Ammo Sharing Needed

[c3k]

The addition of bulk ammo supplies in vehicles is great. It adds to the "overhead" of cycling a squad, or team, off-line to resupply.

But why can't the resupplied unit SHARE that ammo?

If my platoon is running low, I'd like to send a half-squad back to the ammo resupply point. Skulking and dodging along the way. There, they load up with ammo for everyone. (Grenades?) When they return, what, they won't share? "Hey! Get your own!"

Instead, how about coding up a new feature to SHARE?

Have it as a sub-menu similar to ACQUIRE. Any other unit (restricted to sister units?) may SHARE ammo if close enough.

This would keep from having to cycle every single unit back to the same point.

Thoughts?

Regards,

Ken

[Cpl Steiner]

This would be great. However, think carefully about the interface implications. If I select a unit and click "share", how many menus am I going to see? It sounds like it would be two: one to select the ammo to share and another to select the unit to share it with. Could be unwieldy.

How about two commands: "Drop" and "Acquire".

Example: In a fierce firefight the MMG is running low on 7.62mm ammo. You don't want the MMG team to go back to the Stryker for more as they are laying down covering fire for the whole platoon, so instead you send an Anti-Tank team who have a Javelin launcher but no missiles. They get back to the Stryker and "Drop" the launcher inside. They then "Acquire" about 2000 rounds of 7.62mm ammo and head back to the MMG team. Once there they "Drop" the 7.62mm ammo, which appears on the map as an ammo box doodad. You then select the MMG team and "Acquire" the 7.62mm ammo, which makes the ammo box doodad disappear.

I would suggest a generic ammo box doodad for anything, including ammo, Javelin launchers, maybe even personal weapons in some circumstances.

[Yskonyn]

That would be absolutely cool! I am all for it!

And on a technical note I can imagine it might not be too hard to get into the game. We already have the 'aquire' command in Strykers, so there's some kind of inventory system already in.

[Pandur]

i dont quiet get that; when i split a squad to form an ammo runner group and they return loaded with bullets and are incorporated into the squad again, they do share their ammo with the squad members, or at least i didnt saw half squad shooting/half watching so far.

so you exlude the 2 man AT team for example and send em to the stryker. and that for every squad wich needs ammo. isnt too complicated or too much work in my eyes.

[Yskonyn]

The magic word is 'split squad'. . .

Never thought about doing it that way. Silly me.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by Pandur:

i dont quiet get that; when i split a squad to form an ammo runner group and they return loaded with bullets and are incorporated into the squad again, they do share their ammo with the squad members, or at least i didnt saw half squad shooting/half watching so far.

so you exlude the 2 man AT team for example and send em to the stryker. and that for every squad wich needs ammo. isnt too complicated or too much work in my eyes.

Pandur,

What could be simpler than the reverse of "Acquire", i.e. "Drop". It would be so versatile.

What you say about half-squads is true up to a point. If I send the Anti-Tank team to get 5.56mm ammo and merge them with the rest of the squad then there is no need to drop the ammo as it will automatically be distributed evenly amongst the squad.

What I'm talking about is being able to drop items you don't need any more, such as the Javelin launcher, and ammo you can't use, such as 7.62mm when the squad only uses 5.56mm.

By the way, there is also no option to acquire hand-grenades and M203/Rifle grenades from a vehicle. I wonder if this is an oversight or if it's because in real life grenades are always carried rather than stowed, where they might end up rolling dangerously around inside the vehicle.

Originally posted by Yskonyn:

The magic word is 'split squad'. . .

Never thought about doing it that way. Silly me.

Not so silly really. I think you have assumed that when I said MMG I meant the M249 SAW with each fireteam. Of course the SAW uses the same ammo as the squad so there is no need for a drop command here. I was referring to the two M240B MMG teams of each platoon, which use 7.62mm ammo.

[ December 24, 2007, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: Cpl Steiner ]

[Yskonyn]

Yup that would indeed be a very handy option.

