Trenches, foxholes, and slit trenches

[Battlefront.com]

Lurker765,

Since most windows in Normandy do NOT have bars does this mean that you will be looking at changing this behavior?

Yes, and I'm pretty sure I said as much back then too.

I have not tried breaking into houses in Iraq, but I would imagine that if you bar the windows there you also have a door that you can't just easily kick in (security doors cannot be kicked in since they are specifically designed to only be opened outwards) since the whole point of it is to make it difficult to break into the building.

Since you were a part of that discussion then I'm sure you already know the answer to this since guys in Iraq responded with their first hand experiences. From our perspective, it reinforced our position.

I actually think this argument sort of proves RSColonel's point, but then again I was on his side in this particular debate long ago so I am biased.

Exactly

Also, the argument about FOW trenches seems to prove his point as well IMHO. The scenario designer can always point out where trenches are located via the briefing or (in CMx1 at least) put labels over the spots. Thus, they can be shown to the attacker in this manner. On the other hand if you cannot hide them, then there is no way to overcome this problem.

Works fine for carefully made scenarios, doesn't work at all for QBs or scenarios where the designer isn't so careful. So it's not a full solution, rather it is a so-so work around. As I've said elsewhere, we are philosophically against having critical ingame stuff hinge on briefings. We have to make compromises here and there, but ultimately it's a poor work around that we would rather not have to rely upon if possible.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Bottomline here is that people, when properly motivated, can make a mountain out of any molehill of their choosing and there's little that I can do about that. So on that count, you guys always have me at a massive disadvantage and no amount of documentation (like URC asked about) will head that off. It will just waste more of my time, like this beating of a dead horse continues to waste

On that note... time to go do something else for a change!

Steve

[silverstars]

As a tangent to the windows/doors building entry discussion, is it possible to have slab-sided buildings with no doors or windows? This may be possible already; I just can't seem to recall any buildings where there are not windows everywhere. The reason I bring this up is that in Normandy you have so many stone townhouses that share walls with each other that have no doorways between them, or sides with nothing but stone. And even if they have windows they are so small and randomly placed they would hardly be useful as an entry point.

Frankly , I think modelling true norman homes may be more of a pain then getting bridges up and working.

[c3k]

Whoa! So, Steve, reading your last post, does that mean dead horses will be in CM:N?

Off to swap recipes....

Ken

[Meach]

I think he went fishing with a six pack of his fave beer and some snacks.

[Steiner14]

There's nothing you can do against area fire from God mode and the fact that real-time makes it worse only reinforces me liking WEGO better.

Lurker765,

What CMx2 can't do is stop Humans from doing Area Fire in an unrealistic fashion. We've already had a long discussion about the recently and the conclusion is, as always, there is no way to mitigate this without causing even worse problems.

Gents, therefore i suggested to put a delay of a few seconds on area-fire commands.

For example 20 seconds mean that a fast german ATG-crew has 5 more shots, before the god-like area-fire will show any effect. That would make a huge difference in the outcome (and can be perfectly fineadjusted by the amount of delay).

And no Steve, i can't remember your invalid arguments against it anymore.

[Redwolf]

Hm.

Yes. If command delay is in anyway, and if indirect fire support has delays in the engine, why not put a command delay on area fire? It would simulate the communication delay from the distressed unit under fire towards somebody who's got no clue what's going on.

It would also be realistic (not needed, but realistic) for recon by fire.

[c3k]

It depends: these have been hashed before. My prime case against area fire delays involves a squad leader making an astute on-the-spot decision to fire on a likely position. A mandatory delay restricts that reality. Secondary case: unit 1 sees and fires upon enemy in a house. Unit 2 has no LOS to enemy, but sees unit 1's fire on the house (maybe they're in an alley to the side). No Unit 1 to Unit 2 LOS or comms. Yet, unit 2 should immediately be able to join the firefight and light up the house. Your delay eliminates that. Etc.

So, your delay idea does not solve the problem. It substitutes another one. But then I don't make these games!

Ken

[Lurker765]

Since you were a part of that discussion then I'm sure you already know the answer to this since guys in Iraq responded with their first hand experiences. From our perspective, it reinforced our position.

Steve

Actually...no one in that thread with military experience said that. The only people who chimed into the discussion with military experience said that they do indeed train for going through windows, over walls, etc. You mentioned that you had discussions elsewhere with guys in Iraq, but all the people who posted in that thread with first hand experiences said they do train to do these things. You then countered their posts by saying that training would not be used in real life actions.

