Covered arc encourages fire???

[GreenAsJade]

Quite a few times recently, people have said "give your unit a covered arc, it encourages them to open fire".

I'm almost positive I read in the manual, or strategy guide, or some darn place that covered arc only limits what your unit will do.

Where before it might have fired at someone outside the area of interest now it will not.

But it is not supposed to mean "fire in here if at all possible".

Is there any evidence to the contrary?

Can anyone find/quote the reference that backs up my impression?

Thanks!

[Sublime]

Well... Ill try to answer this one.

Covered arcs are great. You let your troops keep their eyes open but can keep em from blastin away uselessly at targets 400 meters away.

Now, it encourages them to open fire on targets in their covered arc, because damn it, if somethings in it, you can be sure they'll shoot at it. If a unit has no orders they may not be shootin at something they can see. If its in the arc, they'll try to pop it.

[GreenAsJade]

Originally posted by Sublime:

Now, it encourages them to open fire on targets in their covered arc, because damn it, if somethings in it, you can be sure they'll shoot at it. If a unit has no orders they may not be shootin at something they can see. If its in the arc, they'll try to pop it.

This comment is exactly what I am questioning.

I'm sure I read that "Covered arcs only purpose is to limit fire to within the arc. A unit will not be distracted by something outside the arc,

(so for example a tank's turret won't get rotated away from where it needs to be by a distracting target) but its chance of opening fire on something in the arc is not changed compared to if the arc was not there. If it wasn't going to fire before you put the arc there, its still not going to even with the arc"

This is the impression I had: I'm willing to be

educated otherwise... but my question is how do you know? Are you sure?

This was triggered off again for me by

this thread about why won't my units open fire

where people said "add a covered arc to encourage them to fire".

If no-one knows for sure, I guess some tests are needed...

[Moon]

A covered arc will not encourage a unit to fire as such. If an enemy pops up within the arc, but is outside of effective range for example, the TacAI might not fire. The TacAI routines are still active with or without an arc, and while an arc limits the target selection, it doesn't turn your electronic soldiers into robots.

Martin

[GreenAsJade]

Originally posted by Moon:

A covered arc will not encourage a unit to fire as such. If an enemy pops up within the arc, but is outside of effective range for example, the TacAI might not fire. The TacAI routines are still active with or without an arc, and while an arc limits the target selection, it doesn't turn your electronic soldiers into robots.

Martin

Thanks for this info.

Just to make sure I understand: if, in a particular situation, a unit wasn't firing, then adding a covered arc won't change that?

This would be contrary to the advice offered

quite often... and it's very tempting to think otherwise. I'd swear I have units that stay hiding, but when I put in a covered arc they pop up and fire. Is this coincidence?

Thanks!

[Ligur]

Maybe the contradictory advice is because, in the end, they still appear to be more "willing" to fire because the units only have a limited sector to watch over and are more in tune to what is going on in their arc? This would just translate to reacting faster just because of the direction the unit is facing.

I.e. for example you see your tanks muzzle pointing towards the covered arc, surely they open fire faster? So one quickly thinks "whoa covered arc translates to my units engaging within the arc while other units just mill around in confusion." At least this is what I always thought

But the units could behave completely the same cover arc or not, they just don't fire outside the arc unless threatened.

Hurrrr?

I am compelled to make tests with the editor, though this could be pretty difficult test to set up quickly while still giving results.

[Pfc Driscole James E]

I find the covered arc combined with a hide very useful. It keeps units from revealing their position too soon and makes them harder to spot.

It also helps conserve ammo if you make the covered arc just outside of any cover the bad guys are in so that your guys open up if they rush. Use indirect fire or MGs further back to suppress the bad guys in cover.

[GreenAsJade]

Originally posted by Ligur:

I am compelled to make tests with the editor, though this could be pretty difficult test to set up quickly while still giving results.

I thought the same myself! I opened up the editor, then stared at it for a while wondering how to test it, then returned to the forum to see if anyone else had

[Redwolf]

Martin,

I am pretty sure you or Steve said that a covered arc does make it more probable that a target in it gets fired on in an earlier thread.

Of course it is near impossible to find, anyone remembers the thread? It was pretty soon after the CMBB release.

