1:1 representation and casualties

[aka_tom_w]

Other Means

Member

Member # 11780

posted September 15, 2005 12:07 PM

Steve, can I reiterate my suggestion, which is abstracted enough to be do-able (IMHO and ready to be corrected) while enough to add the WIA/POW dynamic people seem to want?

State 1) When a soldier is wounded, they become immobile & broken. They are still targetable etc but cannot be moved or controlled by the player.

They are in this state for X time, say 3 mins. If they are still within command radius after this they become an "evac'ed" icon and are treated as recovered.

Recovered will mean they have Z chance of death vs WIA in the AAR/next battle.

State 2) If after X time they are outside of command radius but within Y distance of enemies, they become captured and are treated as now, i.e. able to move to the enemies rear. Or possibly change them to a captured icon.

State 3) If after X time they are out of command radius but are not within Y of enemies, they are treated as recovered, i.e. turn to an "evac'ed" icon, but now have a much greater chance of death vs recovery in the AAR/next battle.

ISTM that that will simulate as closely as possible the correct behaviour without over complicating it. This does not take into account the possible state where a WIA and solider are trying to occupy the same space, but I was thinking the live soldier would automatically displace the wounded in the terrain feature.

Can I add that when the WIA becomes captured by the enemy, the player still sees only the evac icon, thereby keeping FOW for hidden enemies. In the AAR the evac icon will show "captured".

-Other Means

Reply:

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Battlefront.com

Administrator

Member # 42

posted September 15, 2005 04:34 PM

It's not a heated argument from my side. You just have to keep clear that new possibilities exist but so do limitations. Hardware, programming, art, other design issues, etc. all have to be taken into consideration. So in theory what you are picturing is possible, it just isn't practical. That's all. Tons of things are not practical though possible, and perhaps even desirable, so don't feel bad

And to make sure I was understood... the abstracted suggestion by Other Means is being considered. No telling what kinds of problems Charles will discover with it

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

bump

[M1A1TC]

Why cant we have a medic deploy from a medic Stryker automatically when you have critically wounded- as in no player control

[Colin]

Okay an idea. A squad sustains casualties. They are assessed a movement penalty based on the casualty and are shown as having wounded members. The squad retains that handicap for the duration, or it links with a medical unit and transfers casualties off at a certain rate (obviously varies depending on casualties, experience and supression, 3 casualties per min say). It is removed of the movement bonuses.

Just an idea...gotta run to school

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

We haven't decided yet. The problem is one of consistency. If we show wounded then players are going to want to do things with wounded. To do that we have to implement a fairly significant bunch of features to simulate all of that. In theory we want to, but we're not sure if that is something we can bite off for the first release.

Steve

I was never actually sure where the end result of this discussion settled out...

Steve says:

"We are not simulating the MV (Medical Vehicle) or the NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) variants. We've discussed how we're handling casualties in detail a few months ago so hopefully a search will pull up the thread/s.

Steve"

Where is the thread with the final word on this?

Just wondering

-tom w

[aka_tom_w]

repeat post of a reasonable suggestion perhaps being considered by Steve and Charles...

This one is almost a year old...

Other Means

Member

Member # 11780

posted September 15, 2005 12:07 PM

Steve, can I reiterate my suggestion, which is abstracted enough to be do-able (IMHO and ready to be corrected) while enough to add the WIA/POW dynamic people seem to want?

State 1) When a soldier is wounded, they become immobile & broken. They are still targetable etc but cannot be moved or controlled by the player.

They are in this state for X time, say 3 mins. If they are still within command radius after this they become an "evac'ed" icon and are treated as recovered.

Recovered will mean they have Z chance of death vs WIA in the AAR/next battle.

State 2) If after X time they are outside of command radius but within Y distance of enemies, they become captured and are treated as now, i.e. able to move to the enemies rear. Or possibly change them to a captured icon.

State 3) If after X time they are out of command radius but are not within Y of enemies, they are treated as recovered, i.e. turn to an "evac'ed" icon, but now have a much greater chance of death vs recovery in the AAR/next battle.

ISTM that that will simulate as closely as possible the correct behaviour without over complicating it. This does not take into account the possible state where a WIA and solider are trying to occupy the same space, but I was thinking the live soldier would automatically displace the wounded in the terrain feature.

Can I add that when the WIA becomes captured by the enemy, the player still sees only the evac icon, thereby keeping FOW for hidden enemies. In the AAR the evac icon will show "captured".

