Relative Spotting revisited

[aka_tom_w]

I think this one boils down to what you as the Player can know about the enemy as opposed to what your units (in contact) with the enemy can know about the enemy.

to deal with these two issues:

Larsen says:

"For me the problem with absolute spotting is not that I know immidiately where the bad guys are but

that the units that didnot spot the bad guys can immidiately see them and fire at them. I would

assume that once the shots are fired one can say that "the bad guys are somewhere there". It would

be nice to make each unit to spot the enemy individually rather than collectively. "

AND this:

Redwolf says:

"What I want a solution for is this: you are attacking with a wide screen all over the map. Lead

elements to the left spot tanks. In CMBO you can immideately rush all your units, including all Bazookas

from all over the map, to that spot. For me, that is one of the major reasons why tanks-heavy CMBO

forces have few chances of winning against infantry on any map with decent cover. In reality, the tanks

would first have more time to munch at the infantry in front of them, then they could prepare for the

enemy armored reserves to arrive and other infantry would follow much later, piecemeal. In CMBO, you

get a concentrated overrun from enemy infantry in a very short time."

The Fog of War MUST be enhanced, to such a large extent, that in order for you as the Player to NOT lose control of your units which are OUT of C&C, (implying that control would be lost if CM II turns into a Command game), then those units that ARE out of C&C (and this comes down to how to we want to model radio communications) MUST not be able to report (to you The Player) any good information about who or what they are fighting or shooting at, BUT still we would need to trust the AI to make sure they, (our inf units out of C&C) employ a suitable tactic (hide, fire back, run away) when they make contact with an enemy unit that they CANNOT tell us (The Player) ANYTHING about because they are out of C&C. Either that or you LOSE complete control of all units out of C&C and most folks here find that excessively punitive and undesirable if I understand the gist of this thread correctly.

This is a REAL tricky problem, but thinking about it sure is FUN!

-tom w

[ April 19, 2002, 11:46 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Redwolf]

I think the following more genral issue is missing from this thread:

From my understandng, for CMII, the relative spotting planned is "only" for the vision with regards to unit acting on their own.

Example: one tank and one squad go into a place and a gun shoots at them, having LOS to both. Even if only one of the unit spot the gun, both will immideately shoot at it, even though only one actually saw the gun. This is supposed to be broken up, but it only applies to automtaic bahaviour (TacAI). It will not prevent the player from ordering area fire when the next plot phase begins.

It will help somewhat, especially for AT teams and guns. Doing more is very difficult. As you said, the "tank gets rushed from all over the map" is probably as hard as it gets short of multiplayer with FOW between the players, or gentleman's agreements not to use area fire to overcome spotting problems.

As a datapoint, TacOps has it somewhat easier since it doesn't have area fire besides indirect fire. But I doubt this is a better solution, since a) indirect area fire is still fire even TacOps will probably get area fire soon, it is needed for realism.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by redwolf:

I think the following more genral issue is missing from this thread:

From my understandng, for CMII, the relative spotting planned is "only" for the vision with regards to unit acting on their own.

Example: one tank and one squad go into a place and a gun shoots at them, having LOS to both. Even if only one of the unit spot the gun, both will immideately shoot at it, even though only one actually saw the gun. This is supposed to be broken up, but it only applies to automtaic bahaviour (TacAI). It will not prevent the player from ordering area fire when the next plot phase begins.

It will help somewhat, especially for AT teams and guns. Doing more is very difficult. As you said, the "tank gets rushed from all over the map" is probably as hard as it gets short of multiplayer with FOW between the players, or gentleman's agreements not to use area fire to overcome spotting problems.

This is right, I think; I believe Doug made about the same point. IMO, though, the "automatic spotting of any unit in LOS when one unit in LOS has spotted that unit" is a much, much bigger realism problem than the other C & C issue, particularly wrt tanks and guns.