Interesting topic you open there about the grenades. I would like to know how this currently reflects in-game.

[c3k]

Thanks.

I opened this thread partially to begin a discussion about grenade resupply.

As well, what about engineer satchel charges?

My thoughts are for the situation when a PLATOON needs resupply. Instead of every SQUAD having to separately get ammo, why can't one team get it?

What if my intent is to keep my anti-tank assets up on-line? The technique of peeling the 2 man anti-tank team from each squad would be counterproductive. As would the inverse - leaving just 6 men on line while 21 (2+7=9 man Stryker squad) go back.

The 7.62mm example has already been mentioned.

What of the Syrian side? Who will get more missiles for my launchers? Etc., etc.

I'm not sure about "dropping" an ammo counter. Hey, it'd look cool, I'm just not sure how it'd work in-game. The invisible but coded aspect of "ACQUIRE" is already there. I'm just wondering about extending its utility.

The ammo displays for squads obviously represent real numbers behind the scenes. We don't know what they are. But, by "SHARING" ammo, we could see the total ammo supply and how much they'll give to the other guys.

In short, any expendable munition should be able to be SHARED or resupplied. We already have a system, rough but workable, in-game. Can we streamline it and expand it?

Regards,

Ken

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by c3k:

I'm not sure about "dropping" an ammo counter. Hey, it'd look cool, I'm just not sure how it'd work in-game.

The purpose of the "Drop" command is so you don't have the problem of trying to acquire one of many different types of ammo from several different nearby sources. When you clicked "Drop", you would be presented with a list of available gear to drop, just like the current "Acquire" command gives you a list of available gear to pick up. You would have the option to drop ammo in 500 round increments, also just like "Acquire". When you clicked "Acquire" for a unit in an "action spot" that contained an ammo box doodad, you would see a list of all the items in the ammo box. You could acquire some or all of it. If you acquired all of it, the doodad would disappear. The "Acquire" command would only be available in action spots that contained an ammo box doodad.

I think this would work very elegantly if you ask me. You could even have ammo dumps that you could put on the map in the set up phase, instead of having to have vehicles. It could even be extended by allowing personal weapons to be put into ammo boxes. This would allow you to have unarmed personnel at the start of a scenario, such as sleeping soldiers in a barracks, that have to acquire weapons and ammo in order to fight.

[ December 24, 2007, 10:46 AM: Message edited by: Cpl Steiner ]

[vincere]

Great idea. I'd like to be able to drop Javalin missiles & launcher back in the Stryker too.

Also, does anybody else have the problem of the squad acquiring all three javalin missiles when trying to get two?

[SgtMuhammed]

If you only want two missiles then just grab the launcher and one missile. In 1.05 the launcher already comes with a missile.

[Pandur]

iam still pleased with the possibilities we have now, especially considered the fact that squads and more important, the MMG teams can hold an, in game therms, not easy reachable amount of ammo.

so when in setup zone, you pack the MMG team with 2500 rounds from the stryker, plus their 700 are 3k+ rounds wich will be enough through every battle there is currently, i guess

MMG teams rearely move, and when they do i give em a ride, at least for me, so its a possible option if you dont need a quick by foot MMG team.

also +1500 rounds would be allready enough to beginn with.

same for squads, but its more pratical to give them just 500 to 1500 more so they can still use quick and sneak, more or less, normaly.

if you supplie half your squads and all MMG teams that way its allready more than enough.

[PeterLorre86]

A related question, why cant red resupply? Is it a bug or something?

Red special forces can resupply, so why not regular syrian units?

[Pandur]

Red special forces can resupply

what!? where they can do that!? i need to know, please. i would like to use it.

so why not regular syrian units?

as far as iam informed it was said in some thread some time ago that it was left out so to say or an oversight in other words. in fact steve himself said a few days ago that this will be fixed soon(i guess next patch...).

iam verry happy about that as it is something i often miss in my passion for RED vs RED games.

