Move to Contact

[Peter Cairns]

Will this all you to sneak up on sentries and the like.

It might seem a bit gamey, but I've like a lot of peoplehavetried to create "Rai" scenarios where you try to surprise a defending force.

By and large I found this hard to do because no matter how stealthily you approached you never got that close, (unless you deliberatelt tweaked the terrain and deployments to create blind spots".

I get the impression from Steves posts that though a static defender will still have the advantage it could be a lot more achieveable.

Peter.

[Barrold]

If it were occupied with other enemy units of more immediate concern would be one.

How about a bunch of sound contacts close by as more distant enemies pop out of cover?

Being pinned, being attacked with artillery, inability to damage or effect significantly?

Perhaps these are not situations in which is wouldn't be able to target, but rather why it wouldn't want to target if that helps.

BDH

[Bigduke6]

:confused:

I'm missing something here. I have a tank and it's just blasted an infantry squad in a trench. Say the trench is 100 meters away. The squad is still alive and functional, but I am no longer worried about it, partially because I know exactly where it is, and partially because it's a squad and I have a tank.

What I am worried about is enemy stuff behind the squad that I haven't seen. I want to drive my tank forward past the squad and find that hidden stuff. When the stuff I haven't seen opens up on me, I want my tank to stop and shoot back. I want to do this now, i.e., I don't want to waste time and ammunition wiping out the squad nearby.

I just want to ignore the squad, it was a marginal threat before, but now it's not a threat at all. All I want to do is move past that squad, in as ready a state for combat as I can manage.

If the squad is inbetween the tank and where I want the tank to go, I don't see how I can get past that squad on "movement to contact." If I give the tank "movement to contact" it will see the squad, stop, and, as tanks will, blast the squad.

Sure I can use a cover arc if the threat is definately off to a flank. Then certainly "movement to contact" will work, without picking up the squad, as my cover arc isn't pointing that way.

Or I can make a very short cover arc. As long as it doesn't reach the squad, again, my tank will happily move to contact.

But neither of these options does me any good if the threat is straight downrange, more or less past the infantry squad. If the close-range IDed enemy is in the direction I am going, and the threat's beyond that point, how do I get a tank to travel on "move to contact" in that direction?

Fast is fine, that gets me past the squad sure, but of course that's a pretty useless movement mode if you're expecting contact.

I apologize if I'm being dense, but like I say I have seen company advances on "movement to contact" frozen for several turns at a time by a series of clever infantry section exposures. One section pops up, attracts attention, draws fire, and then while it's recovering from a deserved pasting another squad somewhere else repeats the procedure. Sure you can blast the sections playing this gopher game out of their holes. But what if you just want to ignore them, but be ready for something beyond them?

Can one of you pros (not Steve, you have better things to do) 'splain this to me pls, because I am now very confused. I thought I understood by now how "movement to contact works, but apparently not. :confused:

Although it might be something for Steve to think about. Maybe there ought to be/could be a way to make "movement to contact" more threat specific.

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />And what if I want my tank to stop and shoot at a new threat, or another infantry target, instead of driving deeper into an ambush?

Easy... don't tell your guys to hold their fire. Yup, it is optional. But Fast will still not be modifiable into a speedier Move to Conatact. In fact, we never thought of having such a command because we've never found any realistic reason to include it. AFVs and trucks, bounding along at top speed, can't spot diddly squat. They WILL run into an ambush if they don't slow down to smell the roses. The only advantage of going fast is to get out of the kill zone before you're killed. This is why convoys in Iraq drive 50-60mph... it isn't for the fun of it (accident deaths in Iraq are massive compared to normal ops).

Good God Dorosh... I forgot all about the Sneak order. Wow, there is a blast from the past.

Slower play comes from the combo of new features, especially Relative Spotting, not from an artificial construct like longer turn time. I don't want to recover that ground again, but basically think in real world terms. The more uncertain you are of something, the less likely you will do it or at least the more you will hesitate before doing it. That is CMx2. CMx1 you had extremely high levels of awareness and therefore uncertainty was pretty much over and done with after first substantial contact. Not to say at the tactical level CMx1 had little uncertainty, I am saying at the higher levels of thinking.