There is a certain lack of realism in how borg spotting allows a player to bring up other troops to reinforce a particular area of the battlefield when the reinforcing troops can't see the units that they are reinforcing, or the enemy units.

On the other hand, if the squad or platoon leader hears a lot of firing in the direction where they know one of their platoons is, and they have been given appropriately broad directives, it's not unrealistic to assume that they would "march to the sound of the guns."

Of course there is a difference between sidling a platoon diagonally 200 meters so that it can help out a friendly platoon...and executing a complicated maneuver that calls on the platoon to drop back 300 meters, execute a "J" shaped march over 1200 meters, using a hill for cover, and then running 500 meters until you're almost on where you need to be, followed by 50 meters of "sneaking" to approach the enemy.

Not that this would always be unrealistic, even the parts about using the hill for cover and the last bit of sneaking - but it would require a much higher level of initiative than the first example would.

[Ace Pilot]

It seems to me that the problem of borg spotting is that units act on information that they would not have in real life. Now, I see only two ways of addressing this problem. One is to deny the player the information that only a handful of units have. The other is to prevent the player from performing actions that would only be performed if the particular unit had the information. Of course, each solution means players lose some control over their units.

For example, suppose there is a squad and a Sherman in a town, hiding behind some buildings. The player sends the squad out beyond the town, through some heavy woods to where they spot a halftrack in the open. With borg spotting, the player can immediately send the Sherman after the halftrack. The first way to fix this is to prevent the player from seeing the halftrack because only one of his units knows about it. This, of course, means that the player can’t command his squad to do anything about the halftrack, even though the squad itself is aware of the halftrack. A possible solution is to let the TacAI control the squad’s actions in situations like this, but this means giving up some of the control that it seems a lot of CM players like, as well as improving the AI, as others have pointed out. Another question this solution raises is at what point does a spotted unit become revealed to the player? Unless all of his units are aware of the enemy unit, borg spotting will still be an issue.

The other solution is to prevent the player from performing actions that are only performed because of information that the player has, but his particular units don’t. In this case, it would mean preventing the Sherman from being given orders to go after the halftrack that it doesn’t know is there, or perhaps implementing a big enough command delay that it would make it next to impossible to execute such an order in a timely fashion. How you distinguish between the player sending his Sherman after the halftrack and sending his Sherman to the same location because that’s where he wants it regardless of the halftrack is beyond me. However, the bottom line is that, again, the player loses an element of control over his forces.

Those are the only two solutions I see for implementing relative spotting. And given the limitations they put on the control aspects of the game, I don’t see how either one can be implemented without fundamentally changing the kind of game that CM is.

I do see a way of implementing a psudeo form of relative spotting. If the game were limited to showing enemy units only while the player was in camera view 1 and locked onto one of his units, this would (somewhat) limit the players ability to make maximum use of his “God’s eye” view. The player could still view the map and his units in any other camera view, or while unlocked from his unit, but he couldn’t see any enemy units.

Great discussion, guys!

Ace

[aka_tom_w]

"I do see a way of implementing a psudeo form of relative spotting. If the game were limited to showing

enemy units only while the player was in camera view 1 and locked onto one of his units, this would

(somewhat) limit the players ability to make maximum use of his “God’s eye” view. The player could still

view the map and his units in any other camera view, or while unlocked from his unit, but he couldn’t

see any enemy units."

I REALLY like that idea

that one makes sense (not entirely realistic) and maybe not GREAT for playability for some but it seems like a GREAT compromise for an EXTREME FOW setting.

Very inovative thinking there.

" If the game were limited to showing enemy units only while the player was in camera view 1 and locked onto one of his units, this would (somewhat) limit the players ability to make maximum use of his “God’s eye” view."

AND given the nature of the contact AND whether the friendly unit was in C&C this icon that you see from view one might be very indescript, MAYBE it stay just a sound contact for a LONG time, maybe it is JUST the sound of gun fire?

maybe its just sounds of equipment rattling on the infantry (Higher chance of rattling sound for Green and consript troops ).

