Discussion - Borg dead or at least Wounded?

[Battlefront.com]

One of the MAJOR improvements in CMx2 is the introduction of Relative Spotting to replace CMx1's Absolute Spotting. This is the difference between each unit only being able to see what it can actually see vs. being able to see EVERYTHING that has been spotted. This has lead to the CM community nicknaming the "see all, know all" system as Borg Spotting.

This is a very new concept to wargaming. I can't think of any other game that has even tried it, at least. We discussed this killing off the Borg for years now on this Forum and people often had a hard time picturing how it would actually work and how it would affect gameplay. Now that you've had a chance to play with it some, what do you think?

Steve

[Pvt. Ryan]

I like it so far. I can't imagine the volume of fire we'd see from modern forces with borg spotting.

[thelmia]

I love it. It makes it much easier to tell what a unit can fire at, while still giving me an overall view of the battle. In the old games it was often confusing trying to determine what a unit could see.

Good change.

[Premierleutnant]

Great! It is straight realism if my rifle squads is sitting back in the Bradley and does not realize that they are surrounded by enemy forces.

[Narcan]

The new spotting system is begging for coop multiplayer. Any word on that?

[ChrisND]

It works for me, but one "Borgish" aspect remains; the ability to seemingly instantly determine whether the unit is infantry, ATGM, MG, HQ, etc.

[jomni]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

One of the MAJOR improvements in CMx2 is the introduction of Relative Spotting to replace CMx1's Absolute Spotting. This is the difference between each unit only being able to see what it can actually see vs. being able to see EVERYTHING that has been spotted. This has lead to the CM community nicknaming the "see all, know all" system as Borg Spotting.

The game Point of Attack 2 (POA2) has already done this before. But a very nice introduction to CM.

[Thomm]

Let me put it this way:

When I order a squad to enter a building through the visible, protected door in front of them and half of them run around to the unprotected side of that building only to be killed instantly, I am too pissed off to think of the subtleties of relative spotting.

If, however, I find out that this behavior in fact results from the fact that my squad simply was not aware of the existence of the enemy due to relative spotting and tried its best to execute a two-point entry, I would be very pleased instead.

Need more playing to figure out what is what.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I can't think of any other game that has even tried it, at least.

ToW? :confused:

[Martin Krejcirik]

I love it. There are probably some bugs and some tweaks needed, but generally it works well. I would prefer even more FOW, players (composite) view should show only generic markers, ID of individual enemy units should by reduced (how could my unit tell the enemy is 3rd squad, veteran and fit).

[Battlefront.com]

Thelmia,

Yes, that is one reason why we decided to go without a dedicted LOS tool. One click and you know who you can see without having manually check. It's not exact because the unit can be slightly out of LOS, but in CMx1 unless you used the LOS/Target Tool you didn't know anything at all.

Narcan,

It is a ways off, sorry to say. The game engine is inherently set up to handle it, as you rightly point out, but the amount of work... frighteningly huge. The amount of "side effects" from that are massive. However, we have laid the groundwork with the core of the engine so it is going to happen at some point. As you might expect, definitely not for the first WWII release (i.e. the next full CM Game).

Normal Dude,

Yup, that is something that will be refined. Too much of a bite to chew off at one point.

Jomni,

Thanks!!! I thought I was forgetting something and that is exactly the game I was thinking about. Never played it, but when we were discussing killing off the Borg I recall some game being brought up and I'm sure that is the one. But I recall it working differently??

Steve

[jomni]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Jomni,

Thanks!!! I thought I was forgetting something and that is exactly the game I was thinking about. Never played it, but when we were discussing killing off the Borg I recall some game being brought up and I'm sure that is the one. But I recall it working differently??

Steve

Well the difference is that you only play the perspective of the ultimate commander of the task force. Which means you cannot see what your sub unit sees until they report it to you.

[Mindfield]

One thing I wondering:

Take the demo scenario from US view.

If I move some Inf up the left hill, and the Inf spots eg. a tank behind the hill, will this information be "processed" to my M1s that have no LOS and LOF to that tank, so they "know" that there is a threat?

Do they "look" there if I am issuing a "slow" move order to get in LOS/LOF of that tank and have a better chance firing a shot?

And if so, do I get a visual information, when selecting the M1, that he knows of the threat?

The manual section "spotting" is not clearly enough on that point, well for me at last.

[ August 01, 2007, 01:32 AM: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

[jomni]

The M1 will not know the details of the threat until he gets visual contact. He will just know the relative position (you will just see the red "enemy unit" icon).

What you should do is order a firing arc for the tank in the direction of the threat (maybe designating it as a target will do as well) and move forward to get visual.

[Moosegum]

Borg spotting in CM2 is wonderful.

