Cover

[Soul Reapir]

Does cover even matter for the infantry in this game? Like with the infantry acually use the cover to their advantage or will they be better off prone in the open?

[Field Marshal Blücher]

They will definitely use cover to their advantage. Is there some behavior you're noticing that makes it seem like they don't?

[Soul Reapir]

Well once in a while I will place them near trees, or a low wall, and they won't physicly use them as cover. Like they will just stand up the whole time, never accually using the cover. Is the defence bonus still there or is this a bug?

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Well, near a low wall, they will crouch as normal, but a large amount of their body is protected. If they cower or you have them hide, they will be totally protected from fire from the other side. The same goes for trenches.

For trees, it's a similar deal. One tree won't protect a whole squad much in real life, but if you have them in a forest, it does grant them a lot of concealment, and once spotted, it still gives them cover.

The animations don't change to reflect that they are actually making use of cover, but they are. I ran some tests a while back, and squads behind a low wall fared MUCH better than squads out in the open. I didn't test for trees, though.

[Soul Reapir]

Alright thanks. I hope they add animations in the next Combat mission game. I think it could add a lot to immersion if you see your troops blindfireing over walls, and popping out from windows and such. Thanks again for the response!

[akd]

Trees are not good cover. Solid projectiles can penetrate wood, and HE will detonate on the trunks and limbs creating an airburst over any troops using them as cover (also splinters can become deadly projectiles, but I don't think that is in the game).

[Ryujin]

For the most part the game is 1:1. The bullet's flight path is tracked from the muzzle to the target. If it hits a wall, tree, car, whatever, it'll be stopped in most cases. So putting objects between your troops and the enemy heps, even when they don't make great use of em. You can for example use a APC as a mobile piece of cover, park it sideways across a road and then move behind it.

There is also some "abstracted cover", a chance a bullet will pass trough without doing damage, to reflect the game cannot model all the small cover and animate them using this. This is a somewhat subtle effect, but guys laying in rocky ground for example actually have some decent cover compared to laying in open sand. You'll also see this from time to time when guys cower down.

As it is in CMSF, I think small arms will be stopped by trees (even sabot it seems), but I guess this is countered by the AI not using the depleted uranium trees for cover.

What I miss is the AI do not using the corners of buildings properly. Especially considering the RPG danger (the number 1 source of casualties in urban fighting for me), putting a whole building between your troops and the enemy would be nice.

[souldierz]

In this game from what I've seen,Trees are probably the best cover around,I swear they stop everything,from MK's to Sabot,HEAT to whatever,i also swear those trees must be made of super steel,they provide better armor then armor itself!In my PBEM games and in other scenarios,I watched as a single tree denied me heavy fire to my target,it's not that i did not have a field of view to target,it's that the combined rounds(MK19,Heavy MG,cannon fire etc) would slam into this one single tree and after many many rounds, the tree was still standing,and this is including the same rounds that can pass through several houses and walls.Realistically that tree would have been shattered down to a bunch of tooth picks.Some rounds eventually missed the tree and hit the targeted area,but at a very low success rate,I was basically wasting ammo,due to what seemed to be an indestructible tree.

I also had a couple extremely long firefights from one forest to another across the open.Both sides were not on the edge of the forest,but a little deeper in it and the fire fight lasted a very long time with both sides prone and behind trees.Ammo was getting low and there was no casualties being produced in this fight,it was a stalemate firefight that I find to be extremely rare in CMSF and it had me stumped on how to proceed.No one could accurately shoot anyone and it was actually cool to watch,until the ammo got low.

[Michael Emrys]

I also had a couple extremely long firefights from one forest to another across the open.Both sides were not on the edge of the forest,but a little deeper in it and the fire fight lasted a very long time with both sides prone and behind trees.Ammo was getting low and there was no casualties being produced in this fight,it was a stalemate firefight that I find to be extremely rare in CMSF and it had me stumped on how to proceed.No one could accurately shoot anyone and it was actually cool to watch,until the ammo got low.

Sounds a bit like real life, where the great majority of ammo expended in firefights fails to hit any worthwhile target but just manages to harass and suppress the opposition.

Michael

[Soul Reapir]

Sounds a bit like real life, where the great majority of ammo expended in firefights fails to hit any worthwhile target but just manages to harass and suppress the opposition.

Michael

This is correct.

[akd]

I'll swear I've seen .50 cal penetrate through tree cover, but I usually play realtime, so that might just be a perception issue.