What's the deal with rocket artillery?

[Perturabo]

So, the player has artillery unit in direct support which somehow from time to time changes to rocket artillery.
But rocket artillery is weird.
Like, isn't the main advantage of rocket artillery that it can fire a massive rocket salvo very quickly?
Like, a single Grad launcher can fire 40 rockets in 20 seconds.

A battery can fire 240 rockets in that time, a battalion can fire 740.

Also, why would the player receive rocket artillery randomly instead of normal artillery?

I think it would be better if rocket artillery was a separate type of purchased artillery and could act like rocket artillery.

[Veitikka]

Perhaps in the future we will have rocket artillery that can be purchased separately.

[Perturabo]

I noticed that only a single launcher fires regardless of the amount of guns selected O_o .

I think that until there's ability to purchase different types of artillery support and a decent representation of rocket artillery (I think the game could seriously use artillery.xml (and also tracer.xml and damage_soft.xml)) it would be the best to remove it from the official database.

After all the artillery represents specific arty units in direct support to player, not player calling whatever is available.

[nikolas93TS]

You call for fire support, HQ gives you what is available.

[Artillerist]

I removed MLRS from the US faction because I wasn't happy with the arrangement (or the effects) either.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: nikolas93TS

You call for fire support, HQ gives you what is available.

Yeah, if the game would model General Support.

You forgot what form of fire support the game has. You buy a gun unit (platoon, battery, battalion) with ammo for exclusive Direct Support.

It makes no sense for the specific unit to suddenly shift into something else with the same ammo supply.
Especially when that something else isn't even correctly implemented.

It's a complete mess with fire plans because there's, like 1/4 that instead of 18 shells arriving nearly at the same time in specific intervals, resulting in specific duration of fire, there's one launcher firing, for example 500 rockets for ridiculous amount of time.
Oh also, the rocket arty is really BAD. There's literally no difference between having 1 launcher fire 180 salvos and 18 launchers firing 10 salvos.

The whole buying by arty units system was implemented basing on kbluck's comments in the "Thoughts on artillery fire support" thread on the old forums.

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

there's one launcher firing, for example 500 rockets for ridiculous amount of time.
Oh also, the rocket arty is really BAD. There's literally no difference between having 1 launcher fire 180 salvos and 18 launchers firing 10 salvos.

The main issue is game performance if there's a large number of rockets arriving at the same time. I tried to make the rockets arrive with shorter delays, based on the number of 'guns', and the effect was impressive [X(] but it would need optimization. Less sounds, particles, screen shake etc.

I think fire missions with 500 rockets are quite rare in the game?

The whole buying by arty units system was implemented basing on kbluck's comments in the "Thoughts on artillery fire support" thread on the old forums.

Well, it was player feedback.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Veitikka

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

there's one launcher firing, for example 500 rockets for ridiculous amount of time.
Oh also, the rocket arty is really BAD. There's literally no difference between having 1 launcher fire 180 salvos and 18 launchers firing 10 salvos.

The main issue is game performance if there's a large number of rockets arriving at the same time. I tried to make the rockets arrive with shorter delays, based on the number of 'guns', and the effect was impressive [X(] but it would need optimization. Less sounds, particles, screen shake etc.

I think fire missions with 500 rockets are quite rare in the game?

I see. Got some serious lags when trying out 18x1 launcher mission.

Well, I regularly use them large amounts of artillery during breakthrough operations.

ORIGINAL: Veitikka

The whole buying by arty units system was implemented basing on kbluck's comments in the "Thoughts on artillery fire support" thread on the old forums.

Well, it was player feedback.

Speaking of the old forums, they seem to be down.

[Artillerist]

It would be pretty interesting to see how you'd choose to implement general support vs direct support if you decided to partition off-map artillery, rockets etc. As far as it relates to the close fight (at least within US doctrine of the time) GS and GS reinforcing units augmented the fire of the DS battalions of a division with pre-designed fire support packages (products), each with their own name, set of qualifications, fire and control, duration, payload, level of disruption to normal operations etc.

Theoretical GS fire products from DIVARTY look like;

1) HELLSTORM: A HELLSTORM might consist of a Battalion 6 DPICM (18 guns x 6 rounds = 108 rounds ), is ready to be fired within 10 minutes of DIVARTY receiving the request for additional fires (RFAF), can only be approved by the CG, is fired as an AMC, and may be diverted by the CG to the most critical engagement area.
2) HAMMERFALL: A HAMMERFALL might consist of 3 Battalion 6 (18x3 guns x 6 rounds = 324 rounds)+ 36 MLRS rockets, is ready within 15 minutes, executed as a TOT or AMC, approved only by the CG, considered moderately disruptive to normal operations.

Etc. so on and so forth.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Artillerist

It would be pretty interesting to see how you'd choose to implement general support vs direct support if you decided to partition off-map artillery, rockets etc. As far as it relates to the close fight (at least within US doctrine of the time) GS and GS reinforcing units augmented the fire of the DS battalions of a division with pre-designed fire support packages (products), each with their own name, set of qualifications, fire and control, duration, payload, level of disruption to normal operations etc.

Theoretical GS fire products from DIVARTY look like;

1) HELLSTORM: A HELLSTORM might consist of a Battalion 6 DPICM (18 guns x 6 rounds = 108 rounds ), is ready to be fired within 10 minutes of DIVARTY receiving the request for additional fires (RFAF), can only be approved by the CG, is fired as an AMC, and may be diverted by the CG to the most critical engagement area.
2) HAMMERFALL: A HAMMERFALL might consist of 3 Battalion 6 (18x3 guns x 6 rounds = 324 rounds)+ 36 MLRS rockets, is ready within 15 minutes, executed as a TOT or AMC, approved only by the CG, considered moderately disruptive to normal operations.

Etc. so on and so forth.

What situation such missions would be usually done in? In AB combat is so violent and units move so fast that it's often over before ordinary artillery would arrive and 10-15 minutes sounds completely impractical.
Especially HELLSTORM sounds like something that would be called on an enemy armoured formation, but where would that formation be in 10 minutes?

[Artillerist]

Those were just theoretical GS product templates that I hoped might help illustrate the anatomy of US GS fire support (up till the adoption of AFATDS and it's predecessor), rather than how I think GS support should be depicted in-game.

If the devs get interested in DIVARTY GS products and start thinking about the way they wanna do it then they should investigate "Iron Hammer" "Firestrike" "Thunder" and "Hot Steel" as those terms were in actual use.

The relevance is debatable.

[nikolas93TS]

There is one important issue that should be taken into consideration: there are many factions, and artillery support system has to be flexible enough to cover different doctrines hence there are no nation specific missions by default etc. and there is a margin of abstract approach.

As I said elsewhere, we are open and flexible for changes if case if sufficiently backed up (and realistically implementable).