-Other Means

Reply:

-----------------

Battlefront.com

Administrator

Member # 42

posted September 15, 2005 04:34 PM

It's not a heated argument from my side. You just have to keep clear that new possibilities exist but so do limitations. Hardware, programming, art, other design issues, etc. all have to be taken into consideration. So in theory what you are picturing is possible, it just isn't practical. That's all. Tons of things are not practical though possible, and perhaps even desirable, so don't feel bad

And to make sure I was understood... the abstracted suggestion by Other Means is being considered. No telling what kinds of problems Charles will discover with it

Steve

[Cpl Steiner]

I'm glad this thread has been resurrected. I've said it before and I'll say it again - how US casualties are handled in the game is going to be very important to the game's success as a simulation. If the Syrian player cannot exploit the US doctrine of "no-one gets left behind" then they will have an even bigger disadvantage than they already have. This doctrine, though admirable from a moral standpoint, is the main tactical weakness the US side has compared to any current or future foe.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

I'm glad this thread has been resurrected. I've said it before and I'll say it again - how US casualties are handled in the game is going to be very important to the game's success as a simulation. If the Syrian player cannot exploit the US doctrine of "no-one gets left behind" then they will have an even bigger disadvantage than they already have. This doctrine, though admirable from a moral standpoint, is the main tactical weakness the US side has compared to any current or future foe.

All western armies follow this doctrine, and it is not the least bit stupid.

It is the same reason why western nations insist that bofy armour be top of the line, fixed wing aircraft be as immune as possible from missles, tanks be survivable if destroyed and that medical care be the best avaliable.

In the 20th century it became apparent in warfare that the men wielding the weapons were more important than the weapons themselves.

It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds/Euros to train a single solider in todays modern armies.

More importantly than the money, it takes time.

You can get the soldier a new rifle, or new aircraft or new tank.

But you can never replace a soldier with training and experience who is proficient at his/her job.

Bringing back a wounded soldier may mean that they are able to once again return to the field of combat.

That is extremly valuable.

[Cpl Steiner]

rudel.dietrich,

All good points and well argued. However, it doesn't alter the fact that in the short term it makes your tactics very predictable to the enemy, which in turn gives him a tactical advantage. The Battle of Mogadishu is a good example. Once the Black Hawks had been downed the enemy could predict what the US would do with a fair measure of accuracy.

By the way, I'm not sure all western armies have this doctrine. The US seems to put more importance on the recovery of missing, wounded or even dead troops than most others. I doubt that a British unit would have gone to such lengths to recover dead or dying air crew at the risk of suffering many more casualties amongst the rescue force.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

rudel.dietrich,

All good points and well argued. However, it doesn't alter the fact that in the short term it makes your tactics very predictable to the enemy, which in turn gives him a tactical advantage. The Battle of Mogadishu is a good example. Once the Black Hawks had been downed the enemy could predict what the US would do with a fair measure of accuracy.

By the way, I'm not sure all western armies have this doctrine. The US seems to put more importance on the recovery of missing, wounded or even dead troops than most others. I doubt that a British unit would have gone to such lengths to recover dead or dying air crew at the risk of suffering many more casualties amongst the rescue force.

Most western armies are never in the situation to test this out.

But I can say with 100% certainty that in the Bundeswehr it was pounded into us to never leave a man behind.

Israel went to war a few weeks ago just to get two kidnapped soldiers back.

I think it is a tradmark of all western armies to value life so highly.

[Homo ferricus]

actually, Israel used 2 kidnapped soldiers as an excuse to put its long existing plan to cripple Hezbollah in Lebanon into effect, but thats irrelevant.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by rudel.dietrich:

Israel went to war a few weeks ago just to get two kidnapped soldiers back.

I think it is a tradmark of all western armies to value life so highly.

I don't want to pick an argument here as I'm sure there are lots of views of the recent Israeli action in the Lebanon - but to say that Israel went to war just to release two captured soldiers is a gross oversimplification IMHO. How many dead are there now in Lebanon? Over 1000 I think. That seems a bit over the top just for 2 men. IMHO Israel had wanted to hit Hezbollah for a long time. The capture of the soldiers was merely the catalyst for action now rather than later.

To get back to my main point - rightly or wrongly, the policy of always trying to retrieve dead or wounded servicemen should be well reflected in CM:SF. If the US side takes casualties and they get left on the battlefield or fall into enemy hands, the Syrian side should win hands down. This will encourage the US player to do his utmost to recover casualties, which as I've already said, should play into the hands of the Syrian player - who presumably will be able to set up ambushes, IEDs and all sorts of other unpleasant surprises along the predicted rescue route.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by rudel.dietrich:

Israel went to war a few weeks ago just to get two kidnapped soldiers back.

