2.03 Update Feedback

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And a big thank you for the Modding Guide as well. I couldn't ever quite figure out how you were getting hexes to line up from HexDraw to the game's hexes, which is why I abandoned hexes on the maps I was creating. Now that I've learned the process, hexes are returning.

[CapnDarwin]

I wish I could have had them done sooner. Only so many hours in a day. Glad to see they help.

[ComradeP]

Is there a hard cap for non-artillery units on the number of some kinds of ammo (such as ATGM's) that can be fired before a unit has to resupply?

It could be that the way ammunition is calculated works better for bigger units if it's averaged out between all elements, which could explain the performance of the small scout sections or the Bradley platoons.

The Marders and other 1 shot ATGM IFV's behave like you would expect them to: most fire once and that's that, the additional fire comes from the PzG ATGM element.

The Bradley is a different story. It has 2 ammo for the TOW, but it keeps firing.

The battle has more or less just started, but the Bradley scout units are already outperforming the M1A1 Abrams (HA)'s. The top scoring M1A1 Abrams(HA) platoon has 15 tank kills.



They were resupplied once, mostly to improve their readiness.

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I also still find it difficult to figure out a good strategy for the way Hold works now.

On one hand, I sometimes want my tanks and ATGM vehicles to be dug-in for the protection bonus.

On the other hand, with this patch that means they will rarely fire first at targets at 1500 meters or further away if they even fire at all.

The pre-2.03 strategy of digging tanks and vehicles with ATGM's in somewhere to fire at long range doesn't work anymore because the vehicles are not allowed to fire at medium to long range. Ambushes work fine (the intended result), but ambushing a few companies of T-80's is costly.

The tanks not firing first or not firing at all can become a problem combined with the unpredictability of the spotting system. Sometimes, enemy units can't spot your unit(s) even at close range until your unit(s) open(s) fire. Sometimes, one unit out of several can spot your unit(s). Sometimes, everybody can suddenly spot your unit(s). I've had several instances where dug-in tanks were fired at by units 4 hexes away without returning fire. Purely statistically speaking, after the enemy fires a couple of times, you'll start losing tanks, whilst ironically the reason you dug-in the tanks was presumably to give them an edge in an upcoming firefight.

I understand the idea behind improving the chances of a successful ambush taking place without units opening fire, but as far as I know Hold is the only command where units become dug-in, hence my earlier suggestion for either an ambush toggle (units only fire at a certain percentage of maximum range) or two kinds of Hold orders.

[CapnDarwin]

ComradeP, there is a formula for dealing with the low end numbers of ATGMs carried by APCs. I will check it out tonight and see if it is working as intended. The 2.03 hotfix will exclude non-leg units when on hold/screen in urban terrain. AD units will also be exempt of the range reduction. Toggles and new orders will be a focus element for 2.1.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
I also still find it difficult to figure out a good strategy for the way Hold works now.
On one hand, I sometimes want my tanks and ATGM vehicles to be dug-in for the protection bonus.
On the other hand, with this patch that means they will rarely fire first at targets at 1500 meters or further away if they even fire at all.

This is why the game eventually needs to implement unit SOPs, where players can set/adjust parameters such as engagement ranges, withdraw criteria, etc. A company could be spread out and maybe you'd want one platoon to start engaging at 2000m, one at 1500m and another at 1000m, so all are engaging a kill zone at the same time. As it is, you cannot do that.

It's frustrating, for now. I find myself modifying my tactics to "play this game" rather than being able to execute my tactics using the game. I really like the additional terrain levels, LOS/spotting, and the command cycles. But having been spoiled by so many nice features in TacOps over the past 15 years or so, I miss having the level of control that I'd prefer. Again, I do like this new game and I'm optimistic that the devs also want to add similar features to give players more control (e.g., unit SOPs, splitting mech infantry from their carriers, etc.) I'll make do for the time being.

[ComradeP]

That's also why I don't play with limited orders. There are the different command cycles for both sides, standard order delays, order delays for electronic warfare level and order delays based on the stance the unit is in and if it's being attacked.

Considering that sequencing orders of different types isn't possible and that your units might schedule a hasty move to an adjacent hex but little else by themselves. When communications break down, commanders would be expected to act on their own and it's one of the areas where superior lower level commander training and initiative will show. Normally, your units don't do anything you don't order them to do currently.

I like the asynchronous command cycles, but I don't think I'm going to play with limited orders until order sequencing is possible or until it also removes some other order delay penalties that would be doubled otherwise (example: electronic warfare limits orders, but it already influences order delay).

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Capn Darwin: thanks. I've only really noticed it with the Bradley's thus far as far as IFV's are concerned. Manpads also seem to have somewhat higher ammunition levels than indicated in practice, but thus far it doesn't seem to be as extreme as the Bradley examples I ran into. On the other hand, my helicopter units tend to move out of range after a short while so I don't know for how long manpads can keep firing. I haven't checked how often infantry AT weapons will fire without resupplying.

