Visual Bone

[Lanzfeld]

This is so great Steve. Thank you. I like how you try to keep realism as one of the prime directives as well as "gameplayability". Like you said, how one squad would know that another squad across the map needs a zook rocket would, maybe, take all day for the info to reach across the map. We, as the gods, can see it obvioulsy but IRL the troopers would not know this info so easily.

[Michael Emrys]

There will be numerous situations where the player will not want what the AI thinks it should do.

And I am positive that in real war fighting there are numerous times when a commander earnestly wishes his troops had done something other than what they did. I don't want to sound harsh or sarcastic, but if you are looking for a game where you have total control over your pieces, maybe you should stick to chess.

I think the critical issue for CM is: When your men go off and act on their own, do they do so in the manner that real live human soldiers would do? Or do they behave like icons in a computer? That's a real test of programming skill.

Michael

[vincere]

It will be in NATO as well because it won't negatively affect what already exists or require reworking of old data. It's actually more work for us to turn something like this off for a particular product release than it is to include it, so if it doesn't cause harm it goes in. In fact, several features in v1.20 came about because of Normandy's coding, not because we specifically programmed them for British Module.

Steve

This is good news, and I like the sharing ammo idea in general. Moving ammo up to where it's needed will help the longer battles that I like.

Has there been any more information about on map ammo 'points'?

[theFightingSeabee]

Personally, I think it's a GREAT improvement in the game. My main question is... Will this be retroactive to CMSF, USMC, and UK?

[Pvt. Ryan]

One question that it does raise though. In the current 'one team' approach to e.g. MG squads, if the gunner gets injured, someone else can take over. For a CMN squad, if one of the 'weapon' team gets injured / killed, do you then need to keep the squad unsplit so someone from the 'ammo' team can take their place? The way splitting works as seen in CMSF, if you then split off the ammo squad, you'd be stuck with the the MG firing team missing one of its men and being less effective. Have you found a way of getting men to automatically move from the 'ammo' team to the 'weapon' team to replace causalties?

I would think you could rejoin the teams, then re-split the support team which would have one fewer men. Doesn't it currently work that way with AT teams split from squads?

Also, we are talking about ammo sharing, but I think the sharing is only for crew served weapons, such as MGs, and RPGs/rocket rounds. I don't believe Steve said or implied that rifle ammo will be shared. Steve, please clarify, or do somefink.

[c3k]

Damnit Steve, now you've confused us! In fact, the only way to SAVE THIS BONE would be to release a MOVIE!!! Double down, dude, double down.

[Battlefront.com]

Call me a whippet and spank me, but isn't the current patch 1.21?

It is, but off the top of my head I couldn't think of any Normandy features that crept into v1.21. I just checked, though, and indeed some Normandy specific features are in there too:

• "Scenario Author Test" may be selected as a Skill Mode (1-player only). It will cause all enemy units to be fully displayed to the player, but not additionally "known" to player's troops.

• AI Plan #0 can be deactivated in the editor provided at least one other plan is active.

There were a bunch of fixes that apply to Normandy as well, but the two above were part of the Normandy improvement list, not the Shock Force improvement list.

One question that it does raise though. In the current 'one team' approach to e.g. MG squads, if the gunner gets injured, someone else can take over. For a CMN squad, if one of the 'weapon' team gets injured / killed, do you then need to keep the squad unsplit so someone from the 'ammo' team can take their place? The way splitting works as seen in CMSF, if you then split off the ammo squad, you'd be stuck with the the MG firing team missing one of its men and being less effective. Have you found a way of getting men to automatically move from the 'ammo' team to the 'weapon' team to replace causalties?

Rearranging personnel between Teams or Squads is currently not possible. At some point it will be, hopefully sooner rather than later. It's a bit more tricky than the ammo sharing, though, so I'm not sure if we'll want to tackle this one immediately or not.

