Solution to crew shooting problem!

[Henri]

Well I understand Charles' decision to close down the thread on crew-pinging tanks, but IMHO this was a legitimate discussion about game performance; Charles probably thought that everything possible has been said about this question and that it is pointless to continue this irritating thread. I respectfully disagree : because I think that I may have found the answer to the problem of tanks shooting at crews when they shouldn't.

1) The extreme solution (which may be the best) is to remove vehicle crews from the game entirely: they cause more problems than they are worth anyway.Since the survivors are not used in campaigns, they are practically of no use anyway.

2) A less extreme solution is to make crews invisible to tanks; in exchange, crews should have little or no spotting ability (how many crews from destroyed tanks carried their radios with them and used them to inform HQ of enemy locations?)

3) In any case, surviving crews should NEVER fire at enemy tanks, which they still do on occasion in 1.04, which can and does cause the tank to traverse and shoot back, which can be fatal if the crew is towards the side of the tank with a slow traverse.

This problem is not very critical, but it can be annoying and cause a shift in balance in scenarios that have a lot of vehicles, where crews from disabled vehicles are running all over the map. In a scenario like Viller-Bocage (my personal favorite), it usually causes losing the game for the Germans

I don't think that BTS should spend a lot of time on this problem, but one of the above solutions could be implemented with only a few minutes of programming time.

What do you think? (Here we go again)

Henri

[Jeff Heidman]

The "extreme" solution is the best. Removing crews from the game entirely would not take anything away. Their status could be abstracted the same way casualties are abstracted now, just report some of them dead/wounded at the end of the scenario/op.

Why are crews in the game? I could defintely see some use if there was a chance that they would re-crew their vehicle or gun, but since they do not, there is no use for them that would not be gamey.

Jeff Heidman

[Mark IV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

Why are crews in the game? I could defintely see some use if there was a chance that they would re-crew their vehicle or gun, but since they do not, there is no use for them that would not be gamey.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I believe they can be used in the next phase of Operations to recrew recovered vehicles.

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>surviving crews should NEVER fire at enemy tanks, which they still do on occasion in 1.04, which can and does cause the tank to traverse and shoot back<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have not seen other tank crews ever fire at tanks. That doesn't mean it might not happen, but I have yet to view this in any of the many games I've played. I don't think that's why your tanks fire at crews anyway. The reason is that what you see is not what your tanks/soldiers, etc. "see". Some people seem to want exact control over what each and every unit fires at and when, and this is just not very realistic, imho. I think the patch improved things greatly and as I wrote above, a good rule of thumb is that while you might see the bleedin obvious from high above, your crews probably don't. Another way to see this is to go down to view 1, move the view so that you're just inside the model of the tank, then have a look from there. Now what do you see?

You can argue that the tank commander has a perfect view all round his tank but this would be unrealistic as well I think. Go look for some interviews with tank commanders from WW 2. If you're in close fighting, like CM represents, you'd get less and less ability to see what's going on around as the fighting gets closer and closer to you. Just because you're in a tank doesn't mean you lose all fear of dying. It just ain't that way.

-johnS

[This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 08-23-2000).]

[:USERNAME:]

Someone suggested that crews only be allowed to withdraw. This is about as a realistic and sensible solution as any. Tanks likewise should prioritize very little main weapon firepower on withdrawing infantry unless the Human player targets such infantry.

And its also been pointed out that crews have no real use in the game and cant reman abandoned equipment, etc. Get rid of them and Id be happy.

Lewis

[Tiger]

I wouldn't recommend removing crews from the game entirely. Without crews your units would not have any variable to draw their fire. You know they are "crew" but all of your forces (including tanks) may not know. All you see is what "appears to be infantry moving about in that treeline". The fuzzy logic has been in the game from the start and to act like it hasn't been this way is silly. I'd rather not play the game if there's not any sort of variables that make your units act other than exactly as you direct. Some consider crew to be legitimate targets in real war.

-johnS

[Fred]

Some people here are really obsessed with crews.

And more then once they stated that they can't play the Villers-Bocage scenario the way they want it.

Rediculous.

I play the game nearly every day, and never ran into problems with tanks targetting crews all the time.

IMO 1.04 just did it right.

Removing all elements of the game that some (and only some and always the same ) people do not like is certainly not the way to go.

Fred

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"I got signals, I got readings, in front and behind of us!" - PFC Hudson on LV-426 mission

[:USERNAME:]

Quick vote everybody, who makes the least amount of sense in this thread?

[dalem]

Lewis-

Why you do, of course.

