Medic!

[paullootens]

i was wondering something about when a squad take casualties and the medic status comes into effect. do soldiers ever get patched up enough to return to the fight? does letting the soldiers tend to the wounded effect a final score? or should i just leave em, and get my guys back in the fight?

[flamingknives]

It affects the number of killed vs wounded, which in turn affects score. It won't bring any red or brown based casualties back, but the green and yellow guys can snaffle ammunition and weapons from their fallen comrades.

[theFightingSeabee]

While I sometimes like to make my guys run out under fire to save lives (for the sake of drama), wait until the area is no longer under fire. If the wounded/dead can be medic-ed, definitely medic them.

[souldierz]

When a soldier takes a hit and requires buddy aid he is out of the battle for good because hes either killed,severely wounded (missing,broken limb etc) or wounded enough(gunshot, shrapnel etc) to require a hospital.His ammo will be taken for the rest of the squad by the guy doing buddy aid.There's also a situation where the soldier got hurt in some form but did not go down and does not require buddy aid.He will remain wounded for the remainder of the battle.

I always get my troops to buddy aid as quick as possible and try to never leave a man behind, but i often wondered if a wounded soldier never received buddy aid, would he eventually bleed out or become a KIA at the end of the game?

[Ryujin]

I think there is something like a 20% that any WIA left on the field when the battle is over will count as KIA, which will hurt your score, but generally not enough to make any real difference, depending on how the mission maker has it set up. You could probably get away with leaving all your casualties, but it just seems strange to do so as a BLUFOR commander and helps make the game a little harder for the BLUFOR, trying to extract the WIA who's laying in the road in the enemy's field of fire.

[lomir]

Seriously-wounded (red base) soldiers who have not received “buddy aid” (i.e. disappeared) by the end of the game have a 25% chance of becoming KIA in the final tally.

Buddy aid can also be used to reclaim ammo and weapons from seriously-wounded and dead soldiers (brown base), so it's advisable to do it most of the times. I would never try to do it in a minefield, though.

Cheers,

Lomir

[Alan8325]

Has anyone actually verified that WIA count differently from KIA in terms of final score? Are KIA worth more points to the enemy than WIA?

[TheVulture]

Has anyone actually verified that WIA count differently from KIA in terms of final score? Are KIA worth more points to the enemy than WIA?

Steve has said that KIA are worth more points than WIA. See for example:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1144830&postcount=36

[LUCASWILLEN05]

It would be nice to be able to evacuate your wounded through Medevac helicopters though it may be that this is not possible with the current programming code and graphics. May also be a trifle goulish?

[souldierz]

Thanks for that verification TheVulture.

Lucaswillen05, you just got to use your imagination a bit.When a man goes down, his squad mates help patch him up and gets him to a safe area.From there the unseen stretcher bearers run to him and then get him back out of the area of operation(map) as quick as they can for his Medevac.The Commander (the player) shouldn't have to directly command this situation ,because it should be a medical system that's set up to run itself leaving the commander free to concentrate on the fighting.

But with all that said, for increased simulation purposes,i'd agree with you.It would be nice and a good logistics challenge if the commander(the player) could set up medevac areas with first aid stations and command medic squads to bring back the wounded for further medical care and then call in helo's to evacuate them.Its a whole other tactical situation that would require a great deal of focus and attention that i would like to see in game, but i'm satisfied with how it is now.At least there is buddy aid, when i played the game for the first time i was pleasantly surprised when I discovered this feature.Now knowing that untreated soldiers can and will die, made the setup great the way it is.

[taccovert4]

With the scope of the game and the size of the maps it's really not advisable to have 'medevac' points and choppers. The maps are too small and the scope too narrow for medical to be any more than a 'flavor' object and a abstracted sideshow.

Now if CMModern ever returned to the 'several battalions' level and to maps that were multiple kilometers in both width and depth, then medevacs might be something worth coding in.

It would make for an interesting sidenote in a convoy scenario though. If the convoy makes it through in 1 piece, Major victory. If the convoy loses a vehicle, then they have to 'capture' a 'medevac LZ' as well as their departure zone in order to win the battle.

[Jonny(FGM)]

One thing i'd love to see in the medic feature would be the ability to drag the wounded soldier away from his current position if it's exposed so the buddy aid can be given in a safe(er) location

[Gpig]

That WOULD be awesome!

I picture is roughly like this . . .

Covering fire . . .

By brzzt at 2010-05-25

Medic/buddy sprints short distance . . .

