Question on exhaustion.....

[meade95]

I recently had a Recon team that slowly crawled its way into an observation position.....and from that stayed "exhausted" for the remaining 3 hours?? This was a unit set to "elite"?

Also, it seems DEMO charges aren't given out enough, IMO. Especially for units going into MOUT combat conditions.....

[TheVulture]

I recently had a Recon team that slowly crawled its way into an observation position.....and from that stayed "exhausted" for the remaining 3 hours?? This was a unit set to "elite"?

'elite' is nothing to do with the fitness of the troops. That describes their accuracy, discipline, morale under fire and that sort of stuff. Their fitness completely separate. The slow crawl is very tiring, and will put troops from rested to exhausted in a remarkably short time. I don't know if there is some upper limit of exhaustion, or how troops recover from it, since I never let my guys get anywhere close to that.

Also, it seems DEMO charges aren't given out enough, IMO. Especially for units going into MOUT combat conditions.....

Equipment loads aren't affected by the types of scenarios. Only some units get demo charges. They always get demo charges regardless of the situation. Other units never get demo charges. No idea to what extent they are affected by ammo levels, but I assume they would be. But it's up to the scenario designer whether you are going to demo charges and in what number.

Pioneer/engineer units get plenty of demo charges. Marine SMAW teams get a small number (2 per team IIRC). US army MOUT squads get quite a lot. Can't think of any others off the top of my head.

[Lanzfeld]

But to stay exhausted for 3 hours is a bit off wouldnt you say?

[YankeeDog]

But to stay exhausted for 3 hours is a bit off wouldnt you say?

That depends. After a certain point, overexertion leads to severe and persistent fatigue -- once you push yourself past your aerobic threshold and start to work in oxygen deficit, all sorts of bad things happen -- lactic acid buildup, pulmonary and cardiac distress, microtears in the muscle fibers, etc. These conditions can take days to recover from. Even the most fit aren't immune to this, and it wouldn't necessarily take hours of exertion to reach this state -- 30 minutes or less of heavy exertion could do is, especially in high heat and with full kit.

So, after a certain, point, if you keep pushing badly fatigued troops, they should get to the point where they are "permanently" exhausted (meaning for the rest of a max. 4hr. CMSF battle).

This said, I have no idea if this is actually modeled in the game. I've never pushed my troops this far, and I don't know if this is actually what's going on in the situation at hand -- the OP didn't mention how far, how long, and under what conditions his pixel soldiers were crawling. It's possible that what happened here is some kind of bug.

Cheers,

YD

[souldierz]

In the 'It ain't half hot mum' UK scenario, I came across severe exhaustion.I was only able to issue the fast command once in the beginning and after that I could never use it again,it was faded along with the quick and hunt command and the troops had to walk everywhere.The heat conditions were at its max and it took a very long time for the Brits to get out of exhausted phase in order to move.In some cases I waited a very long time so they could recover, I could only guess at this point and can say that it did feel like it was around 20 minutes or so,before the got out of exhausted, but it could well be sooner or later,I'm really not that sure.When they moved again though, they could not run far at all and quickly fell back to exhausted.They never remained exhausted for 3hours, but it did feel like once they hit the limit of exhausted, they were never going to perform the same again.I don't even know if it's a feature in the game.

It makes me remember what a Canadian Soldier wrote about when patrolling in Afghanistan on one of the hottest days.It was along the lines of they would walk 100 meters and then take a 20 minute break, then they would walk 50 meters and take a 40 minute break.They sweat so bad to the point they couldn't sweat anymore and they were sucking in air rather then breathing it.The vests they wore cooked them inside and even the Taliban would rather find shade then fight.Most of the villagers in the village being patrolled left to find shade or because of a possible firefight,but the day went on with out action.

[LongLeftFlank]

Joker One, an excellent Iraq combat memoir by Donovan Campbell, relates a cordon-and-search operation in which his platoon was sent out unexpectedly a second time without having time to rehydrate and something like a quarter of his Marines became heat casualties.

