Laser guided German tanks?

[Sven]

OK, I know already that I'm whining. And I also suspect this is something more people has written about.

The German tanks and guns seem to hit anything, anywhere, no matter how far the distance and no matter how much of an "eye of the needle" the shot must get through. Through trees in woods, through small gaps between houses, etc. And they hit with the first shot more often than not. 

My two latest tank losses came from 1300 m distance from a Jagdpanzer. The first om my tanks was parked slightly behind an already destroyed T-34 next to a house, leaving a small gap between the wreck and the wall. Destroyed by the first shot.

Second loss, same distance. My T-34 in trees, with quite many trees between me and the enemy 1300 m away (slightly higher ground). Without touching a tree, the shot goes over houses, over fields, between the trees knocking out my T-34. The shots seem satellite or laser guided. It feels ridiculous.

It's starting to get to me and I wonder; how close to reality is this?

[Redwolf]

If the Jagdpanther had already shot a tank in the close proximity they have the range correct. It is realistic to have first-shot hits in that area from then on.

And a tank wreck doesn't block LOF, or LOS (unless burning).

[Bufo]

31 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

And a tank wreck doesn't block LOF, or LOS (unless burning).

1. Friendly vehicles never block LOS/LOF for other friendly vehicles.
2. Operable enemy vehicles block LOF, but not LOS, from friendly vehicles.
3. Non-smoking KO'd vehicles do not block LOS/LOF for friendly or enemy vehicles.
4. Non-smoking KO'd vehicles block LOF, but not LOS, from any unit as long as the targeted unit is not a vehicle (ie: tank shooting at infantry or infantry shooting at infantry)
5. Smoking vehicles block LOS and LOF.
6. "Vehicles" means tanks, SP guns, and AT/Anti-personnel guns.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Bufo

[Bufo]

8 minutes ago, Bufo said:

1. Friendly vehicles never block LOS/LOF for other friendly vehicles.

And this is pretty stupid, not a simulation at all.

 

[Sven]

39 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

If the Jagdpanther had already shot a tank in the close proximity they have the range correct. It is realistic to have first-shot hits in that area from then on.

And a tank wreck doesn't block LOF, or LOS (unless burning).

So standing behind a knocked out tank doesn't give you cover? That's ridiculous.

The gap between the tank and the building through which the shot came through was, I guess, no more than 50 cm.

The first tank was also knocked out with the first shot. I can take accuracy, but like I said no matter what first shots seem to hit way more to often than not.

Oh well, it's just a game...

[Sven]

6 minutes ago, Bufo said:

And this is pretty stupid, not a simulation at all.

 

Indeed. I can't understand why they've not ironed stuff like that out.

[Bud Backer]

“They” haven’t because it is supposed to work that way. Every one of those six situations in the list 3 posts up is by design.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Bud Backer

[dbsapp]

1 hour ago, Bufo said:

1. Friendly vehicles never block LOS/LOF for other friendly vehicles.
2. Operable enemy vehicles block LOF, but not LOS, from friendly vehicles.
3. Non-smoking KO'd vehicles do not block LOS/LOF for friendly or enemy vehicles.
4. Non-smoking KO'd vehicles block LOF, but not LOS, from any unit as long as the targeted unit is not a vehicle (ie: tank shooting at infantry or infantry shooting at infantry)
5. Smoking vehicles block LOS and LOF.
6. "Vehicles" means tanks, SP guns, and AT/Anti-personnel guns.

What's that - official designe notes or list of bugs found by players?

[Bufo]

25 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

What's that - official designe notes or list of bugs found by players?

 

[Sven]

1 hour ago, Bud Backer said:

“They” haven’t because it is supposed to work that way. Every one of those six situations in the list 3 posts up is by design.

So it seems, but why would they want a design where you can fire straight through tanks?

[ASL Veteran]

10 minutes ago, Sven said:

So it seems, but why would they want a design where you can fire straight through tanks?

Because the AI can't adjust it's positioning and has very little situational awareness the game has to make what seem like ridiculous situations possible in game otherwise you could have situations where friendly vehicles are destroying friendly vehicles and I don't think anyone would be a fan of that.  The Tac AI does a decent job most of the time, but the Tac AI can't evaluate the entire battlefield the way a person does.  That's why.

[BornGinger]

5 hours ago, Sven said:

no matter how far the distance and no matter how much of an "eye of the needle" the shot must get through. Through trees in woods, through small gaps between houses, etc. And they hit with the first shot more often than not. 

That is the infamous and evil line of sight and line of fire these games have. I hope BFC does something about it in the next update as they make the battles and skirmishes too silly too often.

If no change in an update because the CMx2 game engine is too limited, then hopefully in a CMx3 game engine many hope to see soon. And by "soon" I mean earlier than in 5 years.

Edited August 10, 2021 by BornGinger

[Erwin]

5 hours ago, Sven said:

The German tanks and guns seem to hit anything, anywhere, no matter how far the distance and no matter how much of an "eye of the needle" the shot must get through. Through trees in woods, through small gaps between houses, etc. And they hit with the first shot more often than not. 

This is a LOS anomaly that has been complained about for years.  It certainly isn't due to German tanks.  Was playing vs Soviets and also modern vs Syrians and Soviet and Syrian tanks were able to kill my German or Brit tanks through dense woods through which it is impossible to get down to eye level to see through.  If you play CM2 long enuff, you will experience many "weird" LOS phenomena.   Regardless of claims, CM2 is not WYSIWYG.  Have often said that CM2 could be described as the "Game of Determining LOS".

