Smoke artillery mission uses HE? Not available after HE used?

[Chad Harrison]

Hi all

First off, dont think Ive posted yet how great the game is BFC. Hats off to the entire team. Just an outstanding, very polished release. Congrats.

Just two quick questions that I could not answer with the manual:

1. I noticed that when I call for a SMOKE artillery mission, it uses SMOKE rounds *and* HE rounds at the same time. I assume this is not intended? (By the way, WP is great - nice to see it not only included, but realistic too)

2. Also, this may be intentional since it was in CM:SF too, but when an artillery source uses all of its HE ammo, even if it still had some SMOKE rounds left, the source is no longer available. Is this intentional?

Thanks

Chad

[TrailApe]

This might not answer your question, but in the real world a smoke mission is adjusted with HE and then uses smoke when the FO is happy with the fall of shot "HE in adjustment, Smoke in Effect" is an extract from Fire Orders.

If they've run out of HE perhaps they then cannot adjust?

Smoke's a funny munition and if you get it wrong you can really screw up an attack if it lands in the wrong place.

[Baneman]

Yes, but if you have 40 HE and 12 Smoke, when you get down to 12 HE, from that point on, Smoke and HE ammo diminish in synch, even if you're only firing HE.

So even if you leave yourself 1 or 2 HE, you similarly only have 1 or 2 Smoke left too.

[c3k]

Do you have savegames which show this behavior? Or, failing that, can you name the battle or the artillery type being used?

Thanks,

Ken

[womble]

I thought this was expected behaviour. It's certainly been commented on before, recently, and experienced heads seemed to think it is what's supposed to happen.

[akd]

Do you have savegames which show this behavior? Or, failing that, can you name the battle or the artillery type being used?

Thanks,

Ken

Pretty sure this is true for any off-map arty with smoke. In CMSF ammo levels were like an allotment available, rather than a discrete number of rounds of different types. If you fired HE until your allotment was expended, there was nothing left to allot to a smoke mission. If you fired smoke, you used part of the allotment that could go to HE.

This seems to have carried over to CMBN despite the discrete ammo counts.

[Baneman]

Do you have savegames which show this behavior? Or, failing that, can you name the battle or the artillery type being used?

Thanks,

Ken

Pretty sure I noticed it first on the German 105's in the Closing the Pocket scenario in the demo. Should have said that, yes, it only applies to offboard artillery.

TBH, I haven't checked it again on the full game, but I thought they were the same thing ( ie. full game is untweaked since the demo )

[Sequoia]

Actually this is by design. Your artillery ammo allotment isn't the number of shells you have available but a reflection of how much artillery "time" you have. If you shoot off a certain amont of shells you've used up your time with the support battery.

[Baneman]

Ah, is that it.

Shouldn't the manual explicitly state that then, since the rest of the game tracks ammo by number of shells/cartridges etc. ?

Just saying - the manual IS pretty good otherwise

[Sixxkiller]

Problem with manuals is that things change within patches. Well in the CM world atleast.

[Capt Cliff]

Smoke and HE missions should have a seperate ammo load. When the HE mission is shot-off then you have the smoke mission to deploy. But in the Closing the Pocket the German arty will fire everything as HE with no smoke available. Huh? On-board motars had seperate rounds for HE and smoke.

[Sequoia]

Here's Steve's post on the subject from CMSF:

Users of CMx1 will remember many such frivolous uses of artillery

When you think about it, a medium or heavy battery probably has hundreds, if not thousands, of shells available to it. The ammo restriction in the game is, therefore, both necessary and realistic since there's no way someone should have access to a couple thousand rounds of 155 just because he has an observer with a connection to a 155 battery.

As Charles said, in real life the restriction of fire support comes down to time. In real life this time is more flexibly allocated than within the game, however that's where necessary game constraints kick in so scenarios are actually fun to play instead of just watching artillery and/or air wipe out the enemy. If someone DOES want to do that, they are welcome to make scenarios that do just that

Steve

[womble]

Problem with manuals is that things change within patches. Well in the CM world atleast.

Trouble with that statement is that it's been that way since CMSF. Too little proper proofing of the manual, is more like it.

[Baneman]

Just slap the middle 2 paragraphs of Steve's quote into the manual - it's pretty clear

Best to maybe stick it into a readme - people expect to find info there that was too late to make it into the manual.

[c3k]

The UI in CMBN explicity shows the number of rounds of various artillery ammo available.