It seems the desert is a mean beotch.

That said, I too have noticed that the SLOW command seems a little too taxing on men.

[meade95]

Thanks for the replies -

I didn't (or wait, I do perhaps have a saved game, part way in now that I think about it). But I didn't have this small Recon unit travel all that far, to be honest. We are talking, in a wooded area with brush, Temps = warm, unit = elite + fit, traveling, I just checked it, traveling approx 175 meters, with several stops within that distance, for observations (multiple minutes completely stopped of movement)....they end up exhausted....and then stay that way for the entire rest of the scenario = 3 + hours (4 hour mission in total).

This was a U.S. Army Recon unit.

Not a huge deal.....was just passing it along.

As for the DEMO charges....I do understand that not all units have them....but it seems like it would be a nice feature to allow said units that don't come with them...to possibly add them via a supply truck. There are just times where in MOUT condtions you may want a small Recon team to be able to get to from Point A to Point B....with the need of a DEMO charge.....so not to have to expose themselves so much to known enemy locations.

[Secondbrooks]

That depends. After a certain point, overexertion leads to severe and persistent fatigue -- once you push yourself past your aerobic threshold and start to work in oxygen deficit, all sorts of bad things happen -- lactic acid buildup, pulmonary and cardiac distress, microtears in the muscle fibers, etc. These conditions can take days to recover from. Even the most fit aren't immune to this, and it wouldn't necessarily take hours of exertion to reach this state -- 30 minutes or less of heavy exertion could do is, especially in high heat and with full kit.

So, after a certain, point, if you keep pushing badly fatigued troops, they should get to the point where they are "permanently" exhausted (meaning for the rest of a max. 4hr. CMSF battle).

This said, I have no idea if this is actually modeled in the game. I've never pushed my troops this far, and I don't know if this is actually what's going on in the situation at hand -- the OP didn't mention how far, how long, and under what conditions his pixel soldiers were crawling. It's possible that what happened here is some kind of bug.

True. I don't know how often that might happen in combat, maybe in moments when they panic and start to flee at which point best thing they can do is just keep on going, which is most important at the moment. But overall i think mental side limits person from stressing body too much: lack of physical fitness causes mental "breakdown". But that is about splitting hairs, going on anaerobic level too long will have it's long time effects.

With crawl it's very much possible to run guys in such bad shape in CMSF. Sometimes it's feels to be absurd, naturally there's bunch of variables such as tiredness level, temperature and load they are carrying does have major impact.

I personally do think that it has been over modeled. Bulletproof vests, MGs and such heavier eqiupment do indeed limit guy's ability to move around. But lighter weights aren't even closely like that, this is very much true with Syrian regulars and uncons, as they pretty much have just ammo, water, weapon. In CMSF distances in which guys get really tired aren't physically very hard in reality at least from my experiences.

Also CMSF has just dragging belly crawl, while knees+elbows crawl has been left out. Which might causes problems in way how i look at it. I've never belly crawled long distances, but i've crossed several hundered of meters at once by knees+elbows crawling while stalking/sneaking on fauna and ofcourse after having hard night in local bar

[c3k]

A bit of a change in the movement commands may help. Here are my suggestions:

OLD - NEW

Fast - Regular

Quick - Moonwalk

Move - Saunter

Slow - Grovel in the mud for 5 meters and exhaust yourself

Hunt - Saunter until fired upon then freeze (because the T. Rex can only see motion)

This is what gets me through the worst of it.

Okay, c'mon! A bit of pointed humor, perhaps, but meant with the best of intentions.

Ken

[Lanzfeld]

Hunt - Saunter until fired upon then freeze (because the T. Rex can only see motion)

Ken

Ian Freeze!!!