One comment: Though I agree with others about it being unrealistic that our units can easily determine the details of a unit (type, number, state) I would suggest that you make this a feature that you can adjust in the realism settings instead of just cutting it down once and for all. And please don't just tie it to the 'easy' setting...

Specific attention when fine-tuning the spotting should also be given to any RPG units. Soldiers on the ground, I think, are very much on the lookout for these, so they should be a little easier to identify when first spotted or when the first RPG has been launched (but still just as hard to actually spot in the first place).

[Martin Krejcirik]

Yeah, there is a need for separarate realism options, not just Easy, Veteran and Elite.

[metalbrew]

I think the new system is pretty good when all things are taken into account. I really only play Elite level so that's what I'm basing my opinion on.

The unit identification is way too accurate. Once a unit is spotted I can tell the complete composition of the unit and most importantly whether or not the RPG gunner is dead. If the RPG gunner is down I can roll up to the unit and rake them at close range.

Regarding spotting in general I miss the contact lines from CMx1. It's tedious to check 15 units to see which unit is the unit with eyes on the bad guy. The contact lines were an easy way to get the same info without spending 1 minute free clicking around the map.

[securityguard]

Is it possible for units to friendly fire units? I've noticed that a unit, even a conscript fanatical combatant with no radio, can identify a "?" as friendly or enemy. Although I haven't had many instances where FF could happen, anyways, I'm assuming its in there.

[Other Means]

In affect, it's just turning the game into a memory test. Click on the map, see all the unit markers, memorise where you need to fire, click on your unit, fire at the area.

So I think the ordering of area fire should go through C&C, if possible, to simulate the fact that a unit calls for it, but that call needs to go through the commander and back down to the support units.

It may look a little funky, but here's what I mean (bear in mind I've not had a real chance to play the game yet because my machine is stone age - I'm building my new one currently).

Unit A sees a unit marker in some cover. You as the player know there's a unit there. Currently you order your MG's to fire on this area and suppress whatever is in there. You are Queen Borg.

What would be good is you order support fire, but there is a delay based on the shortest C&C time of all the units spotting any enemy unit marker in the area to HQ, to support unit.

Unit A sees a unit marker. You as Queen Borg order area fire on the area. The game simulates the delay of getting an order to HQ and from HQ to the support units. A possible outcome being if Unit A has no CoC to HQ, it can't ask for area fire. I think this is a good result.

Prep fire wouldn't suffer from this - so in effect it's quicker to area fire before there's a marker there. But I think this is a reasonable trade off, prep fire would be planned, while covering fire is reactive.

I'd like to see CoC indicated a bit better too. So you can have movement, target and CoC indicators, showing where units are going, what they're shooting at, and who's telling them to do so.

Just my half a shekel.

[Other Means]

BTW I'm loving the unit indicators.

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by Other Means:

In affect, it's just turning the game into a memory test. Click on the map, see all the unit markers, memorise where you need to fire, click on your unit, fire at the area.

Well, I don't really think it's been like that for me. There are times when I've seen a unit in a building and had another unit (with a considerable weapon) fire at that location. The MGS is good for unspotted fire as is the Mk19. The ultimate weapon would be artillery which is almost always used via Borg spotting and we don't really even think about it like that. I'm reticent to use my M1s for area fire because if the battle designer gave them to me, it's always been because T-72s are roaming the map, if my M1 is busy area firing at a squad that's the exact moment the T-72 will pop out and kill 4 Strykers. Smaller arms (including the 12.7mm guns) really aren't worth the ammo to area fire without a relative spot, at least from my observations.

[Bunyip]

The borg is dead but I'm seeing some zombie spotting.

One case was a "destroyed" M1 that was the only unit with LOS to an enemy unit that didn't go to question mark like I'd expect it to.

The other zombie issue is selecting a corpse from a unit that is showing a QM selects the whole unit and gives you full details.

[Sgt Joch]

It works perfectly, the biggest improvement in the game system as far as I am concerned. Been playing at the "Elite" level and I like the way target info acquired by one unit is gradually passed off to other nearby friendly units based on command&control, it has a nice realistic feel to it.

[Swift]

It is great!

[Fetchez la Vache]

I'm in agreement with Other Means in so much that it's rather becoming a memory test if, by de-selecting a unit, you can see a 'summary' of all spotted units. That's still too Borg-like for me, but a great improvement nonetheless.

Also the ability to see dust-trails without even a "?" icon is a tad odd.

I would like something similar to ToW - those units which can be seen by the selected unit are solid colour, others have some degree of transparency. Then unidentified units can be left as a "?", whereas unidentified units are given their respective icon - with some possibility of misidentification!

I would also like some degree of customizing the size of units and icons: the CMx1 unit size toggle was excellent I think; and I find the current icon size a bit large sometimes.