That one is a good suggestion to be SURE!

Like Iron Man rules but only for the implimentation of Relative Spotting for enemy units.

GREAT idea!

-tom w

[Redwolf]

That suggestion still doesn't solve the problem that the units which are not covered by the player need to act on their own -> messy heap of TacAI, AI, SOP etc.

One other aspect not menioned is that CMBO has traces of useful FOW. That is if a unit is being shot at and immedeately panics, we don't get to see the shooter. That is good, but as I said, if you want to expand that to units which are not in panic, then you face the problem that they will shoot back, and the graphical precision of CMBO doesn't allow you to hide the target from the player.

Play green troops...

[Redwolf]

I didn't mention the obvious solution: expand turn time from 1 minute to 30. Eliminates the player factor, which is where all the trouble comes from.

We'd better get SOP's, with decision trees on waypoints before that...

[Doug Beman]

For example, suppose there is a squad and a Sherman in a town, hiding behind some buildings. The player sends the squad out beyond the town, through some heavy woods to where they spot a halftrack in the open. With borg spotting, the player can immediately send the Sherman after the halftrack.

But each player is given the role of commanding, in addition to individual units, whole companies. Therefor, the squad sees the halftrack, reports to platoon HQ, who reports to company CO, who orders the supporting Sherman to do something about it.

DjB

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Doug Beman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Ace said:

For example, suppose there is a squad and a Sherman in a town, hiding behind some buildings. The player sends the squad out beyond the town, through some heavy woods to where they spot a halftrack in the open. With borg spotting, the player can immediately send the Sherman after the halftrack.

And Doug said:

But each player is given the role of commanding, in addition to individual units, whole companies. Therefor, the squad sees the halftrack, reports to platoon HQ, who reports to company CO, who orders the supporting Sherman to do something about it.

DjB</font>

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by redwolf:

That suggestion still doesn't solve the problem that the units which are not covered by the player need to act on their own -> messy heap of TacAI, AI, SOP etc.

One other aspect not menioned is that CMBO has traces of useful FOW. That is if a unit is being shot at and immedeately panics, we don't get to see the shooter. That is good, but as I said, if you want to expand that to units which are not in panic, then you face the problem that they will shoot back, and the graphical precision of CMBO doesn't allow you to hide the target from the player.

Play green troops...

"That suggestion still doesn't solve the problem that the units which are not covered by the player need to act on their own -> messy heap of TacAI, AI, SOP etc."

with reference to this:

"If the game were limited to showing enemy units only while the player was in camera view 1 and

locked onto one of his units, this would (somewhat) limit the players ability to make maximum use of

his “God’s eye” view."

I like the above proposal IN addition to the SAME kind of control players now have in CMBO over all units and even those units out of C&C.

So the proposal is NOT to take away control of units out of C&C just to limit the visual representation of enemy icons to that of view 1 only from the unit that spots what they think is the enemy. Its not Iron Man rules is just that the Player ONLY gets to see what one of his friendly units (in C&C or NOT) gets to see from view 1.

If that friendly unit is in C&C radius then MAYBE the game would know that and show the player a little more detailed info. If the friendly unit is out of C&C then the ONLY thing the game would EVER display from view 1 while that friendly unit was selected would be a completely un-identifiable enemy nationality marker and NOTHING more.

Now for vehicles which ALL have radios that always work then they would always get the benefit of viewing from within C&C, so they would see and the game would reveal more detailed info to the player.

This might make it "feel" more like Relative Spotting without ever taking the control of any units away from the player. Meaning that JUST the level of FOW would be substantially increased.

How's that?

-tom w

[ April 19, 2002, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

...(and this comes down to how to we want to model radio communications)...

Let's not get hung up on radio communication. Even in the US Army, which was relatively speaking lavishly supplied with radios, platoon leaders communicated with their squads primarily by hand signal, voice, runners, and good old "pass the word". There were in other armies also whistles, flares (Very lights), signal flags, even bugles. I've probably skipped something, but I hope you get the idea.