[stoex]

Oh, and don't forget:

Blast - Taste the dirt a few feet from the wall, then use Jedi Force Crush on the wall, then overexert yourself running through the hole in the wall

I couldn't use blast in WeGo except for entering buildings. Usually I don't want the blasting team to rush through the gap, so I have to babysit them, deleting the 'fast' order after the blast.

[Thomm]

Usually I don't want the blasting team to rush through the gap, so I have to babysit them, deleting the 'fast' order after the blast.

Good point.

Perhaps Blast should work more like Area Fire in terms of the UI. That would solve this problem, and we could Blast tanks as well ...

Best regards,

Thomm

[Lanzfeld]

Good point.

Perhaps Blast should work more like Area Fire in terms of the UI. That would solve this problem, and we could Blast tanks as well ...

Best regards,

Thomm

We can already Blast tanks with demo. I do it all the time to practice for CM:N.

[stoex]

Excellent idea, Thomm! Like taking out walls with tanks or TOWs, where the command is automatically cancelled after the wall is flattened. I like it

Generally, if 'Blast' were not a movement command, but, say, a target command, this would give players every option of what they wanted their unit to do after breaching walls (i.e. go through to specified destination or stay put & wait for further orders) in WeGo as well as RT. Without babysitting . I'm thinking:

move up to wall

'area fire blast' in the direction of the wall (with 15 second pause if movement desired afterward)

move on to new destination either side of wall (or stop if no further movement order given)

Steve, are you hearing this...?

[YankeeDog]

Oh, and don't forget:

Blast - Taste the dirt a few feet from the wall, then use Jedi Force Crush on the wall, then overexert yourself running through the hole in the wall

I couldn't use blast in WeGo except for entering buildings. Usually I don't want the blasting team to rush through the gap, so I have to babysit them, deleting the 'fast' order after the blast.

the team executing the BLAST order doesn't have to move through the gap created by the blast; you can order them to move up to the wall, BLAST, and then move away, and then have some other team move through the hole. And yes, you can do this in WEGO; there is no deleting of orders needed.

There's a very detailed thread somewhere, probably in Tips & Tricks, that explains exactly how to do this. I highly recommend looking it up; it made the BLAST order much more useful for me.

[Lanzfeld]

the team executing the BLAST order doesn't have to move through the gap created by the blast; you can order them to move up to the wall, BLAST, and then move away, and then have some other team move through the hole. And yes, you can do this in WEGO; there is no deleting of orders needed.

There's a very detailed thread somewhere, probably in Tips & Tricks, that explains exactly how to do this. I highly recommend looking it up; it made the BLAST order much more useful for me.

I think what you are talking about works when you are OUTSIDE going through a wall but when I am INSIDE a house and want to blast into another adjacent INSIDE room through a solid wall this doesnt work. You have to put the blast command into the room on the othere side of the solid wall.

[lomir]

Or issuing the Blast command in the grid BEFORE the wall. Your pixeltruppen won't move through the wall but they'll stay next to it facing the interior. In the previous waypoint (before the Blast command) you may want to use the Face command to point the wall where you want to blow the hole in - useful in compounds with many different walls around the same grid.

First I liked your idea, Thomm, but then I thought it twice and I can think of some problems that might appear: you could only use the "area fire blast" command on a wall where you have LOS... Imagine the WEGO player's comments: 'My pixeltruppen stay put for almost a whole minute because I cannot issue another blast command on the next wall inside the building!' - so Charles would need to change the way LOS is taken just for the "area fire blast"... IMO, the Blast command works well and you already have a few different tips & tricks to use it - there's a sticky thread about this and other things in the CMSF Strategy and Tactics Forum.

Cheers,

Lomir

[MikeyD]

About 3 hour exhaustion. 175m doesn't sound like a long distance until you snap a movement line that distance on a map. Then it starts to look like an awfully long way to make your poor men crawl. If you run your men to exhaustion they'll simply stop running. But crawling men will keep going and going, getting worse and worse and worse.

