MG team recommendation

[Wreck]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Once again, the problem is that squads walk through MG fire in the open. Not that the MGs

don't get to fire at them because they can't spread their fp over tons of targets - because the present firepower can't hurt one target let alone three. And not that they can't lay down fire patterns - because the squads would just walk right through those fire patterns, the same as they walk right through the direct fire now.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Substitute "run" for walk in the above, and I agree.

Jason, I took the time understand your thoughts in this thread, and generally I agree with your understanding of the problem. However, I do not agree 100% with your solution. Let me clarify the non-very-well-written criticism I threw out in my last post.

You are proposing two means to raise the firepower of MGs against running troops in the open. One is to raise the %exposed; I agree with this. The other is the somewhat complex notion of raising firepower for "acquired" targets. I have no real problem with this, but it seems rather unnecessary to me, since by and large it mirrors the effect of the first change.

These ideas are good, in the sense that they move towards higher "stopping" power for MGs against highly exposed troops running about.

What I don't think is good about these changes, is that the stopping power of the MG will then turn upon three sources:

(1) everyone dies: the firepower may be high enough to simply kill the squad. This is probably realistic in the sense that it sometimes happened historically. But it is not so in the sense that men, even if fanatics, will probably take cover rather than die pointlessly. After the first burst kills three of them, they should be on the ground, not still running forth.

(2) morale effects: after being shot up enough, the infantry will be "pinned" or whatnot and slow down. This is one fine and desirable. But unfortunately it will be somewhat avoidable by:

(3) micromanagement: the player can simply plot his run across open spaces with many waypoints, interspercing "run" commands for 20m or so with "crawl" commands, or even "walk" if it suffices to bring %exposed down sufficiently to negate the acquisition bonus.

None of these three things reflect what in my reading of history was the real reason men slowed down for MGs. They did not do it because they were all dead. Only sometimes was it because they lose the will to fight. And it certainly was not from detailed orders.

The reason was, that they knew that they would be killed if they kept on running about, and so they hit the earth -- took cover. This was perhaps sometimes in direct contravention of orders, but it was not necessarily a lack of will to fight, just to die. And in fact most of the time I regard taking cover under fire as the thing I want my troops to do.

The reasoning above is why I proposed that a possible effect of enough firepower on troops with high exposure, should be that they slow down. The position of their waypoints is not affected, but the type of movement is automatically downgraded to crawl (perhaps to walk, then crawl). Then the next turn the player can boost the rate if he wants. I realize that is MM of a sort itself; ideally the squad should "remember" that it wants to be running over there, and in time get up itself and go fast. But I don't think the system as it is would support that, whereas I know it will handle just changing a waypoint type.

[Robert Mayer]

Ah, who cares about silly things like machine guns when there are horses to get into the game!

[Homba]

Steve,

The MG solutions you proposed (tweaked Run characteristics, Assault Move, and 'go for broke' MG) above are excellent. My loyalty/respect meters are likewise through the roof.

Homba

[StellarRat]

I think the best solution to the problem (and the easiest) is to make "running" more dangerous and allow firing units to switch targets more rapidly and fire more bursts if they are in close contact. I think these changes should apply to all units not just MG teams. That would solve most of what people have complained about.

[aka_tom_w]

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

I think the best solution to the problem (and the easiest) is to make "running" more dangerous and allow firing units to switch targets more rapidly and fire more bursts if they are in close contact. I think these changes should apply to all units not just MG teams. That would solve most of what people have complained about.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That sounds good to me.

Especially this part:

"the best solution to the problem (and the easiest) is to make "running" more dangerous and allow firing units to switch targets more rapidly and fire more bursts if they are in close contact. I think these changes should apply to all units not just MG teams"

Yes to swithing targets with automatic weapons more rapidly and yes to "go for broke" more bursts if they are in close contact.

That should just about do it. IMHO

BUT, those delightful cheap VG SMG squads that are assaulting will still benefit as well if they are now in close contact it will be a MUCH bloodier fight as the attacker and can ALSO "go for Broke" and unload the magazine in one turn. Works both ways I guess

-tom w

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Robert Mayer:

Ah, who cares about silly things like machine guns when there are horses to get into the game! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, that's Mine Horses and remember, it was my idea first! he said dripping with sarcasm....