The tactical AI is able to find those one-pixel wide gaps through dozens of meters of dense woods.  The good news is that your tanks have an equal chance of doing the same.  You can benefit from that as well.  

[Sven]

34 minutes ago, Erwin said:

This is a LOS anomaly that has been complained about for years.  It certainly isn't due to German tanks.  Was playing vs Soviets and also modern vs Syrians and Soviet and Syrian tanks were able to kill my German or Brit tanks through dense woods through which it is impossible to get down to eye level to see through.  If you play CM2 long enuff, you will experience many "weird" LOS phenomena.   Regardless of claims, CM2 is not WYSIWYG.  Have often said that CM2 could be described as the "Game of Determining LOS".

The tactical AI is able to find those one-pixel wide gaps through dozens of meters of dense woods.  The good news is that your tanks have an equal chance of doing the same.  You can benefit from that as well.  

I'm playing WW2 and have never played any other version, but yes, of course both sides benefit. I've always believed this game to be the best/most realistic tactical game available and these things just make me disappointed.

[Amedeo]

If the problem originates from the inability of the AI to adapt to these LOF restrictions and not from coding issues per se, it would be nice to have the possibility to disable this feature in human vs. human games.

[A Canadian Cat]

In addition to the design issues and decisions discussed already the very premises of this thread - that German tanks can make difficult shots and always hit - is way way over the top. I currently have two Panthers duelling with an M10 and they have missed more then the have got on target at this point. One finally got a solid hit so I'm hopeful it will finally be able to finish it off soon.

[Redwolf]

One reason why disabled, burning vehicles block LOS and intact vehicles do not:

moving LOS blockers on the map make the overall LOS computation code very complicated, and very slow. Think about it: the way it is now LOS only changes when a vehicle starts burning, and then the new LOS blocker never moves again. Compare that to run a fully dynamic LOS code with ALL (intact) vehicles moving all the time.

[G. Smiley]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

 Regardless of claims, CM2 is not WYSIWYG.   

Who claims this? Battlefront?

I look at CM games as miniature wargaming - an abstraction that captures reality well on an abstract level, but not necessarily in every detail on zoom level 1. The latter had never been my expectation, and that has surely saved me a lot of frustration.
 

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by G. Smiley

[womble]

43 minutes ago, G. Smiley said:

Who claims this? Battlefront?

I look at CM games as miniature wargaming - an abstraction that captures reality well on an abstract level, but not necessarily in every detail on zoom level 1. The latter had never been my expectation, and that has surely saved me a lot of frustration.
 

 

CM is, indeed the game of microarmour that everyone always wanted to play, with umpires managing the FoW on duplicated tables, and detailed rules for hit and penetration that would never fly IRL. But faster, better, more accurately scaled in all dimensions and bigger than would be physically possible (a 1km range at 1:300 ground scale would need a table 3.3m across; nobody's arms are that long, and imagine trying to lay an expanding steel tape without disarranging the terrain... :) ). And with a computer opponent that's better than any set of solo "programmed" rules a miniatures game ever had. And you don't need to buy, paint or base the models. And I'm not sure a microarmour rule set gets below the squad level, for its infantry resolution.

[womble]

8 hours ago, Sven said:

OK, I know already that I'm whining. 

The German tanks and guns seem to hit anything, anywhere, no matter how far the distance and no matter how much of an "eye of the needle" the shot must get through.

Yes you are whining. It's unbecoming. Look up confirmation bias. Because your account is not representative of the reality.

[Sven]

58 minutes ago, womble said:

Yes you are whining. It's unbecoming. Look up confirmation bias. Because your account is not representative of the reality.

I know what that is and also it was rhetorical when saying "anything, anywhere". My point are the amazing shots between trees 100 m through a forest, and so on. Placing a tank in decent cover is useless, since there hardly is any cover. But they do hit more often than not. 

[Vanir Ausf B]

13 hours ago, Sven said:

My two latest tank losses came from 1300 m distance from a Jagdpanzer. The first om my tanks was parked slightly behind an already destroyed T-34 next to a house, leaving a small gap between the wreck and the wall. Destroyed by the first shot.

Second loss, same distance. My T-34 in trees, with quite many trees between me and the enemy 1300 m away (slightly higher ground). Without touching a tree, the shot goes over houses, over fields, between the trees knocking out my T-34. The shots seem satellite or laser guided. It feels ridiculous.

If you were to set up a test and obtain a sample size larger than 2 you would see that first shot hits at 1300 meters are very much the exception, not the rule.

LOS/LOF through trees is weird because the graphical representation of foliage is suggestive rather than an exact representation of how the physics engine sees it. This can lead to shots that appear impossible. If you trust in trees to hide your vehicles they will betray you eventually. It's one of those game quirks we have to live with.

[A Canadian Cat]

Trees are not decent cover. If you want tanks to be in cover they have to be behind a terrain feature - aka a hill. Anything else is like hiding behind a shower curtain and expecting it to protect you from bullets.

[Sven]

8 hours ago, IanL said:

Trees are not decent cover. If you want tanks to be in cover they have to be behind a terrain feature - aka a hill. Anything else is like hiding behind a shower curtain and expecting it to protect you from bullets.

I'm not talking a few trees, but areas of woods where shots get through with extreme precision. But, like Vanir said above I guess it's just something we have to accept, even though I feel it's something Battlefront should address. 

[Freyberg]

In fairness, 1300m isn't really very far - you could see a moving tank that far away with the naked eye, pretty easily if it was moving in the open. 

With a good crew, good German optics and a high velocity gun, it doesn't seem unreasonable to see a high percentage of first-shot kills.