Reason for no % to hit?

[noxnoctum]

Is there a reason this was removed? Also the kill likelihood...

[TheVulture]

Because it is virtually impossible to calculate in CMSF, I suspect. CMx1 used to calculate some kind of hit chance (I believe), generated a random number, and then fired the shot (which particularly when tracking moving vehicles, could pass through buildings or solid ground as necessary to achieve the hit or miss). AIUI CMx2 does something more like calculate an aim point (taking into account vehicle movement), and then apply a random offset depending on the skill of the gunner, the equipment etc. This determines the trajectory, and then the shell moves, the vehicle moves, and if they happen to intersect then it is a hit of some kind. There is never an actual 'hit chance' that exists in the program, so there is obviously no way of showing that number. You could conceivably generate an estimate of it by running a few thousand simulated shots (making some assumptions about the vehicle movement while the shot is in flight), but I'm not sure that it's worth the CPU hit to calculate that number every time you target something (and, in RT, update it continually as things move).

Same sort of argument applies to kill chances. There is no simpole number that can be generated - it depends on where on a vehicle a shot hits, what material it hits, at what angle etc.

You simply have to get a feel for these things based on experience. You can be pretty sure an M1 Abrams is 99% likely to hit first shot. My personal experience is that the better Syrian tanks (t-72 TURMS, t-90) have a 50%ish chance of surviving any given hit. Anything else is virtually guaranteed to be toast the moment the round leaves the barrel.

WWII will be a different kettle of echinoderms however, with much lower hit chances and far stronger armour (in relative terms). Much more experience needed to get a feel for the numbers, although the relative strengths ought to be fairly intuitive.

But then, how often do such numbers matter? I don't recally very many time splaying CMx1 when I thought "my odds of a successful shot aren't that great, I won't bother shooting". The vast majority of the time, you take any shot you can get, or wait in ambush until the tactically appropriate moment (not until the kill chance gets higher).

[Battlefront.com]

TheVulture has it correct. A simplified "% chance" isn't easy to achieve in CMx2 generally, but CM:SF is specifically hard. And remember, this feature wasn't "removed"... it was never added. Big difference from our standpoint

Same sort of argument applies to kill chances. There is no simpole number that can be generated - it depends on where on a vehicle a shot hits, what material it hits, at what angle etc.

Yup, and units which have multiple means of hitting a target complicate things even more. You might have a 0% chance to hit and 0% chance to kill something at 500.25m, but if the target comes a half meter closer to you now you might theoretically be able to hit it to some degree. And if the round is of a certain type then the chance of a kill is just as good at 499.75m as it is at 49m. But the chance can still range from a really good possibility of a kill (if it hits the right spot) to 0% chance of a kill (if it hits the wrong spot). Not to mention that % chances depend on volume of fire and weapons combos too, so if you have three guys with AT-4s firing at a tank at 100m you have a much better chance than if you have one guy. So if your unit gets suppressed just before cracking off a shot the % chances might drop dramatically.

Still, we would like to get some sort of very, very rough and generic indicator in the game to at least tell people things like you have absolutely no chance of killing what you're shooting at with the best weapon choice at that particular range and that particular circumstance.

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

Removed... hmmm. Perhaps you meant to say 'not yet implemented'? The CMx2 engine is a completely new engine, coded from scratch to allow a far more detailed representation of Modern Era (and soon WW2) combat. Any feature that the CMx2 series has that CMx1 had is a result of that particular feature being included because it was feasible to do, not removed or deactivated. There's probably not a scrap of the CMx1 code in the CMx2 code.

CMx1 is basically a computer board/miniatures wargame with very sophisticated tables for determining the outcome of any given fire. Essentially being a board game, the level of abstraction in the CMx1 series of games was so high that this was an easy feature to include. When you were told that you had a 43% chance of a hit, that was likely the actual percentage the computer was using to determine if your shot hit or not. Once the shot was fired, the 'dice' were rolled to see if that shot was successful and if it was, a second roll made to determine what effect it had.