I think it is a tradmark of all western armies to value life so highly.

I don't want to pick an argument here as I'm sure there are lots of views of the recent Israeli action in the Lebanon - but to say that Israel went to war just to release two captured soldiers is a gross oversimplification IMHO. How many dead are there now in Lebanon? Over 1000 I think. That seems a bit over the top just for 2 men. IMHO Israel had wanted to hit Hezbollah for a long time. The capture of the soldiers was merely the catalyst for action now rather than later.

To get back to my main point - rightly or wrongly, the policy of always trying to retrieve dead or wounded servicemen should be well reflected in CM:SF. If the US side takes casualties and they get left on the battlefield or fall into enemy hands, the Syrian side should win hands down. This will encourage the US player to do his utmost to recover casualties, which as I've already said, should play into the hands of the Syrian player - who presumably will be able to set up ambushes, IEDs and all sorts of other unpleasant surprises along the predicted rescue route. </font>

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by rudel.dietrich:

I hate getting political

I agree, so let's drop the Israel discussion, which I'm sure would be better placed on another forum.

Returning to 1:1 casualties, I am really looking forward to seeing how this is handled. I have to be honest and say I don't even know that much about real-world casualty first-aid and evac drills, so I'm intrigued how this will be simulated.

I don't like the idea of casualties just disappearing after a certain length of time. For one, the modern battlefield does not have a front line as such. Threats can pop up anywhere. If a casualty needs to be removed from harms way then the player should have to think about the route he/she will take to safety - either before the battle starts (casualty collection points) or during the battle. Secondly, casualties should seriously impede US operations, much more so than Syrian. If a squad takes a single casualty it may be tied down to the same spot for the duration of the battle, forming a defensive perimeter and awaiting medevac. It is hard for me to see how a lot of this can be abstracted without severely detracting from my enjoyment of the game as a valid simulation.

[Battlefront.com]

We aren't simulating casualties directly. I still don't know what kind of abstraction we are going to be able to pull off, but it absolutely will not be directly simulated. There is just no practical way to do it.

It is hard for me to see how a lot of this can be abstracted without severely detracting from my enjoyment of the game as a valid simulation.

Hollow threat Whenever I hear this I think that once the person sees the forest we've created they won't be nearly as concerned about the look of the bark of a particular tree as they think they will be.

The alternative is to hold off shipping CM:SF until about 2008. As always, I'm sure you guys would rather play a 95% awesome, best ever warsim than to wait another year to play a 97% awsome, best ever warsim. CM:SF can never be 100%, so by definition some stuff is going to have to be missing or simulated less than some would like. Since I doubt many are interested in a game that could be called Combat Mission - Casualty Recovery, the investment in a detailed casualty recovery system makes no sense from our standpoint. Therefore, it's an easy decision for us to abstract it and move onto other stuff.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, forgot to say...

Cpl Steiner,

If the Syrian player cannot exploit the US doctrine of "no-one gets left behind" then they will have an even bigger disadvantage than they already have.

Honestly, I am more concerned about the US forces than I am the Syrian. Most of you guys like to use cowboy tactics and they aren't goning to go over very well in CM:SF. Not well at all

Seriously though, we are wondering if newbee players are going to understand how they can avoid losing 30% of their highly trained US force to a bunch of scrappy Syrians. The number of ways the Syrian player has to smack US forces upside their heads is quite impressive. That means the US player outsmarts and out fights the Syrians or suffers defeat after defeat. And that is just the way it would be in real life. The primary asset of the US forces is not its superior equipment, but its superior leadership, training, and organization. CM:SF leaves most of this in the hands of the player.

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

I was sort of looking forward to "Combat Mission - Med Evac" myself

Or my other favourite, Combat Mission - Recon Patrol

(tongue in cheek of course)

Thanks for the update Steve.

-tom w

[Cpl Steiner]

Steve,

Perhaps "severely detracting from my enjoyment of the game" was overstating it a bit. I am sure I will still enjoy the game regardless of how casualties are represented.

Perhaps if I knew more about real-world evac procedures I could see more clearly where there is room for abstraction. For instance, are men detached from a squad to take casualties to a suitable aid station? Do they use stretchers? Are there autonomous medical personnel on call to respond to casualties? How long does it take to deal with a casualty, etc. etc.?

As long as all these factors are taken into account in the abstraction of casualty evac, with some sort of "designers notes" explanation for the layman, I'm sure I will be satisfied.