[StellarRat]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Actually, that's Mine Horses and remember, it was my idea first! he said dripping with sarcasm....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm a witness for him. Michael invented horses in his genetic engineering lab....

[ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: StellarRat ]

[Username]

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

BUT, those delightful cheap VG SMG squads that are assaulting will still benefit as well if they are now in close contact it will be a MUCH bloodier fight as the attacker and can ALSO "go for Broke" and unload the magazine in one turn. Works both ways I guess

-tom w<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well as long as they are assaulting and not running 400 meters. Those old geezers would be having heart attacks after such a run.

[JasonC]

posted by Wreck:

"just downgrade the move status of units under exposed fire, with the idea that they are trying to get less exposed."

I think that is a fine idea. Really, that would help a lot, and be realistic. So the all out dash speed would be for shifts of troops from position to position (mostly anyway), but assaults would not manage to keep speed that high.

I also like the added move types Steve is talking about. Fits with the previous too. The main thing I want to see is the cover reduced (exposed% higher) in fast moves, and both of these have that tendency.

As for the hot-MG idea (higher ROF), that sounds fine to me as well, but I would not make its onset "deterministic". That is, I would have a random roll, a task-check kind of thing, to "go hot". And if that could be linked to the exposure of the units being fired at, I think that would help.

Why? Well, if a player can count on much higher ROF with an MG, say, at close range, then the firepower of the MG team rises more steeply as the range drops, and MGs aren't better long, worse short compared to standard infantry. In other words, the relative firepower at various ranges (compared to infantry), has to stay roughly right, as well as the absolute (rush-stopping).

The main thing to avoid there would be "hot" MGs regularly firing at people in cover, just because they were fairly close. MGs aren't assault guns. So linking "go hot" to target exposure might cover that case.

As for having something random in it, the idea is that will leave lone MGs fairly vunerable to rushes, especially short ones. Larger groups of MGs would have 1-2 go hot, with greater certainty. So 4 interlocking MGs would take on a characteristic that 1-2 would not necessarily have - to wit, a high probability at least one of the MGs gets "hot".

(When you consider how, in reality, multiple MGs make it easier to get enfilade lane effects *somewhere*, that seems justified to me).

One doesn't want to make every MG invunerable to close attack by standard infantry, obviously. But this is less important than some sort of linkage to target exposure.

[JasonC]

No "wow" is justified, it is an entirely vanilla task, part of emplacing an artillery battery. First you get the guns set up, but once all that is done you go to "improve positions", aka dig in. And part of the task list there is to set up the MG perimeter for the battery, make a fire plan, sight them and dig them in, fill out range cards, etc. Everyone involved is supposed to know about it. The only point was, it isn't a game abstraction.

[Battlefront.com]

Lewis,

I didn't know you were one of our original Beta Testers. I mean, if you were the driving force behind these suggestions then you must have been since the movement order discussion has been around since Alpha stage.

We did not want to have 10 different move orders (there have been many more subtle move order suggestions, which I guess you came up with as well) and thought things would work fine with the layout in CM1. After months of playing and probably millions of games played, it became clear to us that we need to introduce a little bit more flexibility. So these new movement orders for CM2 will be part of a fresh look at all movement orders in general. Exepct a nice new menu for CM2

Jason, good point about the cover rating being an important factor. I also like the random chance of "failing" to open up full bore. I imagine this being something like not having enough belts linked up, the spare barrel not ready, a jittery loader, etc. If we do put in a random factor it should be based on Experience IMHO. The more experienced, the less likely the unit will fail to fire full bore.

Steve

[tss]

Big Time Software wrote:

If we do put in a random factor it should be based on Experience IMHO. The more experienced, the less likely the unit will fail to fire full bore.

And during winter scenarios there's the possibility of MG crews leaving the oil in the bolt so that it will freeze, dropping the ROF down from 500 rounds/minute to whopping 10 rounds/minute or so.

That's a mistake that a large portion of green troops did on their first combat battles, and even some good units did that sometimes.

- Tommi

[Wreck]

I like the proposed CM2 move commands as well. However, I still think that a pinning effect that is exposure-based rather than morale based is a good idea. For one thing, it is general: a unit should go to ground when fired on in the open with sufficient firepower no matter what the source, be it artillery, MG fire, or even a sufficient bulk of riflemen. The principle is the same: it is too dangerous right now to be vertical.