It should be obvious by now that this is not how CMSF works. I prefer to think of it as a 3D Interactive Combat Environment. You are given an idea of how good your shot is from the colour of the target line when you draw your shot. That's probably about as much information as you could expect a real life soldier to get when calling his shots. So much can change after the shot is fired as well. It takes time for that projectile to travel from its launcher to its intended target. If you shoot back at an ATGM team, they can lose their nerve (or die) and cause a 100% guaranteed hit to plunge into the ground.

Having said that, who knows what you'll see when you get the WW2 title. Perhaps displaying this kind of information will be too important a feature to a WW2 wargamer for BFC to omit it. For Modern Era with its far more sophisticated weapons systems, it's probably not practical.

[Paper Tiger]

SNAP

two three...

[MikeyD]

There does seem to be a proportion of posters who do seem to want to turn the CM tactical sim back into a 'boardgame'. The real world doesn't come with hit probability stats any more than it comes with terrain cover charts. The info you want is available, but only from experience playing the thing. Try having your green combatant hit a running solder with an AK at 400m and you'll eventually get a pretty good idea of the probability of success. Same with RPG shots in cross-winds and cross-map ATGM shots.

[tyrspawn]

Is there a reason this was removed? Also the kill likelihood...

Rough estimates.

BLUFOR:

Rifle: 300m (zeroed) - 500 m (max)

Machine Gun/MK19: 1000 m - 2000 m

AT weapons: 150 meters (good chance) - 300 meters (poor chance)

Tanks: 2000 (almost 100% chance of hitting) - 3000 meters (good chance of hitting)

Javelin: Max (3000+ meters)

REDFOR:

Rifle: 200 meters - 300 meters

MG: 2000 meters

AT weapons: 150 - 300 meters

Tanks: 1000 meters (t-55/t62) - 1800 meters (t-72+)

ATGM: 1000 meters (recoiless rifles/old generation) - 2000 meters (new generation)

Fire missions:

BLUFOR:

FO: 90-100%

C2: 80-90%

ETC: 70-80%

up to -20% for stress

REDFOR:

FO: 70%

C2: 60%

[tyrspawn]

Still, we would like to get some sort of very, very rough and generic indicator in the game to at least tell people things like you have absolutely no chance of killing what you're shooting at with the best weapon choice at that particular range and that particular circumstance.

Steve

This just comes from military knowledge. For example I know that the m16A2 rifle is zeroed in at 300 meters, meaning that if a target is 300 meters away, there is a very good chance of my infantryman hitting it, and then adjust the reliability of the shot depending on stress level, target's cover, wind etc. But there I would only engage targets beyond 300 meters if absolutely necessary (a MG firing on another element that needs to be suppressed, however ineffectively, to save lives)

I think just posting some basic weapon stats in the manual should be good enough, or have a little reference chart available in the game, a tab you can pull out similar to a ship identification manual in the SH games.

[Ryujin]

tyrspawn, don't forget the Russian tanks shoot ATGMs. The newer ones can arguably outrange the M1 or challenger, but that's where optics and firecontrol also come in to actually find and hit targets. The Javelin is good to 2,500m. The effective range of your M2/Mk16 is also greatly effected by whether it is hooked up to FCS like the CROWS.

And while we're on the topic of accuracy, we need optics (generally speaking M145s) on the M249s/M240s. Not to mention getting rid of the old style SAWs the US forces have. Oh and 'target smoke' for 40mm smoke from underbarrel grenade launchers. And maybe some canister rounds for the M1s?

But, I digress. Would be nice if we could mod the game, those models look extremely easy to make and then the trick would just be coding it in.

[Smaragdadler]

That's why I look forward to CMSF II (modern) more than CMx2 WWII. Then we will have temperate modern environment with fog, rain + snow !

[dkchapuis]

There does seem to be a proportion of posters who do seem to want to turn the CM tactical sim back into a 'boardgame'. The real world doesn't come with hit probability stats any more than it comes with terrain cover charts.

And there seem to be a certain number of posters who think that you should have to learn to 'play' a game the same way you learn to live

My point from previous posts - and what I think this guy is saying - is not to go back to hexes. It is that the game doesnt provide enough info to the user, e.g. I just spent at least an hour searching this forum trying to find out what the +/X symbols mean in teh fire control panel. Takes a lot out of the fun.

