Area Target issues. Your thoughts?????

[BFCElvis]

TeAcH, From what I am seeing here it sounds like v1.03 may have dealt with your area firing concern. I haven't blowed up any buildings on purpose yet with the new version. And as David Aitken said units in buildings that have just blown up around them usually aren't going anywhere fast.

The reason I keep mentioning the 60 second aspect of each turn is because I have noticed that it takes 2-5 turns to level a building (depending of course on what type of weapon is being fired and what type of building). So it does not seem unreasonable to me if a unit that had fired AREA FIRE for 2 minutes 22 seconds before leveling a building to then continue for an additional 38 seconds.

As far as tageting a building, as oppossed to area fire, I would think that would take of what you are trying to do (although I worry about me using it because I have a hard enough time clicking on passengers in AFVs from any viewpoint other than close up and I might have the same problem clicking on units inside a building). But here are the problems I can see with that. Say you target at building and it is no longer area fire it is direct building fire. The building gets leveled. Tageting unit then stops firing at that location and fires at either nothing or another enemy unit that the AI feels is more important. Meanwhile the unit you were trying to flush out may still be in the rubble. I would think that situation would be less desireable than the current build of the game.

I do not want to sound like I am poo pooing your idea. It would be swell if you could easily click on a building and level it and then with 100% certainty that there were no remaining units in the building retarget and use the remaining 45 seconds/10 seconds/22 seconds/whatever working on blowing something else up. But because of FOW I doubt that could ever happen enough to make everyone happen. I can hear it now. "I blew up a building and the AI acted like the rubble was empty so I ran a squad into it and they got schredded. How come my tank didn't keep firing at the rubble?"

Just my opion dude. I could be way off base, it wouldn't be the first time.

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"To conquer death you only have to die" JC

[Mark IV]

Thanks all, for the tips on camera positioning.

As for the building collapse being an abstraction, I don't really agree. When I have units in a building, they are relatively unscathed until the precise moment of the collapse. At that instant they usually suffer major casualties. Same with fires.

I don't care if the building is falling apart a piece at a time. There is a precise moment in game terms when the building collapses, casualties are incurred, and the enemy is no longer able to use the upper story. After that happens, I am done with that building. Area fire mission accomplished.

If the building falls down and enemy units are visible, the AFV should retarget on the more attractive target- the units themselves.

[David Aitken]

Mark IV wrote:

> After that happens, I am done with that building. Area fire mission accomplished.

So why, pray tell, were you targetting the building in the first place? If you were trying to kill units inside, simply levelling the building won't kill them. Cause casualties, yes, but there will often still be men there in fighting condition. What we're talking about here is the remaining part of ONE MINUTE, and I don't think it's a bad idea at all to let the firing continue for that short time, to finish off any survivors.

If you simply wanted to level the building, why? So the enemy couldn't hide in it? Well, the enemy can still hide in it, because as I've said, rubble is good cover (imagine what it would be like in reality - piles of masonry, great to hide in). Even if you've wasted whoever was already inside, new units can still move into the rubble.

> If the building falls down and enemy units are visible, the AFV should retarget on the more attractive target- the units themselves.

Which units? The ones in the building? The AFV will continue to fire at them, because they will be in the rubble. If you mean OTHER units, how is the AFV supposed to know you want him to switch? Okay, when the building is levelled? But what if you DON'T want him to switch?

The computer can't read your mind - maybe under certain circumstances you'd want it to do what you're saying - but under other circumstances, you'd want it to act the way it already does. And the way it already does is the most sensible. This is all for the sake of maybe 30 seconds, people - and what's happening in those 30 seconds isn't as bad as you're making it out to be.

David

[Mark IV]

Originally posted by David Aitken:

So why, pray tell, were you targetting the building in the first place?

To deny it to the enemy.

To eliminate an unseen potential threat or FO, particularly from the upper story.

To see if anyone comes running out or shoots back.