Michael

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

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

...(and this comes down to how to we want to model radio communications)...

Let's not get hung up on radio communication. Even in the US Army, which was relatively speaking lavishly supplied with radios, platoon leaders communicated with their squads primarily by hand signal, voice, runners, and good old "pass the word". There were in other armies also whistles, flares (Very lights), signal flags, even bugles. I've probably skipped something, but I hope you get the idea.

Michael</font>

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

How you distinguish between the player sending his Sherman after the halftrack and sending his Sherman to the same location because that’s where he wants it regardless of the halftrack is beyond me.

It's beyond me too, Ace. I think this approach is unworkable, unjustifiable from a historical perspective, and unacceptable for most players. I'm not sure there is any good way to prevent players from sending their troops where they want to (exception recognized: terrain limitations and the fact that they would possibly die if sent to certain locations where they would be exposed to enemy fire).

Limiting players to View 1 wouldn't sit well with a lot of players, I expect, this one included.

However, there are ways that a player's omnipotence can be hindered without doing too much violence to either realism or gameplay. The first is that each unit has to go through a spotting procedure before it can fire at an enemy unit regardless of borg spotting. I don't recall if that is already implemented in the game. If not, it would not be too hard to add, I should think.

Another thing which would effect movement somewhat but without impinging unduly on a player's freedom would work this way: When the player clicks on a unit to give it a movement or fire command, the only enemy units shown on the map are those presently spotted by the friendly unit and by it alone. Obviously a player can still depend on his own recall of where enemy units are located, but unless he has eidetic memory, that recall is going to be less precise than having the enemy units actually depicted on the map.

Just thought I'd throw a couple of cents into the pot...

Michael

[ April 19, 2002, 06:45 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[aka_tom_w]

"Another thing which would effect movement somewhat but without impinging

unduly on a player's freedom would work this way: When the player clicks on

a unit to give it a movement or fire command, the only enemy units shown on

the map are those presently spotted by the friendly unit and by it alone.

Obviously a player can still depend on his own recall of where enemy units

are located, but unless he has eidetic memory, that recall is going to be less

precise than having the enemy units actually depicted on the map."

I'm sorry to disagree but I don't believe this suggestion solves anything. Using the - and + keys most players routinely scroll through ALL their units on EVERY turn to find out there status and location, simply by clicking +++++++, + + + many times quickly from view 8 you will see where all the enemy units are that your units can see and it will be NO different than it is now.

Of course the Same can be true of Click +++++++ (next unit) while in view 1 to see the enemy units your forces can see as well so I'm not sure that is such a good solution either :confused:

-tom w

[ April 19, 2002, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

...but, all the " hand signals, voice commands, runners, and good old "pass the word" whistles, flares (Very lights), signal flags, and bugles" in the world cannot communicate enemy strength and position UP the chain of command which is at the heart of the Absolute vs Relative spotting issue.

Is is not?

I don't think so, at least not to the same extent that you apparently do. If a squad sees a company of troops or tanks break out of a treeline half a mile away, don't you think Sarge is going to send someone back to let the Looey know about it, assuming Looey is not placed where he can see it with his own eyes?

Also, if Looey hears one of his squads open fire (or anybody else in the neighborhood for that matter) he's going to suspect that something is up and begin remedial action (if he's any good).

Michael

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

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

...but, all the " hand signals, voice commands, runners, and good old "pass the word" whistles, flares (Very lights), signal flags, and bugles" in the world cannot communicate enemy strength and position UP the chain of command which is at the heart of the Absolute vs Relative spotting issue.

Is is not?

I don't think so, at least not to the same extent that you apparently do. If a squad sees a company of troops or tanks break out of a treeline half a mile away, don't you think Sarge is going to send someone back to let the Looey know about it, assuming Looey is not placed where he can see it with his own eyes?

