MOUT and Urban Warfare is unplayable

[stikkypixie]

It's these guys, I believe there is the same problem when they're riding BMP's.

[Battlefront.com]

OK, I'll check into that. We had a fairly significant amount of problems getting everybody into the vehicles that were theoretically allocated to some units, especially the Weapons Companies. As I said, in real life these guys are supposed to be deployed statically so it's quite possible they don't have enough transport in real life. Or it could be that I forgot to add a truck for the HQ unit

Steve

[Omenowl]

Steve,

I know you are afraid of having houses become like bunkers, but perhaps could the lethality in the building be reduced, but the suppression be increased? This way the enemy is more likely to be suppressed and it allows the attacker to have a similar effect on reducing the firepower of said squad, but allow the defender to take less casualties.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

OK, I'll check into that. We had a fairly significant amount of problems getting everybody into the vehicles that were theoretically allocated to some units, especially the Weapons Companies. As I said, in real life these guys are supposed to be deployed statically so it's quite possible they don't have enough transport in real life. Or it could be that I forgot to add a truck for the HQ unit

Steve,

I posted about this, with a proposed solution, way back in early August 2007 and then again in September 2007 but I guess you missed it. The problem is not that there aren't enough seats. Rather, it is the way the men are split into teams.

Here's my original post (for the BMP Weapons Platoon):

Weapons Platoon TO&E Problem

[the Fighting Seabee]

Steve,

First I must say that the reason we are here on this forum is because we love CM:SF. It is the most realistic simulation of modern warfare ever created for pc use. We just want to be a part of polishing this gem.

That said, I have to say that I think your nuts if you think that an entire squad is going to come out of cover to fire 1 rpg. I don't care whose doctrine it is. Sure it has happened, but those instances are exceptions. I can post many links to videos showing one rpg guy or mg gunner pop around a corner while the rest sit back and watch behind cover. It's just absurd to think that any squad would normally put themselves in the open over some "soviet doctrine", especially when, as you said, they aren't trained well.

Being a military veteran myself (although I have not seen serious combat and have never had an rpg fired at me), I tend to think I know a thing or two. Having been a squad leader, I have broken up my squads into fireteams, and even sent individuals out for one reason or the other. I don't think breaking squads apart is unrealistic at all, especially when lives are on the line. Not all middle eastern warriors are suicidal. I can understand not sending the rpg gunner across the map and wanting to keep the squad as a cohesive unit, but there should be some leeway there.

Since this game engine uses many abstractions, maybe there would be a way to simulate this... maybe have the rpg guy move into firing position, fire, and rejoin the squad immediately, until he is reloaded or is ordered to cease fire. To me this would be much more realistic. And if he gets hit, guess what, the rpg is laying out there in the open, so the next guy either has to come out of cover to recover the weapon, or they lose it.

Maybe this would be too hard to program in, or not important enough to take care of while you improve other aspects of the game, but to deny that any squad in the world would not do this if at all possible is simply wrong, in my opinion.

I do very much appreciate that you come out on these forums and discuss your wargaming philosophies with us. It shows you guys really care about your customers. I always look forward to these discussions.

Hoorah, keep up the great work!

[Flanker15]

I still reckon my old idea of a "target weapon" addition could fix this prob with the RPG. Add a command that lets the commander select a specific weapon or ammo to be used on the target. Eg: choose to use SABOT on Bradlys instead of always firing ineffective HE shells at it from a T72. Or choose to use just the RPG saving the other soldiers from exposure (on that note I had a game today where I gave a squad a target order on a tank and watched as all the soldiers opened up with rifles at it and were half killed before the RPG fired).

Also I noticed some evidence (irrefutable!) of T-72s using the wrong ammo in the videos for the dynamic lights in v1.05.

Only way this could be right is if the tank was coded to only fire HE, 1 SABOT/HEAT/T-HEAT round would have blown the Bradly to bits, instead it fires HE repeatedly. On a side note the tank turning to face the threat is good.

