could also imagine the preregistering from a position not far away is still much better than no preregistering at all. 

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I think this testing shows that no C2 info update is necessary. If a unit just once obtained a contact marker for an enemy unit, it will always have a big bonus to spot that unit, no matter where it tries to move and hide.

That's not my interpretation, but each to his own

Edit: although if it really were to work like that now, I think that would qualify as a bug.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Lethaface

[Bulletpoint]

Just now, Lethaface said:

A bug is something not working as designed, I'm not sure whether the way it works now is different compared to how they designed it.

I'm being nice to them and calling it a bug. Wouldn't want to accuse them of bad game design.

[Lethaface]

Just now, Bulletpoint said:

I'm being nice to them and calling it a bug. Wouldn't want to accuse them of bad game design.

I don't think they would really loose sleep over people saying that they've made fatal design flaws ;-). 

Anyway personally I'd say it is a stretch to call a design bad, without knowing what the rationale behind the design was. Choices are to be made in this harsh world of limited time and resources

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I don't think they would really loose sleep over people saying that they've made fatal design flaws ;-). 

Anyway personally I'd say it is a stretch to call a design bad, without knowing what the rationale behind the design was. Choices are to be made in this harsh world of limited time and resources

Are you a beta tester by the way?

[Lethaface]

34 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Are you a beta tester by the way?

No. I did playtest some scenario for CMBS release loooong ago.

Although I don't see the relevance to my comment.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Lethaface

[Drifter Man]

On 3/18/2021 at 3:25 AM, Bulletpoint said:

The point here is that the location a unit thinks the enemy tank is located doesn't matter. Your tank thinks the enemy tank is still next to the church. In fact, it moved to the bridge. Your tank still gets the same spotting bonus no matter where the enemy tank actually is.

Yes - that was the main point of the test.

On 3/18/2021 at 3:20 AM, Bulletpoint said:

Whoops, just noticed this one!

The attacker is moving into view of the stationary defender, right? And the attacker has placed a TRP on the defender's location? And this is effective? It's supposed to not be effective.

Because the TRP accuracy bonus is supposed to only be applied to units that have not moved. This is to represent finding the range before the battle. Once the unit moves, this range will no longer be accurate. But in this test, it seems like it still is.

No, both vehicles were stationary, so this test does not have any implications related to what you guys discussed after this post.

I agree with @Lethaface that TRP effect is retained even when the unit using it has moved - I made the same observations. And I agree with @Bulletpoint that it shouldn't be this way (you may be confusing this with CMx1 where it worked just the way you said).

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Drifter Man said:

I agree with @Bulletpoint that it shouldn't be this way (you may be confusing this with CMx1 where it worked just the way you said).

I never played CMx1, but I might have picked that up by reading some forum post somewhere, and maybe didn't realise that the info was obsolete. I now looked it up in the manual, and can see that it says nothing about having to stay stationary to get the bonus.

Which means that you don't have to choose between ambushing or assaulting... you can ambush while assaulting. Or at least magically get the ambush accuracy bonus while charging towards the enemy.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[A Canadian Cat]

On 3/17/2021 at 12:32 PM, Lethaface said:

A bug is something not working as designed, I'm not sure whether the way it works now is different compared to how they designed it.

This is the way TRPs work in game now. Not a bug. It's a design limitation. I don't think it will be one that is on a list of things that are likely to change (mind you I don't make that call so I could be wrong - hey it happened just recently :-).

[Lethaface]

2 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Yes - that was the main point of the test.

No, both vehicles were stationary, so this test does not have any implications related to what you guys discussed after this post.

I agree with @Lethaface that TRP effect is retained even when the unit using it has moved - I made the same observations. And I agree with @Bulletpoint that it shouldn't be this way (you may be confusing this with CMx1 where it worked just the way you said).

The TRPs in CMx2 are abstracted and serve various functions and have AFAIK not changed since they were introduced in CMx2. 
If one where to reason like @Bulletpoint you could also say that it's a bug that TRPs are even shared between assets. Every artillery battery should have their own TRPs. At the same time they could and would register artillery from various fire positions and or move into fire positions at a specific time so not to be vulnerable to enemy artillery. So reasoning like CMx2 should model reality 1-1 a TRPs should be based on the position of the firing unit but it could register TRPs for various fire positions. But those would have to be modeled for each battery / independent tube.

For off map artillery which is abstracted anyway I guess there is not much point in simulating those. If any TRP would be invalidated after a unit has moved, that could also be counted as a bug because that would disallow the option of preregistering with the intent to move into the position later.

The ambush markers part of TRP functionality represent preregistering all kinds of (direct) fire weapons mainly for defensive situations. The fact that they are available in exactly the same fashion for offense could (indeed) be argued to be too much allowing. At the same time 'real life' there would be enough situations were the attacker would have had the possibility to somehow preregister weapons on a certain location, even if only because they fought a probe battle the day before, whatever you can think of.