Steve </font>

[Battlefront.com]

Simple... don't use the Fast command. I'm not sure what is so difficult about this concept. Fast means you can't spot worth a darned and you are concerned about getting to a specific point as fast as possible. If you instead want to move along cautiously, Fast is not the way to go. Just like in CMx1 as it is now. So use the Move order, which generally ignores minor threats and doesn't stop. Once you're past the contested area then use Move to Contact.

The problem you're having here is that you've come up with a single, fictious "what if". Trying to tell you how you can, or can't, get around it is rather difficult. Do you have supporting infantry, is your tank all on its own, what kind of terrain are you in, etc. These things all matter.

So my advice is to forget about it We aren't putting in some sort of conditional script system, so whatever we do come up with will run into problems from time to time. That's unavoidable. Perhaps your example is one of them, perhaps not. Impossible to say.

Steve

[Cameroon]

I think the idea that Bigduke is looking for is "Move to New Contact".

And I can see the usefulness of that, and is even something I had wanted (but not known how to convey) in the Borg Spotting Era since units that I'd seen and were inconsequential were still halting a unit that should be cautious about new threats, but not about the known and dismissed threats already in view.

I'm not lobbying, because if it's not in and not going in and not deemed a necessary feature, well hey that's ok.

I just figured it was worth saying "Oh, hey, yeah that'd be nice." and giving it a name/phrase that I think is more precise in what it Bigduke's command wish is.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

But Fast will still not be modifiable into a speedier Move to Conatact.

...

We aren't putting in some sort of conditional script system, so whatever we do come up with will run into problems from time to time. That's unavoidable.

Will CMx2 have SOPs, so that movement speed and behavior vis-a-vis enemy units are not always wedded to each other? For example, you could give a unit a fast move order, but there would be a list of standing SOPs that could be applied to the unit to govern its behavior if it sees an enemy or is fired upon. Kinda like this:

I think the second set shown above might solve Bigduke's dilemma.

[ September 09, 2005, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Good God Dorosh... I forgot all about the Sneak order. Wow, there is a blast from the past.

Good god, Steve, I'm not Dorosh. Eeewwww, now I've got to go and shower again.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Makes it a lot harder to acheive your objectives if you can't use every asset on the map whenever it has LOS and range, no matter if it should know of the target or not.

Yaaayyyyyyy! I had assumed and hoped that would be the case. Increased goodness!

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

Good God Steve, read the friggin posts correctly!

No, there will be no SOPs like in TacOps. Most of them are built into the Commands themselves and therefore aren't necessary to have as a separate system. For the rest, we looked at this hard last year and decided it wasn't in the best interests of the game system as a whole to have a separate SOP system. It is interesting to note that it was in our original design, but fell out of favor when other things were examined.

Steve

[Bigduke6]

Yeah, that's what I mean, move to new contact. It's dumb that a spotted squad can prevent an armor platoon from moving on to a new contact, in a ready-for-combat mode.

Move to contact is the mode one wants to be in when one is advancing into an uncleared area. The problem is that once you find something close up, you can't move deeper into that area on "move to contact" until the "something close up" disappears/is wiped out/otherwise removed.

Yes you can use move or fast. Heck, you could use assault or human wave or sneak for that matter.

But none of those are the right mode if you want to advance carefully looking for more targets, once you have found a single target.

Maybe my milage is varying, but I bump up against this quite often in attacks against the A/I, never mind live opponents.

Maybe the death of the borg will make this issue go poof, I durno...

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by Cameroon:

I think the idea that Bigduke is looking for is "Move to New Contact".

I can see the usefulness of that, since seen units that are inconsequential are still halting units that should be cautious about new threats, but not about the known and dismissed threats already in view.

I'm not lobbying, because I do'nt deem it a necessary feature.

A "Move to New Contact" order is an excellent way to put it Cameroon, I'm sure BigDuke6 would agree with me. That's definately the best solution to the in game problem IME and I'm sure it would also IMHO help with reducing the need for scripted commands being required and called for by posters. BFC what d'ya think, ay? :eek:

Yes I am lobbying for it Steve, please consider it thanks.

Regards,

Saul.