[ January 13, 2008, 01:43 AM: Message edited by: Flanker15 ]

[the Fighting Seabee]

Flanker15,

I think your right man. That one thing would solve a lot of issues. I would love to be able to tell my guys to fire one specific weapon or ammo type. Not only would it save lives, but it would conserve untold amounts of ammo, not to mention make my previous rant a moot point.

[molotov_billy]

Seabea, I absolutely agree, good points. Where would a runner come from? How about telling a guy to run someplace X and grab ammo, etc. We have no abilities to do things without clunkily exposing the entire squad to detection and fire.

I suppose you'd have to model the negative effects of moving individuals around in a "non-doctrinal" type of way. Do they lose communication? Does their morale absolutely plummet? Do they lose their way back to their squad? Pinned more easily?

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by the Fighting Seabee:

Flanker15,

I think your right man. That one thing would solve a lot of issues. I would love to be able to tell my guys to fire one specific weapon or ammo type. Not only would it save lives, but it would conserve untold amounts of ammo, not to mention make my previous rant a moot point.

Yep.

RPG's

AT4's

Sniper rifles

ToW-2

Grenades

Smokegrenades

Javelins

Tank Cannons

Possibly ammo types.

Click the weapon icon in your UI. Drag the attack line to your target. Click the target. The color of the line indicates if that specific soldier can see the enemy unit.

[MarkEzra]

Originally posted by the Fighting Seabee:

Steve,

First I must say that the reason we are here on this forum is because we love CM:SF. It is the most realistic simulation of modern warfare ever created for pc use. We just want to be a part of polishing this gem.

That said, I have to say that I think your nuts if you think that an entire squad is going to come out of cover to fire 1 rpg. I don't care whose doctrine it is. Sure it has happened, but those instances are exceptions. I can post many links to videos showing one rpg guy or mg gunner pop around a corner while the rest sit back and watch behind cover. It's just absurd to think that any squad would normally put themselves in the open over some "soviet doctrine", especially when, as you said, they aren't trained well.

Being a military veteran myself (although I have not seen serious combat and have never had an rpg fired at me), I tend to think I know a thing or two. Having been a squad leader, I have broken up my squads into fireteams, and even sent individuals out for one reason or the other. I don't think breaking squads apart is unrealistic at all, especially when lives are on the line. Not all middle eastern warriors are suicidal. I can understand not sending the rpg gunner across the map and wanting to keep the squad as a cohesive unit, but there should be some leeway there.

Since this game engine uses many abstractions, maybe there would be a way to simulate this... maybe have the rpg guy move into firing position, fire, and rejoin the squad immediately, until he is reloaded or is ordered to cease fire. To me this would be much more realistic. And if he gets hit, guess what, the rpg is laying out there in the open, so the next guy either has to come out of cover to recover the weapon, or they lose it.

Maybe this would be too hard to program in, or not important enough to take care of while you improve other aspects of the game, but to deny that any squad in the world would not do this if at all possible is simply wrong, in my opinion.

I do very much appreciate that you come out on these forums and discuss your wargaming philosophies with us. It shows you guys really care about your customers. I always look forward to these discussions.

Hoorah, keep up the great work!

You have an interesting point and nice way of presenting it

[Webwing]

You have an interesting point and nice way of presenting it

Seabee is a gentleman!

-

[Battlefront.com]

Omenow1,

I think things are OK with the way v1.06 is currently, however we can discuss this again after you all see it And yes, the concealment and cover characteristics of terrain are separate so they can be tweaked independently. Fire directed at a target that has bad concealment but good cover is likely to produce more suppression and less lethality.

Cpl.Steiner,

Thanks! I remember that thread, but obviously it slipped my mind. I have it on a fix list now. Thanks!

the fighting Seabee,

First I must say that the reason we are here on this forum is because we love CM:SF. It is the most realistic simulation of modern warfare ever created for pc use. We just want to be a part of polishing this gem.

Thanks! Glad to have the feedback.

That said, I have to say that I think your nuts if you think that an entire squad is going to come out of cover to fire 1 rpg. I don't care whose doctrine it is. Sure it has happened, but those instances are exceptions. I can post many links to videos showing one rpg guy or mg gunner pop around a corner while the rest sit back and watch behind cover. It's just absurd to think that any squad would normally put themselves in the open over some "soviet doctrine", especially when, as you said, they aren't trained well.

