Why has concealment changed so much?

[HetzerII]

OK, maybe its because off my bad english:

Im not talking about the game-mechanics(code). Im not interisted in why you changed the coding or that there is technically a big difference about CMAK and CMSF. I know this

All in all it is also unimportant if we have a 1 to 1 simulation or a 3-stoges type. I bet that it would have been possible to make MGs easier to spot in CMAK if it would have been wanted. So it seems to be a question of design and decision why we see this differences.

The question remains: What was the reason to change the general treatment of spotting of small arms/concealment in general? Are they realy easier to spot today/ or in Syria? And when yes.... why?

Maybe because trees and brushes in Syria are not as dense as in the scenarios of CMAK?

Maybe because modern soldiers are specially trained to recognize enemy fire?

Maybe because modern optics enable soldiers to quicker spot?

I dont know.. im just interisted to know the decisions that lead to the behavior we see.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

20 seconds is a long time. If it was 5 seconds or 10 seconds, I would singing a different tune.

20 seconds is about the time you MIGHT spot a soldier standing at the edge of trees, at 300 meters, if you have the time to scan the treeline freely.

but you are not scanning, you are running. you are facing the wrong direction. you are taking fire. and the target is not a standing soldier but an odd muzzle flash. you will hear it, and after a while you will realize that you are taking fire, but you will not spot the MG.

what happens is that you take cover because you are receiving MG fire. then you are returning fire at the treeline while taking cover. perhaps your squad does suppress the treeline, without spotting the MG, perhaps not. perhaps after a couple of minutes someone in the squad will spot the MG, perhaps not. but you will need to at least face the treeline and scan it actively to have chances of spotting the MG.

I think a problem here is the instant ID. We need a "?" marker that the AI will actually react to and area fire against. That way the AI pixeltruppen know that SOMETHING is firing at them "from that area", and they can return fire, even if an exact ID is not found.

exactly.

[bodkin]

OK, maybe its because off my bad english:

Maybe because trees and brushes in Syria are not as dense as in the scenarios of CMAK?

Anecdotal evidence from myself suggests this might be the case, in CMx1 you could sneak a tank hunter team through the woods around the flank of an enemy tank and engage at optimal range.

In CMSF try flanking a tank through thick tree cover and you'll usually get shot up before your destination.

On another note, spotting an enemy squad in a building seems too accurate, I've had troops in a building that are able to acurately tell how many guys are in the building 100m away and exactly what weapons they are carrying.

I play on veteran level so maybe this gets more realistic on elite.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

As in real life, the only thing that matters for a unit being targeted and the unit shooting at it is the path between the two. It doesn't matter if there's a thick forest 50m off to the right and a dense village 50m off to the left. Therefore, CM of any flavor doesn't care about that either when examining two units in an exchange of fire. Now, characterizing combat within a map the totality of the terrain matters more than a specific line between two points. But what we're talking about here is fire between two points. The example Adam laid out is about as open as it can get.

let me quote Adam: "The same test in CMSF translates to a 2 or 3 tree tile with brush on one end and the MG being a PK, in a "shell scrape" in that bit of cover.".

i can easily lay out more open scenarios

That doesn't surprise me. 2000m (1.5 miles) is a pretty long distance for the eye to see things without the aid of optics and/or optimal conditions.

20 seconds for a tank in overwatch to spot enemy tank at 2000 meters includes the use of the optics of the tank.

How much of a chance do you think a single, trained and experienced soldier, would have of spotting a MG firing at him over a period of 20 seconds when the terrain is fairly open and cover is not all that good? Let's just say 1 in 10. If he was alone this wouldn't be good odds, but if you have 10 men then statistically speaking the chances of spotting are almost a sure bet. Correct? OK, well... let's say it's 1 in 20 and you have 10 men, you're now talking about at least a 50/50 chance of spotting the MG, right?

a single soldier has 0 in 100 chance of spotting a MG positioned in trees some 300 meters away when he is running in the other direction.

[Wengart]

I personally would prefer more use of a ? for units and their weapons as I have been able to tell that there are 6 insurgents in a building 200 Meters away and that 4 of them have AK47's and 2 have RPk's and there is one dude with an AKM, and this is shortly after they started firing at my squad.

So in Adam's scenario if it would say its an MG which would probably be pretty obvious and then put like a ? over the area and not tell us what kind of MG it was.