Also, if Looey hears one of his squads open fire (or anybody else in the neighborhood for that matter) he's going to suspect that something is up and begin remedial action (if he's any good).

Michael</font>

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

I'm sorry to disagree but I don't believe this suggestion solves anything.

Well, I never claimed it was perfect.

I think we need to acknowledge that this is a tricky problem. If it had an easy solution, I am confident that BTS would have stumbled upon it by now.

Using the - and + keys most players routinely scroll through ALL their units on EVERY turn...you will see where all the enemy units are that your units can see and it will be NO different than it is now.

It will be a little different as I noted earlier. Remembering where an enemy unit was a moment ago, while not an insuperable problem for those not mentally handicapped, is not the same as having it before you all the time.

Again, we need to be sure that whatever measures we urge BTS to adopt do not introduce greater absurdities than the ones they are meant to cure. That is my whole point at this time.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

Perhaps it should take ALOT more time than it does now in CMBO?

Yes, yes, yes!!! That's been one of my unspoken pet peeves for quite a while.

But again, the problem is how to model that without putting kinks into the game?

Thus far, I can't think of a satisfactory way to deprive the player of any knowledge possessed by any of his units. The best I can come up with is ways to hinder the sharing of that knowledge between subordinate units.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

...the Player ONLY gets to see what one of his friendly units (in C&C or NOT) gets to see from view 1.

This sounds like my suggestion, except that I would not limit the player to being in View 1.

Yes?

Michael

[lcm1947]

I'm getting way over my head here and may have it handed to me by someone but I'll just mention something that I personally feel. I love the game and will play it forever the way it is but that said I also appreciate change and improvements. I do however have a problem when every vehicle, tank, troop or whatever comes to a enemy sighting. I mean that's not real. Only the forces that would be needed to handle the threat should haul over there. So I was thinking what if maybe only those units within a certain range would response and then only in sufficient force to deal with the threat. Now I don't know if something like this could be programmed or not but that's what I feel would improve the game.

[Caesar]

I don't like the idea of having to click + a million times to see where the enemy units are. It would admittedly reduce some of our omniscience, but it would be a real pain to play. I also don't like the idea of losing control of the movement of individual squads due to lack of CnC. IMO tacAI is simply not good enough to allow sensible and realistic movement of the squads.

I would rather that

1. Every unit had to individually spot a unit. Obviously if the enemy unit fires, it will be easier to spot as all units will turn to the sound of fire. Fuzzy logic should determine spotting i.e you get x% chance of spotting in the given conditions (depending on the unit quality as now), with this chance increasing with sound and other factors drawing units attention to that area.

2. All units within CnC can get borg sighting or greatly increased chance of spotting after a suitable delay calculated by the number of links in the command chain that the info has to travel. This delay can be modified based on communication equipment. Higher level HQs (Company and battalion) would have special extended Command ranges (not for normal morale and control) applying only to lower level HQs. This would encourage players to keep their Company HQs in realistic positions to control their subordinate HQs.

3. FOW applied to the map. The map should only initially give broad information (the sort you could get off a map and with general info from the local populace) The map should only get updated as units within CnC (up to at least the Co level if one is present). If a player gives an order, that as a result of ignorance of the map, cannot be obeyed then the unit will stop and behave with normal TacAI behaviour. This will cause the unexpected delays that would happen in real life. Spotting from a distance should have fuzzy logic applied that causes inaccuracies such as incorrect elevetions, missing small copses, ditches etc. The map updating should suffer the same CnC delays as above.

4. Allow normal squad level delays to be applied to small movements and 1 - 2 waypoints for those in local CnC, but much greater delays related to the above CnC delays for large movements or higher numbers of waypoints. This would force players to maintain realistic command structures and more importantly slow down the current almost immediate response to a significant threat.

