New Unit Order Idea

[Baron von Beergut]

If they ever do another patch, here's a thought:

I never do well with the shoot and scoot order so I generally don't use it.

But what about a shoot and hide or retreat type order?

Snipers are designed to fire once and then either hide or move elsewhere. Most game AT guns or light armored tank destroyers die easy after their first shot. Many MG's, snipers, etc reveal themselves in the first turn they fire by firing repeatedly.

So what if an order option could have them sit in their position, possibly in hide mode, and after that initial shot they could either go back into hide or retreat as in the shoot and scoot order? Allow this for any unit as there are plenty of possibilities for it's use, although primarily ideal for certain units.

Thoughts?

BvB/Scott

[Wicky]

No patches for CM1 games (apart from an 'alteration' to CMBB to enable it to run in Campaigns)

Using foresight and careful manipulation of orders as is can accomodate what you suggest - paused orders for units to sneak/ rotate/ reverse/ move + hide after a certain period can interupt them shooting away for a whole minute.

[ August 29, 2006, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[Baron von Beergut]

True, but if they are set up to fire when something comes into view you have no idea when that will happen and no way to control them during that initial firing turn if you didn't order that shot.

[Wicky]

Cover arcs are already provided and prove useful in such situations. Except for conscript and to some extent green troops (plus AI overides), you have control over fire disipline.

Originally posted by Baron von Beergut:

True, but if they are set up to fire when something comes into view you have no idea when that will happen and no way to control them during that initial firing turn if you didn't order that shot.

[Baron von Beergut]

true. But again as I said, once they open fire in their fire arc that turn they will continue to fire as long as a target is in that arc and thus reveal their position. My point is to have them fire once and go into hide again. Just as a sniper does - he's trained not to fire more than once from the same position in most cases. But in the game, he and any other unit will continue shooting until you get a chance the following turn to do new orders. So you have no control of their fire dicipline. Same with tank destroyers. They do not normally shoot and scoot as in the game (move/fire/move). They will wait for a target, shoot, and then scoot. Or possibly remain and not be seen if well camoflaged. When I was in a tank battalion with the old M48's, once we camoflaged a tank against a building in Korea and it was never seen by the other side. You couldn't do that in this game as the tank would fire in the game as much as it could for that turn.

[ August 29, 2006, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: Baron von Beergut ]

[DerBlitzer]

Yeah, I agree. It would be nice to have more control over the number of shots a unit or vehicle takes during that 60 seconds. Often, I'll send HE area fire from a tank at a building to suppress, but don't need it to fire more than a couple rounds. The pause command works nicely for movement, but I wish there were one for shooting.

[Wicky]

Originally posted by Baron von Beergut:

true. But again as I said, once they open fire in their fire arc that turn they will continue to fire as long as a target is in that arc and thus reveal their position. My point is to have them fire once and go into hide again. Just as a sniper does - he's trained not to fire more than once from the same position in most cases. But in the game, he and any other unit will continue shooting until you get a chance the following turn to do new orders. So you have no control of their fire dicipline. Same with tank destroyers. They do not normally shoot and scoot as in the game (move/fire/move). They will wait for a target, shoot, and then scoot. Or possibly remain and not be seen if well camoflaged. When I was in a tank battalion with the old M48's, once we camoflaged a tank against a building in Korea and it was never seen by the other side. You couldn't do that in this game as the tank would fire in the game as much as it could for that turn.

But you can control the distance of the cover arc - Say you have a TD hidden from set up in some scattered tree (camouflaged bonus), an enemy target wanders into view during a turn. In the orders phase you cancel the short covered arc and target the enemy and give a paused delay of a few secs to scoot out of LOS thereby achieving part of the effect your after. Admittedly if it initially passes through in & out of LOS without you taking a potshot -it is a problem and out of your control.

This princible use of commands is useful for controlling mortars as I agree they'll shoot until empty but it can be avoided. Paused rotation (& hide for troops) or movement to a position out of LOS is the way to bodge it. CM is like chess in that you need to look, reccie & plan ahead.

I wouldn't worry about in game the sharpshooters shooting all their ammo in one turn as It is unlikely to happen. Plus they are inherently stealthy enough, if in cover to avoid detection from a couple or 300m distance if shooting. If not shooting, troops can wander right on top of them without detection.

I could demonstate some of this in a PBEM but I don't have a OS9 bootable mac at present. :mad: Maybe in a week or two if you're interested.

[ August 30, 2006, 06:52 AM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[birdstrike]

The game has its shortcomings, but there are ways to work around it. Remember the core engine dates back to CMBO and many things we miss today were simply not possible/anticipated back then.

This is the way the old CM1 engine works, nothing that can (or will) be done about it (with CMSF on the horizon). We'll all have to wait and see how the new engine will deal with stuff like that, until then I can live with what I got.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Baron von Beergut:

They do not normally shoot and scoot as in the game (move/fire/move). They will wait for a target, shoot, and then scoot.

I am sure this was brought up as far back as CMBO. I know I mentioned the neat SOPs that TacOps has. One covers this situation pretty well. You can have a unit do a variety of things after taking a shot, such as pop smoke and/or reverse x number of meters.

Michael