I saw enemy troops enter it, but I can't see them now.

I dislike it.

If you were trying to kill units inside, simply levelling the building won't kill them. Cause casualties, yes, but there will often still be men there in fighting condition.

Apparently you have not suffered many collapses. Entire units can be destroyed and survivors are usually not in fighting condition within the same turn.

If you simply wanted to level the building, why? So the enemy couldn't hide in it? Well, the enemy can still hide in it, because as I've said, rubble is good cover (imagine what it would be like in reality - piles of masonry, great to hide in). Even if you've wasted whoever was already inside, new units can still move into the rubble.

Then I will target those units. I don't wish to shoot a heap of masonary in the chance that someone may still be in there.

> If the building falls down and enemy units are visible, the AFV should retarget on the more attractive target- the units themselves.

Which units? The ones in the building? The AFV will continue to fire at them, because they will be in the rubble. If you mean OTHER units, how is the AFV supposed to know you want him to switch? Okay, when the building is levelled? But what if you DON'T want him to switch?

It isn't that complex. The AFV would use the same logic it uses now to assess threats and targets. It would no longer consider the rubbled building as a potential target, is all, (in Teach's scheme). If units were visible in the rubble and they were the best target available, it would target them directly, which is more effective than area-firing the rubble heap. If multiple targets were present, it should assess them precisely as it does now.

This is all for the sake of maybe 30 seconds, people - and what's happening in those 30 seconds isn't as bad as you're making it out to be.

It certainly wastes ammo.

See disclaimers, well above. No one is making it out as "bad". There are suggestions for improvements. Many others have been made, and some adopted. It's how things get better. Should CM never improve beyond 1.03? Is it inconceivable that an officer might issue two orders with 60 seconds? Can't a unit be ordered to proceed with an action until a very definite event is observed (like knocking out an AFV)?

Odds are BTS has heard and considered all this long ago, and may or may not have a long term plan for dealing with it. It's certainly not something I would have delayed release over. However, I am lending support to the notion that this is an area ripe for refinement, that's all.

[Neutral Party]

Another reason why I have levelled a few buildings is to deny an elevated viewpoint to FOs who I suspect might be able to see my troops from the first floor but not from ground level.

Joe

[David Aitken]

Mark IV wrote:

> It would no longer consider the rubbled building as a potential target, is all, (in Teach's scheme).

This is the point of contention. When you target a building, you're targeting scenery. As far as your AFV is concerned, it's no different from woods or open ground - it just puts the shells in. So happens there's a building there, which eventually collapses, but that makes no difference to the AFV.

To program AFVs to treat buildings as units is a whole different kettle of fish, and while in concept it makes some sense, in programming terms it's illogical. If this change were made (assuming it's actually feasible), it would mean that you can ONLY target a building as though it were a unit. You could no longer simply put area fire down regardless of the building, and that would be a far greater problem than what is being discussed here.

You say it's a waste of ammo. What I've said is, there are quite likely still units in the rubble (you might not be able to see them), so it makes perfect sense to continue shelling. It is not a waste of ammo. In your average battle, how many shells or bullets actually claim a target? Sure, under particular circumstances, a few HE rounds might go on the rubble, which wouldn't be your first choice of target. But it's still a target, and most of the time you'll probably inflict further damage on the enemy.

This is only a problem from certain perspectives - and it's not something you could simply 'fix' - you'd have to change the AI's behaviour, and that change would probably cause problems in other ways.

Remember, there are many 'problems' in this game which have been deliberately programmed, such as command delay. This isn't an action game - split-second timing is not critical, and you're going to lose things - be it men or ammunition. A few men or a few rounds are not critical to the outcome of the battle, and in real war, many awful tragedies occur which have no purpose at all. Little things like a few HE rounds are quite irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

David

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

[jabberwock]

Well I personally would like to limit how many smoke rounds can be fired. Most tanks only have 6-7, and they can fire ALL of them during one turn, when I just wanted them to place 1-2 to cover a hole in the trees.