Another thing I like about the idea is that it will tend to break up lines of advancing infantry. This is something neither the current run command nor the proposed assault will do, generally, unless fire is heavy enough to almost completely break up the attack. With the current system a line of infantry tends to arrive as a line, giving them more coordination than they probably deserve.

[aka_tom_w]

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

Another thing I like about the idea is that it will tend to break up lines of advancing infantry. This is something neither the current run command nor the proposed assault will do, generally, unless fire is heavy enough to almost completely break up the attack. With the current system a line of infantry tends to arrive as a line, giving them more coordination than they probably deserve.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with this completely!!!

"With the current system a line of infantry tends to arrive as a line, giving them more coordination than they probably deserve"

Good point

Rushing infantry do tend to stay in a line, I would like to see at least some of them be forced to go to ground when assualting any MG over an expanse of open terrain.

-tom w

And of course (while this has not really been discussed I would like to see ALL these great changes some how retro fitted and compatible with CMBO which is still a GREAT game and I for one Prefer the Post D-Day ETO as one of the MOST interesting theatres and periods of the war. (but thats jsut my personal opinion).I'm getting a VERY good feeling that if Steve and Charles successfully execute all their new GREAT ideas that they have hinted about here, in CM2 it will be ONE heck of a GREAT sequel!!!! Thanks for all the hints and insights. So far the tweaks proposed by Steve to the "Rush the MG position over open terrain" problem should really positive and effective at dealing with what is now a well defined and known "issue".

-tom w

[aka_tom_w]

oops

[ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[JasonC]

"a possible effect of enough firepower on troops with high exposure, should be that they slow down."

OK, I looked into this aspect of things, which is related to how CM handles morale for guys in the open now. In particular, whether they get more "determined" to "press on until they reach cover", or instead go to ground even if the ground is open, or instead break. I also wanted to test if this was a result of the way "run", in particular, works today.

So I ran a test with 2 US MMGs against 2 German rifle 44 platoons. The two sides start 200 yards apart, each in woods. The US doesn't move - they are on the objective, which is a ~80 yard across body of woods; the MGs are ~20 yards from each other. No foxholes. The Germans advance across 200 yards of open field, into the same body of woods as the US MMGs, and KO them there. There are some scattered trees around the clearing, off to either side, but no one tries to use them to flank. Incidentally, the German HQs are +1/+1/+1/0 and +1/0/+1/0 respectively - I did not want "2" HQ abilities throwing the test off, so I reduced a couple of those.

But the Germans *move*. No run. This allows them to use "marching fire" to try to suppress the MGs, but also means the time to cross the field will be 2-3 minutes, not 1.

So, what happens? Overall, the Germans KO both MGs for the loss of 5 men. But how it happens also matters.

The first units that are effected by the MG fire, do not continue their move rate. They *speed up*. They are trying to reduce their time in the open, to "press on to cover".

But this then has an immediate consequence. They get ahead of the rest of the moving skirmish line. Being closer, they draw *more* of the fire from the MGs. In the first minute, they front two are "shaken" and "alerted" respectively, running, while the rest continue to walk.

The squads fire back at the MGs 22 times, but hit no one and only push 1 to "alerted" in the first minute - a result of woods cover (~14% exposure numbers).

The second minute, the running front squads reach the woodline with another loss each, and immediately hit the deck. One is pinned, the other panics. The panicked one tries to run away from the MG fire, and goes 40 yards along the woodline, hits the deck, and there recovers to "cautious" by the end of the minute. The pinned one recovers and close-combats the nearest MG, KOing it by the end of the minute for 1 additional casualty.

The rest of the squads continue their walk, and overall the squads fire 25 times. The remaining MG is still has all 5 men, but is pinned by this fire, and at the start of the following (3rd) turn, panicks, breaks, routs, and late in the turn loses 3 men. It is wiped out at the start of the 4th turn.

So overall, the front 2 squads each lost a man in the first minute, and went into some sort of "not-quite-panicked" morale state, in which they pressed for cover but were going to face some morale "hit" or "collapse" as soon as they reached it - or varying severity. They lost 3 more in the next minute, one avoided the enemy and the other KOed the enemy because the close combat odds were good enough.