I understand the concept of prioritizing development, and I can live with that as a reason for lack of a large portion of info. and I understand that what was valid for Cmx1 doesnt mean it is valid for this game. But there are a h3ll of a lot of UI elements that a new user doesnt have a clue what they mean. and it seems difficult for me to believe that adding a dozen more pop-ups to the UI would require more than something that could be done pretty easily.

But dont say that people that want more info also want to go back to boardgames - that is ridiculous.

[theFightingSeabee]

Yeah. I've seen this subject gone over a hundred times in this forum. It's basically just Charles doing the programming, so dev time is a bit slow. I do know that the UI will get quite a few improvements for ww2. If I'm not mistaken, they designed the UI earlier on and then it kind of obsoleted itself as they added more and more detail. So, while I totally agree with you that the UI needs more work, you can go to bed tonight feeling nice and fuzzy knowing they are working on it (among a million other things!).

[Paul AU]

The game knows the "% chance to hit/kill". Players enjoyed seeing that, even if it might be wrong, or unrealistic to know. Give it to them, for the Game's sake. They'll enjoy it more. Especially when the players know it's only an approximation, and it's unrealistic to know.

Give 'em what they want, when you can. (I say).

[slug88]

The game knows the "% chance to hit/kill".

The game doesn't know the % chance! That's the whole point. Each shot is simulated kinematically, and the game doesn't know if there is a hit or not until the round lands.

[dkchapuis]

Yeah. I've seen this subject gone over a hundred times in this forum. It's basically just Charles doing the programming, so dev time is a bit slow. I do know that the UI will get quite a few improvements for ww2. If I'm not mistaken, they designed the UI earlier on and then it kind of obsoleted itself as they added more and more detail. So, while I totally agree with you that the UI needs more work, you can go to bed tonight feeling nice and fuzzy knowing they are working on it (among a million other things!).

I understand that, and would rather have the game sooner with "stuff to improve" then waiting til everything is perfect... as long as the developers show that are willing to continue to improve it. And they have proved that in my mind, so no complaints about it being on the development schedule.

[Ryujin]

The game doesn't know the % chance! That's the whole point. Each shot is simulated kinematically, and the game doesn't know if there is a hit or not until the round lands.

Slug is completely right. The game does NOT know the chance to hit. It probably couldn't provide you with any better information then you could guess.

In CM:N the entire game was "fudged" with "dice and charts" in sort of a super boardgame style. When you start actually aiming and firing hundreds of small arms projectiles at the enemy, the game can't go peek at some accuracy chart and tell you you have a 50% chance of hitting the enemy.

How would you even do the hit percentage for a squad of guys with an array of weapons,in different stances, some of who might not even be able to see the enemy? Then firing at guys in woods at 300m where some of trees might block rounds based on their ballistic path? The game has no clue how likely one of those rounds are to hit or even a good way to display that information.

[Battlefront.com]

Correct. We obviously have no conceptual issue about showing % hit/kill chances because... well... we had them in CMx1, didn't we? So logic would dictate that either our philosophy has changed or the underlying sim doesn't have access to such data. If the game did have the information available we would show it, therefore it's obvious that our philosophy hasn't changed.

As stated in an earlier post by me, we do have some ideas on how we can provide some limited (and I mean very limited) "rule of thumb" information that is more generic than CMx1 displayed. But honestly... we don't think it's that important considering all the other things on our various ToDo lists.

Steve

[noxnoctum]

Ok that makes sense now...

What about advance/assault commands?

[GSX]

Ok that makes sense now...

What about advance/assault commands?

For me the assault command is one of the commands I never use as it just seems made to get your guys killed. I think it would be better to have the guys not moving into assault to be firing at the assaulting target.

[TheVulture]

For me the assault command is one of the commands I never use as it just seems made to get your guys killed. I think it would be better to have the guys not moving into assault to be firing at the assaulting target.

Likewise. Assault is massively worse than splitting teams and doing suppressive fire / quick move manually. It serves no purpose at all in WeGo. I suppose it is a useful short cut in real time play to avoid micro-management.