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I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...

-HAL 9000, 2001

[Wolfe]

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

Well I personally would like to limit how many smoke rounds can be fired. Most tanks only have 6-7, and they can fire ALL of them during one turn, when I just wanted them to place 1-2 to cover a hole in the trees.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

AFVs will fire smoke rounds until it hits the target it's firing at (sometimes this only requires 1 round, sometimes it'll take all of them and still miss! ). Off-board arty will fire smoke at an area you target until either the turn ends, or it runs out of ammo. I think that on-board mortars do the same thing as arty, but I'm not 100% certain.

- Chris

[Mark IV]

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

Well I personally would like to limit how many smoke rounds can be fired.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Me, too.

[BFCElvis]

Additional reason to level buildings: To have a clear LOS through the building. No building no blocked LOS.

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"To conquer death you only have to die" JC

[MrPeng]

Speaking personally, I'd annex the Sudatenland.

Peng

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A Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single gunshot wound to the foot.

[Greybeard 101st]

I tend to agree with David Aitken, about the rubble being a excellant place to shell after the building is down.

It is easy to assume that with troops in the building that when your tank takes the building down, the enemy goes with it.

Rubble makes a great hiding, sniping place for that fact.

A tank will fail to continue shelling, meanwhile the enemy has a bead on your Co's head.

Last night in a skrimish game, my Sherman kept shelling the rubble after the building had went down.

Knowing he was smarter than me, I checked, sure enough, 3 troops where pinned in the rubble, one a Arty spotter.

I can see where being able like in some RTS games, that you can target non-enemy units and landscape.

Cave in a cliff on troops, blow out a bridge, blow a building, to block enemy armor movement at critical area.

It would be nice to have this option.

Still one of the best games I have played in a long time.

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-kill 'em all and let God sort them out-

[Mark IV]

Originally posted by Greybeard 101st:

I tend to agree with David Aitken, about the rubble being a excellant place to shell after the building is down.

Then area fire the rubble. Nothing stopping anyone from doing that. Real life, I would give the order, "destroy that building!". I would not expect to have to add, "...and stop shooting when you're done." I would expect the soldier to have enough sense to do that.

my Sherman kept shelling the rubble after the building had went down.

Knowing he was smarter than me, I checked, sure enough, 3 troops where pinned in the rubble, one a Arty spotter.

But he would have continued shelling anyway, as it stands, whether he knew they were there or not.

The argument seems to be that auto-Area Fire is an insurance policy against survivors of a building collapse. If that is the case, AFVs should also auto-shell every treeline on the map- "could be" spotters, "could be" infantry teams, etc., everywhere.

The point is that I want the building down, period. The TacAI will take over NO PROBLEM if it sees a threat after that.

The argument that rubble is a great place to be is specious. It is patently obvious that rubble can be good cover for infantry. But not within 60 seconds of the building caving in with a 5-kiloton mushroom cloud! Please picture the snipers and FOs immediately scrambling to get INTO that fiery smoking hell... and if they do I'll target them as units.

If I don't see them, they will be like all the other unspotted units on the map. Just because it would occasionally be effective to keep firing at the catastrophically collapsed building does not mean it would be realistic as a general rule.

What if the building collapses 10 seconds into the turn? The gunner will dumbly empty the ammo rack, regardless of the tactical situation, at a pile of kindling?

Peng: Was that supposed to be a reality czech? Or are you just being Praguematic?

[TeAcH]

Well said Mark IV. I don't have anything to add, now. You made the case very well indeed. Especially in your last post. Seems like a no brainer to me.

"Then area fire the rubble after the building goes poof". -Excellent

Turn houses into selectable targets while also allowing visible units inside to be targetted seems no different then the occasional infantry unit hiding under an active AFV. You can target both and they occupy the same area.

