Area/smoke TacAI problems & suggestions

[PvK]

Example:

My Elite Panther had 9 smoke rounds. I wanted a small smoke screen in a specific spot, and then for the tank to move on. I ordered a smoke target and then a Fast movement order after a brief delay. Result: the Elite hero decided that even while driving fast near known enemies, he should keep firing smoke all turn on the move, turning the turret towards the target and firing 7 smoke rounds in one turn at the same spot.

"Well, that was a waste and risky, but at least he wasn't killed while doing that," I thought.

A couple of turns later, he still had two smoke rounds left, and enemies were closing in on all sides. Remembering a tactic from Panzer Elite, I ordered the Elite tanker to fire smoke ahead of his position, and then drive through that position fast, so his rear would hopefully be covered. I figured he only had two smoke rounds left, so he couldn't waste the whole turn firing smoke.

Wrong. He fired the smoke fine, and drove forward... and then stopped to turn. "Oh," I thought, "he must have detected that Sherman behind him, and being such an ace, he is turning to expect it's appearance - that's cool." But no. He kept turning back and forth, and despite having no smoke ammo, the smoke order was visible, and since he was trying to drive past it (on Fast, remember), he decided he should stop and keep the gun and the hull facing the target... which meant stopping and turning left and right, until an enemy tank saw him through the smoke and put him out of his demented misery.

Ahem!

Points needing fixing, & suggestions:

1) TacAI should not keep smoke orders after the unit runs out of smoke ammo.

2) TacAI should not have a smoke target order override a move order. Unit on move orders should not stop to fire smoke. TacAI should not turn hull to face smoke target in preference to moving or facing other threats.

3) TacAI should not fire smoke all turn but fire just a few smoke rounds at a smoke target, and definately stop when the area has a thick smoke screen in it.

4) Ideally, the user could specify the amount of smoke to fire - I'd suggest having multiple smoke targets possible per unit, with each one receiving ONE smoke round, carried out in the sequence they were requested, deferring targets that couldn't currently be seen.

5) The same goes for area fire. It'd be nice to be able to fire some area fire without using too much ammo. As it is, units will fire all turn at max ROF and waste a good chunk of their ammo on area targets, which isn't always desirable. Being able to order them one round at a time would make them much more useful. Being able to mix smoke and area targets would be good, too. (e.g., put a smoke round there and there, fire two HE at that house, one HE at that building, and then another smoke round in front of us.)

PvK

[Los]

On thing about smoke and tanks. When you give a tank a smoke order it is a point fire order not an area fire. If the tank hits the exact spot you targeted on the first shot he will fire no more smoke. If he misses he'll continue to fire smoke at that spot till he hits it. (Or until something he perceived as more dangerous enters his perception.) So the AI is like "what should I do, this guy has ordered me to smoke that specific spot but he also ordered me to haul ass?" Some people want the AI do do exactly what they say everytime and others don't.

BTW while I realise it was not your intent to fire smoke on the move, (As an aside) many people seem to thing the primitive gyrostabilization on these WW2 tanks makes them Abrahms or Leopard IIs or Challengers...they're not. If one really want sto hit something fire from the Stop or use the hunt command. If you think it may take a while use a pause or two.

Some of your suggestions seem to center around you are playing this as if it were a tank sim, it's not. Let the AI TC worry about when he should set off his smoke dischargers that's one thing the AI is not shy about. When you are in that much trouble that with enemies all around you reverse the hell out or haul ass or just leave things up to the TC and set a regular waypoint.

And also one smoke round in and of itself is normally pretty wotrthless. A halfway decent smoke screen (unless it's in an alleyway somehwere) requires multiple rounds.

BTW area fire is drastically less effective if you're going to order it up one round at a time.

I'm looking into the smoke tgting after being out of rounds, that might be something fixable.