Pausing in the middle of a turn?

[lewallen]

This is a difficulty I've been trying to find a way around for some time, and I'm wondering if any one else has experienced it. I'm having a hard time getting "top-hat/lowski"/"berm-drill" tactics to work (where you place a tank on a hill's reverse slope, then set orders to move to the top and reverse back down, zig-zagging along the top of the hill). I find that the faster the vehicle, the worse the tactic works (in CM, whereas in RL it should work best with fast vehicles).

For example, I've taken a real fondness to Hellcats. When I issue them orders to Move to the top and then Reverse back down, as they move to the top, they see the enemy tank, turn the turret, depress the gun, and by this time because they're so damn fast they're in reverse headed back out of LOS before they have a chance to fire.

What I'm looking for is a way to put a pause order in the middle of a move, like: Move to top of hill, Pause (preferably for some shorter period of time than 15 seconds, but even 15 seconds would work), *then* Reverse down the hill. That would give the tank enough time to acquire, lay the gun, fire 1 or 2 shots, and then get the F outta Dodge.

I've tried using the Hunt command to get them to the top of the hill, but the problem is that when a tank is in Hunt mode, it will stop and engage an enemy tank until either the enemy or itself dies. With a Hellcat, this is not a good tactic (duh ).

So in Hunt mode, they go up to the top of the hill, acquire target, lay gun, fire, fire, fire, fire, and then get knocked out by either the tank they're shooting at (who by this time has figured out where the shots are coming from and faced strong armor towards it and is beginning to return fire) or by another tank or AT gun or something.

So: is there any way to avoid this unfortunate situation, and if not, will there be a way to do so in CM:BB? The ability to add a pause command in the middle of an order instead of just at the beginning would be really handy, and it would also help if the pauses came in 5 second blocks. Then you could use it for short-distance overwatch bounding (infantry, for instance: two squads, one rushes 50m, pauses, say 25 or 30 seconds, second squad rushes 50m, pauses, etc., would work equally well for tanks), top-hat/lowski, and for generally tighter control over your troops.

Comments?

~Sam (Lewallen)

[Slappy]

I usually plot moves for faster vehicles further over the crest. This gives them the same exposure time, and the fast US vehicles generally have fast turrets as well, meaning that target acquisition isn't a problem, even if moving. It's not great, but it does give you the time you need to get a shot off. I'm not sure that a 15sec pause for a vehicle like a Hellcat would really be any better.

[Silvio Manuel]

You could use maybe 45 sec worth of pauses, then Move/Hunt over the crest (keeping hulldown if possible), and either: also give the reverse order , or not and give it at the start of the next turn...this uses the turn barrier as the mid-maneuver "pause." Only bad thing about that is that being exposed at the start of a turn gives your opponent a chance to "unhide" AT guns and fire at you.

[lewallen]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

You could use maybe 45 sec worth of pauses, then Move/Hunt over the crest (keeping hulldown if possible), and either: also give the reverse order , or not and give it at the start of the next turn...this uses the turn barrier as the mid-maneuver "pause." Only bad thing about that is that being exposed at the start of a turn gives your opponent a chance to "unhide" AT guns and fire at you.

That's the tactic that I usually end up using, but the problem is that it takes a lot of time; most of the time of the turn is spent in pause, rather than moving and shooting.

Also, in reply to Slappy, the first difficulty with moving further over the crest is that you get more exposure; in a Hellcat especially this is bad, since you're vulnerable to almost anything, incl flak guns, light AT, etc., and most Allied tanks are more vulnerable in general than their German counterparts. Also, it makes you easier to spot, plus the tanks are less accurate when moving (though also harder to hit).

I think a 10 second pause would be just about right for a veteran crew if they spot the enemy as soon as they crest the hill. a 5 second pause would work if they can lay their gun on target just before they stop moving.

[buckshyesh]

How about a few extra move-reverse commands at the top of the hill?

Figure out the time it takes to do a 2-meter back-and-forth move, divide that by the time it takes to acquire and shoot, and that will give you the number of extra moves to plot. Of course, during an IP game, you'll have to make a best guess.

And make sure you stay in LOS and hull down during the duration of all the extra moves to get all of the Top Hat and Lowski benefits.

[Pak40]

How about using the Fast command to get the Hellcat onto the crest, then use the Move command for about 5-10 meters, then use the reverse command. This should give the Hellcat enough time to squeez off a shot. The Hellcat will also have a better chance of hitting his target with the MOVE command rather than the FAST command.

[109 Gustav]

BTS decided against a pause command because it would increase the micromanagement of CM way too much. I'm glad they did, becuase I really wouldn't want to do play a TCP game against an opponent who spends his time doing things like "hunt over the ridge, then pause for 10 seconds, then fast to the small house, then pause for 20 seconds, then move to the stone wall.

[YankeeDog]

Hard to say for sure, but it sound like this little problem is going to be fixed for CMBB with the addition of the "Shoot and Scoot" command. I haven't read any details about how exactly the command will work, but it's definitely in the game.

If the new "Shoot and Scoot" command will allow you to, say, order a tank to scoot out from behind one building, stopping and pop off a shot, and then scoot forward to behind the next building (the most traditional sense of "Shoot and Scoot"), I don't see why the command wouldn't also allow you to tank drive up to the top of a ridge, pop off a shot and then reverse back down; you're just using a forward and a reverse command rather than two forward commands.