[Battlefront.com]

A "Move to New Contact" order is an excellent way to put it Cameroon, I'm sure BigDuke6 would agree with me.

Well, you sure wouldn't if we implmented it . Situation...

You have a beat up Squad in front of your tank, it stops. You don't like that so you issue a "Move to New Contact" order. 2 seconds into the next move it spots another Squad, stops, squirts it with MGs, and then turn ends. You issue another "Move to New Contact" order, you start to move and, hey, whadda know, those Squads have an HQ! Tank stops, squirts it with MG, turn ends.

Guys, this type of logic is just not going to fix things. This is a complicated issue. What you are asking for is "Move until you see something and stop. But not all the time... stop only if you think it is no big deal and someone else behind you can take care of it, or you are on a wild swing through the enemy territory and don't give a crap. Well, except if the threat is pretty bad. In that case, stop and give 'em Hell. But not too much Hell because that will hold you up. Juuuuust enough so you can keep on going".

It is so context sensitive that it makes my head spin. AIs are not very good with complex context sensitive conundrums. They like things nice and simple. Binary logic if possible. So this sort of stuff is really a mess to program for.

I can't emphasize enough that MOST of the problems you have with the current implementation are due to Absoulte Spotting. So without making any improvements to the way Move to Contact works, there will be a noticable improvement. Of course we'll try to do what we can to close the gap between impossibly complex Human logic and what was in CMx1, but don't expect miracles.

Steve

[Zalgiris 1410]

Well I'm happy enough if the Relative Spotting solves the prolem pretty much and may be attempt to use the correct set of existing commands for my units in such situations for which it is fun to figure out the technique.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'm surprised that SOPs aren't going to be used and that movement speed and reactions will still be amalgamated into a single command. Just because a unit is in a hurry to get somewhere doesn't necessarily mean they don't want to stop if someone starts shooting at them.

I suppose if SOPs were considered and rejected there must have been a good reason, but it sounds like the new command system will be much like the old one. (?)

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

I'm surprised that SOPs aren't going to be used and that movement speed and reactions will still be amalgamated into a single command.

snip

but it sounds like the new command system will be much like the old one. (?)

Um...

If they can somehow add some extra commands and maybe some extra fidelity to the cover arc order OR something better or more innovative than the old cover arc, that can be used in conjunction with the move/hunt/fast commands then maybe they have found a way to (hopefully) "blend" the SOP's we are looking for into the game without making a whole new interface and SOP mode or screen.

I too was looking forward to something like Standard Operating Procedures (orders) that could be issued to tell a unit what to do and exactly how to react in varying circumstances to different types of the enemy threat.

oh well

-tom w

[wolf66]

Maybe this is not the right thread, but is there some way to synchronize group/combined arms movement in CMx2? So you can advance AFVs and Infantry in a way that Infantry stays behind or in front of the AFVs with the same distance - or synchronize movement of an Infantry only advance, so that regardless of terrain which squads individually pass, the whole group moves simultaneously - eg the slowest moving infantry (or the highest movement cost terrain) sets the pace for the others in the group?

Hope I am not flogging a dead horse, but for me this is a problem in CMBB or CMAK - or am I missing somefink?

[Sergei]

It could be just that it would give too much control to the player. In reality, having even a squad advance at a steady pace can be a problem eg. in forest. Having a whole platoon do the same, like some army of clones, would take a coreographer to achieve. It took lots and lots of drilling exercises back in the good ol' pre-20th century days, and even then it wasn't 100% guaranteed that adjacent units would keep an even pace. Especially in uneven terrain.

I wouldn't mind if the AI had some such tools at disposal, though. It has always bugged me that why the AI sends its squads piecemeal into fire, instead of as platoons. The foremost squads should wait for other members of the squad who are not pinned, and platoons should in general try to stay on the same path and in contact with their officer.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by wolf66:

...is there some way to synchronize group/combined arms movement in CMx2?

Yeah, the way it was done in real life: phase lines they are called in larger operations, but the same idea applies on this scale as well. I guess they would be called intermediate objectives. Give your units short movement orders, like to that tree line. If somebody gets ahead, have them wait on the IO until everybody catches up and then start them off again.

