Auto fill depleted teams with new soldiers?

[davidss]

Hi Steve,
wondering if it's possible to include an "auto fill depleted teams" feature in the next patch? ... since you mentioned a possibility for fixing the BG disappearing bug.
I think it would be a well received feature.

I'm only asking because I don't know if it easy or not to include this. Obviously I wouldn't ask this, if I knew it would take a lot of your time.

Idea is to have teams (that survive a battle), be brought to full strength again with new soldiers ... so surviving soldiers can carry on in future battles. The "new soldiers" (used to fill teams) would be drawn from teams in the Force Pool?

Of course, this does not include teams that do not survive into next battle ... due to losses that cause the team to not return (more than 50 percent losses, etc).

Thanks
GameRat

And no problem if it's too much to ask. Thought it wouldn't hurt to mention it though, since some players on Discord were discussing it.

Edit: disregard this post. LSA already has a way of refilling depleted teams, I hadn't noticed before.

[davidss]

Might be more complicated, due to the game having to automatically account for returning half value points for every "committed" team that requires "auto fill" with new soldiers ... and then taking full points for getting the team back into the Active Roster.

Still would be a noticeable improvement in the game, to see veteran soldiers (and their attributes) continue to the next battle, with new soldiers filling empty positions in the team. Similar to how it's done in real life.

[argilas]

In CC4/WAR, depleted squads would sometimes merge with other depleted squads before the next battle so you might see your surviving infantry leader added to your surviving cmd squad for example.

in CC5/TLD you can return squads from the active roster to the forcepool, and they will lend their soldiers to short teams that are similar. So you could pick a fresh cmd team from forcepool, add it to the active roster, and then return it to the force pool, and it will fill up empty soldier spots in other active cmd team. You can do this for tanks and ATGs and all other units that you have similar teams for. So essentially you can refill every short team if you have at least one similar spare unit.

Neither of these features are present in LSA

Adding these features would be great

[SteveMcClaire]

On the first issue, depleted teams that disband due to losses do check if there are other depleted teams that can use their soldiers in LSA. The second point is correct.

New features or feature changes for old versions of Close Combat are very unlikely at this point.

[davidss]

ok Steve, thanks for taking time to reply.
And extra thanks for all the fixes you have done to LSA.

[davidss]

Just thinking out loud, in case this ever gets the ok to proceed.

It wouldn't require any new graphics changes to implement.

And (committed) teams returning for next battle would still be marked with red half points text numbers, to indicate the amount for returning them to the Force Pool, if a player still wanted to change the team for something different.
The difference being ... The returning teams/crews would be refilled with new soldiers to replace soldiers that were lost in the previous battle. "Injured" soldiers would still remain in teams, just as is presently.

The behind scenes calculation for refilling teams would be half value points, added to BG points totals for returning the team to Force Pool ... and then full points subtracted from BG points totals for adding the team back to the Active Roster.

And soldiers used to refill teams would come from teams in the Force Pool.

Edit: disregard this post. LSA already has a way of refilling depleted teams, I hadn't noticed before.

[Aetius2]

On the first issue, depleted teams that disband due to losses do check if there are other depleted teams that can use their soldiers in LSA.



Are there conditions for this to happen (cohesion, fatigue, supply, etc..)?
Experienced players have the impression this rarely happens in an intensive GC where most battlegroups are fighting constantly with reduced cohesion and fatigue.

If yes, can these conditions be lowered so it happens more often?

[davidss]

Aetius2 did some testing to prove that depleted teams that disband due to losses do check if there are other depleted teams that can use their soldiers in LSA.
Thanks Aetius. And good idea to ask Steve if there is a way these conditions can be lowered so it happens more often?

Thanks Steve for having this in LSA. I haven't noticed it in games I've played over the years, since I haven't been specifically looking for it in "full" teams that return after battle. In the GC's I've played with the GJS mod, there is often times when the Active Roster has depleted teams, where there is missing soldiers in the teams.

Maybe there is a way (using the current system) that will allow this to happen whenever a team is returning with missing soldiers? So all teams in an Active Roster are always full.

And question: How does the game adjust points for when depleted teams are filled? Or do soldiers just move into depleted teams without points involved?

[SteveMcClaire]

The only limitation is that there has to be an unfilled soldier slot on another active team in the battle group roster which has the same class as the 'spare' soldier. The soldier 'class' is the soldier index in soldiers.txt.

Battle group points are not adjusted regardless of whether the soldier goes to another active team or not.

[davidss]

LSA is good "as is" anyway. If the recently discovered BG disappear thing is resolved ... then everyone should be happy
Thanks again Steve.

I'm still amazed the game crashing issues have been fixed, that alone is a game changer. And good stuff resolving the BG blocking stuff in the last patch.

[Aetius2]

Thanks for the reply Steve,

In my Radzymin mod i've created too much soldier variety (primary weapons-grenades-secondary weapons) to make varying teams.
I'll have to do a cleanup in the soldiers.txt so more of the same soldier "class" is used by the different infantry teams in the same battlegroup, resulting in the refill of teams with "spare" soldiers happening more frequently.

[Aetius2]

Hi Steve, i did some testing on the automatic refill feature, see attached screenshot collage.
I've noticed sometimes soldiers change "class" during automatic refill, check out the refilled soldiers highlighted in a purple square.
-Cleese was a riflemen (class28) in a "Rifle Group", after refill he is a bren gunner (class33) in a "RE Bren Group".
-Byrne was a rifleman/demo (class42) in an "Assault Section", after refill he is a rifleman (class28) in a "RE Bren Group".

Are there more rules at play here than just matching up soldier class between a "spare" soldier of a disbanded team to a "vacant" position in a depleted team?

I welcome this extra dimension, the more refilling happens between "classes" the better, i just want to understand more about the rules so i can adjust my Radzymin mod to benefit more from the refilling feature.

refill-investigation.jpg (6.69 MiB) Viewed 1234 times

[SteveMcClaire]

There is a periodic re-organization of every active team in a battle group. The soldiers will be re-ordered to fill missing slots, based primarily on rank and experience. So a soldier may join the team by filling an empty 'rifleman' slot and find themselves moved to be the bren gunner after the team re-organizes.

Also the soldiers in an active team aren't always kept in the exact same order they appear in the teams data file. So I suspect in the disbanded Assault Section case, the soldier was a class 28, not a 42. Otherwise he shouldn't have ended up in that other team.

[Kanov]

Hi, I posted this in another thread discussing something similar: a gunner from a pzgrenadier(mg) team, the sole survivor of said team, got requisitioned into a depleted Zugtrupp team; he even retained his position 'Gunner' but Zugtrupp teams don't have MG42's. Also retained his kills and acts of cowardice.

That got me wondering and wishing: why not let disbanded soldiers retain their original weapons they were created with into their new adopting teams? I think that would be a great feature, adding to the chaos and improvisation that was Market Garden. If the soldier's Name, Stats, Kills, Medals, acts of bravery/cowardice are stored in the save game, surely the weapon is there somewhere too? I'm no programmer but wouldn't that be just a matter of expanding the data fields that are being exported and add that single extra data field to the function or formula or whatever? and he could potentially be transferred to his new team with his piece.