[Sixxkiller]

175m is a LONG way to crawl especially with a pack and a weapon and gear. Try it without all that stuff, you will be tired too. 3 hours is a bit much though to be fatigued, especially for a trained soldier. I dont think I would ever want to be in a situation where I would need to do the Shawshank Redemption crawl, even without the stuff Tim Robbins had to crawl through.

[Thomm]

First I liked your idea, Thomm, but then I thought it twice and I can think of some problems that might appear ...

Yes, good point!

I knew there must be issues with the Target Blast suggestion, and your example is certainly one of them.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Sergei]

I conducted a test in Warm (22ºC) temperature ordering a HQ team to crawl 160 metres, this took it 7m30s. It got exhausted around the 100m mark. Then I let it lay there. After about 15 minutes it got from Exhausted to Fatigued, and after five more minutes it was Ready again.

Then in Extreme Heat (43ºC) doing the same the team became Exhausted after 60 metres. The trip took one minute longer. After 23 minutes they switched from Exhausted to Fatigued and seven more minutes it was Ready.

[stoex]

Hello folks! A few points on the blasting topic:

YankeeDog said:

the team executing the BLAST order doesn't have to move through the gap created by the blast; you can order them to move up to the wall, BLAST, and then move away, and then have some other team move through the hole. And yes, you can do this in WEGO; there is no deleting of orders needed.

Iomir said:

Or issuing the Blast command in the grid BEFORE the wall. Your pixeltruppen won't move through the wall but they'll stay next to it facing the interior. In the previous waypoint (before the Blast command) you may want to use the Face command to point the wall where you want to blow the hole in - useful in compounds with many different walls around the same grid.

The problem with this is that it means you have to have your team further away from the wall when they receive the blast order (far as I can tell), since they have to move somewhere after the demo charge sets off. This can sometimes be difficult or dangerous under certain circumstances. Otherwise, you are right, and I will try to use this workaround more often...

Iomir also said:

you could only use the "area fire blast" command on a wall where you have LOS... Imagine the WEGO player's comments: 'My pixeltruppen stay put for almost a whole minute because I cannot issue another blast command on the next wall inside the building!'

I don't agree with this. If 'blast' were an area fire-type command, and you wanted to blast through multiple walls in a compound, you could simply string the order sets together due to the way area fire already works in the game. Since you can set area fire from any waypoint to a target that is in LOS of that waypoint, you could simply tell your squad to:

Move to first wall

From that waypoint, area fire blast in the direction of the first wall (with 15 sec. pause)

Area fire target will be automatically deleted after demolition complete

Move through first wall to next wall

From that waypoint, area fire blast in direction of second wall (with 15 sec. pause), works since second wall is in LOS of second waypoint

etc. etc.

Except for blast not being a target command, the game mechanics allow for this just fine - most of us assault multi-storey buildings that way, don't we?

Correct me if I'm wrong, please!

[lomir]

I don't agree with this. If 'blast' were an area fire-type command, and you wanted to blast through multiple walls in a compound, you could simply string the order sets together due to the way area fire already works in the game. Since you can set area fire from any waypoint to a target that is in LOS of that waypoint, you could simply tell your squad to:

Move to first wall

From that waypoint, area fire blast in the direction of the first wall (with 15 sec. pause)

Area fire target will be automatically deleted after demolition complete

Move through first wall to next wall

From that waypoint, area fire blast in direction of second wall (with 15 sec. pause), works since second wall is in LOS of second waypoint

etc. etc.

Except for blast not being a target command, the game mechanics allow for this just fine - most of us assault multi-storey buildings that way, don't we?

Correct me if I'm wrong, please!

Hi stoex,

I correct you Following the old adage that says 'a picture is worth a thousand words':

You can see in the picture that from the first waypoint you can only order the pixelengineers to area fire the first floor of the building to its side but not the first floor of the two buildings further behind - where there is a wall, but it doesn't matter there are or there aren't doors and/or windows. Of course, you can always area target the floor immediately above any waypoint, as you point out in the way to fiercely assault multi-storey buildings, but with Blast we aren't interested in moving vertically but horizontally.