I get the feeling that a lot of CM players want to give orders on the first turn and then sit back and just watch the movie for the next ten turns. CM isn't that kind of game. That would require AI sub-commanders of great sophistication, and you just aren't going to find that in a game at the present time.

Michael

[wolf66]

Originally posted by Sergei:

It could be just that it would give too much control to the player. In reality, having even a squad advance at a steady pace can be a problem eg. in forest. Having a whole platoon do the same, like some army of clones, would take a coreographer to achieve. It took lots and lots of drilling exercises back in the good ol' pre-20th century days, and even then it wasn't 100% guaranteed that adjacent units would keep an even pace. Especially in uneven terrain.

I wouldn't mind if the AI had some such tools at disposal, though. It has always bugged me that why the AI sends its squads piecemeal into fire, instead of as platoons. The foremost squads should wait for other members of the squad who are not pinned, and platoons should in general try to stay on the same path and in contact with their officer.

Exactly Sergei, that feature should be primarily be implemented for the AI behaviour - although it would be nice to at least be able to synchronize any given AFV with one single squad for combined arms effect.

[wolf66]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wolf66:

...is there some way to synchronize group/combined arms movement in CMx2?

Yeah, the way it was done in real life: phase lines they are called in larger operations, but the same idea applies on this scale as well. I guess they would be called intermediate objectives. Give your units short movement orders, like to that tree line. If somebody gets ahead, have them wait on the IO until everybody catches up and then start them off again.

I get the feeling that a lot of CM players want to give orders on the first turn and then sit back and just watch the movie for the next ten turns. CM isn't that kind of game. That would require AI sub-commanders of great sophistication, and you just aren't going to find that in a game at the present time.

Michael </font>

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by wolf66:

Maybe this is not the right thread, but is there some way to synchronize group/combined arms movement in CMx2? So you can advance AFVs and Infantry in a way that Infantry stays behind or in front of the AFVs with the same distance

That's similar to the "convoy" or "follow" command people have been asking for to prevent multiple-tank pileups on roads. Now that vehicles block LOF, being able to have a squad advance behind a slow moving tank would be nice.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by wolf66:

You have most certainly a point there Michael, but if you are bringing in reinforcements from a map edge, I find it a bit tiresome to babysit them all the way to the frontline if you want them to arrive in some sort of order, at least on larger maps.

I thought we were discussing things at the forward edge of battle. How did reinforcements come into it?

Of course you handle those differently, to the extent that you may give them longer movement bounds. But the idea is similar, give them orders to some rallying point, preferably out of enemy LOS, and wait for everybody to arrive. When they do, sort them into attack formation and get them moving as above.

I mean, isn't that obvious?

Michael

[wolf66]

[/qb]

[Bigduke6]

Every one but Steve,

Thanks for the clarifications and the patience. What I was saying is not possible, is in fact not possible. So if I am going nuts, it is not because I misunderstand how move to contact works.

Steve,

Actually I'm not lobbying here, you have my list from the poll thread in case you're interested.

I personally think your example is a little overstated, but I can understand how a "move to new contact" would be a pain to implement. I think I can at least guess how death of the borg (see my above post) could make a lot of this discussion superfluous.

Still, if the challenge is making the decision presented to the A/I binary, maybe "spotted" and "not spotted" is a decent black/white status for the A/I to base its decision on. Although I can see how that would get a zillion times harder to implement, once borg spotting takes its place in history...spotted and not spotted by what, and when?...now my head is spinning...forget I said anything.

Thing is, you have seen life without the borg, and I haven't. You know how much relative spotting improves unit behavior in a move to contact situation, and I don't. Well, I guess I'll wait then.

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />A "Move to New Contact" order is an excellent way to put it Cameroon, I'm sure BigDuke6 would agree with me.

Well, you sure wouldn't if we implmented it . Situation...

You have a beat up Squad in front of your tank, it stops. You don't like that so you issue a "Move to New Contact" order. 2 seconds into the next move it spots another Squad, stops, squirts it with MGs, and then turn ends. You issue another "Move to New Contact" order, you start to move and, hey, whadda know, those Squads have an HQ! Tank stops, squirts it with MG, turn ends.</font>