-dale

[Guest Mortiis]

In operations if your crew abandons a tank they have the ability to reman the tank in the next battle so I would not like the idea of removing crews. I would hate to see even more things abstracted, especially when its interesting trying your best to get the crew out of harms way admidst the chaos.

Making the crews invisible to tanks would just create more problems. Just imagine how po'd people will be if they have to watch a crew escape because they cant target it with their armour and their infantry support is still advancing and to far back to nail the crew themselves. In addition it leaves a loophole for a gamey tactic for people to use crews to sneak past tanks for recon

Have yet to see a crew shoot at a tank, only way I could see this is if a human player targeted the tank.

[This message has been edited by Mortiis (edited 08-23-2000).]

[Holdit]

How about this: Tanks may fire on crews with either bow or flexible machine-guns, but not main armament or co-ax.

[Guest Mortiis]

Thats prolly the best solution Ive heard so far the only question is how hard is it to code. one other thing of course is that this should only apply if the crew has been identified as being a crew. Dont see why co-ax still couldnt be used since a tank doesnt have to rotate its turret to use it( though I have to admit Ive never seen machine gun fire from the co-ax directed away from wherever the turret was pointing). My only concern is that the tank would actually move to position its hull mounted guns to target crews.

[Panzer Man]

I have not created a scenario yet,,but perhaps making a crew members point value higher than a Grunts might make gameplayers think twice b4 serving them up to cannon fodder.By having them rush up to a tank to distract it,while they make a flanking move with a more powerful force is highly unrealistic..If this isnt corrected I agree with the others..Eliminate them or put a bandage on their heads and have them walk off to the rear like zombies..I also beleive the AI would change its thinking if it saw another Tank and move its gun,,but by then it may be too late.

[dalem]

'best solution' is to just deal with it.

It's been typed before but I'll type it again: why screw with a working game engine to address one relatively tiny issue? Honestly, I can't see the problem here.

-dale

[ianc]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>why screw with a working game engine to address one relatively tiny issue? Honestly, I can't see the problem here<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Dalem,

Respectfully, this doesn't mean there isn't one though. In fact, the preponderance of posts dealing with this very issue leads one to believe that you may be in the minority.

I too will cast my vote for simply eliminating crews from the game. At first I thought this might be a bad idea due to a lack of realism, but then I asked myself (as did a previous poster) "what do they add to the game except headaches"?

The answer is: nothing. In SP, you wanted to save them since if the weapon they were associated with wasn't destroyed, there was the possibility of recrewing it. Here, that possibility doesn't exist, so what's the point?

The recrewing after ops is not really an issue to me, since there aren't really any role-playing aspects to speak of in the game.

The crucial question is 'what do they add to the game'?

ianc

[This message has been edited by ianc (edited 08-23-2000).]

[Hamstersss]

My vote is for Lewis, as well. Hey, how much cardboard and how many posters do I get for $89.99? Is it high quality cardboard? Crayon or ink?

Oh, and can we lock this pointless thread up?

[Ghost Dog]

Remove the tanks and all crew manned weapons so that we can concentrate on moving our troops realisticly.

G-D

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-You like Kipling, sir?

-Don´t know,gov.Never kippled.

[Blackhorse]

Keep the crews but give them ZERO ammo and ZERO weapons.

You bail out from a smoking wreck and you don't have time to grab anything.

[Hamstersss]

The only viable solution is to remove the crews, tanks, HTs, guns, arty, sharpshooters, schreks, houses (I mean, come on, how unrealistic are those!), jeeps, MG jeeps, (I mean, come on, how unrealistic are those!), German troops, British Troops, Canadian Troops, Polish Troops (I mean, come on, how unrealistic are those!), airplanes, HQs (I mean, come on, how unrealistic are those!) and foxholes (I mean, come on, how unrealistic are those!).

Once accomplished, CM will be a truly realistic simulation of English and German countrysides. Well, mostly.

Then we pull out the cardboard...

[Guest Michael emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mortiis:

Dont see why co-ax still couldnt be used since a tank doesnt have to rotate its turret to use it( though I have to admit Ive never seen machine gun fire from the co-ax directed away from wherever the turret was pointing).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's because the coax always points exactly where the main gun does. They're made that way. That's why it is called a coax.

The only time a tank wouldn't rotate the turret to use the coax is if a target happened to pop up right in front of it.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

I'm not sure how much it helps, but it might clear a path through some of the conceptual underbrush to restate the problem.

