Battle positions for tanks/AFVs.

[Apocal]

I was wondering if we were gonna get BPs for tanks in CMSF ever? Or Normandy? I know you can kind of do it in the editor, but it's time-consuming and the player doesn't get to lay out his own defense. Plus the AI doesn't understand WTF it is.

[gibsonm]

By “BP’s”, are you referring to “Hull Down” and the micro level BP’s or the higher level “Attack by Fire” (ABF) and “Support by Fire” (SBF) type BP’s?

[Flanker15]

I assume the excavated posistions when you can park your tank hulldown and turretdown.

Those would be nice, you have to immobilise your tanks in them to get them to use them properly now.

[Apocal]

By “BP’s”, are you referring to “Hull Down” and the micro level BP’s or the higher level “Attack by Fire” (ABF) and “Support by Fire” (SBF) type BP’s?

I assume the excavated posistions when you can park your tank hulldown and turretdown.

Yes, this.

Those would be nice, you have to immobilise your tanks in them to get them to use them properly now.

Players can use them reasonably well, it's just the TacAI doesn't really understand the concept of up-shoot-down.

[gibsonm]

OK so as you said “Yes, this” to three different things:

1. “Hull Down” is a position a commander finds using the ground around him.

2. ABF and SBF are BP’s used by usually groups of AFVs.

3. “Excavated positions” are dedicated defensive works created by Engineers (the AFV equivalent of a bunker if you will).

I’m still uncertain as to which you are commenting on.

But anyway.

[Alan8325]

Excavated positions would be great, but right now I don't think the game engine allows the kind of resolution in terrain height to make features like that. You can create a kind of dip in the terrain for a tank to sit in in the editor, but it doesn't do a great job simulating a real excavated position. The very first mission in the game's original "TF Thunder" campaign has these for the static tanks, IIRC. We would need to make sand berms, kind of like inverse trenches, for excavated positions. Maybe Normandy will include something like this.

Anyone know if it's even possible to increase terrain height resolution in future updates of the CMx2 engine? What I mean by this is to increase the amount of terrain height variation within an action spot so that within a given area of land, you can have more peaks and valleys than is currently possible.

[Apocal]

OK so as you said “Yes, this” to three different things:

To what Flanker said.

Excavated positions would be great, but right now I don't think the game engine allows the kind of resolution in terrain height to make features like that.

It can create 60mm and 81mm shell holes, it should be able to do this.

[M1A1TC]

Using BPs doesnt mean that your tank is static. Whe always use primary and secondary BP, with a third "fall back" BP in case you are getting over. The drill is to pull back slowly out of BP until the gunner has a target in sight, fire a shot or two, then drive back into BP. Once awhile we displace to the secondary BP, so the enemy doesnt always expect you from the same spot.

In one training battle (RL) my tank was attached to a platoon of Bradleys. We were fighting a company sized enemy armor element in defensive position along a ridge. It was a night fight. We used the technique above, and with Bradleys support, wiped them out. The enemy commander thought we had atleast a platoon, cause were kept switching between BPs.

[Apocal]

Using BPs doesnt mean that your tank is static.

I don't think anyone said that in this thread...? Although I appreciate the amplifying info provided by the (war)story.

[Yair Iny]

Hmm Flanker15 did say parked, etc. But more importantly, I think M1A1TC's description of how BPs are used goes to demonstrate just how hard it would be to code the AI behaviour for them.

[jjhouston]

I think M1A1TC's description of how BPs are used goes to demonstrate just how hard it would be to code the AI behaviour for them.

[gibsonm]

And it gets more difficult to code if the vehicles aren’t “just” moving back and forth within a given scrape.

If you are using a ridge to achieve the same effect by “jockeying” it gets much harder:

Jockeying

[tc237]

There you go and IIRC the AI in the original Steel Beasts (2000) was very good at it too.

Not just within a dug in fighting position, it could use the natural terrain to find a hull down and could fight from there, "jockeying" around (to use the Australian term).

Who made the skin in that viedo jjhouston? Looks great, just like old times.

[SlapHappy]

If there existed the ability to "loop" commands you could recreate that behavior using movement and pause commands.

Move forward

5 second delay

move backward

5 second delay

(loop)

Getting the time delays to allow for proper targeting could be tricky, since you can't trigger movement after firing. That would be an "event" trigger, which we don't have.

[jjhouston]

Who made the skin in that viedo jjhouston?

Those are stock skins.

[gibsonm]

If there existed the ability to "loop" commands you could recreate that behavior using movement and pause commands.

Move forward

5 second delay

move backward

5 second delay

(loop)

Getting the time delays to allow for proper targeting could be tricky, since you can't trigger movement after firing. That would be an "event" trigger, which we don't have.

Also the problem is that this works fine “now” with stab and laser technology.

In the 1940’s (as per the “for Normandy?” request) you couldn’t do what was in the video (let alone at 2 900m) because there would be much longer delays as the gunner had to wait for the vehicle to stop to acquire the target and lay on.

[Yair Iny]

Nice video, but I'm afraid it's not that easy. I have SB PRO PE, great sim by the way, and as I recall from the last time I played, you actually specify an AI command to fight from a battle position. This would not be the case in a CMSF game, as there would simply be BPs on the map and the AI would have to understand that it needs to use them at some point in time and figure out when to bug out, etc. Also, in SB you need to use triggers to tell the AI to move to the next command in the sequence, and CMSF doesn't have those, so they would be necessary for a fallback BP as described by M1A1TC.

I guess it does show that it's not impossible, though...

Cheers

[tc237]

Those are stock skins.

ahh, Ok, I like it, reminds of old unit.

[jjhouston]

Nice video, but I'm afraid it's not that easy. . .

I guess it does show that it's not impossible, though...

Cheers

My point in linking that video (which I had recently prepared to demonstrate how a 2-tier BP works), wasn't to compare CM:SF with SB. Apples and oranges. The point was that the behavior algorithm isn't prohibitively complex.

And to be perfectly honest, even though I've got a fair amount of experience with the SB editor, setting that situation up took a bit longer than I'd like to admit. So you are absolutely right, the video isn't as easy as it looks.