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Area Fire


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I asigned a Tiger an area fire order to smoke out any infantry that might be in building. It worked like a charm, the infantry became known, the tank cleared them out. Along the way, I assigned the tank a move order to head to another part of the battlefield since the house was now clear.

As it moved along, away from the now empty original building, the tank continued to target the building with area fire, even to the point of rotating its turret away from known enemy in front of it (in the direction it was moving) in order to point its main gun backwards towards the area fire target (the empty building).

It seems like the area fire command overrules the tactical AI's common sense????

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Area fire has a high priority, yes. Essentially, you're telling the Tiger "I want suppressive fire on that location! It's important! Disregard other targets unless they're a direct threat." Gamewise, the priority has to be high, otherwise you would see the Tiger engage the first enemy that moves into sight and stop the area fire - something which other guys storming the position might find anything but funny. So if you want to stop the area fire, make sure you cancel the order.

The Tiger would engage another enemy tank or AT Gun, though, if it feels threatened. But it will most likely not stop the area fire to engage infantry targets.

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I was playing as Americans- one of my Shermans moved up on a German Stug who was sitting there firing on the church in CE, fired 4 shots, 1 of which RICHOCHED, but the German Stug just sat there and continued to shell the church until the fourth one finnally knocked it out... now I'm not complaining, but you'd think that the Stug crew would have heard the shot hit it and turned to engage my Sherman... doesn't that constitute an immediate and direct threat to it?

-EridanMan

[This message has been edited by Eridani (edited 01-08-2000).]

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I do believe PaulR was referring to the tank's behaviour in the middle of a movie.

In that case, Paul, you are unable to influence its choice of target, and will have to trust the Tactical AI to override the area fire order if a truly threatening enemy presents itself.

DjB

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Guest Big Time Software

Eridani,

There have been some tweaks to the TacAI in this regard. It still can happen, but is much less likely to now.

Steve

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In a game in Riesberg two of my shermans were area firing some buildings. They stopped to engage a platoon of infantry crawling in the open 500m away. One Sherman hit one memeber of a squad I was targeting and three in a squad I couldn't even see. I love collateral damage smile.gif.

The AI (at least in the demo) seems to place units in the open high on its target priority list.

Jason

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I'm glad to see the tweaking has been done. In the case I referred to, the empty area target 75 yds behind the tank was given ahigher priority by th AI to the bazooka 50 yds in front of it. I'm sure the AI felt bad when the zook achieved that "upper hull penetration hit" a few seconds later smile.gif.

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Guest Big Time Software

IIRC accuracy (to hit) stuff isn't modified, rather the Firepower is reduced to 25% of its usual strength for the same circumstances. The reasoning is that accuracy isn't really affected in that you can hit the same area with the same degree of accuracy if a target is there or not. However, when firing Area Fire your unit is not necessarily aiming at the correct location (i.e. shooting very accurately at the wrong spot). So the reduction in Firepower simulates things like MG spraying and off center HE hits quite well.

Steve

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Guest Big Time Software

Correct. I wasn't specific and might have even made a mistake. Area fire by small arms is definately reduced. However, now that I think about it, I am not sure DF fire is. I think that works the same way mortar/artillery does in regards to accuracy. I know when artillery comes down it hits a very definate spot and then a blast radius is calculated. So in terms of FP, spotted or unspotted artillery rounds are identical. Again, now that I think about it I am pretty sure a round from a tank is also treated the same in both aimed and area fire shots as the mechanics of determining the blast radius of a round is exactly the same.

Steve

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