5. As CnC would be much more important, units that lose their HQ should be able to attach to other HQs with reduced performance (and none of the modifiers)

[ April 20, 2002, 02:18 AM: Message edited by: Caesar ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Caesar:

I don't like the idea of having to click + a million times to see where the enemy units are. It would admittedly reduce some of our omniscience, but it would be a real pain to play. I also don't like the idea of losing control of the movement of individual squads due to lack of CnC. IMO tacAI is simply not good enough to allow sensible and realistic movement of the squads.

I would rather that

1. Every unit had to individually spot a unit. Obviously if the enemy unit fires, it will be easier to spot as all units will turn to the sound of fire. Fuzzy logic should determine spotting i.e you get x% chance of spotting in the given conditions (depending on the unit quality as now), with this chance increasing with sound and other factors drawing units attention to that area.

2. All units within CnC can get borg sighting or greatly increased chance of spotting after a suitable delay calculated by the number of links in the command chain that the info has to travel. This delay can be modified based on communication equipment. Higher level HQs (Company and battalion) would have special extended Command ranges (not for normal morale and control) applying only to lower level HQs. This would encourage players to keep their Company HQs in realistic positions to control their subordinate HQs.

3. FOW applied to the map. The map should only initially give broad information (the sort you could get off a map and with general info from the local populace) The map should only get updated as units within CnC (up to at least the Co level if one is present). If a player gives an order, that as a result of ignorance of the map, cannot be obeyed then the unit will stop and behave with normal TacAI behaviour. This will cause the unexpected delays that would happen in real life. Spotting from a distance should have fuzzy logic applied that causes inaccuracies such as incorrect elevetions, missing small copses, ditches etc. The map updating should suffer the same CnC delays as above.

4. Allow normal squad level delays to be applied to small movements and 1 - 2 waypoints for those in local CnC, but much greater delays related to the above CnC delays for large movements or higher numbers of waypoints. This would force players to maintain realistic command structures and more importantly slow down the current almost immediate response to a significant threat.

5. As CnC would be much more important, units that lose their HQ should be able to attach to other HQs with reduced performance (and none of the modifiers)

have we really defined the problem we want to solve??

Again I will repost these suggestions:

Larsen says:

"For me the problem with absolute spotting is not that I know immidiately where the bad guys are but

that the units that didnot spot the bad guys can immidiately see them and fire at them. I would

assume that once the shots are fired one can say that "the bad guys are somewhere there". It would

be nice to make each unit to spot the enemy individually rather than collectively. "

AND this:

Redwolf says:

"What I want a solution for is this: you are attacking with a wide screen all over the map. Lead elements to the left spot tanks. In CMBO you can immideately rush all your units, including all Bazookas from all over the map, to that spot. For me, that is one of the major reasons why tanks-heavy CMBO forces have few chances of winning against infantry on any map with decent cover. In reality, the tanks would first have more time to munch at the infantry in front of them, then they could prepare for the enemy armored reserves to arrive and other infantry would follow much later, piecemeal. In CMBO, you get a concentrated overrun from enemy infantry in a very short time."

"In reality, the tanks would first have more time to munch at the infantry in front of them"

One solution here is to have longrt command delays for units out of C&C (like several minutes, anywhere from 2-5 minutes, now that is punitive) and longer periods of time for recon info ( like "Hey that is a tank firing at us and we are taking a pounding") to work its way back to the knowledge of the player (BUT its ok if the local TAC AI of the unit knows it should "run away quick" without waiting for the Player's command), this would mean that at some point some of your infantry units might get into deep trouble and take a pounding before you would even know about it, this happens already when tanks get KO'd by the shot that no one knows where it comes from).

Do the 5 suggestions posted by Caesar address these problems?

I fully support Terrain Fog of War this one has come up plenty of times and I think it would add fun to the Recon element of the game AND if used in combination with some other Extreme FOW suggestions in this thread it could reduce some of the undesirable side effects of absolute spotting.