Remember that the Squad occupies 64m2 or 128m2 (depending), so it is possible for the AT guy to act independently but within close proximity. Not as independently as perhaps might happen in real life, but that gets into the problem I described above. CMx1 and CMx2 are Team/Squad level games, and therefore that is what the entire game system is set up around. Allowing people to discriminate down to individual soldier level too much will undermine the entire simulated environment. It's a big risk and we've taken some lumps along the way to learn this. So it might be unrealistic to keep things too tightly compacted the way it is now, but the alternatives will be far worse in terms of overall realism and/or playability. It's a balancing act and sometimes there is no perfect answer. That said, I'll cover something that may help things a bit after I address your other points.

Being a military veteran myself (although I have not seen serious combat and have never had an rpg fired at me), I tend to think I know a thing or two. Having been a squad leader, I have broken up my squads into fireteams, and even sent individuals out for one reason or the other. I don't think breaking squads apart is unrealistic at all, especially when lives are on the line. Not all middle eastern warriors are suicidal. I can understand not sending the rpg gunner across the map and wanting to keep the squad as a cohesive unit, but there should be some leeway there.

That's the problem... without coding rather involved TacAI, UI, and rules there isn't a way to allow individuals to be sectioned off. The US Squads, and Syrian Special Forces, do have the ability to break up into fireteams and to section off AT guys because, as you rightly point out, that is the norm for the US forces. Smaller units is also the norm for unconventional forces, so the Uncons are all in fairly small units (2-5 guys IIRC) because that's the way they would likely fight.

To emphasize the difference, a US unit has a dedicated leader for the whole Squad (Squad Leader) and dedicated leaders for each of the fireteams (Team Leaders). The Soviet doctrine, and Syrian practice, has a single leader (Squad Leader) and an assistant (Assistant Squad Leader). There is no concept of teams like the US and therefore there is no leadership structure for it. There are a number of practical reasons for this major difference, the number one being the cost of training all those extra leaders. The other is that Soviet style "pragmatic thinking" treats infantry as a sponge that is supposed to soak up fire until artillery, armor, and/or air can deal the real blow. So not much point in spending all that time and money to bread independent leadership at the lowest level when you expect, at the strategic level, that such leadership isn't necessary.

Since this game engine uses many abstractions, maybe there would be a way to simulate this... maybe have the rpg guy move into firing position, fire, and rejoin the squad immediately, until he is reloaded or is ordered to cease fire. To me this would be much more realistic. And if he gets hit, guess what, the rpg is laying out there in the open, so the next guy either has to come out of cover to recover the weapon, or they lose it.

In time, perhaps. Unfortunately, this is asking a lot of the TacAI and that means programming time. I'm not saying it isn't a desirable thing to spend time on, just that there is no quick fix we can implement.

Maybe this would be too hard to program in, or not important enough to take care of while you improve other aspects of the game, but to deny that any squad in the world would not do this if at all possible is simply wrong, in my opinion.

Nope, I wouldn't denny that My point further up is to allow people to split off the RPG guy would open things up to "abuse" by the player. In other words, they would enjoy a degree of independence that is so much greater than real life that it swings the overall balance of realism the wrong way. Finding a compromise, unfortunately, is difficult.

I do very much appreciate that you come out on these forums and discuss your wargaming philosophies with us. It shows you guys really care about your customers. I always look forward to these discussions.

And I'm glad to have such discussions. We'll never have a perfect simulation of warfare, so it's acknowledged ahead of time that there will be areas in need of improvement. Discussing them helps focus on what exactly could use some improvement, how, and to what extent. Then we have the bugger of a problem of figuring out how to do something about it when keeping everything else in mind. I tell you honestly, this is the part of game development that sucks the worst. We have enough ideas of our own to keep us working for the next 10 years, yet realistically we only have much smaller amounts of time before you all get bored and go away or we run out of money and start having to look for new jobs. So it's always a balancing act of limited resources and nearly unlimited imagination. Bah!

