Infantry Command: Hunt

[Kingfish]

Anyway, a HUNT command for infantry would be useless anyway. Here's three reasons why:

1) In sparse or open areas, your units would not get far at all because they would stop at any sight of enemy infantry and return fire, no matter how far away. Since, in most battles, any one enemy unit can see literally several or dozens of enemy infantry, this command ensures that your unit would not move far at all. This would really be bad if your unit is in the open when enemy infantry is sighted.

Who gives sneak command to units in sparse or open ground? If this new hunt command is an improvement to the existing sneak than it's logical to assume that it would be issued under the same circumstances, i.e. dense woods, fog, night, etc...

2) As stated above, the sneak command does what you want in dense forrest because any threat that your unit meets will be considered close and dangerous. Your unit will most likely stop and return fire.

Only if fired upon first, therein lies the problem. Common sense tells me if you are sneaking thru close terrain and you encounter the enemy you would want to:

a) shoot him first and then,

go to cover in case there's more of them out there.

As it stands right now the existing commands only allow us to do one of those steps. It's either:

1) move - go from waypoint to waypoint, shoot if need be, but continue moving (IOW don't seek cover) until you get to the next waypoint.

2) sneak - go from waypoint to waypoint, stop and take cover if fired upon first (IOW don't shoot him first)

Think about this, why can't the same reflex that allows moving infantry units to fire first also be added to sneak?

[Jarmo]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

Think about this, why can't the same reflex that allows moving infantry units to fire first also be added to sneak?

Easy, when you sneak, you want to stay unnoticed.

(I'm pro-hunt... )

[Pak40]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

1) move - go from waypoint to waypoint, shoot if need be, but continue moving (IOW don't seek cover) until you get to the next waypoint.

2) sneak - go from waypoint to waypoint, stop and take cover if fired upon first (IOW don't shoot him first)

Think about this, why can't the same reflex that allows moving infantry units to fire first also be added to sneak?

Sorry, but the WHOLE PURPOSE of sneaking is to remain unoticed and safe while moving. That's why sneaking units don't fire unless from a very close and dangerous enemy.

BTW, moving units do not "shoot as need be", they fire immediately upon whatever unit they have targeted.

The MOVE command is an abstraction of units moving forward, providing fire, ducking, taking cover and then basically repeating the whole process until they get to their destination.

Originally posted by Kingfish:

Only if fired upon first, therein lies the problem. Common sense tells me if you are sneaking thru close terrain and you encounter the enemy you would want to:

a) shoot him first and then,

go to cover in case there's more of them out there.

Sorry again, but a hiding unit(in a forest) will almost always get the first shot on a moving unit. It doesn't matter if they are moving, sneaking, running or "hunting". Therefore, the sneak command in a dense forrest acts very much like a hunt command.

My common sense works a little differently than yours. It tells me that if you are sneaking through a forest, then you don't want to be seen and therefore you wouldn't give your position away by shooting at anything that you saw, especially if it's over 50 meters away.

Now, if your goal is to MOVE rather than SNEAK, then you can achieve both a) and so long as you use short movement techniques. It's really not that hard. I don't see what the big fuss is about.

[Eric Alkema]

Originally posted by Pak40:

Sorry again, but a hiding unit(in a forest) will almost always get the first shot on a moving unit. It doesn't matter if they are moving, sneaking, running or "hunting". Therefore, the sneak command in a dense forrest acts very much like a hunt command.

True, unless both sides are sneaking.

My common sense works a little differently than yours. It tells me that if you are sneaking through a forest, then you don't want to be seen and therefore you wouldn't give your position away by shooting at anything that you saw, especially if it's over 50 meters away.

Now, if your goal is to MOVE rather than SNEAK, then you can achieve both a) and so long as you use short movement techniques. It's really not that hard. I don't see what the big fuss is about.

The problem is that your little digital soldiers don't have any common sense. They are just robots, they can only follow orders that have been programmed.

If you want your troops to advance in spite of enemy activity, MOVE. If you want your troops to advance without calling attention to themselves, SNEAK. If you want your troops to advance until they can see the enemy and then let them have it, pause 45 seconds and then MOVE... a little bit. Silly. And very slow.

How would you feel about using tanks without HUNT?

If BTS says no dice (and they have), fine, I'll live with it, but don't tell me that it isn't a shortcoming.

