BF please read!!! About acquiring ammo...

[stoex]

A while ago I posted in a thread a question about a possible tweak to the ammo acquiring system. Unfortunately, I can't find that thread now, so I will repeat my query here since there was never an official or beta tester response regarding this topic, and the upcoming release of NATO (and Normandy around another two or three corners) offers another chance of possibly getting this into the engine:

Would it be possible to change the algorithm that determines the possible quantities of ammo to acquire from vehicles - particularly regarding small arms ammo? Currently CMSF offers the total number of rounds available (rounded down to straight 1000's in some cases) as well as half and a quarter thereof if applicable. In fully loaded MTVRs and AAVs, there is a lot of 5.56 and 7.62 available, therefore the options come out as 4000, 2000 and 1000 rounds (in the case of 5.56). This means it is impossible to acquire less than 1000 rounds of 5.56 from such a full vehicle. Only after some of the ammo has been taken from the vehicle do smaller amounts become available (I believe the smallest amount changes to 500 when there are 2000 rounds or less left inside the vehicle). Now, 1000 rounds is fine for a Marines squad, but quite a lot for a two or three man team (Jav, Sniper, SMAW, Platoon HQ etc.). From my personal standpoint, I much more often find myself wanting to acquire a few 100 rounds for such a team than wanting to take all 4000 rounds with a Marines squad. And even if I do want to do the latter, I could still achieve it by taking 1000 rounds several times over. I therefore ask whether these numbers could be changed to a different range, say 1000, 500 and 200 for instance. This seems a viable and sensible tweak to me for a number of reasons:

-) It would make it possible to acquire any multiple of the smallest available number of rounds, for any unit, at any time, regardless of the total number in the vehicle at the time. It would admittedly cost a few more mouse clicks to acquire very large amounts, but I consider that a reasonable tradeoff.

-) It would better allow players to conserve ammo, especially in campaigns, where resupply may be limited. Always good to have those rounds available in future missions!

-) When you feel like you want or need to acquire ammo with small units, this would reduce the amount of weight added to their loadout.

-) It also seems to me that this would be an easy enough tweak for Charles to pull off, merely requiring changing a few numbers in an existing formula, or possibly adding a line or two of code in the right place. I could be mistaken, of course . But it seems straightforward enough to me.

Please feel free to voice your opinions on this subject - it will help in keeping it bumped until a beta tester or Steve stumbles across it .

[ChrisND]

Well, it's not us you have to convince, but Steve or Charles. Sounds good to me though.

[Chops]

I am with you Stoex. I think you have some great suggestions. Along with it, I would add tool-tips for each weapon that shows what ammo it takes.

[toxic.zen]

maybe even allow for the weight of the ammo to impact how quickly a unit becomes fatigued? (a squad loaded to the hilt with javelins and ammo tires at the same rate as an unburdened squad) :confused:

[stikkypixie]

I would like the popup menu to stay open, so you can acquire everything in one go.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I would like the popup menu to stay open, so you can acquire everything in one go.

Wouldn't mind that at all.

[vincere]

maybe even allow for the weight of the ammo to impact how quickly a unit becomes fatigued? (a squad loaded to the hilt with javelins and ammo tires at the same rate as an unburdened squad) :confused:

Are you sure? I remember posts saying that weight will count; and it's appeared to impact my squads when I load them with too much.

[Cpl Steiner]

Seems a reasonable idea to me. I doubt you'd even have to make more clicks for the higher quantities - Charles could just add a couple of smaller quantities to the existing menu.

[phil stanbridge]

If you burden your men with light AT weapons it definitely slows them down - they tire quickly in the heat and are rubbish at sprinting up hills but I'm not sure if grenades and bullets feature in this list. (You can't acquire grenades which seems odd!). You can pack them up with thousands of rounds and I'm not sure it has the same effect.

[toxic.zen]

test it yourself! I have and with us army units there is no difference between a squad burdened with a maximum load of ammo and anti-tank rounds/launchers, versus a squad with nothing extra acquired...

[vincere]

test it yourself! I have and with us army units there is no difference between a squad burdened with a maximum load of ammo and anti-tank rounds/launchers, versus a squad with nothing extra acquired...

No way. I'm shocked that I thought that I saw an affect, and I distintcly remember Steve saying that weight would have an effect. Maybe he said it early on and it didn't make the cut.

