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Steel Beasts vs Combat Mission t-72 visibility test


dbsapp

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Purely anectodal evidence but I think the biggest factor for spotting by far is skill and condition. I was playing Kriegsburg earlier and had a crack T-64B spot an enemy M150 hiding in foliage 2,000m away and deliver a snapshot taking it out with one round, on the other hand I had a green, rattled M60A3 TTS unable to spot a full mechanized company silhouetting itself 1,000m away, or if it did it would instantly spazz out and pop smoke and reverse while swinging its turret around like a maniac. Just as in real life crewman (and player) skill matters far more than vehicle stats.

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The skill and condition play important role for sure.

CM works in a way that tries to simulate the natural spotting. Not everything that is in a field of view automatically becomes spotted. This is a right and clever approach.

The thing is this system is not perfect and produces the strange outcomes more often than many players would like to. For example unit declines to see target that is directly ahead of it. 

Units with decreased vision ability are especially affected. As I understand, to simulate "Soviet doctrine" of concentration of mass Battlefront decided to make Soviet units more blind. This way players would be forced to use this "mass doctrine" because they require 3 tanks to spot something instead of 1.

In this regard it is useful to think of CM as tabletop game with its own set of rules, and not as entirely 3D. 

Edited by dbsapp
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21 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

In this regard it is useful to think of CM as tabletop game with its own set of rules, and not as entirely 3D. 

Definitely, anyone who thinks the game is WYSIWYG is out of their mind, spotting is just RNG with a boatload of different factors that can increase or decrease your chances of spotting someone. Not inherently bad, in general I think it works well, but I think it could work so much better if the engine was modernized (or a new engine was developed) to take advantage of modern CPUs with better performance so we can have more frequent spotting cycles and more frequent "rolls of the dice" to prevent things like two tanks literally bumping into each other without one noticing the other.

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An ISU 152 of world war two spots with no problems. It was one of the functions of tank riders and the German army copied this practice too. They were more or less cannon fodder and the tactic works in Red Thunder. Low quality troops on or near your tanks and the contact icons are shared all over the battle field. I hear enough negative stuff of the Cold War to leave that game alone. I would suggest that Soviet optics would have improved 30 years later. 

Edited by chuckdyke
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6 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

 I hear enough negative stuff of the Cold War to leave that game alone.

Nah I dont want to give the impression that it's a bad game. The game is one of my favorite from BFC. I just feel theres something going on with a couple of the units.

Edited by Artkin
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24 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

I hear enough negative stuff of the Cold War to leave that game alone.

It's up to to decide of course, but I enjoy it, it's a good game. Not without drawbacks, but who hasn't got them?

20 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Nah I dont want to give the impression that it's a bad game. The game is one of my favorite from BFC. I just feel theres something going on with a couple of the units.

True dat.

35 minutes ago, akd said:

Where are you getting this from?

They told it numerous times on this forum.

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Yeah, you literally said:

"Spotting is also a percentage game. Doctrinally and in practice in CM, the Soviet method was to get as much mass on target as possible. The first tank to spot their opponent will usually win the engagement, but if you can get enough tanks on target at the same time, it doesn't matter which one spots first, as long as one of them does.

To model that with arbitrary values - we could give the US tank a 50% chance of getting the first spot in a given engagement. We'll arbitrarily make the Soviet tanks half as good as that - a 25% chance of getting the first spot.

One vs One, clearly the US tank will have a major advantage, but if there were three Soviet tanks, then the chances of *one* of them getting the first spot is 58%. Understanding this is absolutely fundamental to understanding how to play Soviet and Soviet-derived forces, and it's something the Tutorial scenarios do a really good job of teaching"

But in fact it meant something absolutely different. Ok!

 

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Yes. You're misunderstanding some key ideas here, most notably about game design.

I find GNS theory to be a useful (albeit flawed) tool to talk about game design - gamism, narrativism and simulationism, and defining games by their intent.

A simulationist game, which Combat Mission is, has to prioritise the model above all, then fit things around the model. It would be anathema to the concept to, for example, increase the penetration of the 75mm Sherman because they're having a hard time getting through the front of a Panther - this kind of gamist change would be fine in something like World of Tanks, or something similarly arcadey, but not in something simulationist.

