Tank Accuracy ....

[dieseltaylor]

There's already (non-CMx1) newbies complaining about the complexity of the game. And BFC does hope to haul in more happy purchasers than just the CMx1 old fogies.

In the BF research on newbies complaining of too high a complexity how do you set up your objective tests?

Are the noobies playing at a higher level than their capabilities?

What percentage of the market is significant?

Are all the noobies with problems RTS or WEGO?

And are there explanations such as the manual does not agree with the game?

Learning process is not optimised and is not varied?

Is the UI friendly or confusing? Straw poll suspects UI not good.

What might be thought strange is that video services like Vimeo/YouTube have not been used , apart from fans who are of coures demonstrating the fun, without most of the learning process.

My gut feeling is that if one did a film of running a tank down a road, then looking from higher up, then plotting the various speed orders and the effect that creates on turning .......... getting through hedges, demolishing stone walls. Huge amount of visual fun information. Hardly a tough learning curve.

And I could apply my thinking to other parts of the game.

On a more fundamental level is the move to individual graphics and action in itself to fundamental level to provide fun per minute. In my experience everyone like tanks as they are fun and dramatic and with bocage you are in very unfriendly tank country.

If I had been in BF's position I would have brought out a North Africa demo/cheap price. making use pretty much of the existing CMSF scenery with some WW2 era tanks and infantry to find the buggies or tune the combat and movement modes. Lots of playtesters and lots of fun.

[ClarkWGriswold]

I can't recall the last time BFC added a new command to this game engine. Perhaps it was the introduction of the 'Fire Smoke' command for Challenger 2 tanks in the CMSF Britsh module. Adding more and more commands is a slippery slope. There's already (non-CMx1) newbies complaining about the complexity of the game. And BFC does hope to haul in more happy purchasers than just the CMx1 old fogies.

Definitely don't think we need more commands. We've already got plenty, they just don't act all that differently. I'd much prefer Move to Contact, Hunt (stop, shoot, continue), Slow, and Quick than what we've got now. At least that way you've got significantly different movement speeds and rules of engagement. If you want your tank to stop when it sees the enemy, engage, and NOT continue on afterwards, you can do that. If you want to engage, neutralize the threat, then continue, you can do that. If you want to fire on the move and keep pace with advancing infantry, you can do that. And if you want to get there as quickly as possible (firing when opportunistic), you can do that.

Right now Hunt has behavior that is essentially Move to Contact, and the other three commands act the same other than speed. The ability to control if/when/how tanks engage seems more important than slight changes in speed.

[YankeeDog]

Yep. Difference between Quick and Fast is pretty marginal, IME. And I'm not really sure we need four different orders for vehicles which are different only in speed (Slow-Move-Quick-Fast).

I'd gladly settle for having the Quick and Fast commands condensed into one command in order to make room for some sort of "Firing Halt" movement order, however you want to name things.

[sburke]

Put another way, one can pound screw into a wooden board using a hammer. But that doesn't mean the hammer is a the right tool for screws. A sledgehammer is

Steve

Or as a buddy of mine says "If you can't fix it with a hammer it must be an electrical problem."

[Childress]

...seems like moving at faster speed really affects the probability to hit something on the other hand the panzer IV hits nothing when he completely stands still but hits once while moving slow and move normal...

Seems pretty clear. Accuracy% should decrease with rate of speed modified by speed of the targeted tank. Worst possible scenario: a vehicle on FAST firing at an enemy vehicle on FAST. Keeping in mind, that tanks were expected to fire in motion occasionally. But not, according to another poster, beyond 500m.

Question: are Allied gyrostabilizers (sp?) depicted? You read that the crews often disabled them.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I'm not sure. It's actually worse than Steve says. It is not only multiple armoured targets that will bring your tank to a stop. The same target, as long as it isn't eliminated and known to be so, will stop your tank for good. Where what is needed is stop-fire-continue. Remember there are more tanks behind that lead one, you can't stop the whole show to fire at a halftrack.

Except it didn't with CMx1. If you set a tank to hunt with an armour covered arc it would only halt when an enemy unit that was a realistic threat to it appeared. Therefore, the appearance of a non gun toting halftrack allowed the tank to continue with its hunt order. This was a very acceptable solution to the problem of having AFV's halt when they spotted even the most minor of 'threats' such as unarmed crews etc. I don't see it as being a kludge at all but a very elegant solution to the problem we're all being frustrated by at the moment with CM:BN.

I'm guessing that if a vote was taken of the former CMx1 players on what they perceived as the best solution to the problem it would be very substantially in favour of having access to the old orders that existed in the previous game's iteration (i.e. 'Old' style Hunt & Covered Armour Arc's).

Regards

KR

[Redwolf]

Except it didn't with CMx1. If you set a tank to hunt with an armour covered arc it would only halt when an enemy unit that was a realistic threat to it appeared. Therefore, the appearance of a non gun toting halftrack allowed the tank to continue with its hunt order. This was a very acceptable solution to the problem of having AFV's halt when they spotted even the most minor of 'threats' such as unarmed crews etc.

I don't think so. First of all, you don't want to halt and shoot until the enemy that appeared is dead. You want to stop, shoot once, then move on (otherwise you would use hunt, you are on the move here). Second, if you do this then there is a high chance of more vehicles that count for the armour arc appearing. Third, this produces exactly the traffic jam you need to avoid. Remember traffic jams in CMx2 are much worse than in CMx1.

This is a move order, for a whole column. Realistically you have enough spacing between the tanks that they can stop, fire and then move on without bringing the whole column to a halt. "Hunt" is an entirely different thing. In the real world, no tank force ever went anywhere if everybody was on "hunt" all the time.

[Oddball_E8]

I don't think so. First of all, you don't want to halt and shoot until the enemy that appeared is dead. You want to stop, shoot once, then move on (otherwise you would use hunt, you are on the move here). Second, if you do this then there is a high chance of more vehicles that count for the armour arc appearing. Third, this produces exactly the traffic jam you need to avoid. Remember traffic jams in CMx2 are much worse than in CMx1.

This is a move order, for a whole column. Realistically you have enough spacing between the tanks that they can stop, fire and then move on without bringing the whole column to a halt. "Hunt" is an entirely different thing. In the real world, no tank force ever went anywhere if everybody was on "hunt" all the time.

on the other hand, no tank force during world war 2 just kept on going when they encountered an enemy just because they were moving in a column...

the problem isnt that the first tank stops, its that the tanks behind him dont realise he has stopped for a reason, and subsequently tries to drive around him in strange and unwieldy paths.

[Fetchez la Vache]

Which is why a "Follow" command would be very cool. Baaaa! :-)

[Redwolf]

on the other hand, no tank force during world war 2 just kept on going when they encountered an enemy just because they were moving in a column...

Well, circumstances matter. A short stop to fire one round, then moving on, is something you wouldn't do if there is a platoon of Panthers in the veggies.

If you are a full company of Shermans ordered to go someplace and some armoured car shows up, then the above would be exactly what would be done. You don't ignore it (you stop and shoot) but you can't have some tiny piece of enemy hold up the whole show for 15 minutes.

the problem isnt that the first tank stops, its that the tanks behind him dont realise he has stopped for a reason, and subsequently tries to drive around him in strange and unwieldy paths.

Exactly.

And CMx2 is still worse than CMx1 when it comes to this. The tendency to invent a path around that stopped vehicle that actually shows the back of the vehicle to the enemy (turned more than 135 degrees) has not been fixed in CMx2.

SOPs are what is needed here, but then they would make a whole bunch of things easy.