Flanker15,

I still reckon my old idea of a "target weapon" addition could fix this prob with the RPG

Something like this will get into the game sooner rather than later. There are a bunch of different circumstances where the TacAI is put in charge of figuring out what to do and it's impossible for it to do right all the time in all circumstances. Therefore, we recognized a while ago that there must be some way to ensure that some things happen. We have an idea of how to make this work without explicit commands (which would be cumbersome), but it's something that might have to wait for WW2 before it happens. I can say for sure that it is on The List so it won't be forgotten

molotov_billy,

I suppose you'd have to model the negative effects of moving individuals around in a "non-doctrinal" type of way. Do they lose communication? Does their morale absolutely plummet? Do they lose their way back to their squad? Pinned more easily?

This is kinda the way we went with some similar issues in CMx1 and we had distinctly mixed results. What we found was that even with penalties there were ways to leverage the units unrealistically to gain advantages that we had not anticipated. In CMx1 the two biggest examples were using crews as disposable recon and splitting Squads to get two points of fire. The latter was not necessarily unrealistic, but it sometimes greatly rewarded the person who was willing to handle 100 units instead of 60. We tried hard to undermine the benefits of doing these things and only partially succeeded.

However, your next point about this being a bigger issue than just Syrian RPGs is exactly correct. In fact, the specific issue that got the testers making this suggestion was the US use of AT4s. Since then the TacAI has gotten a lot smarter about how to handle these things, but it is still not smart enough sometimes. Unfortunately, even having the TacAI botch something 1 in 20 times is enough to get player ire up. And I can't argue with that either. Therefore, we do need a way for players to specify, under no uncertain terms, that they want a particular thing (AT4, RPG-7, Javelin, etc.) to be used against the designated target. We'll get it in there eventually!

Webwing,

Seabee is a gentleman!

We'll need some testimony from the women around him before I would dare jump to that conclusion (his mom doesn't count! ), but I will say that I am very pleased to see him posting critical comments strongly and yet constructively. That's the way things are best discussed.

Steve

[ January 13, 2008, 09:42 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Webwing]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Webwing,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Seabee is a gentleman!

We'll need some testimony from the women around him before I would dare jump to that conclusion (his mom doesn't count! ), but I will say that I am very pleased to see him posting critical comments strongly and yet constructively. That's the way things are best discussed.

Steve </font>

[the Fighting Seabee]

Aw shucks

Steve and Webwing,

Thanks. I've always been a gentleman. Both with my high standard of proprietary behavior and with the ladies. My girlfriend would attest to my gentlemanlyhood... hell I'm working for her Dad. I have to be!

Steve, I can't imagine a more down to earth game maker... there may be a few comparable, but none that I know of. Webwing, I have yet to meet a person more enthusiastic about this game, it's a delight to read you posts and emails. OK, taki comes in at a close second .

About the game... I understand your logic, it all makes perfect sense to me. I can only imagine the path you guys have taken while creating the CM series. Creating games like this from scratch can't be easy. But still you have done things no one else has ever done, and you continue to do so. When we nitpick over tiny details like the psychology of the ai, or armor penetration values, or that the ai isn't perfectly following correct tactical procedure, you should take it as a huge compliment.

Maybe some day we'll be able to click on rifleman #2 and see that he is thinking of his wife and kids back home, so his alertness will be negatively affected. Or maybe you'll be able to model the fact that the bullet fired at him was stopped short of his heart by the bible in his pocket. Or maybe we'll be able to have him trade the cheese packet for the peanut butter packet in his MRE with his buddy because he doesn't like the cheese. Until then, this will still be the best simulation of modern warfare available.

Cheers and Hoorah!

[Wiggum]

@ Battlefront

Something like this will get into the game sooner rather than later. There are a bunch of different circumstances where the TacAI is put in charge of figuring out what to do and it's impossible for it to do right all the time in all circumstances. Therefore, we recognized a while ago that there must be some way to ensure that some things happen. We have an idea of how to make this work without explicit commands (which would be cumbersome), but it's something that might have to wait for WW2 before it happens. I can say for sure that it is on The List so it won't be forgotten

...sounds good but...