Now, things are on a spectrum, so nothing is purely one or the other, but the CM model is simulationist by intent. Compromises to gamism therefore mostly do not arrive from compromising the model, but instead in scenario and campaign design - selecting or crafting scenarios to demonstrate a tactical problem, a historical action or a conceptual point.

The point on Soviet doctrine was a "this is how this equipment is supposed to be used, and therefore why this deficiency doesn't need to matter". Soviet equipment is typically pragmatically designed, and typically very good, if it's being used for the specific task it's intended for. Outside of that context, it starts to look a lot worse - if you use a Soviet equipment like American equipment, you're going to be frustrated. A BMP is not a Bradley, they are two different vehicles with very different capabilities, use-cases and effects.

This mentality is due to a number of things, but primarily it's down to pushing command and control decisions centrally, rather than distributing them - it means one can manage a large army, including a large number of conscripts, and train them well in specific and narrow fields. The contrast is that the US method was to push down combined arms and C2 to the lowest levels possible.

So, no, I don't think that Battlefront has a pro-US agenda, and I believe that your constant declarations that they do are wholly without evidence or reason. The point of this response is that you've taken something I've said as being in support of this ideological position, which it most definitely is not.

Edited by domfluff
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1. Please, don't distract the discussion by referring to some vague artificial constructs like GNS. 

"- I have some bad news for you.

- What happened, doc?

- I'm sorry to tell you, but you diagnosed with GNS.

- Oh, no!"

2. It's great that you try to downplay my arguments by portraying me as some kind of "ideological warrior" spreading "conspiracy theories" against "pro-US agenda". 

In fact what I'm saying is that CMCW simulation could be improved in certain areas. To fix some flaws of new product is not shameful, and it's sad that you percieve all critical feedback as act of ideological agression. 

It's Battlefront game and of course Battlefront may make it in a way it wants. You mentioned many times how you see the general concept - Soviets use doctrine of mass and they are worse at spotting.

Ok, fine. Let it be this way, this concept. Why not?

But what Battlefront actually did was overkill. Soviet BRDMs with ATGM are blind, tanks are partially blind, Soviet ATGM have very poor hit probability that makes infamous Dragon look like the benchmark of reliability, despite that US sources give them up to 90% hit probability.

You clearly overdid it to the point that Soviets are absurdly weak and clueless. 

Is it a bias? Or is it a model that could be fixed to make a better and more realistic representation?

It seems to me that you chose "gamism" instead of "simulationism".

Anyway it doesn't matter because it extremly unlikely that you can ever doubt your "perfect" and "flawless" model. 

 

 

Edited by dbsapp
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2 hours ago, dbsapp said:

But what Battlefront actually did was overkill. Soviet BRDMs with ATGM are blind, tanks are partially blind, Soviet ATGM have very poor hit probability that makes infamous Dragon look like the benchmark of reliability, despite that US sources give them up to 90% hit probability.

Well I think that is your hypothesis but:

- You have done nothing beyond a single SB vs CM test to try and prove it (you did repost a report first posted by John Kettler on another thread).

- You have provided no clear concept of “what right would look like” beyond “I think it is bad”

Every time I think we might see daylight we come right back to the fact that all of this is built solely on your opinion.  That, and some weird strung together logic threads [aside, the tanks in my AAR thread were T62s, which we have not even touched].  

So despite numerous people running exploratory in-game tests that refute your initial premise, we come right back to “what you think” instead of what you can prove.  Here is the thing (the same thing I tell students)…your opinion does not matter.  Sorry to be the one to break it to you.  It is what you can prove with facts that matters here, even in game facts.  The only person not running in game testing (or at least putting them up here) is the person who started the conversation in the first place.

On the rest of the internet saying something a lot of times might make it true but not here,  not in our little corner of it.  If you seriously want to make the game better and provide constructive feedback, stop posting your opinion and actually do the work to prove your point.

Edited by The_Capt
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9 hours ago, dbsapp said:

Units with decreased vision ability are especially affected. As I understand, to simulate "Soviet doctrine" of concentration of mass Battlefront decided to make Soviet units more blind. This way players would be forced to use this "mass doctrine" because they require 3 tanks to spot something instead of 1.