The rest of the force was quite effectively shielded by the "front-runners" drawing the fire. Their marching fire was not lethal at all, but once under 100 yards with many shooters, did break the remaining MG - though global morale might have hurt there too (other MG dead, no command, etc).

I tried it again with 4 US MMGs. This time the Germans lost 24 men, but KOed the MG position. The story was similar, but the forward squads where more badly handled, and after them enough firepower remained to hurt the following main skirmish line.

Specifically, in the 1st minute the lead squad lost 3 men, is shaken, and is running. Another nearby squad has lost no one, but is also shaken and running.

In the second minute, the 4 MGs hit 11 men. The two forward squads are going fast enough to reach the tree line. One makes it with 4 men down, gets pinned, and ends the turn with 6 men down and pinned. It did not close combat because it was a little too far from each of 2 MGs, that were lighting it up.

The second, without any losses, panics then breaks in the open, and runs sideways toward some scattered trees. It reaches them unharmed and recovers to alterted! by the end of the 2nd minute.

As those clear, the rest of the line takes fire and 8 more men are hit (11 all told in the 2nd minute), some accelerating to "run" under the fire. They shoot back 22 times with little apparent effect, perhaps a few altereds or cautious results at most.

In the 3rd minute, everybody and his brother reaches the treeline, taking fire in the process of course, and it is just close combat after that. It ends quickly, with 10 additional German losses, 3 KOed MGs, and 1 man down on the last by the end of the 3rd minute. In the fourth the last MG loses 3 men rapidly and the last one surrenders.

The overall losses for the attacking force were 39%. 1 squad was left with 1 man, essentially KOed (1xK98 rifle anyone?) Another was untouched in loss terms but rattled (!). The remaining 4 lost 2,2,6,6 men, the -6 men each keeping their MG and 1 MP, becoming little MG nests as it were.

It seems to me in the above there is a definite problem with the movement effects of taking fire. And it is by no means obvious what the right answer is. Because there are many other situations in which the present way of handling that would indeed be right, where units should get the heck out of the open ASAP, and worry about panicking later.

If the units slowed instead of speeded up, then the assault would look much more realistic under "move". The first units hit would go to ground (or crawl, same thing in effect). Others would move past them, and fire would them shift to the foremost one. The whole line would caterpiller along. That would be great, and it is just what you suggest.

The problem is, not every move situation is like such assaults. Sometimes it is suicide to go to ground in the open, when there is good cover, *unoccupied by the enemy*, not very far away.

This part of the problem then, seems to be a need to distinguish between enemy occupied cover and distant cover and cover sought forward on the one hand, from unoccupied cover and nearby cover and cover sought to the flanks or rear, on the other hand.

Sometimes it makes sense to *accelerate* toward the *second* of those categories of cover. But if the movement waypoint is not toward that sort of cover, the unit should *slow* because of incoming fire, instead of speeding up.

Incidentally, it would also be less ruinous to go to "crawl" or stationary in the open, if the cover from that were better than moving, assaulting, running. Even if the effect is not large. How so? A small cover difference may lead the enemy shooter to prefer a different target, at a slightly greater range. Thus going to ground can works as an "after you, Alfonsi" sort of thing.

For what it is worth.

[ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Battlefront.com]

Wreck,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However, I still think that a pinning effect that is exposure-based rather than morale based is a good idea. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh, I agree. This is something we have had in mind for a while, but it is a fundamental change to the core engine. Everything would have to be changed to work with this seperation. So... not going to happen for CM2, but will certainly happen for the rewrite.

As with some of the other abstractions in CM, the combined morale/FP effect system works very well almost all the time. However, depending on the unit Experience, terrain, incomming firepower, losses, actions of other units, etc. this combined system isn't as flexible as we would like it to be. In other words, some situations call for a certain outcome that is difficult to assure with the current system. Not impossible mind you, just not as likely.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Another thing I like about the idea is that it will tend to break up lines of advancing infantry. This is something neither the current run command nor the proposed assault will do, <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In theory, I don't think this is correct. I think one of the big impacts of the Assault Move is that you will see much more staggered "go for broke" attacks like we have been discussing here. Some units will NOT be capable of using the order in the first place, so that will leave some units behind. Others will get into the groove and decide to stop along the way and err on the side of returning fire instead of advancing. Others will keep on trucking. In short, I expect to see very diversified behavior when doing this sort of all out rush tactic.