Thanks Mark IV.

TeAcH

[David Aitken]

Mark IV wrote:

> The argument seems to be that auto-Area Fire is an insurance policy against survivors of a building collapse. If that is the case, AFVs should also auto-shell every treeline on the map- "could be" spotters, "could be" infantry teams, etc., everywhere.

Really? The argument is that you're shelling a building which could contain enemy troops, so there's no harm in continuing to shell it once it's rubbled, just for the remainder of the turn, because the remnants of said units will probably still be there.

The argument is not that the AI should CHOOSE to target the rubble, just in case the enemy is hiding there. It's not like your AFV is chucking shells into the void - it's putting shells into an area which you have chosen, and where there are quite likely to be enemy troops, even if it's firing for slightly longer than you would like.

> It is patently obvious that rubble can be good cover for infantry. But not within 60 seconds of the building caving in with a 5-kiloton mushroom cloud!

That massive cloud you see is not a blast cloud. It is simply a thin cloud of dust. No-one is saying units are likely to be rushing into a newly-rubbled building - the argument is that units which were already it the building are quite possibly still there, but since 'rubble' in the game is depicted as a flat square, it's easy to assume that there were no survivors.

David

[David Aitken]

TeAcH wrote:

> Turn houses into selectable targets while also allowing visible units inside to be targetted seems no different then the occasional infantry unit hiding under an active AFV. You can target both and they occupy the same area.

This is not the same thing. Two units can (temporarily) occupy the same space, but they have no effect on each other. A unit receives no shelter from an AFV, and if it ends up underneath, that creates a problem - you have to go down to ground level and hope you can see underneath.

On the other hand, a unit inside a house benefits from being there - it has a place to hide, and protection from enemy fire. This is because the building is scenery - the concept is completely different from a unit underneath an AFV. And if you want to target a unit hidden by an AFV, there's no foolproof way to do it - you just have to hope you can catch a glimpse. Otherwise you can only target the AFV.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea to be able to target a building specifically. What I'm saying is:

1) The biggest 'problem' is that an AFV will continue shelling a rubbled building, which in many cases is a good idea anyway.

2) Your proposals would demand three different options when you target a building; (a) Put area fire down on the building; ( Target the building specifically; or © Target a unit within the building. To offer ( as an option would effectively be to assume the building is a unit, which (as per my hiding-under-AFV example) would really mess things up if you wanted to target a unit inside.

A reasonable idea guys, I won't argue with that. My argument is that, while the game could be tweaked to allow the behaviour you seek, this tweaking would cause more problems than it solves.

David

[TeAcH]

-=Split here=-

Issue one is the continued shelling of rubble after the building is destroyed.

Issue two is a request to allow structures to be targetted.

Two seperate issues that are somewhat related. Lets separate the two.

On issue two, the absence of such an innovation belies the touted true 3D environment to some degree. For if go to level 1 (ground level) and lock to a unit view, and I can CLEARLY see a house, I can not always target it. If the very bottom edge of the 1st floor of the house is blocked, I cant target it. Period. That is in contrast to the whole 3D environment in this game, IMO. If I can see the house from perspective one, I oughta be able to target IT.

TeAcH

[Lorak]

Just a question, If it has been answered I'll accept the flaming.

My problem with trying to rubble a building is that it seems height isn't taken into account.

Try to taget a 2 story building when the first floor is out of LOS. As far as I can tell, you can't.

You can target a unit (in the upper story) but it seems you can't just area fire the building in the upper story(no units in LOS)

Lorak

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"someone you trust is one of us"..........the illuminati

*

http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/combatmissionclub

Lorak's FTX for CM <--Proud member of the Combat Mission Webring

[TeAcH]

Thats exactly my point on issue two, Lorak. Thanks for seeing that too. Seems like if you cant "see" the bottom edge of the first floor, you cant target the rest of the house much less the second floor altogether.