[Pandur]

i found "one" use for assault for myself. when i have a squad in a building and it is shooting, and i want to switch from say lvl 2 to lvl 3, i use assault, so half the guys keep shooting the others run. that works good but other then that, i stoped useing it most of the time.

unfortuantely you are forced to use it sometimes on red side, and it can work out but the margain for error is verry tiny. mostly first team is dead and the 2nd one in cover is panicked

[dkchapuis]

Still, we would like to get some sort of very, very rough and generic indicator in the game to at least tell people things like you have absolutely no chance of killing what you're shooting at with the best weapon choice at that particular range and that particular circumstance.

Steve

this would be nice. Now that I am playing this again, I have instances where I spot opFor 200 - 300m out. It would be nice to know if my pixel troops thinks they have a very good/good/fair/dont-do-it chance of hitting the target ... because I dont have a clue. So I start cracking off shots whenever I see targets, rather than being able to logically think about if it is worth the risk of 1) exposing myself & 2) letting the enemy know that I see them.

And, sorry, but forcing the gamer to learn by experience is not the right answer.

since it has been mentioned that the game is so fluid that there isnt a "chance-to-hit", one option that you might consider is some sort of hotkey that can be used to "assess target". so while you have the target command going, one could hit a hotkey that does a "chance-to-hit" calc at the users request, and that would keep it from constantly trying to assess whenever the target command is issued. then you could throw in some cool sounds (similiar to your indirect fire messages) like "all to easy", or "easier than shooting womp-rats in beggars canyon", or "inconceivable"

[Battlefront.com]

dkchapuis,

And, sorry, but forcing the gamer to learn by experience is not the right answer.

For some a big part of the fun is figuring out what units do in what situations. Having too much information, in fact, spoils their fun. That is why we made the % hit/kill stats in CMx1 an optional display. Originally it couldn't be turned off and a significant number of people complained. Now, however, we're faced with exactly the opposite situation where people that do want more information can't get it as easily as they could in CMx1. We would like to make both player types happy so we definitely are interested in adding something that is helpful to players like you.

since it has been mentioned that the game is so fluid that there isnt a "chance-to-hit", one option that you might consider is some sort of hotkey that can be used to "assess target". so while you have the target command going, one could hit a hotkey that does a "chance-to-hit" calc at the users request, and that would keep it from constantly trying to assess whenever the target command is issued. then you could throw in some cool sounds (similiar to your indirect fire messages) like "all to easy", or "easier than shooting womp-rats in beggars canyon", or "inconceivable"

Heh... well, besides getting sued for copyright infringement , what you suggest is just another form of what we've said isn't viable. What if you select to "assess" the target at just the time when your unit's ability to hit/kill is at an extreme due to some sort of situational combination of factors? You select the unit, get the "all too easy" message and start wailing on the thing in question. But hey... that was when you had a flank shot and just after you targeted the vehicle rotates around to face you where you have 0% chance of getting a kill. Now you're going to be frustrated that shot after shot does nothing when you clearly were told it was "all too easy".

This is why I think the only thing we can do is come up with some very generic indicator which is just a rule of thumb for that particular range. In that case the information can be shown at all times without worrying about radical changes due to minor variances in conditions. In other words, good enough to base a decision on, not misleading enough to raise false expectations of the likely outcome.

Steve

[Mord]

I am in the crowd that doesn't care much about the "to hit" percentages. When I am in doubt I do two things...I check the ranges on the weapon being fired and then look at the facing (if it's a vehicle), of what I wanna kill...(side and rear shots being my favorites) Then I target over the victim and see what the distance is from my aiming point...if it's within a decent margin of said weapon's ranges, then I let fly...if it's not...I wait until the punk gets closer.

For me it's basically the same deal, just the percentages are in my head...leaves a lot more tension involved in my decisions.

Mord.

[MikeyD]

Kill % does seem a bit redundant in CMSF.

What's a kill percentage of a Javelin against a BMP-1 at all ranges...99%? Against a T-55...99%? Rardean 30 against a BRDM...99%? 125mm KE against a Bradley...99%? 25mm against T55 bow...0%? The only practical use for kill % might be when you've got 25mm against a T62's rear at 300m+, for example. But that doesn't happen very often in the game.

Now that I think of it, in most instances kill % is either 100% or 0%, isn't it? There'd be only a small window where a given projectile might have 33% chance of penetrating the target - much closer and it goes to 100, any farther away and it drops to 0. Hit % only works if you're generalizing your penetration probabilities.