A second hypothesis and totally unfounded.  Your threads (from me at least) are showing in game play, not how we designed the game in the first place.  No, at no time in the game development did we go “You know the Soviets are spotting too well, we should dial it back to force players to use mass”.  This supports your opinion, not reality.

The reality was that BFC modelled individual vehicle behaviours based on the data they have fed into the models….and lo and behold it made sense and matched Soviet doctrine when scaled up to in game content. 
 

Now you are going to ask again “I wanna see that data” the answer is still no and you would not know what to do with it if you had it because you have not provided a shred of RL evidence that behaviours are off beyond, wait for it, your own opinion.

Let me assure you (and anyone else still reading), we will not be initiating any changes based on dbsapp’s opinion.  You can post it here ad infinitum and not a single change request will be submitted based on that alone.  So again, start doing the work.

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Lots of players don't take the C2 serious. But if your style of play generates lots of contact icons the spotting of AFV's improves. I play more WW 2 especially FB and RT and I am happy about the spotting. To spot an MG42 in a foxhole at 600 meters is nothing to complain about. It was the TacAI doing it not by manually plotting an LOF. Tanks are bad spotters their strength is their radio. 

Edited by chuckdyke
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4 hours ago, dbsapp said:

To model that with arbitrary values - we could give the US tank a 50% chance of getting the first spot in a given engagement. We'll arbitrarily make the Soviet tanks half as good as that - a 25% chance of getting the first spot.

This is not a description of the game system, but an abstract engagement model, with arbitrary values plugged in to make it easy to understand the model.  In game, you might have a difference in spotting because all the US tanks have thermals and commander’s are unbuttoned, while all the Soviets lack thermals and commander’s are buttoned.  The Soviets are also attacking and probably the US is defending from hull down positions.  This should lead to spotting difference that (if you could quantify it) could be plugged into such an engagement model to determine the mass necessary to overcome the difference.

Edited by akd
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4 hours ago, dbsapp said:

But what Battlefront actually did was overkill. Soviet BRDMs with ATGM are blind, tanks are partially blind, Soviet ATGM have very poor hit probability that makes infamous Dragon look like the benchmark of reliability, despite that US sources give them up to 90% hit probability.

Idk about you, but I've been using ATGM BRDMs and AT-4Bs to great effect with little obvious shortcomings. Granted they don't have thermal sights like the Dragon, but they aren't bad weapons systems either.

Turning out BRDMs so the hatches are open improves spotting greatly. On mission 2 of the Soviet campaign in particular you can get these BRDMs to volley fire missiles at US tanks, and it looks amazing.

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29 minutes ago, Grey_Fox said:

On mission 2 of the Soviet campaign in particular you can get these BRDMs to volley fire missiles at US tanks, and it looks amazing.

This was the only time I saw them doing the job. When reinforcements arrive they shoot at M60s at the top of the hill.

In the same mission I tried to use them again. They stubbornly didn't want to spot the target that was seen by everybody among the rest of Soviet troops nearby, so I dismounted them. The crews finally spotted the targets and I pulled them back to the vehicles. I was surprised they immediately lost contact despte BRDMs had line of sight to the targets (I used "target" to check) and I gave them attack sector. 

 

 

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11 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

I hear enough negative stuff of the Cold War to leave that game alone. I would suggest that Soviet optics would have improved 30 years later. 

That's a mistake. It is good and as you say, the spotting is complicated. Sometimes the Soviet tanks don't see anything, and then I am in a PBEM where my TTS M-60s are losing badly to T-64Bs at 2000 meters.

At the very least the focus on range for spotting issues is misguided IMHO.

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8 hours ago, Redwolf said:

At the very least the focus on range for spotting issues is misguided IMHO.

I just don't go for modern warfare I am afraid. Have not touched SF2 for ages for the same reason. Spotting, the movie a Clear and Present Danger. The spotters all commissioned officers and they failed to spot the sniper. Issue all were using their binoculars. Optics maybe the cause of your failure to spot. My experience in the game. Infantry reliably spots armour at a kilometer or more and combining the two solves the problem. Also I look for an AFV who has veteran or above for experience that is the one I unbutton. To send in armour cold is a recipe for some of them brewing up. At least that is my opinion. Kind regards

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