To clarify some more about the splitting off of ammo bearers, either a Squad has a dedicated ammo bearing team or it doesn't. This isn't something the player creates on-the-fly like an AT or Scout Team. For example, a US 81mm Medium Mortar Squad has the following:

Team A (Mortar Team)

Squad Leader

Mortar Commander

Mortar Gunner

Mortar Assistant Gunner

Team B (Ammo Team)

Ammo Team Leader

Ammo Bearer

Ammo Bearer

Ammo Bearer

Ammo Bearer

When you use the SPLIT Command Team B leaves the Squad and becomes its own stand alone unit. Or if a Squad starts out split already, you can join them together as Team A and Team B. Ammo sharing happens either way, provided distance and conditions allow for transfer of ammo.

I've no idea where the realism comes in to that. Would the ammo-bearers have any training on how to be part of an HMG crew, or be able to ad-lib enough to replace a fallen comrade?

It depends on the national doctrine and what position is in need of replacement, but yes... in general the ammo bearers were there for more reasons than just lugging ammo around. Their secondary role was to provide local security, their third role was to act as replacements for the primary weapon personnel when and where possible.

For example, I can't see a guy usually tasked with hauling ammo being any good as the weapon's gunner. That's a fairly highly trained position and I doubt he'd have those skills at the ready. But could he drop a round down the tube upon command? Probably.

Unfortunately, swapping personnel around without realistic constraints would lead to situations where weapons should be put out of action but aren't because of the ammo guys doing things they probably wouldn't be capable of. We definitely need to make sure we do this right and I'm not sure we can move on this yet. Ammo sharing is a step towards that.

Steve

[Fenris]

Looking nice.

What's the max map & force size going to be? Will there be hard limits or will we just be limited by the grunt of our PC?

Thanks

Fenris

[Ryujin]

I'd bet the limits would be the same or at least close to CMSF, they seem to be sufficient for most user scenarios and your PC will probably fry before you hit any kind of unit limit (I've put down whole battalions before to look at the gear, more than enough units). Map limit I believe is 4x4km, usually sufficient given the pace of combat and such, probably more so in the french country side as opposed to open desert.

Is there going to be any way to manually affect the ammo sharing? It sounds like the only option seems to be having the mortar crew constantly "top off" their ammo from the AB team. Could you say "over load" the mortar crew, much like you can in CMSF when you draw ammo from vehicles and you give your MG crew massive amounts of ammo if you don't expect them to move much? So if you plan on the mortar being pretty static, could you just dump all the ammo on them and then have some more freedom in placing the AB team for security?

Also on the topic of mortars, how is "indirect" fire for on map mortars handled? Using the british CMSF mortars as an example, it seems they can only fire at targets they can see. If I were to say bring 81mm mortars on map, would you have that same limitation or could they also be treated like "off map" artillery by units with the ability to act as FOs? While I know that the mortar crews "on the move" might have some trouble plotting their location, it would seem odd to be completely unable to use them for indirect fire if comms and FOs allow for it.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Sure, in a perfect world we would have this. But of course why should your pet peeve get ahead of the other 10 years worth of pet peeves people have heaped upon us over the pervious 10 years? It's natural for players to think that their ideas are the single most important thing in the whole world, but that doesn't make it so.

Would "Follow" be a good thing for the game? Absolutely. It's been on an internal ToDo List since before CMBO ever got into a single player's hands. And yet it still isn't in the game. Perhaps there's a reason for this that you don't comprehend?

Steve

I would like to point out that you actually introduced a follow order in CMBB when you allowed infantry units to follow enemy AFV's (when within grenade range) to attempt to destroy a moving vehicle using close combat. I could never understand why a (presumably) relatively simple expansion of that command wasn't introduced with later patches or even with CMAK to allow friendly units to follow another designated friendly unit. The basic code was already there but, seemingly, left to wither on the vine.

I know the CMx2 code is completely different from CMx1 but it's worthwhile pointing out that you have already managed to implement something similar in the earlier version of the Combat Mission series.

Regards

KR

[stoex]

Steve, I see what you are saying - and I may have overstated the urgency of my plea. I probably did, in fact .

One thing I didn't factor in was the fact that as you stated not long ago, Infantry AT weapons will not be split off in teams in CMN (as they were in CMx1 and also in part for the Syrians in CMSF), but instead the Shrecks and Zooks and such will be allocated to infantry squads. Or is this dependent on doctrine and only counts for the US forces? I can't remember...