[Andre76]

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

Issue one is the continued shelling of rubble after the building is destroyed.

Issue two is a request to allow structures to be targetted.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Issue one:

Let's not forget the flamethrowers! When I have a flamethrower team (with precious little ammo) I don't want it to countinue flaming after the house is on fire. Else the whole ammo supply is going to be spent in just one or maybe two turns!

Issue Two:

Yes. I frankly can't see the problem. I assume that the game engine treats the 3d models as objects. It's not difficult to give these object some more properties. (Like House.collapsed=1) I should be able to target

a) The house (stop when collapsed, find new target, or for flamethrowing units, stop when on fire)

Troops that you can see inside the house(like it's now)

c) Area target (like it's now)

How complicated could this be?

Then everybody will be happy, or?

André

[David Aitken]

TeAcH wrote:

> For if go to level 1 (ground level) and lock to a unit view, and I can CLEARLY see a house, I can not always target it. If the very bottom edge of the 1st floor of the house is blocked, I cant target it. Period.

Lorak wrote:

> Try to taget a 2 story building when the first floor is out of LOS. As far as I can tell, you can't.

Yes you can. I'm running v1.03, and I just did a test, with a house, a hill, a Cromwell tank and a couple of artillery spotters. They couldn't see or target the bottom floor, but they could see and target the top floor. The targetting line can clearly be seen pointing to the top floor, and the tracers from my Cromwell were definitely going upwards.

Try getting down to ground level, and make sure you point at the top floor so the computer is left in no doubt what you're trying to do. Keep in mind that if you can only see, say, the roof, that doesn't count, and you can't expect to target it. But it seems that the top floor is counted as a separate target, and you can aim at it whether there are units in the building or not.

Andre76 wrote:

> Let's not forget the flamethrowers! When I have a flamethrower team (with precious little ammo) I don't want it to countinue flaming after the house is on fire.

I think that was fixed in v1.01. They should stop firing when their target burns.

David

[TeAcH]

I appreciate your tests David. I havent had such success. Using 1.03, zoomed down to level one, and from a tank, I could see the whole side of two one story houses save for about a foot (using the approximation on the size of the house that is) of the bottom of the wall. I could not target either house.

This is not a problem on my end. I can tell the difference. There was nothing blocking me from shooting at those house yet the red line consistently showed BLOCKed right up to the house itself. View 5 didnt help either.

Why are you opposed to making the house a selectable target like a pillbox or a unit? Just because you havent found the problem, doesnt mean one doesnt exist.

I ask you to perform some more tests and see for yourself. Look in the game for the instances where you can see a house but cant target it. When you find such an occurrence, ask yourself why.

TeAcH

[Andre76]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by David Aitken:

TeAcH wrote:

Andre76 wrote:

> Let's not forget the flamethrowers! When I have a flamethrower team (with precious little ammo) I don't want it to countinue flaming after the house is on fire.

I think that was fixed in v1.01. They should stop firing when their target burns.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, my flamethrower didn't and I have version 1.01.

André

[David Aitken]

TeAcH -

Try going down to level 1, then moving up to the building and viewing it almost side-on. You've got to target the very front wall of the house, which isn't very easy. If you just point at the house from your unit's viewpoint, the game will assume you're targetting inside the house, which you can't see. It's just one of these situations where you're controlling a 3D game on a 2D machine. The functionality is there, I assure you! =)

David

[David Aitken]

Here's my test.

Here's a Cromwell targetting the bottom of a building over a shallow hill. It doesn't have LOS.

Try targetting the top floor - the targetting line locks to the top floor, and the tank does have LOS.

I think the problems start when units are visible inside the building, and it goes transparent:

Try targetting now - perfect LOS, but the computer doesn't think so.

However, move over to the side so that you're pointing at the very front of the building, and it works okay.

It's just crossed my mind that you might not have transparency enabled. However, this behaviour should be the same.

David

[This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 08-04-2000).]