[CapnDarwin]

ComradeP, I made a slight adjustment on the routine that deals with these low ammo systems. If it appears to be better it will sneak into the 203 hotfix.

[Sabre21]

The M2 Bradleys carry a couple extra Tow missiles inside, maybe as many as 4. The M3's can easily have a half dozen extra missiles. It takes a couple minutes to reload. If they are getting more shots than that, then I would be concerned.

[CapnDarwin]

The hotfix has a tweak. We'll see how it looks over the weekend as we check all of the changes/fixes/tweaks.

[ComradeP]

Sabre, in the game both the M3A1 and the M2A1 carry 2 rounds according to the subunit info.

In my case, these 4 Bradley's knocked out 45 T-80BV's and presumably a couple APC's with 16 TOW-2's (assuming they received a full reload and used one TOW-2 per tank). Even if they carried 6 rounds, 48 TOW-2's for 45 tanks is still a good deal.

The 2 M3A1 Bradley scout units also significantly outperformed the 4 M2A1 Bradley unit, which has 16 kills, so 4 per vehicle (the same goes for the leading M1A1 Abrams(HA) platoon).

The performance of the Bradley in units with a lot of infantry elements is generally worse than those of the scout (2 Bradley, 2 cavalry scout) or all Bradley element units. This also applies to the performance of the Marder.

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Capn Darwin: as usual, many thanks for the continued support and quick feedback.

[CapnDarwin]

ComradeP, no problem. We do a lot of testing (mainly Charles, he is a machine), but we just don't see everything. So we are thankful for reports, files, screen shots, and emails of issues so we can address them.

[Enigma6584]

Found something which I believe is a bug, just a very small one but one I thought I'd let you know about anyway. When playing the "Defense of the Weser Crossing" scenario. There is a command unit you get after the first 30 minutes of play. When you give him movement orders from his spawn in hex, the unit silhouette does not change from disembarked infantry icon to a vehicle icon. While moving the unit counter stays in the "infantry disembarked" mode.

[CapnDarwin]

Can you post a screen shot of the Sub-unit display for that unit? If not we will check it out tonight.

[Enigma6584]

ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin

Can you post a screen shot of the Sub-unit display for that unit? If not we will check it out tonight.

Sure, here you go. It is center left in the pic.

[/img]

[CapnDarwin]

You are correct it is not changing at all. A bug for sure and I'll have to kick this one up to Rob. It has me stumped.

[ComradeP]

I've also noticed that for some mechanized infantry units: some display the icon of their troop carrier, others that of an infantry element. Presumably it's the same issue.

[CapnDarwin]

ComradeP, if you run across other cases can you tell us what scenario and even get a picture or at least unit IDs of the units? It is a weird bug in the case above since it is one mid-level HQ. Everything else works as designed. Rob is looking into it now since it stumped me yesterday.

[MBot]

I made two observations with 2.03 I wanted to share. I played the 4 British scenarios with the new patch. This was the first time I played the BAOR at all and the only scenarios I tried with the new patch. So my observations might be related to the specific circumstances with the British and/or these scenarios. But perhaps others can confirm from their point of view.

1. Artillery now seems extremely quick to respond. I had rocket artillery strikes land on my head 1-2 minutes after getting contact with enemy units. Admitted the enemy was a BRDM-2 recon section, so he might have spotted me before I spotted him (but my unit was recon as well). Likewise I had my own planned arty strikes go out almost instantly after the start of a turn. I have also observed sometimes when doing multiple strikes for a single unit that these strikes go out with only about 1 minute time between them. Artillery also seems to displace to the next hex extremely quick, sometimes almost instantly after the last fire mission (seen with M109 and also M110 which do not have the shoot-and-scoot trait). Perhaps this is as intended, it just strikes me that I have never seen such behavior before the patch (having played the US campaign and all US and German scenarios).

2. The command cycle length works funny now. As the scenario goes on, it seems to get mostly shorter for both sides. In the one scenario when I have killed 200 tanks and the sudden death rule triggered for the enemy, the Soviets were down to a 16 minutes command cycle length! Perhaps this is because the higher HQs remains intact and had to manage less units over time. Still it seems counter intuitive that a side that is loosing massively gets such a tight command cycle.


Did anyone else observe this?

[CapnDarwin]

1. Generally recon will out spot other unit types and in some case you know you are spotted when arty rains down. We did make a few adjustments to delays and also the required number of available tubes to conduct a requested strike. We also reduced the old contact target time some as well, so strikes firing at lost targets will end sooner.

2. The real trick to the command cycle is disrupting the command chain. If the HQs are intact and they get to rest up after some action the cycles can and do drop. Electronic warfare setting plays heavy in the numbers too.

[MBot]

There might by a small problem with the 2" mortar. According to the unit viewer it has a range of 800m and you can also only target it manually out to 2 hexes. But when the FSCC controls it, the 2" mortar strikes targets several km out (I observed FSCC suppression missions against air defense radars).