That means we never will see something in CMSF without buy the WW2 Addon ?

[ January 16, 2008, 06:04 AM: Message edited by: Wiggum ]

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by Wiggum:

ohh, great...

That means we never will see something in CMSF without spend more money ?

I know for sure that they said any code updates to a module would be a free addition for Shock Force. I don't know about the WW2 one, though - I don't think it's a module, but it's certainly on the same engine and shares code with CMSF.

[Battlefront.com]

Molotov_billy is correct... all CM:SF code improvements will be available to all CM:SF players regardless of what modules they do, or do not, have. Where we're a bit unsure about is what will happen when we move to another game genre, like WW2. We VERY much want the relevant improvements to be backwards compatible, though this will involve no small amount of work on our part (especially from CM:SF to the first CM:WW2 game). Therefore, we may have to charge an "upgrade" price to get the WW2 features for CM:SF. If we go that route it will be reasonable.

We're just going to have to see how much work we need to do to make the backwards compatibility thing a reality. The will to do it is there, though, that's for sure.

Steve

[Mord]

That is a winning idea as far as I am concerned. As much as I loved CMX1 stuff I was always bummed out that CMBO never benefited from the upgrades CMBB and CMAK enjoyed upon their release.

GOD, I acan't wait for you guys to get to WWII!...and NAM...C'mon, you know you want to!

Mord.

[ January 18, 2008, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: Mord ]

[MikeyD]

"...will be available to all CM:SF players regardless of what modules they do, or do not, have."

Wow, this is actually BIG NEWS if it means they're somehow planning to reverse-engineer CMSF to get WWII-theatre water or snow or rain to work in it. A steadily-expanding CMSF could have a long looong life ahead of it! :eek: And imagine CMSF after the 'Space lobsters' theatre upgrades - proton beam guns for eveyone!

[flamingknives]

Well, BFC have always said that they would build the CMX2 games on a common engine and would try to update all games as possible.

The idea that they would spend the time on it even if it were difficult is new, AIUI, as is the small charge for upgrading the old games.

[Battlefront.com]

The main technical problem with backwards compatibility is the data formats. We already know that we're going to change the way unit data is handled for the first WW2 game, for example. This means that the reams of entries made into various files for CM:SF will not work without modification. I'm the guy that manages these files and I have to tell you... I do not look forward to reformatting these files Most of the changes we are likely to do will require hand tweaking each entry because no automated way I can think of will be possible for most of the changes. This is one area that has already been identified, and we haven't even started on the WW2 game yet!

The other issue is on the sales side. It doesn't seem right that people make one rather modest purchase and get a lifetime of new feature upgrades. I'm not talking about tweaks and bug fixes, but entirely new features. When the game was purchased it was done so for the features it already has, not what might come down the road later on. No software company I know of, be it game or otherwise, offers free upgrades to major revisions for this very reason.

Some of the upgrade prices are "fair" in one person's opinion, a ripoff in another's, however few disagree with the notion that major new features have additional value and that some sort of compensation for it is reasonable. Therefore, the software developer must price the upgrade in relation to product prices and "value" added.

Therefore...

Because we KNOW there will be a significant amount of work to make the first release of WW2 backwards compatible with CM:SF AND it is reasonable to charge something for a significant upgrade, we probably will. However, as I said before... Modules within a Title will not be required purchases. Therefore, any new game features added to make Modules (eg. CM:SF Marines Module) work will be automatically available to everybody who owns that particular Title (eg. CM:SF). Obviously the game data in the Module (eg. AAV-7, T-90SA, etc.) will not be available to someone who hasn't purchased that particular Module. That means someone with a Module can play scenarios/QBs against someone who doesn't have the Module as long as the data used is common for both.

Steve

[MikeyD]

You could always, tweak the old CMSF engine to WWII standards, repaint the tanks to Euro green and resell it full price under the title "CM:FG Fulda Gap!"

[civdiv]

Video (Not only cool but great music);

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=72f_1187606545

At about the 3 minute mark you see what a SAW (5.56) does to a cinderblock wall.