I do agree that the system as proposed, if it is well-implemented, potentially combines a high level of realism with limitations on gamey use by overly cunning players and should be a good addition to the engine on the whole. It is certainly a GREAT way to organize heavy weapons squads with their fire and ammo/security teams.

The only real problem I see is this, and I quote:

the chances of having two Weapons Teams (Schrecks, Bazookas, Light Mortars, Medium MGs, etc.) right next to each other by random circumstances are extremely small. Meaning, for the Schreck team without ammo and with a launcher to get access to another Schreck team that has ammo but no launcher will almost certainly require the player moving the two Teams together

Of course it requires the player to do this, but this is actually something I as a player see myself wanting to do regularly, particularly on defense in the bocage. You know, my German platoon gets shot up a bit along a hedgerow, I order them to fall back to the next hedgerow, regroup and set up a new ambush. In this case, and I repeat I see this happening quite frequently, it is of the utmost importance - and also realistic - for my platoon leader to organize his forces according to how many men and what kind of weapons are left in each squad or team. True that if the fighting is heavy, his choices may be limited and things will have to happen fast, but that's exactly why he will take care to place the remaining heavy weapons and any ammo available for them in the important places. The riflemen can go wherever, basically. And in this situation, small groups of soldiers should be getting the Shrecks and ammo, to be mobile and have better use of cover. If the AI then turns over the Shrecks to the almost full squads, this will not only render the two man team ineffective, it will also endanger the large squad more if they become the prime target for tanks because they have the AT assets. Sure I can then (hopefully) split off an AT team from the squad, but that will reduce its size even more and still leave the two man team that previously carried the Shreck ineffective. This is where the AI algorithm will have to prove itself most...

Hope this makes sense. On the other hand, time will tell and things can always be tweaked in a patch if they are found to not behave ideally. Doesn't change anything about the fact that CMN is shaping up to be a great game .

[Kanonier Reichmann]

From memory, I believe Steve has stated previously that CM.N will have Bazookas as part of the inherent weaponry of a US squad whereas there will be seperate Panzerschreck teams from the German squads, as that was consisteant with their doctrine. Presumably therefore, both American AND German squads will be able to split off an AT team consisting of 2 men manning a Bazooka or (perhaps?) 2 men carrying Panzerfausts for the respective sides.

If this is the case it raises the interesting prospect of having AT teams running all over the place for the Germans, armed either with Panzerfausts or Panzerschrecks but probably not both.

Regards

KR

[McAuliffe]

I was pondering for while -like the whole day - how to react to Steve's comments, but I contemplated that this thread shouldn't go where "The Grog and the Car Designer - a Parable" ended. All in all, I have actually to admit, this is probably an unique game forum, where you get actually answers from the designer Himself... although it might include a rhetoric question with a derogatory remark.

I am satisfied for now, that "my more mileage for the gas" request ended somewhere on an internal to do list. It keeps the flame burning, maybe it will fire up again when CMIII comes out. Might well be CM:In search of the Holy Grail or somefink.

That, or they can compensate and boost the flame by skipping fooling around in the hedgerows and go directly to the serious business of the Bulge :-)

[Thomm]

Well, in the quote that caused the harsh response from Steve you basically imply that you know better than BFC what the game should have and what not.

While I think that he should not go down the "derogatory" route himself, you must admit that you went there first.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Michael Emrys]

From memory, I believe Steve has stated previously that CM.N will have Bazookas as part of the inherent weaponry of a US squad whereas there will be seperate Panzerschreck teams from the German squads, as that was consisteant with their doctrine. Presumably therefore, both American AND German squads will be able to split off an AT team consisting of 2 men manning a Bazooka or (perhaps?) 2 men carrying Panzerfausts for the respective sides.

If this is the case it raises the interesting prospect of having AT teams running all over the place for the Germans, armed either with Panzerfausts or Panzerschrecks but probably not both.

I may be mistaken, but IIRC the Panzerschrecks were handled by dedicated two man teams, whereas Panzerfausts were distributed throughout the squads depending on availability. I guess you could split off a team armed with all the squad's PFs. I would be interested to see if that was standard practice though.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

Is there going to be any way to manually affect the ammo sharing?