[Battlefront.com]

There is no one way to evac casualties, which is part of the problem This is what I've gathered from my research:

When doing a deliberate assault, such as clearing out a block of houses, the Company is usually task orientated so the fighting force doesn't get bogged down by casualties. The ones up front get their fallen comrades out of immediate harms way, perhaps perform simple first aid, then leave them for others to take care of. The others, in this case, come from one or more units. Their job is to get the casualties out of the immediate combat zone to a designated collection point. More intensive first aid is performed at the collection point, hopefully stabilizing the wounded. From here they are moved out of the fight completely to some sort of medical treatment facility, which in turn might move them to another facility or out of theater completely. All depends on the situation, but it works VERY efficiently and effectively. IIRC I read about a casualty that was moved out of Iraq to Germany (perhaps via Kuwait, I don't remember) and then back home to the USA. Total elapsed time... 4 days! That's nothing short of amazing.

In unplanned situations the same holds true, but the first and possibly second legs of the casualty's journey are more improvised. The impact on fighting ability can range from negligible to severe. As much as soldiers try to protect and recover casualties, they aren't stupid. They know that if they become a casualty they are compounding an already grave problem, so they aren't likely to drop their weapons and dash out into a fire swept street to drag back Smitty or Jonesy. Instead they will determine how to best suppress the threat and coordinate a recovery under covering fire. Once retrieved the wounds are assessed and if the guy is pretty much OK, or obviously dead, then the impact on combat effectiveness will not be that great. It's the inbetween types that cause the most amount of problems since it can take several men to treat a single, seriously wounded comrade. While this is going on someone has to keep the enemy at bay, which might mean another Squad or vehicle has to switch over to providing assistance. Or perhaps nothing changes at all. That's the thing that is really tough for us to simulate.

Besides the real life issues, there are all the other issues brought up in this thread. For us the most problematic one is animations. Extremely time consuming to do for the various types of recovery one would expect to see. And don't even get me started on UI or AI work needed!

As I said earlier, and all throughout this old thread, it is a black hole type feature. Once we start trying to do it in a non-abstracted fashion you'll hear a giant sucking sound as progress on everything else stops and all resources go into the vortex. We hate to skip detailing something like this, but unless the Army wants to pay us to sit around all year doing stuff like this... we aren't going to touch it with a 10' pole. Even then the Army would have to give us a worn out Humvee full of money to make it worth our while since working on something like this means not working on anything else.

Steve

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The primary asset of the US forces is not its superior equipment, but its superior leadership, training, and organization. CM:SF leaves most of this in the hands of the player.

Steve

Holy cow! I have to train my soldiers??? How long are these scenarios going to be?

[Battlefront.com]

Holy cow! I have to train my soldiers??? How long are these scenarios going to be?

Oh, the scenarios are about 40 minutes or so each after the first one. The first one is a bit of a whopper, though, weighing in at 8 weeks long

Steve

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

When doing a deliberate assault, such as clearing out a block of houses, the Company is usually task orientated so the fighting force doesn't get bogged down by casualties. The ones up front get their fallen comrades out of immediate harms way, perhaps perform simple first aid, then leave them for others to take care of.

So are we going to actually see little sprites doing this is some cases - or do they just keep shooting?

[aka_tom_w]

I don't think we are going to see little sprites doing this.

I suspect that Steve's comment (above, yours in bold) was in reference to what actually happens in Real Life, NOT what we will see in the game.

He has been pretty clear there wll be a substantial form of abstraction in CM:SF dealing with casualties.

(I think)

-tom w

[MikeyD]

Other games have had casualties go down then immediately fade away. Another method might be for the casualty to go down then say on the map for the time required for aid to arrive (1 minute? 3 minutes?), and then to fade away. The benefit (problem) with this would be that there would be a window of opportunity for the wounded to be killed or captured by a quick-thinking opponent, with points accumulated. The player would need to decide whether to slow his pace to protect the fallen comrade or to press forward hoping he's recovered (fades away) before the enemy can get to him.

Ah, this brings up a question. CMx1 battlefields are littered with bodies at the end of a game and you are able to click on them to check on kills. If CMx2 abstracts casualties (fades them away?) does this mean we're going to lose this end-of-game feature?

[Cpl Steiner]

I still have major problems seeing how all this is going to be abstracted when each individual combatant is represented on the map 1:1.

By definition, 1:1 representation means what you see is what you get. If a soldier is standing behind a wall returning fire then we should see a model standing behind the wall firing his weapon etc. This does not leave a lot of room for abstraction - of wounded or anything else for that matter. I will be the first to cheer loudly from the rafters if Battlefront manage to abstract this successfully!