[vincere]

Ok so tested:

Three Striker squads all same fitness running 100m bakc and forth over same terrain.

1 Squad had all AT and 5.56 ammo

2 Squad had all AT

3 Squad no extra.

At fast pace no perivable difference.

At Quick pace 1 squad tired very slightly earlier and 3 squad was sightly faster.

Tried with 4 man MG team at quick pace one full of 7.62 the other no extra and no difference in pace or who tired first

2nd test:

1 squad two striker at, 40mm grenades and 5.56.

2 squad no extra

3 M240 three man team.

Bloody man carrying the M240 beat the squad by 100 m over 1000m

Again heavy squad tired slightly earlier but kept up with the light squad.. (wanders back to CM campaign scratching head)

[c3k]

Interesting.

First, I support the idea of the OP regarding the ACQUIRE function. Otherwise, you overload your men. (The only solution is to find a piece of dirt to TARGET LIGHT until the ammo counter is where you want it. )

Secondly, my tests do not confirm what toxic.zen stated. vincere posted his results, above. I ran my tests at least a year ago, perhaps longer. There's a thread about them somewhere. In my tests, it took some time, but there was a difference. It seems that everyone in game can hustle about for a bit. It's what happens AFTER that "bit" that matters. The overloaded units end up with no stamina; their FAST disappears, their recovery time is abnormally long.

FWIW, my tests were many versions ago. Something may've changed. However, this is an area that Steve commented upon and BF.C seems to be on top of. I'd run more tests before coming to a conclusion.

Regards,

Ken

[Panzerfest]

I'd like vehicles to have the acquire ability, not only could you put stuff back if you messed up but replenishing depleted MG/coax ammo definitely has a use.

Also with the new feature ammo sharing feature in CM:A is there any plans to implement ammo sharing between vehicles in Normandy?

[Battlefront.com]

Correct, the effect of the extra weight is on the endurance, not the speed of the unit. If people remember back to CMx1, this was an often discussed shortcoming of the system we had for heavy units. Who here doesn't remember trying to move a HMG unit 20m and have them plod along at a slow pace? When in real life they would have sprinted almost as fast as a light unit, but that would be it for 5 minutes while they caught their breath and the light unit kept on going.

As for the original suggestion, the Acquire feature was added late in the original development cycle and therefore was compromised so that we had something instead of nothing. Therefore, I agree that Acquire could use a couple of improvements. Chief amongst them is the ability to Un-Acquire. There isn't anything like this planned for Normandy, unfortunately, but it is high up on the ToDo List for the next game after it.

Steve

[vincere]

Interesting.

Secondly, my tests do not confirm what toxic.zen stated. vincere posted his results, above. I ran my tests at least a year ago, perhaps longer. There's a thread about them somewhere. In my tests, it took some time, but there was a difference. It seems that everyone in game can hustle about for a bit. It's what happens AFTER that "bit" that matters. The overloaded units end up with no stamina; their FAST disappears, their recovery time is abnormally long.

FWIW, my tests were many versions ago. Something may've changed. However, this is an area that Steve commented upon and BF.C seems to be on top of. I'd run more tests before coming to a conclusion.

Regards,

Ken

Thanks Ken. I remember your tests now, with screen shots I think. Now I remember your what you say concurs when I accidentially overloaded MG team with all 5.56 then all 7.62.

That is they take a long time to recover.

Steve: Correct, the effect of the extra weight is on the endurance, not the speed of the unit

My quick test finished before looking at revovery that but will do later when Baby is keeping me up again

Thanks for official take.

[phil stanbridge]

Very interesting thanks chaps. So does all ammunition regardless of type have this effect?

[flamingknives]

It's a weight thing, IIRC. There is a limit to how much your guys can carry (or there was), so each item or set has a weight.

[toxic.zen]

to not further hijack the thread from it's original focus I will post the results of a more focused test in a new thread. titled "Fatigue Test"

[stoex]

Thanks for the official take, Steve. Glad to hear it's on the list and I'll be happy when acquiring is eventually improved. For now it's OK as is, and certainly not a gamebreaker - wouldn't want this to get in the way of more important work for sure!

[Lanzfeld]

I would also like to request the ability to resupply grenades please. House to house eats em up rather fast. Seems like an easy fix? Seems realistic as well?

[meade95]

I would also like to request the ability to resupply grenades please. House to house eats em up rather fast. Seems like an easy fix? Seems realistic as well?

+1..........