[c3k]

Pandur,

I've run an experiment. During setup you can get ALL the 7.62 ammo and give it to ONE M240B team. That lucky team will have OVER 13,000 ROUNDS.

The other team keeps its default 700 rounds.

Now, I like that I can ACQUIRE items. Great. I mean that.

However, I setup my two MMG teams (one with 700 rounds, the other with 13,000). One runs dry. The other has a surfeit. Yet, all that extra ammo CANNOT be used by the other team. Nor can the 13,000 round team run back to a Stryker, drop off some extra, allowing the dry team to be resupplied.

Once you muff the original ACQUIRE there is NO alternative. You cannot SHARE, DROP or UNACQUIRE. I guess you could burn it off...

The more I think about it, the more I like the DROP option. I thought SHARE could be easier to implement, kind of as an in-game, behind the scenes ammo levelling between two units.

But DROP, with a selectable number and type of ammo would be cool.

I want an RPG depot so my uncons can run back and forth with them. Oh, and the artwork would have to show a dozen or two RPG's sticking out of backpacks.

Just a few happy thoughts to tweak the game.

Regards,

Ken

[Pandur]

Once you muff the original ACQUIRE there is NO alternative.

well, thats true. but in the case of the 13k to 700, why dont you give both teams 6500!? would be more economical, i guess thats the word.

no, i see what you mean. i also often miss used the acquire command(though iam used to it by now) and ended up with a squad wich now holds the last 7.62 ammo for the MMG outside of the vehicle. but they dont share

i guess a "drop" command wich works exactly as the "accquire" command would really be the best. so you can drop stuff in, and back into, vehicles, but not outside.

important would be that it also should work in emty vehicles. like loading RPG´s or ammo into UAZ´s or Taxis for a change.

[PeterLorre86]

Originally posted by Pandur:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Red special forces can resupply

what!? where they can do that!? i need to know, please. i would like to use it.

</font>

[the Fighting Seabee]

It seems like it would be really easy to make any unit be able to "acquire" from any other unit. This would be a very nice thing to have.

Also, when you acquire ammo, why not have one more option that says "take all"?

-OR-

an option to close the "acquire" menu, so that you can acquire multiple things without having to press the button over and over again.

Both of these things seem like they would be pretty easy to program in for a future patch. Btw, while we are improving the interface, please make the red button a "pause" button. Currently it is completely useless in RT mode.

[c3k]

Hello. Can someone volunteer to bump this?

Thank you.

[Yskonyn]

bumperdiebump

[Battlefront.com]

There is definitely UI improvements we can make with Acquire. We also did have plans for a "Equalize" Command that would allow you to have two units exchange ammo so that they were equally loaded. This ran into some rather complex issues (distance, how long should it take, what happens when one unit is taking some fire, etc.) so we put it on hold. Hopefully we'll get something in there someday.

Overloading of one unit, however, is something I would like to find a way to avoid. The way it is now is an unintended side effect of certain other things and we haven't had a chance to straighten it out.

Red should be able to resupply in v1.06. It was an oversight on our part when doing up vehicle specifications. The US vehicles had nice data on spare ammo so we included it, the Syrian vehicles didn't so nothing was included. We always meant to go back and fill in the blanks but we apparently forgot until recently

Steve

[c3k]

Steve,

Don't think of us as complainers, think of us as your own personal sticky-note. We're more than happy to remind you of things to improve the game.

Regards,

Ken

[vincere]

SgtMuhammed thanks for the tip.

['Card]

I think ammo sharing is a great idea when it involves you giving bullets to me.

I'm less enthusiastic about the vice-versa aspect of the equation, however.

[Aacooper]

If there's going to eventually be ammo-sharing, what about ammo-sharing from friendly casualties? I don't know how often it'll be useful, but think of future Arnhem scenarios and similar situations.