"3. FOW applied to the map. The map should only initially give broad information (the sort you could get off a map and with general info from the local populace) The map should only get updated as units within CnC (up to at least the Co level if one is present). If a player gives an order, that as a result of ignorance of the map, cannot be obeyed then the unit will stop and behave with normal TacAI behaviour. This will cause the unexpected delays that would happen in real life. Spotting from a distance should have fuzzy logic applied that causes inaccuracies such as incorrect elevetions, missing small copses, ditches etc. The map updating should suffer the same CnC delays as above."

So we must ask ourselves (seriously)....

"What is the Role of the Player"??

Some agreement around the answer to that question should help establish to what degree we want to see Relative Spotting implemented.

-tom w

[ April 20, 2002, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

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

...the Player ONLY gets to see what one of his friendly units (in C&C or NOT) gets to see from view 1.

This sounds like my suggestion, except that I would not limit the player to being in View 1.

Yes?

Michael</font>

[Ace Pilot]

Tom,

I think Caesar’s point #4 (bigger command delays for longer, more complex movement) comes the closest to addressing the problem of units moving en masse to a problem spot that, in real life, they wouldn’t be aware of. But, once again, this solution reduces (to a small extent) the amount of control players have over their units. And it still can’t distinguish between (1) a unit being ordered to set up a position in that farm house half a mile away and, (2) a unit being ordered to set up a position in that farm house half a mile away BECAUSE there’s an enemy unit that’s just been spotted in the woods across from the farm house. In my mind, the extended command delay is there to prevent a near instantaneous response from units that are far away from the action. But it also means that any long distance movement will be generously delayed, whether or not it is being made in response to the spotting of enemy units.

But I will say this is a better and more eloquent solution than most.

Lastly, I’ll have to consult my “Guidelines and Rules of Acronym Development” (GAROAD) field manual, but I believe that the complete acronym would be SRSAOFFOW. I’m sure you’re aware that you’ll get 67% of the royalties from this development – nice job!

Ace

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

Tom,

I think Caesar’s point #4 (bigger command delays for longer, more complex movement) comes the closest to addressing the problem of units moving en masse to a problem spot that, in real life, they wouldn’t be aware of. But, once again, this solution reduces (to a small extent) the amount of control players have over their units. And it still can’t distinguish between (1) a unit being ordered to set up a position in that farm house half a mile away and, (2) a unit being ordered to set up a position in that farm house half a mile away BECAUSE there’s an enemy unit that’s just been spotted in the woods across from the farm house. In my mind, the extended command delay is there to prevent a near instantaneous response from units that are far away from the action. But it also means that any long distance movement will be generously delayed, whether or not it is being made in response to the spotting of enemy units.

But I will say this is a better and more eloquent solution than most.

Lastly, I’ll have to consult my “Guidelines and Rules of Acronym Development” (GAROAD) field manual, but I believe that the complete acronym would be SRSAOFFOW. I’m sure you’re aware that you’ll get 67% of the royalties from this development – nice job!

Ace

Thanks

OK

I see two places where there could be MORE delay.

I would prefer to focus on the way the game (and your friendly units) transmits info and recon intel BACK to the player. If the Delays were long and the ability to get reliable intel from your units on the map (especially those out of C&C) was substantially degraded by increased FOW (and maybe the player has to see opposing units only from view one, but I doubt that will be a very popular proposal) THEN there would not have be the additional command delay to order units to move across the map.

Two things should be considered here

recon intel Moves UP the chain of command to the player

and

unit and movement, attack/defend orders move DOWN the chain of command from the Player

I do not believe we should compromise the ability of the player (by added command delays for units IN C&C to encourage wise use of HQ units) to issue orders to units in a severely punitive way, by excessive command delays. (its good enough now, PLAY Green troops and try to make them do ANYHTHING when they are out of C&C and see how far you get?)

NO

I would rather focus the effort on how the info goes more slowly up the chain of command to the Player. This means increasing FOW and decreasing what the player can know with any certianty about the opposing units strength or composition. It also seems to mean trusting the Tac AI a little more I think.

-tom w

[ April 20, 2002, 08:16 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]