But I would be satisfied with the game just putting a ? in the weapons slots of a unit, until each individual weapon was identified or perhaps after firing it would give you a judged weapon in the slot so if the RPK guys fired it would say LMG or something of that sort.

Of course I don't know how hard this would be to code or even if the engine can do that but it would be cool.

[GSX]

I'll ask again... do you think it is necessary for 9 to 13 soldiers to stop dead in their tracks to observe something that is not dead ahead? Do you think that 20 seconds is really a short period of time when there is a reason to be focused on identifying something specific? Especially with so many eyes and ears available for pinpointing the source?

Hmm, if you start taking rounds its decision time. I was always taught to drop roll and seek cover. Im not going to stand up and have a look around to find where the incoming is coming from.

This to me is the crux of th argument, yes my eyes and ears can see stuff and a well trained man knows what to look out for, but if your taking fire your going to worry about self preservation first, then finding where the fire is coming from.

This usually takes a bit more time.

If Im driving my car I may well be able to see a lot even at 80 Mph, but add in to this that someone is firing at your car, then your going to want to live first and spot later.

I fully appreciate that SF is a game here and not a simulation, which would be impossible, lets not try and justify the thing, take it as it is - a nice little game, nothing is ever going to be perfect here.

As for comparing the two games, I dont think you can, they are entirely different beasts, the only thing similar is that they feel the same, as in the same family of games, thats where the similarity ends for me.

[Chelco]

I'm testing an scenario I made and I have a Marine squad trying to secure a (sorta) bridge. It's 6 a.m. and enemy combatants are sneaking on the (sorta) bridge with the Marines spotting them on and off. It's being great fun.

Look how close these two combatants got to my Marines.

My Marines have the perfect excuse for such lack of situation awareness: they are blinded by the rising sun.

I'm not trying to make any point in favor or against. I was just playing/testing and this thread came to my mind. Thought I could share these pics. Happy Thanksgiving!

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[Hev]

Adam,

How much of a chance do you think a single, trained and experienced soldier, would have of spotting a MG firing at him over a period of 20 seconds when the terrain is fairly open and cover is not all that good? Let's just say 1 in 10. If he was alone this wouldn't be good odds, but if you have 10 men then statistically speaking the chances of spotting are almost a sure bet. Correct? OK, well... let's say it's 1 in 20 and you have 10 men, you're now talking about at least a 50/50 chance of spotting the MG, right?

Steve

Errrr No, and im sorry if someone else pointed this out but i didnt see it if they did, but the odds of spotting dont increase because there are more soldiers there (to sit the test game wise) the odds remain 1 in 10.

All soldiers INDIVIDUALY have the odds 1 in 10 to spot whatever, chance dictates that they could be there forever with out actualy spotting anything due to the fact the previous people (being tested) cant effect the actual situation.

ie: ten balls in a sack all numbered 1 to 10 and ten people, if you tell them to pick a ball and KEEP it then the first guys odds are 1 in 10 but OVER THE GROUP its a sure thing. Tell them to pick a ball then put it BACK and the odds over the group REMAIN 1 in 10.

[Paper Tiger]

Ah, statistics! How we all love them. If those ten guys all have a 90% chance of failing to spot that MG then that means that really, there's only a 35% chance of them ALL failing to spot it. Even if my statistics are crap, and they probably are, it's just pure common sense that 10 people will have more chance of spotting something than one single guy whatever the 'numbers' might say. They're not dice. They can remember and they can also communicate.

[Secondbrooks]

URC,

Even at 320 meters, the MG doesn't pin or suppress the running American infantry, nor does it produce many casualties, if any at all. Steve if you don't like the test can you suggest a better one? Or email me a test scenario that shows this?

Turn off the wind.

[stikkypixie]

Errrr No, and im sorry if someone else pointed this out but i didnt see it if they did, but the odds of spotting dont increase because there are more soldiers there (to sit the test game wise) the odds remain 1 in 10.

All soldiers INDIVIDUALY have the odds 1 in 10 to spot whatever, chance dictates that they could be there forever with out actualy spotting anything due to the fact the previous people (being tested) cant effect the actual situation.

ie: ten balls in a sack all numbered 1 to 10 and ten people, if you tell them to pick a ball and KEEP it then the first guys odds are 1 in 10 but OVER THE GROUP its a sure thing. Tell them to pick a ball then put it BACK and the odds over the group REMAIN 1 in 10.