[Baneman]

Ok, now you've confused me - so does CM:BN work on the "artillery time" principle, in which case the Smoke Rounds diminishing with the HE makes sense, or does it track rounds explicitly in which case it doesn't ?

Or does it mix the two - you have exactly that many rounds derived from the time available for Artillery call so it's the usage that is abstracted - which kinda makes sense ?

[Sequoia]

Below is a quote from Charles himself about how it works in CMSF. I admit I haven't tried it myself in CMBN but from what you're reporting I assume it works the same way.

Quote

"Artillery in CMSF is doled out in terms of rounds available in general, not of specific types. So if you use up all the "HE", then you've used up "everything". This is so we don't get weird gamey stuff like people shooting off smoke because "what the hell" it's all they have left. In real life the artillery batteries would not appreciate their time being wasted like that.

Think of it as how much artillery time your forces have been allotted more than the exact number of shells of each type."

Unquote

Here is a CMSF thread where it is discussed: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=90534&highlight=charles+smoke

[Chad Harrison]

Actually this is by design. Your artillery ammo allotment isn't the number of shells you have available but a reflection of how much artillery "time" you have. If you shoot off a certain amont of shells you've used up your time with the support battery.

Thanks for the answer - that answers both and makes sense to me. You read about the daily usage for a artillery battery and it is staggering how much they would fire each day. I read what a 'Unit of fire' was for a 105 battery once but I cant remember anymore. Much more than we are alloted in game though

Thanks for the answers and again, I agree with the system now that I understand why.

Oh and incase you havnt tried it, WP is your friend.

Chad

[Baneman]

... people shooting off smoke because "what the hell" it's all they have left.

But, I carefully saved it. LOL.

Appreciate the clarification, it was c3k who "reconfused" me

[Magpie_Oz]

The ammo restriction thing could be as well that most larger artillery fires using separate loading ammo.

So the ammo available could be the number of charges you have with which to fire the different warheads you have. So once you run out of HE you still have smoke warheads but nothing to put behind them and go bang ?

You would think a cunning artillery crew would have as many charges as they do warheads but maybe not.

Just a thought.

[ClarkWGriswold]

The ammo restriction thing could be as well that most larger artillery fires using separate loading ammo.

That's not the case for 105mm and smaller guns, which also have this issue.

I made a post about this in the tech support forum, reporting it as a bug. I was pointed here, and this thread is more active, so I'll put in my two cents:

If the numbers represent "artillery time" then there's still a bug. If I have enough "artillery time" to fire 140 shells maximum and/or 40 shots of smoke, then my smoke shells should not start being depleted right away. They should remain until they are fired or until I fire my last 40 shots. The way that it works now is that the first 40 shots use up your smoke AND your HE, which doesn't jive with the concept of artillery time as it's being explained.

If those numbers are really supposed to represent time or "availability" instead of number of shells, then assets should not be used on a first-out basis, but on a last-out basis. Also, the UI really needs to be changed to reflect the difference between off-map arty and everything else. For every other asset (including on-map mortars) those numbers represent the number of shells. Additionally, the manual needs to reflect the fact that you don't get what it explicitly tells you that you have available.

[thejetset]

Actually this is by design. Your artillery ammo allotment isn't the number of shells you have available but a reflection of how much artillery "time" you have. If you shoot off a certain amont of shells you've used up your time with the support battery.

I see a couple of things disputable with your logic.

- Why can I still use up all my HE rounds after expending my Smoke rounds??

- Why not just have 100 rounds available?? ... These could be either Smoke OR HE. .... that would go with the design of having a certain amount of time alloted regardless to the type of ordinance used in that time.

[Sequoia]

Please read my post #17. I said I hadn't tried it myself and I was assuming this was by design based on quotes directly from the designers about the same issue in CMSF. Since they haven't commented directly in this thread it's possible this is not the case.

[Magpie_Oz]

That's not the case for 105mm and smaller guns, which also have this issue.

Which guns are they?

The US 75mm and 105mm use semi-fixed which is a similar situation where you match shells to projectiles.

[WineCape]

Pretty sure this is true for any off-map arty with smoke. In CMSF ammo levels were like an allotment available, rather than a discrete number of rounds of different types. If you fired HE until your allotment was expended, there was nothing left to allot to a smoke mission. If you fired smoke, you used part of the allotment that could go to HE.

This seems to have carried over to CMBN despite the discrete ammo counts.

This is my understanding too; the idea echoed also by resident artillery beta tester JonS when so queried. However, it would be nice if it can be programmed to be otherwise.