Squad Footprint - How does it look/work

[aka_tom_w]

I hope there will be stragglers and individuals running away (out of player control of course). This could even leave the door open for treating non-fatally wounded men in a similar way.

Good idea

Maybe you should suggest that in the 1:1 casualty thread?

(or not?) :confused:

interesting suggestion none the less!

-tom w

[hoolaman]

I did!

I think it is deserving of its own dedicated discussion though, since the other thread is pretty much spent.

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

I hope there will be stragglers and individuals running away (out of player control of course). This could even leave the door open for treating non-fatally wounded men in a similar way.

Any hints?

And what is even a bigger question is how will the guys that run recover? Me thinks it will not be good for everytime a man runs he is out of the game permenantly. But to keep from having 1:1 control, you need to wait for at least 3 or 4 to recover in order to establish an ad hoc unit.

[ September 14, 2005, 09:12 PM: Message edited by: David Chapuis ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by David Chapuis:

And what is even a bigger question is how will the guys that run recover? Me thinks it will not be good for everytime a man runs he is out of the game permenantly. But to keep from having 1:1 control, you need to wait for at least 3 or 4 to recover in order to establish an ad hoc unit.

My Spidey Sense is telling me that in the time scale of a CM battle, there wouldn't be enough time to round guys up and talk them into returning to the fight. From the accounts I have read, guys who broke individually as is being discussed here, were usually gone for the day.

Squads or larger units that had retained some cohesion but just balked could be located and maybe rallied, but scattered individuals were generally another story. They would probably go looking for their unit eventually and trickle in over the next 24 hours or more, but that definitely takes it outside the CM battle time limit. The way to integrate that into play is in campaign mode, but that doesn't demand anything special of the 1:1 depiction.

And in any event, we need to be leery of bogging the game down in too many fine details. You can't put everything from WW II into it and still have it playable, either by the player or his machine. So all these ideas have to be weighed on a cost/benefit scale. Stand back and ask yourself how much authenticity is a feature going to add to the game compared to how much effort it's going to require to make it work. Should a player have to provide a hot meal to his troops before he sends them into battle or take a morale hit? Should there be field kitchens then? And should part of the set-up phase be meal planning? What about hygiene?

Michael

[Pvt. Ryan]

There could be a module called Combat Mission: From KP to Sock Mending

[Ardem]

Hmm field kitchens, will there be canteens on a 1 to 1 representation.

And I like to see a difference between quality of meals, officers generally ate better then the rank and file.

As for map build I would like to see soldier dig latrine pits.

I want to see Combat Mission: The Sims.

[Battlefront.com]

Emrys is correct:

From the accounts I have read, guys who broke individually as is being discussed here, were usually gone for the day.

Yes. Individuals are generally writeoffs. If the bulk of a unit flakes out there might be some hope of being brought back into line. But individuals in that state have already moved well beyond simple cowardly behavior. They are likely psychologically toasted.

And in any event, we need to be leery of bogging the game down in too many fine details. You can't put everything from WW II into it and still have it playable, either by the player or his machine.

This is a serious concern of ours. Not only the hardware hit to have potentially more guys as individual panicked "units" as regular combat units. Remember, whether talking about a tank, a Squad of 8 men, a Squad of 12 men, or a single guy in Panic mode... there is a certain amount of overhead that is identical. Same basic book keeping hit, same implication for spotting, identical needs in terms of LOF calculations, and probably even MORE need of TacAI and pathfinding. The latter all on their own could be devistating to hardware performance because the little panicked guys will be constantly hitting that stuff whereas the player controlled stuff only needs it periodically. On top of that, lots of CPU cycles and RAM will be needed to manage the behavior of all those fleeing guys.

So... we are still toying with some concepts, but there are some serious limitations as to what we can realistically do right now. As time goes on, and hardware gets better, the choices increase.

Steve

[RSColonel_131st]

Well, I'd say if you want an individual to rout - just let him run straight to the map edge.

[Private Bluebottle]

Originally posted by Kurtz:

I'm a bit curious about this as well.

What was the squad footprint during WW2? 50x50 meters?

A unit "footprint" would be determined not by an arbitrary value but the terrain and the cover available to that unit.

[Caesar]

Well, I'd say if you want an individual to rout - just let him run straight to the map edge

And if there is impassible territory in the way, or opposition, buildings, a steep hill (should it really take the hard path?) or a road right beside the deep snow that is directly in its path should it ignore the snow? Should it just run right over a nice safe trench instead of dropping into it and lying there cowering?

I think you are trivialising the problems.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Caesar:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

Well, I'd say if you want an individual to rout - just let him run straight to the map edge

And if there is impassible territory in the way, or opposition, buildings, a steep hill (should it really take the hard path?) or a road right beside the deep snow that is directly in its path should it ignore the snow? Should it just run right over a nice safe trench instead of dropping into it and lying there cowering?

I think you are trivialising the problems. </font>

[hoolaman]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Seems to me that the simplest and most effective way for CM to deal with it is to just count them as casualties for the remainder of the battle with a percentage of them returning for the next battle of a campaign.

Michael

That's probably not a bad idea.

What I was worried about is the squad in CMx2 reacting as a single entity, this was a big problem for me in CMx1. While I'm sure at the extremes panic was infectious, a mix of individuals of different experience levels should have some guys running and some guys staying.

I realise having men running in all directions is a pretty complex thing to deal with, but some simulation of routing/rallying individual men and units would seem to be important for a CM battle involving a series of small firefights.

[imported_no_one]

Good Discussion.

I,too,disliked it when an entire squad would react like a single man,but what I hated even more was when that very squad that was routed just a few minutes ago is ready to fight again in about 3-5 turns(minutes).To me,routed should mean something much worse than what it did in CMx1.If someone is routed they,IMO,should be messed up for a good long while--regardless whether they are in C&C or not.Broken is the one that you might could recover from in 10-25 minutes.And panic one might could recover from in a few minutes or less.

In CMx2,hopefully when a single man is routed he will,for the most part,be out of most shorter battles.If it is a longer battle,or if he was only panicing/broken,then maybe he would get back into the fight.But,when you are so messed up that you run around all crazy like until you are exhausted qualifies as being really messed up.Then again,I am hoping that in CMx2 it will,on the whole,be far more easy to panic/break/rout troops;as well as,to wound/kill them.

[aka_tom_w]

worth repeating

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Emrys is correct:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />From the accounts I have read, guys who broke individually as is being discussed here, were usually gone for the day.

Yes. Individuals are generally writeoffs. If the bulk of a unit flakes out there might be some hope of being brought back into line. But individuals in that state have already moved well beyond simple cowardly behavior. They are likely psychologically toasted.

And in any event, we need to be leery of bogging the game down in too many fine details. You can't put everything from WW II into it and still have it playable, either by the player or his machine.

This is a serious concern of ours. Not only the hardware hit to have potentially more guys as individual panicked "units" as regular combat units. Remember, whether talking about a tank, a Squad of 8 men, a Squad of 12 men, or a single guy in Panic mode... there is a certain amount of overhead that is identical. Same basic book keeping hit, same implication for spotting, identical needs in terms of LOF calculations, and probably even MORE need of TacAI and pathfinding. The latter all on their own could be devistating to hardware performance because the little panicked guys will be constantly hitting that stuff whereas the player controlled stuff only needs it periodically. On top of that, lots of CPU cycles and RAM will be needed to manage the behavior of all those fleeing guys.

So... we are still toying with some concepts, but there are some serious limitations as to what we can realistically do right now. As time goes on, and hardware gets better, the choices increase.

Steve </font>