Jason,

Some more good work there. I agree with your take on what you saw. I also agree, very strongly, with this comment in particular:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The problem is, not every move situation is like such assaults.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This gets right to the heart of the matter. We are trying to simulate a hugely diverse environment where there can be any number of different situations with any number of possible "right" or "wrong" behavior patterns.

I am being perfectly honest when I say that Charles and I never thought we would get Combat Mission to handle this diversity as well as it does. It is probably the single biggest (and gratifying) surprise when we look at Combat Mission as a whole. For every one thing it does "wrong", it does hundreds of things "right". But of course people tend to see the one thing more than the hundreds. That is just human nature

As you pointed out, one of the problems is that sometimes the correct behavior (i.e. running for cover) is sometimes pointed in the wrong direction (i.e. towards the enemy). Some of this isn't so hard to imagine as being realistic, but it most likely does happen too much. It is a very hard problem to solve, so I am not sure how much we can improve upon this for CM2. I know Charles and I have kicked around a few suggestions in the recent past, but damned if there wasn't some sort of drawback to each. So we will just have to see.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Incidentally, it would also be less ruinous to go to "crawl" or stationary in the open, if the cover from that were better than moving, assaulting, running.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I forgot to mention that Charels plans on hooking in "Crawl" to TacAI decisions a lot more than right now. Previously he used "Run" a lot because, from a game system standpoint, it was the better order to be used. However, now that Run will be near suicide in the types of cases we have been discussing here, Crawl is going to make much more sense more often than before. Crawl will, however, not totally replace Run within the TacAI behavior patterns.

Tommi,

The winter jamming problem is something we need to take a seperate look at. I think you can guess we will be picking your brain for info on effects and such in the near future

Steve

P.S. In resposne to an earlier "comment' by Lewis. I am spending my time in this thread because I that it will help CM2. We never have, and never will, claim to have all the answers. Although I firmly believe we already have the basic structure we need to make positive changes for these issues, there is certainly room for improvement. Jason's previous post gave us a couple of great suggestions BTW, so my time here is being well spent. If it was just a bunch of whining about "my MGs should kill everybody" I would be doing something else with my time. Not that you have any business commenting on how I spend my time.

[ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]

[Michael Dorosh]

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

Big Time Software wrote:

If we do put in a random factor it should be based on Experience IMHO. The more experienced, the less likely the unit will fail to fire full bore.

And during winter scenarios there's the possibility of MG crews leaving the oil in the bolt so that it will freeze, dropping the ROF down from 500 rounds/minute to whopping 10 rounds/minute or so.

That's a mistake that a large portion of green troops did on their first combat battles, and even some good units did that sometimes.

- Tommi<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How about dropping the belt in the snow, then firing it? I remember putting a rifle mag down on some snow and then loading it firing a round or two (on the range). The snow which I thought had been cleared away from the lips actually got inside the weapon, melted, then froze, turning the chamber to ice. The weapon jammed utterly, even with the forward assist. I had to leave the firing point and watch as the range WO brushed out the big chunks of ice from the weapon.

Lots can go wrong with inexperienced troops.

[Simon Fox]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I like the proposed CM2 move commands as well. However, I still think that a pinning effect that is exposure-based rather than morale based is a good idea.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I absolutely agree with this. The current implementation means that units with good morale (ie veteran or above, those with a good leader) will persist in dangerous behaviour longer than you might otherwise want them too. Often if you've got a good overwatch situation you just want your point unit to hit the deck and look after themselves.

[Username]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Robert Mayer:

Ah, who cares about silly things like machine guns when there are horses to get into the game! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Whats the exposure for being on a horse? If running is 75% (same as moving?), then being on a horsey must be higher?

[ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: Username ]

[Michael Emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

I also like the random chance of "failing" to open up full bore. I imagine this being something like not having enough belts linked up, the spare barrel not ready, a jittery loader, etc.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Or the crew taking casualties or getting suppressed before they can get onto the target...