10 guys with 1:10 chance of spotting, is the same as 10 guys with 9:10 chance of not spotting each. The MG doesn't get spotted unless ALL 10 of them don't spot it, and that equals (9/10)^10 (assuming that their spotting are uncorrelated). (9/10)^10 ~0.35, so the chance of at least of them spotting the MG is 1 - 0.35 = 0.65 or around 65%.

[Other Means]

There are many factors that impact spotting. Adam - maybe if you post a screenshot of your test case so we can see it? After all there's a huge difference between being in the open and being dug in, or behind concealment.

In WWII soldiers would have very little chance of getting a confirmed visual sighting of a concealed MG. I remember a story of one shooting up a company for day until the leaves it was displacing over its cover were spotted moving.

But again that's a dug in, behind concealment, no optics on the soldiers weapons etc. All advantages to the MG.

In Syria with dust, no concealment and not dug in you could see an MG easily at that range.

So lets have a closer look.

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[Secondbrooks]

This made no difference at all, nor should it with MGs.

With my tests wind is quite big factor on firing accuracy, i've seen it enough times to know. Sure they don't halt like into wall, if not using fast movement. As they shouldn't. But enough fire and they naturally will pin down.

[Other Means]

It's just a 320 squared map all open with one tile having trees and brush, and the mg is in that tile. That's all. Easier to describe than post a screenshot.

And the target? Moving or static, army or marines (more eyes), dawn, dusk or noon?

Given all that, being spotted at that distance does seem too far. And certainly my in-game experiences would make it seem so.

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[panzermartin]

I run my own tests with different MGs, Inf targets and I noticed more or less the same. A regular squad could run in "quick" mode across the map under a single mg fire with no real worries, apart from a casualty or two. Once stoped and in the same spot the squad becomes easily pinned due to the concentrated suppressing fire. The spreading of the squad when running helps it to avoid the concentrated incoming fire and thus the supression effects. It seems when in the open running fast can be more effective than an assault move. I remember running in CMBB/CMAK under MG fire was suicidal and infantry was instantly pinned but I dont think this was more realistic either due to the squad men being tied up together in a tiny base. Once I put two mgs in the above test the targeted squad did hit the dirt rather quickly though. Overall its not that unrealistic but certainly rushing infantry around the map is a lot easier in CMSF than in previous CMs. Maybe some slight tweaking of MGs supression and accuracy on moving targets should be considered for the WW2 game. I cant imagine a company running 100m in flat grass in front of a firing MG42 without serious problems. I general expect a more special treatment to HMGs, since they were much more feared back then than in today's more fluid and fast paced battlegrounds.

EDIT. Heavier MGs like the DSHK or the 0.50 cal have no problems pinning down moving targets. 7.62mgs on the other hand seem to lack the firepower to do so. Shouldnt the superior rate of fire of the latter allow them to perform at least equally at supressing moving targets?

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[Secondbrooks]

Secondbrooks,

At 320m, no amount of every day wind should prevent a heavy machine gun (tripod) from raking the target with deadly accurate fire, especially if they are just running in a line from left to right. And as I said, I tested this and found it made very little difference - nothing noticeable at all in fact.

And i disagree still because experience i'm having in-game about wind's effect of firing accuracy. There can be other factors, like civilian density, suns direction and bunch of more things. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be hard evidence (=info from dev-team) backing anything up... Exept when Steve told that wind does have effect on accuracy. So i guess i win this round (I believe it's was Jenrick's topic on ineffectivity of snipers. Too lazy to dig it)

True winds effect seem bit too great as does their capability to fire misses at that distance over and over again. I think past 200 meters for Syria means that their firing becomes quite ineffective. While i don't see reason for determed unit with task to advance to freeze from unaccurate fire which doesn't cause notable casualities.

About accuracy in reality when combining mild wind and running/jogging target (which has to be hit aprox 2-3 times to make it go down?) + 320 meters and opticless MG on tripod i really can't tell. History does seem to tell to me that target under those conditions isn't very easy one and if target is determed to get forward it probably will (whole another case if they need to advance at MG-nest). But that is my most likely insuficcent knowledge.

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[~Viajero]

So, WWII CMx2 screenshots coming when?

[flammenwerfer]

Just an update for anyone interested... changing the experience level of the troops from regular to elite gave better results. Considerably more realistic imho.

That is lethality though. The original issue of the concealment would be adversely affected by elite troops.

Adam. You should be on the Beta team.