In past discussions we had with veterans from Iraq that they were generally in agreement with us that window entry was more theoretical than practical. Same with entry from top down. Sure, obviously it is done... but our understanding is that in the sort of environment CM simulates it would be the less common approach.

Quote:

And finally, this is a current MOUT drill (at least for European units).

Sure, as are dozens of other things which soldiers rarely use in battle. For example, as far as I know tankers still learn "Sagger Drill" even though the chances of practical use in the field are very low. The whole purpose of training is to expose soldiers to the range of possibilities so when they find themselves in a combat situation that they have the widest range of knowledge (and hopefully some experience) to draw from. Therefore, just because a soldier trains to do something doesn't mean much.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=84640

That thread is very interesting. Lots of talk about FOW trenches, windows, hiding muzzle flashes that are out of LOS, burning buildings, syrian units unable to split, etc.

Anyway, if I get foxholes that are subject to FOW and can actually protect their inhabitants better than shell scrapes I will be happy. I would be happier with FOW trenches, but that particular item is not a make/break feature for me in a tactical wargame like FOW foxholes are.

[Steiner14]

It depends: these have been hashed before. My prime case against area fire delays involves a squad leader making an astute on-the-spot decision to fire on a likely position. A mandatory delay restricts that reality. Secondary case: unit 1 sees and fires upon enemy in a house. Unit 2 has no LOS to enemy, but sees unit 1's fire on the house (maybe they're in an alley to the side). No Unit 1 to Unit 2 LOS or comms. Yet, unit 2 should immediately be able to join the firefight and light up the house. Your delay eliminates that. Etc.

So, your delay idea does not solve the problem. It substitutes another one.

Sure. It's a matter of weighting.

IMO 10-20 seconds do not matter that much in infantry area-firefights in reality. And if seconds matter in the game, then something is planned wrong anyway.

The effective delay in the game can be imagined as giving detailed orders who and where to fire. In case of loud surroundings, questioning back will already give several seconds of delay.

Your example of immediate additional area-fire is valid only for a very small portiuon of tactical situations. I cannot imagine that another group opens fire on a location, only because a group is already firing on it. Maybe in 100 times 1. But what is much more usual, that the first group has to signalise the second group, that they need supporting fire. And here the delay increases realism, too.

And last but not least, a 10-20 seconds delay for area-fires commands does not have a big impact in infantry firefights but should make a HUGE difference when it comes to guns and their efficiency.

Sorry i can only see a very small portion of disadvantages under very rare situations, and then not having much negative impact on realism. But i see some drastic improvements on a broad variety of common tactical situations.

[Other Means]

It depends: these have been hashed before. My prime case against area fire delays involves a squad leader making an astute on-the-spot decision to fire on a likely position. A mandatory delay restricts that reality. Secondary case: unit 1 sees and fires upon enemy in a house. Unit 2 has no LOS to enemy, but sees unit 1's fire on the house (maybe they're in an alley to the side). No Unit 1 to Unit 2 LOS or comms. Yet, unit 2 should immediately be able to join the firefight and light up the house. Your delay eliminates that. Etc.

So, your delay idea does not solve the problem. It substitutes another one. But then I don't make these games!

Ken

I think things like this can be addressed by having areas of no-delay around the various units. So for targets within 150m (arbitrary figure) no delay etc.

I'm mulling over a mega-long review of tactical situations and how they could be addressed with delays on area fire but I need to wait for inspiration to commit the time to do it properly.

Especially as Steve is not at all interested in introducing them

[Battlefront.com]

The case is absolutely closed on Area Fire delays. I don't want to hash it out again because it's pointless since the arguments never change. One side wants the game weighted to penalize coordinated Area Fire at the expense of legitimate Recon by Fire, the other side wants the Recon by Fire to be what it should be... without penalty. And I stand by my statement, with 15 years of game design experience and 10 years of Combat Mission experience with you guys... the delays for Area Fire WILL NOT SOLVE ANYTHING. So it's not up for consideration any more than putting horses is. And we all know how much of a chance that has of happening

Same thing with going in and out of windows. For CM:SF it is a dead issue. We're not going to do it, and the reasons why have been discussed to death already (and in more threads than just that one). The conclusion we've come to is that we can not realistically restrict/penalize the use of windows as entry/exit points in a way that is consistent with the real world, therefore on balance not allowing it at all is more realistic than unfettered access to windows.