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

I think one of the big impacts of the Assault Move is that you will see much more staggered "go for broke" attacks like we have been discussing here. Some units will NOT be capable of using the order in the first place, so that will leave some units behind. Others will get into the groove and decide to stop along the way and err on the side of returning fire instead of advancing. Others will keep on trucking. In short, I expect to see very diversified behavior when doing this sort of all out rush tactic.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very intriguing, but I'm not sure I'm getting all this, especially the sentence, "Some units will NOT be capable of using the order in the first place..." If it isn't giving away trade secrets, Steve, could you just elaborate on that a little?

Michael

[JasonC]

Well, I for one do not notice the 1 more than the 100. I mean, I bought the game 4 months ago, and I have to do a detailed test to find this sort of behavior - LOL. It was relatively hard to find simply because I don't normally make a tactical point of moving 62 men at 4 MGs, frontally, at a walk, through open ground. The things I do more often, work great in game terms, of course. But if someone did that to me and it worked, I am sure it would be noticeable enough.

Everything you say sounds great, but I have one remaining suggestion. You talked about how you and Charles considered a number of possible movement things, but there is always some wrinkle with each solution. I can believe it, because the first one I thought of, I quickly noticed had just such a wrinkle.

I thought, measure from next plotted waypoint to nearest known enemy to that waypoint ("=NxWy", and compare with present range to nearest known enemy ("=PrRg"). If the first is less then half the second, then it is an "advance" move, go to slow down. Otherwise, as now.

The wrinkle is players may set waypoints far beyond the target area they are attacking, and then use "halt" to stop. The idea was, I didn't want to have to check too many distances, so only those between known, already plotted locations would be asked about. I don't know if there is a salvagable form of that idea, but it seems to me now that it is too complicated. An example of "wrinkle", anyway.

My second take on it is to focus much more on the unit taking the fire, and on routines that seem to be used now. What about something like this?

In alerted or cautious morale states, if taking fire in the open, then check (in pseudocode) -

"If I speed up, can I reach cover following my current waypoint path within 30 seconds? If yes, speed up. Else, slow down."

End pseudocode I. If the fire or unit quality is worse, you will get results that would push to shaken or pinned sometimes. In those cases, make a different check (overrides the previous, don't do the previous) - start pseudocode II -

"Where is the nearest cover?" (somewhat like panic routine now) "If I speed up, can I reach the nearest cover in 15 seconds? If yes, change waypoint to nearest cover and speed up. Else, keep original waypoint and go to ground" (pinned or crawling).

End pseudocode II. Notice, in the case of the pinned and crawling, they still have the original waypoint, so if/when their morale recovers, they may get continue on.

Obviously, below pinned there are the panic, broken, and routed results. Leave those as they are.

The idea is to allow the present "determined" sort of behavior, only in the case of lesser morale "dips", and only over relatively limited distances (30 second rush). Otherwise, taking fire slows them down.

Deeper morale dips will make a unit break for cover if there is some nearby, and hit the deck otherwise. Panic etc like they are now.

Something to test, more than anything, unless you see obvious holes in it. Whether it works well in practice, you'd just have to see.

I'd think the change from now would not be great in most common "shot in the open" situations. Most of the time, the next bit of cover along the path is not too far off, adn the open ground shot is a sort of "snapshot" between better protected areas.

The deeper dip rule might drive people into nearby cover instead of continuing the mission a bit more often, but it is not clear that is bad. (Do all shaken and pinned units continue to their assigned spot? No).

But the change in long stretches of open ground should be pretty dramatic - much less "bulling forward" and much more caution. I mean, with regulars I notice "shaken" results on the front-runners quite often in wide open rushes. They'd be eating dirt. Even limited fire could drop rushers into "move", if the distance is too far, while they would continue the rush if the distance was close enough.

Just an idea to play with, whatever it may be worth.

[WineCape]

To sum up to any latecomers to this post, kick started by Jason's well postulated introduction:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>JasonC: MG teams do not have the firepower to prevent movement in CM today, even in open ground. They do not have the firepower to prevent movement across long stretches of open ground when the target is *continuously* under their fire….. But right now, [squads] can run clear …[through firing lanes]… and do fine.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

JasonC:

But any change to the [MG] effective firepower can cause other realism problems. To wit:…you can raise MG firepower everywhere. This makes them uber-weapons, because it unduly increases their effectiveness against non-moving units, units in good cover, etc.