By brzzt at 2010-05-25

Grabs wounded soldier by pack/foot/nose . . .

By brzzt at 2010-05-25

Drags him to cover . . .

By brzzt at 2010-05-25

[Eagle2]

I agree. There should be a way to transport a fallen comrade to a safer location to do buddy aid. I hate having to give buddy aid in the middle of the street, or go back and recover my guy just because my squad mates didn't pick him up.

[Dietrich]

Though I too agree that there should be a way to move wounded pixeltruppen to safety for buddy aid and that that would be one of the many little things which add up to make CMSF as immersive as it is, I figure that there are reasons this hasn't been implemented. For one, it would require new animations (dragging, being dragged) and certain changes to the action spot system. And (though I think I may be mistaken about this) it's not like the wounded soldier is going to bleed out if he isn't given buddy aid promptly; thus it's possible to get the rest of the squad to safety, deal with the threat that rendered that soldier a casualty, then go back and take care of him. It would be more realistic, though, for a wounded man to be treated promptly without needlessly risking whoever gives him buddy aid.

That said, I do get fairly frustrated when I come up against "house from hell" situations, where my pixeltruppen "assault" into a building but then come under from adjacent rooms/buildings and lose three or four men. While the difficulty of getting the wounded men out of a building without risk to the rescuing soldiers is, as I understand it, a key aspect of "house from hell" scenarios, the fact that in CMSF I can't do anything for the wounded unless they get buddy aid where they fell means that I basically have to ignore them for the time being and deal with whatever took them out from a different direction.

[Sandokan]

Nice sketches Gpig! Soldiers postures are really lively and realistic and also give a good idea of what you mean. I like this kind of stuff.

BTW, I agree the "improved buddy aid" wold add realism and immersion in the game but I'm afraid that, seen the amount of working hours would request this feature, it's pretty low in the priorities.

[c3k]

THAT would add a lot! Count me in.

[Gpig]

Yeah, I imagine it would be a tough to implement. Fun to imagine.

What would you do if the medic also got shot during his buddy-aid-run? Then you'd have to do it again, and again. It's sort of a "beyond-the-scope" of the game, type issue.

Gpig

[Jonny(FGM)]

Well i was sort of imagining it as a user issuable order, so if the medic got shot you could decide yourself whether it was worth the risk to send more men out to get them or not

[Ryujin]

Given the scope of the game I think what they have is pretty good

Medical vehicles and evacuation would be way above the scope, dragging buddies might be a bit "under" the scope (too much micromanagement of units, especially if you play real time). Maybe if the focus was shifted to more platoon level tactics, but as it stands as a more of a company level game, it might be a bit much. Though I do see how 1:1 lends it's self to more detail, but the medical system as is works, there are probably more important features for the 1:1 troopers that would make a bigger impact and would make a dragging feature more useful.

Like better use of spacing and cover by the troops (like corners of buildings and such), Better CQB behavior, etc.

@Dietrich: seeing as there is no walls or interior, most likely trying to drag them out would result in that guy being hit too. It's like trying to drag them out of an empty warehouse. So given the abstraction of CQB and the fact you have till the end of the battle to get them out, I think it works for the most part.

[Alan8325]

If CMx2 continues on a trend towards larger maps and less abstraction, I think some of the logistical issues of warfare should start leaving the realm of abstraction and be modeled. Afterall, once we are on maps that are 10km x 10km the frontline combat troops aren't the only ones in the picture anymore. I don't know what the distant future holds for CMx2 but spreading into the modeling of supporting operations is one path that can open up lots more tactical complexity.

[Jonny(FGM)]

Yeah I don't think we'll ever see it, certainly not in CMx2 (mebbe CMx3 if we're lucky), but it sure would be nice : )

[LongLeftFlank]

Wounded, even badly wounded, are often able to move some distance to cover if they aren't hit in the legs.

I hate how unwounded units pinned in the open drop to the ground in place right in the line of fire. I'd sooner they instantly FAST moved (routed) one square randomly in any direction -- at least they MIGHT be in less danger.

[Dr_Ryan]

Ha, would be a great feature indeed and I think this is what everybody is thinking when struggling to give smoke/fire protection when patching up someone in the middle of a street.

But thinking about the board resolution and the group based logic instead of individual locations I believe it would be hard to implement. Think about it..one trooper would have to be assigned to run out and pick up the man while the other stay put or even give cover fire (as they most likely would).

I normally hate to discover obvious lacks in game functionality..but here it shows again what hell of a game we're talking about if stuff like this is beeing discussed