Sometimes it gets lost in a discussion that there are, in fact, two ways of looking at an issue. You guys tend to only look at an issue from one perspective, usually "historical". We have to look at it from at least three perspectives; historical, gameplay, and technical issues. Going in and out of windows, for example, causes problems with all three of these, including technical (I'm pretty sure I raised the Pathing issues in at least one of those discussions). It puts us on uneven footing in a discussion because we must have higher standards for inclusion because everything we put in takes time and almost always has an impact on something that needs to be corrected. These are real issues that have to be dealt with and imagining them away doesn't work for us. If it did, CMBO would have had 1:1 and 10,000 polygon tanks with CoPlay and probably even horses

Steve

[Redwolf]

I think a delay is acceptable even in the case of a squad leader ordering fire on suspected but not spotted enemy positions, aka recon by fire.

Realistically, the squad would be slower to pick this up than shooting back at somebody they spotted shooting at them.

20 additional seconds, which would mean from the next turn break, sound pretty good overall.

You could also model gun emplacements are protecting pretty well against area fire except indirect fire. That would be a slight hack but it would properly reward moving the attacker's tanks into a position where they can see the flippin' gun.

[Battlefront.com]

As I've argued before, 20 seconds won't do a single thing to address the God Area Fire problem. Not in any substantial way, so a solution to a problem that doesn't solve anything is not something we should spend time on.

As for delays to fire at things, we already do have some natural pauses built in so that we don't get robotic targeting behavior. Ages ago, during CMBO's early Alpha state, we didn't have such pauses and oh-my-god the results were HORRIBLE We used to refer to this as the "Terminator" effect. So we already have built in hesitation. Which is really sweet now because it's on an individual basis so it can sometimes take a little while for a whole Squad to start lighting up a target instead of CMx1's instant full power on effect.

I don't think Recon By Fire needs any more hesitation than we already have. Couple this with 20 second delay having no real effect on the God Area Fire Problem... there's no reason we should add a delay for Area Fire. Which is why I keep saying this is a DEAD IDEA and that people really do need to move on from it. There's better things to debate than this.

Steve

[Other Means]

The case is absolutely closed on Area Fire delays. I don't want to hash it out again because it's pointless since the arguments never change. One side wants the game weighted to penalize coordinated Area Fire at the expense of legitimate Recon by Fire, the other side wants the Recon by Fire to be what it should be... without penalty. And I stand by my statement, with 15 years of game design experience and 10 years of Combat Mission experience with you guys... the delays for Area Fire WILL NOT SOLVE ANYTHING. So it's not up for consideration any more than putting horses is. And we all know how much of a chance that has of happening

Steve

Well sure you say that - but I'm sure you won't mind me trying to persuade you

FWIW I think recon-by-fire is a) the only thing the system would lose addressable with the (say) 150m no-delay fire area.

Whereas what it'd bring is proper use of C2 and support weapons.

Still - this isn't the attempt. I'm not ready to make the full attempt yet

[Wengart]

Undead Reindeer Cavalry, I have started a FAQ on a word doc but it really just amounts to this:

• Foxholes and fighting emplacements will have FOW

• Trenches will be visible at all times except during the set up phase

• Battlefront is currently considering an option for command delays in WEGO mode

• Area fire delay will not be added

• Moving through windows will not be added

• Foxholes and fighting emplacements will be subject to borg spotting??

and I am not entirely sure about this one ^

although, that is all I have found in the few minutes since I decided to try and make a FAQ. Also, I will only be able to edit it within 30 minutes so I was hoping for a more substantial list.

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

You could also model gun emplacements are protecting pretty well against area fire except indirect fire. That would be a slight hack but it would properly reward moving the attacker's tanks into a position where they can see the flippin' gun.

Now, this is something I think we should try to tackle. This is a specific problem where someone issues an Area Fire target order when out of LOS/LOF, the moves into LOS/LOF to engage the target without much delay. There are no easy answers to this that I can think of, but I'd like to talk about this particular issue some more. But not in this thread

I'm going offline for a bit, but I'd like it if someone (Redwolf or otherwise) would open a NEW topic (so we don't get another monster rambling train of thought thread) to see what we can do about this particular issue. For me, I think this is the worst subset of God Area Fire situations and I would like to knock it back a bit if we can. I'll respond to it when I have time later on tonight.

And again, let's do it in its own topic... good enough to deserve one, eh?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

OtherMeans,

[qutoe]Well sure you say that - but I'm sure you won't mind me trying to persuade you

Actually...

FWIW I think recon-by-fire is a) the only thing the system would lose addressable with the (say) 150m no-delay fire area.