Other than putting units near each other or keeping them apart? No. You can not "dump" ammo someplace, for example, because that would mean tracking what is dumped and showing it visually. You'd then get into issues of enemy units wanting to capture or destroy such dumps. It's not a road we're ready to go down.

Also on the topic of mortars, how is "indirect" fire for on map mortars handled? Using the british CMSF mortars as an example, it seems they can only fire at targets they can see.

British mortars in CM:SF are direct fire weapons only, with a slight ability to squeak out a very limited indirect capability. This is very different from a "true" mortar which has fire control systems.

When an on-map mortar is present it will appear in the Artillery Support Panel just like an off-map mortar does. The on-map mortar may also elect to fire by LOS. Obviously it can't do both simultaneously, nor are very many units in the game capable of calling in artillery at all. CM: Normandy behavior is more like playing the Syrians rather than the Blue Forces in CM:SF in that regard.

I would like to point out that you actually introduced a follow order in CMBB when you allowed infantry units to follow enemy AFV's (when within grenade range) to attempt to destroy a moving vehicle using close combat. I could never understand why a (presumably) relatively simple expansion of that command wasn't introduced with later patches or even with CMAK to allow friendly units to follow another designated friendly unit.

The obvious answer is... because it wasn't a "relatively simple expansion" There is a huge difference between sticking close to something already within tactical range for the explicit purpose of attacking it and trying to have units follow each other with some degree of realistic outcome.

I know the CMx2 code is completely different from CMx1 but it's worthwhile pointing out that you have already managed to implement something similar in the earlier version of the Combat Mission series.

No we didn't, actually. The "Follow" behavior was never implemented for CMx1 and has not been implemented for CMx2 yet. It's simply a matter of development priorities, though, not any sort of technical limitations. We could have had "Follow" behavior in CMx1 as well, but we never got around to it because it's far more difficult to do than you think it is.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

One thing I didn't factor in was the fact that as you stated not long ago, Infantry AT weapons will not be split off in teams in CMN (as they were in CMx1 and also in part for the Syrians in CMSF), but instead the Shrecks and Zooks and such will be allocated to infantry squads. Or is this dependent on doctrine and only counts for the US forces?

The Germans used the Panzerschreck as a team serviced weapon. Panzerfausts and rifle grenades were integrated directly into the Rifle Squads. On the American side, Bazookas were manned by the Rifle Squads as well as rifle grenades. They had no team AT weapon other than towed AT Guns (or the rare Recoilless weapons).

Bear in mind that WEAPONS do not get switched between Teams, only ammo. So if you have a US Rifle Squad with an empty Bazooka and another US Rifle Squad with Bazooka rounds with no Bazooka, the rounds will go to the Team with the Bazooka in the Squad that the Team is a part of. There's no other possibility.

Sure, in real life a Platoon Leader, given enough time and circumstances, could say "1st Squad, give your Bazooka to 2nd Squad". No doubt about it. But that gets us into a bigger kettle of fish having to do with reorganizing personnel within a tactical battle. The Platoon Leader may say "1st Squad, keep your Bazooka and get the rounds from 2nd Squad. But give them one of your BARs and all the BAR magazines you have because 2nd Squad lost both of their BARs". Again, given the right circumstances this sort of thing would be possible, but it's something that no CM game has yet supported and is likely not going to support for quite a long time. Reorganizing units on-the-fly requires a ton of game coding as well as brand new UI. I don't see us having the time for this significant chunk of work for quite some time. Especially since MOST of the times the player really doesn't have the luxury of reorganizing to the degree players probably would if given the chance.

I was pondering for while -like the whole day - how to react to Steve's comments,

I'm at a loss as to why. My answer was straight forward and quite in sympathy with your desire for the Follow behavior. I acknowledged that it is indeed a very desirable feature and we ourselves have wanted it in the game since before you ever heard of CMBO. What I suggested you do is reconsider your assumptions that we're ignorant of its probable benefit and instead ponder the possibility that it's not in already for good reasons. Even if that reason is "we haven't yet had time for it".

although it might include a rhetoric question with a derogatory remark.