And you can see that you can't area fire from the waypoints of the second and third floor to the same floors in any of the three buildings around. You can only area fire vertically.

But even with the pixelengineers already staying where the first waypoint is, you cannot set any area fire target to the room on the other side of the wall, because there isn't LOS - it's an opaque wall. And if you were to use that "blast area fire" on the same room were you are staying, how do you control which wall do you want to blast? It's not possible with the present game mechanics.

And last but not least, if there is smoke/debris in the air inside the building you might don't have any LOS.

Resuming: the ways of the LOS are impenetrable

Cheers,

Lomir

[stoex]

Iomir,

First of all let me say that your point is taken. That is, one of your points is taken . Pardon me for being a little trite, but the old adage only works in the positive sense....meaning that if something is in a picture, that proves it is possible, but conversely if something isn't in a picture, that doesn't prove it's impossible . Here's what I mean:

As you can see from this picture, it is quite possible to area fire into adjacent buildings as long as the wall (actually each of the two walls between the interiors of the two buildings) is either nonexistent, destroyed (both not shown in the screenshot since they are both obvious...) or has some kind of aperture (door or window). This is regardless of whether the buildings overlap completely or in part, and also regardless of the exact location of the door or window(s).

Note the target line on the first floor, which goes into the left hand rear building through the part of the wall away from the door to the right hand rear building, where there is no window. On the second floor, the target line appears to go through a solid wall into the right hand rear building - in fact there is a single window in that wall further right, obscured by the building on the front right. But that doesn't matter to the pixeltruppen...

Admittedly it is very difficult to place these targets, particularly when the targeted buildings are see-through due to units inside them, but it is possible. On the third floor the single window in the middle of the wall is enough to be able to target either of the rear buildings' third floors (of course I can only show one in the screenshot, you'll just have to believe the other one works as well...)

I think this may be the reason why you claim that only vertical area fire is possible in your illustration. To place target lines, particularly on higher floors or when the targeted building is transparent, the best way to do this is to position the camera inside the building you wish to target, on the correct floor, then place the target line on one of the exterior walls and click there.

In summary: As long as two buildings are connected via some length of wall, and both aspects of that wall have at least one aperture, it is possible to area target from one building to the other.

You are, however, absolutely correct that my idea for 'area fire blast' fails when it comes to solid walls due to lack of LOS . This is however the only problem I can see with it. It's a big enough problem that my idea is useless, though! (Unless BFC like it enough to create a workaround. Steve? )

Just thought I'd point out some facts about area fire within building complexes that you appear to have been unaware of.

Regarding lack of LOS due to smoke/debris - well, c'est la guerre...I find it realistic that if there is too much smoke in a building to see the enemy and fire at him, then it probably isn't going to be really easy to place and detonate a demo charge, either. The pixelengineers will just have to wait a bit, then...

[TheVulture]

Iomir,

You are, however, absolutely correct that my idea for 'area fire blast' fails when it comes to solid walls due to lack of LOS . This is however the only problem I can see with it. It's a big enough problem that my idea is useless, though! (Unless BFC like it enough to create a workaround. Steve? )

It's the same asymmetry with any building walls; you can area target them from outside, but you can't area target the wall of a building you are in. It's not something that would normally be a problem; you can (almost) always target the ground outside / adjacent building. The exception is where you can't do that; maybe due to smoke lurking just beyond the wall (although that's a more general problem with smoke), or maybe due to solid building walls. How often would you want to target a solid building wall for area fire while inside the building? Maybe if you knew there was an enemy unit outside the building behind that wall (although I don't know if CMSF actually allows area fire to penetrate solid walls). In real life rounds could certainly penetrate many kinds of walls, although I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to the risk to the firer if doing it from inside a small room...