Here's to hoping, anyway. Seems very reasonable to me, and I don't think a command that would implement like above would cause too much micromanaging. In fact, the current way that AFVs hunt up over a ridge seems rather unrealistic to me, especially for the "eggshells with sledgehammers" - i.e., Allied tank hunters. If I'm an Allied TC in an M10 and I hunt up over a ridge to see a platoon of panthers in the valley below me, at best I'm popping off 2-3 shots before I reverse back out of sight and save my @ss.

Cheers,

YD

[Olle Petersson]

My usual solution is to plot the movement so that the final order given is to hunt up to view.

Next order phase I plot the reverse, sidestep and new hunt.

The result over some turns is that the vehicle commonly end the turns in cover, hunt to the top where it pause in mid turn to activate the new orders before reversing back down and the turn ends.

Thus I use the order delays as a mid turn pause while keeping the vehicle hidden between turns.

Cheers

Olle

[lewallen]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

Hard to say for sure, but it sound like this little problem is going to be fixed for CMBB with the addition of the "Shoot and Scoot" command. I haven't read any details about how exactly the command will work, but it's definitely in the game.

If the new "Shoot and Scoot" command will allow you to, say, order a tank to scoot out from behind one building, stopping and pop off a shot, and then scoot forward to behind the next building (the most traditional sense of "Shoot and Scoot"), I don't see why the command wouldn't also allow you to tank drive up to the top of a ridge, pop off a shot and then reverse back down; you're just using a forward and a reverse command rather than two forward commands.

Here's to hoping, anyway. Seems very reasonable to me, and I don't think a command that would implement like above would cause too much micromanaging. In fact, the current way that AFVs hunt up over a ridge seems rather unrealistic to me, especially for the "eggshells with sledgehammers" - i.e., Allied tank hunters. If I'm an Allied TC in an M10 and I hunt up over a ridge to see a platoon of panthers in the valley below me, at best I'm popping off 2-3 shots before I reverse back out of sight and save my @ss.

Cheers,

YD

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about the shoot and scoot. I agree about the micromanagement bit; hopefully the shoot and scoot command will solve that. I'm also hoping that the TacAI in CM:BB will be a little smarter about when to stand toe-to-toe with another vehicle and slug it out vs. popping smoke and running for cover. The M18 basically needs to always only take one or two shots, and then run away, unless you have a juicy flank shot on a slow-turreted tank or something, and if you don't have the movement orders already plotted, it'll happily sit there and bang away as long as it thinks it has a chance of penetration, regardless of its vulnerablity to the enemy unit... :-p Oh well. Thanks for all the posts, everyone!

~Sam

[zukkov]

Originally posted by 109 Gustav:

BTS decided against a pause command because it would increase the micromanagement of CM way too much. I'm glad they did, becuase I really wouldn't want to do play a TCP game against an opponent who spends his time doing things like "hunt over the ridge, then pause for 10 seconds, then fast to the small house, then pause for 20 seconds, then move to the stone wall.

but by not having the pause available in mid turn, it causes the player to make many extra commands to achieve the same result as what he wanted. for instance, for a veteran tank crew, they have to insert many commands to be able to stay at the top of a hill long enough to acquire and fire on a target before backing down the hill again at the end of a turn. if the pause were available anytime during the turn, he could simply have hit the pause command once or twice, then put in the reverse command. the fact is, players ARE going to micromanage their units one way or the other. after all, a tank is a terrible thing to waste! lol...

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by zukkov:

Using the procedure I described above will give you a pause in mid turn, and there is only a minimum of orders given.

Cheers

Olle

[lewallen]

Originally posted by zukkov:

but by not having the pause available in mid turn, it causes the player to make many extra commands to achieve the same result as what he wanted. for instance, for a veteran tank crew, they have to insert many commands to be able to stay at the top of a hill long enough to acquire and fire on a target before backing down the hill again at the end of a turn. if the pause were available anytime during the turn, he could simply have hit the pause command once or twice, then put in the reverse command. the fact is, players ARE going to micromanage their units one way or the other. after all, a tank is a terrible thing to waste! lol...

I've been thinking about the micromanagement aspect of this, and I think I agree; for example, like Olle says, you make a pause in mid-turn by exploiting the unit delay time, so why make it an unnecessary pain to do by having to do that instead of just having a pause command that you could use mid-turn? And I think it's not unreasonable to expect that a CO or platoon commander could say, "OK 1st platoon (or squad), run to that building, sit there for 20 seconds firing at the enemy in the building across the street while 2nd platoon moves to better positions, then charge in and take the position" or something.

In addition to its uses for tophat/lowski (and sometimes it would be useful to be able to pause several times during a turn instead of just once like you get with the unit delay exploit), I'm thinking of situations where I'm, rushing a defensive position in, say, woods or tall pines, and it'd be nice to get my guys into the woods, and have some of them stop just inside the treeline and bang away at the enemy while other squads charge the foxholes, and then after waiting for 15 or so seconds, hop up and chase after the enemy, thus keeping the pressure on, instead of having to wait to the end of the next turn.

Human players will naturally try to make up for the limitations of the game engine or the TacAI. I frequently spend additional time during the setup phase tweaking unit positions for ideal line of sight, for example, because the TacAI isn't smart enough to know how to position itself in a good hull down position. (I know the Seek Hull-Down command is in CM:BB, I'm just using that as an example of the micro management that already occurs in the game.) So I think a mid-turn pause command would be a welcome addition.

~Sam