There was no derogatory remark. You made an assumption that we're clueless or deliberately opposed to given players the single most important thing in the whole wide world. I simply stated that you should consider two other possibilities... that your feature requests aren't the only ones out there and that there may be reasons you're not considering as to why your specific requests aren't ahead of all others. Since you seem to not have considered these possibilities, I merely suggested that you give it some thought before you make strongly worded statements like you did.

Well, in the quote that caused the harsh response from Steve you basically imply that you know better than BFC what the game should have and what not.

Heh... my response may have been blunt and direct, but it wasn't harsh. Harsh is something I save for really special occasions

I may be mistaken, but IIRC the Panzerschrecks were handled by dedicated two man teams, whereas Panzerfausts were distributed throughout the squads depending on availability. I guess you could split off a team armed with all the squad's PFs. I would be interested to see if that was standard practice though.

Correct. Every Squad inherently has the ability to form either an AT Team or a Scout Team by reorganizing its internal structure (we have this turned "off" for Syrian Rifle Squads for doctrinal reasons). The ability to Split allows you to take a 12 man US Rifle Squad and divide off a 2 man Bazooka Team. The result would be a 10 man Rifle Squad and a 2 man Bazooka Team. In CMx1 we did not have this capability so US players, somewhat unrealistically, got to have their 12 man Rifle Squads *and* their 2 man Bazooka Teams instead of either or.

Steve

[MeatEtr]

Reorganizing units on-the-fly requires a ton of game coding as well as brand new UI.

Steve

Speaking of which, can we for the love of a fake god not have neon green weapon/support icons? I think we can all agree Scipio's mods are way better looking than the default CMSF icons.

Also was just looking at the CMSf box/manual art the other day and thought it looked kinda cartoony and cheesy. Not the gritty/realistic tone a wargame sim should have. Hope you guys don't destroy the game with bad box art this time.

[Michael Emrys]

Hope you guys don't destroy the game with bad box art this time.

Bad box art didn't seem to hurt Barbarossa to Berlin too much, so I shouldn't worry about that a whole lot.

Michael

[Nicdain]

The ability to Split allows you to take a 12 man US Rifle Squad and divide off a 2 man Bazooka Team. The result would be a 10 man Rifle Squad and a 2 man Bazooka Team.

And is it possible to split again the 10 men rifle squad in two 5 men teams?

[LukeFF]

No. A soldier has 3 magazines on him. In real life how this works is he'd expend one or two magazines and reload them using the stripper clips. It takes only a few seconds to do this, even for a moderately trained rifleman. Therefore, it's not worth us investing in a new animation to reload magazines considering that it would be seen very rarely and likely only if the player was specifically looking for it.

From a simulation standpoint we assume that when soldiers aren't moving, cowering, or shooting that they are getting ready for their next action. There's always plenty of time for soldiers to do things like reload magazines, especially when stripper clips are available.

Got it. So, if I'm understanding this right, when a G43 rifleman reloads his weapon, he'll simply reload it like it's a K98? Will the animation thus play twice, simulating him loading two five-round stripper clips?

(Sorry about asking about minutiae like this ).

[Elmar Bijlsma]

No, as I read it a G43 going to reload like a magazine fed weapon, with every magazine beyond the third assumed to have been an earlier emptied magazine that has been refilled with stripper clips at some time. This later re-filling goes on "behind the scenes" as it were and will not be simulated directly.

[McAuliffe]

In this movie excerpt, some interesting shots of reloading with stripper clips as of 1.16:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=60248

[Elmar Bijlsma]

My eye is more drawn to the other fellow having an apparent problem with his Garand, having to manually eject spent cartridges.

btw

A bit early to bring it up but the double insertion of stripper clips will have to be done for the Lee Enfields, who were fed with 2x5 also. Was it even possible to change the magazine?

[Ryujin]

Yes, you can detach the Enfield's magazine (like you can on many bolt action rifles), but I guess they never issued or used multiple magazines. Probably not that big of a deal for 5 to 10 rounds and it's certainly lighter and much cheaper than having a magazine for every 10 rounds.

I'm also not sure exactly how easy it is to detach and insert the magazine on the Enfield, it may not have been designed with ease of use in mind and more as a maintenance feature.