My problems with covering arcs...

[Canuck]

A couple points here.

I've been playing through the demo tutorial (FINALLY beat it with the germans ) and I've encountered some serious problems with squads who are covering an arc. Specifically, in one instance a Russkie squand flanked me (damn AI) and came up beside my squad and started firing at them from almost a point blank range. My squad proceeded to do nothing except cover their arc with an even greater fury! Now I know that i've ordered them to watch this area but shouldn't a sense of self-preservation kick in somewhere? Shouldn't they, upon being fired upon from an unknown source, turn and face their attackers?

One question I was wondering is whether covering arcs replace the "ambush" order? Because I could not seem to place an ambush with any of my CO's so I was forced instead to use an extremely short covering arc in place of an ambush command.

[offtaskagain]

Originally posted by Canuck:

One question I was wondering is whether covering arcs replace the "ambush" order? Because I could not seem to place an ambush with any of my CO's so I was forced instead to use an extremely short covering arc in place of an ambush command.

Yup, covered arcs do indeed replace ambush.

[Len]

I had a problem with a covered arc too.

I set one up for the Axis gun in the demo, and it worked great - didn't engage the T34 until it entered the zone. However, as the T34 moved out of the arc to escape the fire, the gun ceased firing.

Is this a case of "working as designed"?

[Le Tondu]

Hmmm. It looks to me that a little tweaking may be in order.

One way to handle both issues to have the covered arc be 360 degrees AND to a sufficient distance away from the unit. Maybe have a second AT gun to take over if the first one loses lock? Defense in depth?

(I offer this as a quick bandaid until it gets fixed.)

I think this sort of thing is what issuing a demo is all about. We have a whole lot more eyes and ears than the beta team.

As for the lack of official comment, I'd say that is evidence of them looking at it. OR they're ignoring it. (Which I doubt.)

[ September 12, 2002, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: Le Tondu ]

[WWB]

Both the above incidents are working as designed. A unit is either covering its arc or not. Making a unit intlligent enough to decide when to abandon the arc is a very, very big can of worms. Most likely, it would abandon it when you did not want it to, leading to similar complaints as above.

I have been playing CMBB for a while now, and I find that I rarely use covered arcs now. They a tool with a purpose, not something you should rely on for all situations.

WWB

[Schrullenhaft]

What wwb_99 said is true. The higher the experience level of the unit, the more likely it will stick to its 'covered arc' and ignore other units/targets outside of the arc. Lower experience units will shoot outside of the covered arc more often (less fire discipline).

I was under the impression that units will go into self-preservation mode (fire on the attacker) if they are attacked outside of their covered-arc and the attacker is sufficiently close enough. However if the attacker is out of the covered arc and/or behind the 180 degree front view of the unit, then it may be able to get a bit of punishment in before the unit will respond.

With enough user input (from possibly hundreds of players) it may be possible to tweak the behavior with a future patch. Again, as wwb_99 pointed out, this can be very problematic since such tweaking will reverse desired behaviors at some point - it's all a balancing act. Changing something like this right now may be 'jumping the gun' and result in further tweaks to reverse the change. It's going to be something that people are going to have different opinions about.

[ September 12, 2002, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Runyan99]

I would argue that you used the cover arc poorly here.

If the enemy is close enough that a Russkie squad can move around and get right beside your squad, then that is a poor time to use a covered arc. Save the cover arc for stand-off situations and ambushes where the flanks are more certain to be secure.

[Cameroon]

I don't think the covered arcs should be tweaked much, if at all. My reason is similar to wwb_99's and Runyan99's.

I use covered arcs frequently, but I cover my flanks and use 180 degree arcs at offset angles and frequently change the arc as the situation warrants. I look at like this, if you don't cover your flank, it's your own fault I did that once before I changed my approach.

Now, if I've got a platoon using covered arcs that could receive fire from a flank, I create an overlapping wedge of cover arcs that cover flanks & front.

[ September 12, 2002, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Cameroon ]

[Ben Galanti]

Does using covered arcs give any kind of spotting bonus? 'Focusing' on an area or something like that? Or does it just restrict where they shoot?

Just wondering if it's worth setting up different overlapping arcs for different squads in a platoon, or should I just set them all to 180...

Ben

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Le Tondu:

One way to handle both issues to have the covered arc be 360 degrees...

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you use a covered arc at all if you are going to make it 360°? Unless, you meant to prevent your units from firing until targets entered within close range...

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Ben Galanti:

Does using covered arcs give any kind of spotting bonus? 'Focusing' on an area or something like that?

I would like to hear about this as well. Logically, I would expect that it would, but I have a hunch that it doesn't. (Of course, there should be a corresponding spotting penalty outside the arc. And logically the penalty for outside the arc should be greater than the bonus for inside.)

Michael

[ September 12, 2002, 03:48 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, what the other guys said

Covered Arcs are a fantastic tool, but they do have their limitations. The best use of a Covered Arc is to define med-long range responsibilities for suppression or awaiting armor/vehicles in ambush.

In Yelnia, for example, as the Germans I use Covered Arcs for most of the beginning phase of the game. However, at some point there are so many targets and they are getting closer I wipe out my Arcs and just let them take on all comers. Works great.

Ben, I don't think there is any spotting bonus except for the fact that they won't get distracted.

Steve

[SaTyR]

Covered arcs are great ! In one tcp/ip game (Yelnia stare) I had my veteran germans ambush the oncoming russians near the (german side) left forest´s edge. My 81mm mortar FO fired at the first wave, sending them reeling back. Only on platoon leader survived/made it to the forest. My covered arcs were about 20m in lenght at 45 degrees angle. The russian platoon leader never wandered through the arcs, but took cover extremely near of one of my squads (approx. 15m) but the veterans kept on hiding and I got the next russian wave by surprise ! Their fire discipline was awesome. This coupled with the new EFOW really negates the "recon with one half squad" tactic (IMHO) because if you miss the ambushing line or the arcs even just a bit, you´re really in for a nasty surprise.

Cheers

[MikeyD]

There a couple of commands in the game that the 200+ page manual will really come in handy for. Cover Arcs takes a bit of practice and a bit of technique. Before you complain too much remember back on the CMBO board the howls about tanks suddenly rotating their turrets 180 degrees from an armor threat to take care of some lowly infantry. Cover Arcs handily fixes that BIG problem.

You think the Beta testers weren't up on 'Cover Arcs'? The FIRST thing that was said was "The main board's gonna squeal like stuck pigs when they see this!"

[ September 12, 2002, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Michael Dorosh]

I ran through the Demo Tutorial as Germans, just unhiding at start and hitting GO every turn because I wanted to get to the scenario end screen for some mod work.

The Germans won 86 to 14.

[Renaud]

The covered arc feature is working great for me. I don't think it needs any changes. As long as you understand that units will literally obey the designated covered arc, you will be OK. If you want 360 coverage, specify a 360 arc. If you want a keyhole 5 degree coverage, specify that, but be aware of the risks if you get flanked.

If you try to mitigate the penalties for mistakes in plotting covered arcs on the part of a human player by allowing the AI to conditionally override arcs, you will create more problems than solutions. People will then complain, "My guys disobeyed covered arc orders in such-and-such a situation and got wasted, please fix or somfink!"

Many times I will specify microscopic 'covered arcs' only for the purpose of making sure my units never open fire until I manually target something. In CMBO I used 'ambush' for this, by plotting ambushes in the opposite direction of the enemy, so the unit would not fire unless they got walked on. This helped prevent those trigger happy green troops from blowing cover too soon.

Ren