------------------

Eric

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by Eric Alkema:

If BTS says no dice (and they have), fine, I'll live with it, but don't tell me that it isn't a shortcoming.

There was a quote in this thread (though it seems to have been deleted) that claimed to be the BTS position. IIRC, the BTS concern was more practical and technical than theoretical. It sounded like they found it very difficult to get the tank AI working acceptably, so now they are a little wary about launching into more complex infantry commands, which could require similarly complex issues.

If this is in fact the BTS view, I find it encouraging. Once the resources become available, perhaps they will tackle the job of refining infantry behavior.

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by Mattias:

Now, as far as I can see the parameters deciding the behaviour of your “hunting” squad would have to be pre-set and then executed by the tacAI according to some kind of engagement formula. This is what I mean with increasing automation. To me it seems that you are requesting that the tacAI solve even more complex problems by asking for hunt commands, hull down moves etc.

I guess the question is where the difficulty lies in writing the AI. I assume that that hard part is figuring out how the unit ought to act, rather than making the unit act that way. If my assumption is correct, then more narrow-purpose commands should make the AI's job easier.

For example, suppose an infantry squad comes under fire. Should they 1) ignore the fire and advance, 2) charge the firing unit, 3)stop where they are and return fire, 4) retreat to cover and then return fire, or 5) retreat to cover and try to get out of sight of the enemy? Choosing one of those is a complex business, depending on what's firing on them, what the range is, whether the squad can hurt the firing unit, the terrain that the squad is sitting in and the terrain close at hand. Then you've got another set of questions and determinations for infantry that see a target: Move to close combat? Stop and fire? Ignore? Keep moving and fire? Again, that's a difficult decision for the TacAI to make.

But it doesn't seem like executing the actual action would be all that difficult to code. In particular, what's complicated about stopping and firing? What's complicated about ignoring the surroundings and keeping moving? Now there would be considerable complexity in finding appropriate nearby cover, but thankfully BTS has already done a fine job there, as we see every time unit morale breaks.

Again, I'm no programmer, so this is not based on experience. But it seems that the more detailed the commands, the easier the TacAI decisionmaking becomes. If the player says that the squad is to be cautious, then the TacAI can limit its decisionmaking options to the defensive ones. If the player says that these squads are to boldly charge the enemy position, again the player has done the decisionmaking for the TacAI, eliminating an opportunity for the TacAI to make the wrong decision.

Alternatively a more detailed decision making process in the hands of the player would require an altered interface of some kind. We would have to be able to access the behavioural routines and alter the tacAI using some kind of order/SOP template.

This is more of a technical issue. You wouldn't want to junk up the interface or overwhelm new users. My suggestion is to create unit settings separate from the movement commands. That way, you wouldn't have a long list of commands, but rather a grid of intersecting settings and move commands.

The one minute turn is short, very short. In my reality, co-ordinated action does not take place in such a short time span unless it was previously initiated (like a deliberate attack), or we are talking about small elite units (not really CM scale).

I agree that CM does some funny things with time. Most things should actually take much longer. Command delays are unrealistically short. But I assume that's because real battle takes a long time and is rather tedious much of the time. CM has to be fun in addition to being realistic.

Yes before action there was a briefing and yes the men and commanders where taught standard procedures for certain situations. However, the details change according to mission and terrain and would therefore be very hard to implement into CM, for the reasons I have mentioned above.

For example; The platoon is advancing through covered terrain, lets say a forest, and the right “wing” comes into contact with some kind of enemy units. The way I would want the men to behave would be entirely dependent on the mission, the terrain and the general situation. This would altogether be too complex to ask of the tacAI to handle and too cumbersome for the player.

It's definitely too complex for the AI. Whether it's too cumbersome on the player depends on exactly how complex the commands are, how intuitive they are, and how well designed the interface is.

My suggestion is an extra setting for each unit: aggressive, normal, and defensive. Those interact with the movement commands. I would eliminate Sneak and only have Run, Move, and Crawl as movement orders, because Sneak is really just a Defensive Move. But then standing still is effectively a move order, so the total possible orders would still be twelve. Out of those twelve orders, I think you could have the player take a lot of the weight off of the TacAI.

Does that sound cumbersome, to have three movement orders, and three options on unit aggression?