Anyway the game has implemented the TRP function in a certain abstracted way, of course it could be improved upon. However @Bulletpoint seems to call everything he doesn't like a bug if only because he is nice to the developers because he'd otherwise call it bad design if things function different than reality.

He only selectively addresses arguments and seems to ignore those he doesn't like to address, and finally seems to suggest that my position / arguments come from a (false) suspicion on his side that I am beta testing, which I'm not. Although even if I were, I don't see the relevance.

I'm not feeling like being nice now and go ahead and call it bad form on his part.

[Bulletpoint]

54 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I'm not feeling like being nice now and go ahead and call it bad form on his part.

I admit I was being a bit grumpy - due to reasons outside this forum. Hurt my lower back and haven't been sleeping well. Sorry about that.

54 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

If one where to reason like @Bulletpoint you could also say that it's a bug that TRPs are even shared between assets. Every artillery battery should have their own TRPs.

This is true. And this is how it works in Graviteam games. I'm personally OK with this abstraction though, but that's just a matter of preference.

54 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

The ambush markers part of TRP functionality represent preregistering all kinds of (direct) fire weapons mainly for defensive situations. The fact that they are available in exactly the same fashion for offense could (indeed) be argued to be too much allowing. At the same time 'real life' there would be enough situations were the attacker would have had the possibility to somehow preregister weapons on a certain location, even if only because they fought a probe battle the day before, whatever you can think of.

Could be. I don't know if this was ever done in real life, or how feasible it would be.

Another way we could explain it would be to say the TRP represents a carefully laid plan, where tank crews are briefed that when they go to a specific position, they should expect a certain distance to a target area.

But my personal preference would be not to allow ambush markers to be used in an attack. To me, it seems like an oversight. Especially if it used to work differently in CMx1.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[Lethaface]

Just now, Bulletpoint said:

I admit I was being a bit grumpy - due to reasons outside this forum. Hurt my lower back and haven't been sleeping well. Sorry about that.

 

Wish you well and all the best on the  back and sleeping issues! (which should go without saying, and true whether or not you had made this post). Lack of sleep can do someone no good. And the current lockdown isn't helping either lol.

5 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

This is true. And this is how it works in Graviteam games. I'm personally OK with this abstraction though, but that's just a matter of preference.

Also fine with the abstraction, having separate TRPs for every unit and or position feels like too much complexity given the 'added value'.

7 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Could be. I don't know if this was ever done in real life, or how feasible it would be.

Another way we could explain it would be to say the TRP represents a carefully laid plan, where tank crews are briefed that when they go to a specific position, they should expect a certain distance to a target area.

I'm not privy to real life experience in artillery either. But I know that probably since WW1 it's become sort of an 'art' and many complex fireplans and ways how to predict / register artillery in preparation for coordinated fires have been developed and used (effective and less effective). 

11 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

But my personal preference would be not to allow ambush markers to be used in an attack.

Which is a fair point to make, I'd say ;-).

I don't really mind too much, mainly because I haven't come across a situation where it was really influencing/problematic in a battle over all these years.

I'd rather see more energy invested into modeling fortifications / prepared positions. But indeed like you say, that's all personal preference.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

I'd rather see more energy invested into modeling fortifications / prepared positions.

Agreed. If I had to choose, this would also be where I would prefer them to improve the game.

[Vacillator]

Flak towers in Berlin?  If only...

[JoMac]

On 3/17/2021 at 12:31 PM, Bulletpoint said:

I think this testing shows that no C2 info update is necessary. If a unit just once obtained a contact marker for an enemy unit, it will always have a big bonus to spot that unit, no matter where it tries to move and hide.

Unfortunately, that is also my concern...Once your Unit spots a enemy Unit (through visual or C2, etc), it will then have a a big spotting advantage against that enemy unit for rest of game no matter when and where on the map.

"I already spotted you earlier in game, and no matter where you Move & Hide I will find you just as fast"..."Oh, and it doesn't matter if I get distracted by a number of other enemy units, and for how long..."I Will Always Know What You Did Last Summer". 

Edited March 20, 2021 by JoMac

[Bulletpoint]

2 hours ago, JoMac said:

"I already spotted you earlier in game, and no matter where you Move & Hide I will find you just as fast"..."

Yep. I'm not too happy it works like this, because I really like to do flexible defence tactics where I fall back several times to new positions.

Would prefer it worked with a radius aroundthe contact marker, so if you just moved your tank 20m to the left, it wouldn't count as a new position.

[JoMac]

11 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yep. I'm not too happy it works like this, because I really like to do flexible defence tactics where I fall back several times to new positions.

Would prefer it worked with a radius aroundthe contact marker, so if you just moved your tank 20m to the left, it wouldn't count as a new position.

Yes, a Radius around Contact Marker, or if the effects of Contact Marker is removed after so many turns would be nice.