The solution is to increase the firepower of MGs against troops moving in the open….because the real problem with the way rushes happen now is a cover effect, not a fire-lane effect, and the role of firelanes can be abstractly and on-average included in the solution.

Therefore, to solve the problem of MGs not killing the ….[the whole]…squads they do manage to shoot during rushes, the factor that needs to be changed in % exposed…. What are the advantages of this approach, compared to the others?

(i) it allows the [fire] effect to depend on whether the target is in the open.

(ii) Instead of the MG transitioning to much higher firepower against just any moving target, or just any target in the open, let it get that bonus only if the target is exposed long enough to shot at it repeatedly. This discriminates wide areas of open ground from small patches of it.

(iii) There is no need to burden the TacAI with the selection of fire lanes.

BTS:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The major problem with CM1 as is has to do with Run movement being too generous with cover. Knock that down and you would see a significant reduction in effectiveness from dashing over an isolated position by fresh forces.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

BTS:

The other problem is that at very close ranges MGs aren't allowed to "go for broke". I think the Run-move-cover factor and/or speed (one or the other needs to be reduced), the TacAI behaviour assigned to the Run move, and the lack of "going for broke" behaviour is far more at fault for producing less than reasonable MG results.

[The] Run [command] provides too much cover. Reduce cover, increase exposure to fire. This means greater chance of getting pinned and/or taking casualties. Run overrides adverse behaviour too much. Units that should be altering course or getting pinned down are probably being driven forward due to a sort of programmed "determination" for the unit to remain moving to the destination. If we lower this, the unit will have a greater chance of faltering, which increases the chance of being pinned and/or taking casualties.

So, BTS proposes the following solution ….

(i) Changing the character of the Run/Move to be a very risky order when under fire. Minimum cover, weak return fire, and maximum speed.

(ii) Adding an Assault Move. This will offer decent cover, decent return fire, and a speed somewhere inbetween Run and Move. The order will only be available to units which are in good shape (like passing a morale check of sorts). Success of the Assault Move will depend heavily on Experience and Leadership bonuses.

(iii) Adding "go for broke" MG last ditch defensive fire [hot-MG]. Once an enemy target gets too close the MG will increase the number of times it can fire in a given slice of time. We will have to code up some logic to prevent this from happening in any and all circumstances or MGs could quickly run out of ammo after just one mad rush by the attacker. I also like the random chance of "failing" to open up full bore. I imagine this being something like not having enough belts linked up, the spare barrel not ready, a jittery loader, etc. If we do put in a random factor it should be based on Experience IMHO. The more experienced, the less likely the unit will fail to fire full bore.

JasonC:

The main thing to avoid [also] would be "hot" MGs regularly firing at people in cover, just because they were fairly close. MGs aren't assault guns. So linking "go hot" to target exposure might cover that case. As for having something random in it, the idea is that will leave lone MGs fairly vunerable to rushes, especially short ones. Larger groups of MGs would have 1-2 go hot, with greater certainty. So 4 interlocking MGs would take on a characteristic that 1-2 would not necessarily have - to wit, a high probability at least one of the MGs gets "hot

Even the added suggestion of tss -- randomness due to weather conditions -- sounds fine:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>And during winter scenarios there's the possibility of MG crews leaving the oil in the bolt so that it will freeze, dropping the ROF down from 500 rounds/minute to whopping 10 rounds/minute or so.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In closing, I thank Jason (and all above) for putting forth their ideas to get the bottom of MG effectiveness issue, as well as BTS for his insight and readiness to have a closer look at the issue. BTS has shown great faith in their willingness to LISTEN TO WELL POSTULATED, sans flaming, POSTS*.

Keep up this excellent support -- we will always refer friends to buy this top-notch game.

Kind Regards from sunny South Africa

Charl Theron

[Nabla]

Thanks for the great summary. I am also very, very happy to see the way BTS is branpicking wargame experts on this bulletin board. In addition to providing a nice way for experts to share their knowledge, it will most probably result in a better end product.

What a great community has been built around CM.