[Monty]

A big advantage of using arcs (imho ) is this :

When you have multiple tanks, you can give each tank a section to cover.

If you dont do this, you see often this happening:

Your tank targets a squad? on 2 o clock at 600 meters....turret is turning and then.....he spots a better target on 10 o clock at 500 meters...turret is turning.....then he spots an even better target on 12 o clock at 550 meters ! etc

You can prevent this with arcs.

Be aware, when you know enemy armor is near, but you dont know in which section, DONT give arcs !

Monty

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Monty:

Be aware, when you know enemy armor is near, but you dont know in which section, DONT give arcs !

Monty

On the contrary, do give arcs, but make sure they are armor only and cover a wide area. Otherwise, you'll run the risk of having your armor focus on his infantry while his own tanks centers yours in his crosshairs.

[Ligur]

Also, I have found out that a tank appearing 500 meters to the left of your tank which has been assigned to cover an arc to the opposite direction will get attention pretty fast despite the arc. The TacAI is not suicidal. You can sometimes be pretty liberal without major disadvantage, though nobody probaply encourages it.

[Reichenberg]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Martin,

I am pretty sure you or Steve said that a covered arc does make it more probable that a target in it gets fired on in an earlier thread.

Of course it is near impossible to find, anyone remembers the thread? It was pretty soon after the CMBB release.

I think I read that too in an older thread, but IIRC the increased targeting probability is due to your unit facing the center of the arc, if a cover arc command is given. Therefore the statistical chance of an enemy unit to be spotted earlier (and attacked) is higher than with the unit facing a different direction.

But that is only what I remember. My search skills (for the mentioned thread) are not the best

Regards

Uwe

Edit: Poor spelling - sorry

[ June 25, 2003, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Wassermann ]

[YankeeDog]

Moon -

Not to jump on the pigpile, but I too recall Steve posting that units with covered arcs are *more* likely to open fire on units within their covered arc than units without any covered arc set at all. IIRC, Steve stated something to the effect that this mostly came into play in situations where the TacAI's 'open fire' decision process was 'on the edge' of opening/not opening fire due to a low (but not non-existent) chance of actually causing damage and/or limited ammo supply.

Since reading this on the forum, I have been using max range 180 degree covered arcs on overwatch units and they do seem more liberal with their ammo than they would be without any covered arcs at all.

If I have time tonight, I'll try to do a search and find Steve's post. If Steve never posted to this effect, I am going to have to have my head examined. . .

Cheers,

Nick

[Moon]

I haven't seen Steve's post so I can't comment directly, but - thinking about it now, yes, there could be a tiny advantage in those situations when ammo is running low.

Additionally, I forgot to mention, that units with cover arcs will engage their targets a tad quicker, i.e. with less delay from the beginning of the targetting process to the first shot. This due to a mix of various factors, like fewer targets to choose from, already having the right facing most of the time, and simply better responsiveness because the orders that unit has ("fire at anything that moves down the road") are much clearer - and so on.

In other words, Steve is probably right, as usual Just don't listen to me...

Martin

[dalem]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Martin,

I am pretty sure you or Steve said that a covered arc does make it more probable that a target in it gets fired on in an earlier thread.

Of course it is near impossible to find, anyone remembers the thread? It was pretty soon after the CMBB release.

What you say is true redwolf. I was discussing how appalled I was that my units were not firing at targets within range and spotted, and one of the things that Steve G. told me in that thread was that I am "supposed" to use covered arcs to make troops more willing to buck the AI's new "stinginess" with ammo.

I remain appalled. I can't remember the title of that thread either, but it was sometime before last Thanksgiving I believe, main CMBB forum.

-dale

p.s. I think I found it HERE.

[ June 25, 2003, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: dalem ]

[Monty]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Monty:

Be aware, when you know enemy armor is near, but you dont know in which section, DONT give arcs !

Monty

On the contrary, do give arcs, but make sure they are armor only and cover a wide area. Otherwise, you'll run the risk of having your armor focus on his infantry while his own tanks centers yours in his crosshairs. </font>

[demoss]

Just remember when giving armor covered arcs, you're ordering the unit to fire on anything that is a threat to armor, not anything that is armored (it's easy to forget the distinction). So your unit will happily watch SPW 251/1s, for instance, zip on by without taking a shot.