Which is completely arbitrary and totally indefensible from either a gameplay standpoint or from a realism standpoint. So bzzzzt... it fails.

Whereas what it'd bring is proper use of C2 and support weapons.

No, it wouldn't at all. Not unless units out of C2 aren't allow to Area Fire at all, under any circumstances. Which fails the gameplay and realism standpoint, so another failure to impress

Still - this isn't the attempt. I'm not ready to make the full attempt yet

Really, don't bother. It's all be hashed out before and I've said it as clearly as I can possibly say it... this is a BAD IDEA. It fails to make the game any more realistic, it fails to combat the God Area Fire Problem, and it DOES frustrate legitimate use of Area Fire both in realism and in game terms.

PLEASE DROP IT. There's absolutely no point in beating the horse to death even after it's been turned into SPAM and consumed by some poor sod on the dole. Please agree to disagree and leave it alone. There are far better things for all of us to be doing than to be arguing about this again.

Steve

[MarkEzra]

There's absolutely no point in beating the horse to death even after it's been turned into SPAM Steve

This is Vinnie a Grandson of Kentucky Derby winner "Native Dancer"

So Horses are in Normandy now for sure!

[c3k]

YES! Horses in Normandy! Now we just have to have Steve commit to cows. This will be great!

[Redwolf]

As I've argued before, 20 seconds won't do a single thing to address the God Area Fire problem. Not in any substantial way, so a solution to a problem that doesn't solve anything is not something we should spend time on.

As for delays to fire at things, we already do have some natural pauses built in so that we don't get robotic targeting behavior. Ages ago, during CMBO's early Alpha state, we didn't have such pauses and oh-my-god the results were HORRIBLE We used to refer to this as the "Terminator" effect. So we already have built in hesitation. Which is really sweet now because it's on an individual basis so it can sometimes take a little while for a whole Squad to start lighting up a target instead of CMx1's instant full power on effect.

I don't think Recon By Fire needs any more hesitation than we already have. Couple this with 20 second delay having no real effect on the God Area Fire Problem... there's no reason we should add a delay for Area Fire. Which is why I keep saying this is a DEAD IDEA and that people really do need to move on from it. There's better things to debate than this.

Steve

For the record, we were posting at the same time, I didn't see that you had excluded area fire delay already in your post. This issue really isn't that important compared to others.

[Battlefront.com]

To be clear, my objection to hearing more argumentation about delays for Area Fire is that we've been over the same ground several times now. The arguments for it have not changed, and neither have the arguments against. I feel the problems Area Fire delays presents are significant, the relief it provides small to none. This tells me that it isn't a good thing to pursue, even though we all agree that it would be fantastic to figure out a way to curb the excesses of God Area Fire. And because of that, there's really no point discussing it again. There are better uses of our collective time.

Steve

[Other Means]

Well sure, you say that...

OK, dropped.

[Steiner14]

Steve,

ofcourse I can accept it, if you don't want it in the game. It's your game, you're the boss. But the arguments you brought up against it, are not convincing at all to me and therefore i wont let them leave uncommented:

As I've argued before, 20 seconds won't do a single thing to address the God Area Fire problem. Not in any substantial way, so a solution to a problem that doesn't solve anything is not something we should spend time on.

3-4 more shots of unspotted ATGs before "god" can suppress them, do not change anything?

I don't think Recon By Fire needs any more hesitation than we already have. Couple this with 20 second delay having no real effect on the God Area Fire Problem... there's no reason we should add a delay for Area Fire.

If recon by fire is brought up as argument against area-fire delays, how can this be backed by reality? Recon by fire needs dedicated commands with exact description of the target, given to single soldiers, while supressive area-fire as reaction to an enemy action can in some situations be ordered much quicker, since the target area can be logical from the action's context.

And how does a delay of say 20 seconds affect the outcome of recon-by fire? Not at all.

[Kwazydog]

If recon by fire is brought up as argument against area-fire delays, how can this be backed by reality? Recon by fire needs dedicated commands with exact description of the target, given to single soldiers, while supressive area-fire as reaction to an enemy action can in some situations be ordered much quicker, since the target area can be logical from the action's context.

Steiner my problem with it is that there are cases where you will be punishing units with a delay when there shouldnt be. For instance lets say a tank spots infantry movement 50m away, marked as a'?', that he suspects is an AT team. Should he not be instantly able to fire on its location? How frustrated will players be when they lose that tank to the delay?

The result is that you somewhat fix one problem whilst introducing another, leaving you back where you started...

Dan