The thing that people are griping about is that tank crews as presently simulated in the game have very little situational awareness. To wit, if there are tanks or other things in the neighborhood that could kill them, they should be looking for those things and not going off on quail hunts.

Of course this all depends on the crew(s) in question having reasonable knowledge that there are in fact things in the neighborhood that can kill them. This could be ascertained in a number of ways. They themselves could have previously spotted and identified a threat that then moved behind or inside some kind of concealment; or the threat was seen by another friendly unit that had some credible means of communicating what it knew.

Over to you, Bob.

Michael

[Major Tom]

The number of votes something gets doesn't mean that it should be included in the game, or it would be the best possible solution. Possibly 90% of people would like to vote in civilians running around the battlefield, but, it shouldn't go in because it is a-historical. Historically, crews DID exist after they left their tanks. They should be left in the game, but, they should not be a high target priority.

The threat level of crews should be drastically lowered to the point of invisibility when it comes to AFV's. They should virtually ignore these groups, as, they are of no threat to the vehicle at all, barring a scouting purpose (that is what your accompanying Infantry is for!).

Even in battle, troops focussed more on advancing troops than retreating troops. Why shoot an already defeated enemy in the back when a fresh one is coming at you? Tank crews are of little use, and I usually withdraw them anyway (they are worth more points alive and retreated off the map then occupying a victory flag) since they are usually leaderless, weak in weapons and ammo, and start already broken or severely shaken.

My 'solution' would be...

AFV's, AT Guns and Artillery ignroe Crews.

and

Infantry treat Crews like any other threat.

[M Hofbauer]

the purpose of the crews being portrayed in the game is: you have to care for them. Move them back to your lines, preserve them, protect them from the enemy. I have had big fun with rescue missions where the crew of an killed tank was sent for with a halftrack / AC, then picked up and transported to safety.

Likewise, the enym crews are targets. Legitimate and authenntic targets. It's not as if in reality they would run around with a sign that reads "hey I am a crewmember I am sacrosanct". Try to eliminate or capture the enemy crews.

To sum it up, they are fair game.

To increase this purpose, and to discourage gamey use of the specialized crews of vehicles, they should have a high value. It has already been stated in the past that CM would give the crews a high value for exactly these purposes. Still, I think they should be even more expensive.

After all, a crew is worth more than the vehicle. If the tank has a total value of 100, give the crew half of that. Result: Vehicle knocked out: 50 points. any of the say five crewmembers killed in the tank destruction adds another 10pts to the kill. It's up to you to save/destroy the other up to 50 points by caring for the crew.

people which play superficial by only focussing on the flashy armor vehicles will likely disagree with this. but a tank is not only the vehicle - to make a tank a weapon, it needs a crew.

[MadDog0606]

I guess I'm just a dumb old transplanted Oregonian from Virginia, but I don't see a problem with the ex-tank or ex-halftrack crews.

You got FOW on. Your tank takes out a halftrack or another tank. The crew bales and heads for cover. Your tank then loses track of that crew. (Tell me, would you concentrate on three guys comming out of a knocked out tank or halftrack and running for the woods while there's other things bigger and badder trying to remove YOU from play?) The next time your tank spots that crew, your tank doesn't know it's an ex-crew from a burned out wreak but maybe a three man zook team or a machine gun team. That's why it says "Infantry?" next to it. Or you may know it's a crew because one of your infantry or another tank has figured it out but maybe one of your other tanks are slow on the uptake and don't know this. Hey, that's war. In WW2 the radios were primitive (by our standards) and not a whole lot of freqs were avaliable to go chatten on.

Steve and Charles are doing the best they can with the resources they have. If one of you think you can do better(Lewis, I hear your name being called) put your fingers where your mouth is. Write up a spec. Submit it to BTS. Then ask them if you can help them programme the routine. Also, and this is a big also, you need to DEBUG the code, be ready to have it ripped apart by fellow programmers and the people on this forum and (unless your some devine entity or an alien) you get to start the process all over again because you will have coded it all wrong!

You all think you can handle that? I sure as hell can't!!

[dalem]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Respectfully, this doesn't mean there isn't one though. In fact, the preponderance of posts dealing with this very issue leads one to believe that you may be in the minority<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ian-

Just because I'm in the minority doesn't mean I'm wrong. Someone else already typed it in this thread - Fog of War. So you can tell the little johnnies running around are a tank/ATG/HT crew - maybe your tank commander can't and wants them dead. My point is not whether or not crews should be a threat, but rather whether a major recode is the solution when some folks are (in my not-so-humble opinion) maybe missing the 'spirit' of the game.

-dale