Release date/Resupply

[El Savior]

I don't want to give any pressure about releasing COTA too early. I would prefer stable and finished product. Spring and summer is great for outdoor activities, but that's why God invented laptops. [:D]

So can you give us any new info about planned release date? You have implemented many great new features and COTA sounds awesome. Is is months away or even closer? May I ask do you plan summer release or finish product and release it closer to fall?

[Arjuna]

I don't want to give any pressure...

That's good to hear. So do I just ignore your request then? [;)]

Some "mixed mode movement" bugs have come back to haunt me this week. I need to knock these on the head once and for all before getting back to my Resupply code. So I reckon we'll be another two weeks at least before a beta is ready. How much time thereafter before we gold depends on how stable the new code turns out to be. But I would estimate a further 6 weeks. Then it goes to the publisher for their bit. So allow at least another 4 weeks after that.

[Fred98]

How about, before or after November?

[Arjuna]

Yeh that will do...[;)]

[Arjuna]

BTW I made good progress yesterday and I do believe I have fixed our mixed mode movement bug. Also got a fair way into testing the new Resupply code. Units now successfully assess their resupply needs and place emergency requests. Bases ( well actually their integrated Depot ) now periodically assess outstanding requests, prioritising these and where appropriate despatching a supply run to the requesting unit.

This involves hiving off vehicles, personnel and supplies from the Base into a Transport Column, determining the supply route and scheduling a Transport Event for their arrival. Upon arrival a check is done to see if they can still get through along the route and if there were any casualties suffered en route. The supplies are offloaded and absorbed into the unit. Another Transport event is scheduled for the return, upon which the Transport Column is absorbed back into the Depot of the Base.

So far that aspect is working a treat. Today we will start on the inGame interface that should allow users to display the supply routes/connections along with the off-map Supply Entry Points ( SEPs ). If all goes well, you should be able to select an SEP and see the flood of supply lines emanating initially from the SEP to its drawing Bases and from each Base to its drawing units. Fingers crossed...[:)]

[loyalcitizen]

Will supply convoys be seen on the map with unit markers or abstracted?
Will I know if I have caused casualties to an enemy supply convoy if they are abstracted?
Can I assign a ground attack fighter to an interdiction role?

I like how you're going about it, so I crave more info!

Thanks, citizen

[Agema]

I presume that means supplies are constantly doled out throughout time, rather than there being one resupply moment such as in HTTR?

Can you voluntarily remove units from supply (For instance, there would be no point losing men and material trying to resupply a surrounded detachment)? Or is this automatically noticed by the check you mentioned to see if they can get through, and so the attempt is not made in the first place?

At any rate, great work, it looks very exciting having to maintain supply routes rather than just moving units around.

[jungelsj_slith]

Wow, I never thought I'd be so excited about something like supply. Your implementation sounds very cool. Thanks for the update

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: loyalcitizen
Will supply convoys be seen on the map with unit markers or abstracted?

Citizen,

The Transport Columns bringing supplies will be abstracted. The reason for this is processing power and speed of the game. Representing them as actual units would increase exponentially the number of line of sight checks ( a very expensive calculation ) and this would slow the game down to a crawl. ( One day in the future we'll be able to do this. )

Will I know if I have caused casualties to an enemy supply convoy if they are abstracted?

Good point. A report will be raised if a Transport Column (TC) suffers casualties - It will be a user option as there are going to be hundreds of these columns moving around all the time and it could get bit tedious with too many reports bombarding you during play. You will be able to select a unit and display its last supply route and this will show you it's status by the its colour.

Can I assign a ground attack fighter to an interdiction role?

No. This would have occured off map in any event and so it's up to the scenario designer to factor this into the supply arrivals.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Agema

I presume that means supplies are constantly doled out throughout time, rather than there being one resupply moment such as in HTTR?

At this stage of development we have two ResupplyDetermination events per day. One at 0600 and the other at 1800. However, if a side's resupply is "restricted" then it will only have one at 1800 ( ie it delivers during the night ). During the determination event offmap supplies are allocated and Transport Columns despatcched from off-map to the on-map Bases drawing directly from the Supply Entry Points ( SEPs ). Then we determine any rationing required and start off the process of despatching supplies from each of the on-map Bases. Basically we kick off one Supply Run per minute thereafter until all units drawing from a Base have either had a SupplyRun despatched or been deemed to be cut-off ( in which case their outstanding request will go back into the queue and be reviewed throughout the day. So there will be transport columns moving around throughout the day.

By way of example. A Bde Base with 30 units drawing on it would probably take 30 minutes to create the thirty supply runs needed( assuming all of its units needed resupplying ). Each of these would determine their own loading, move and unloading times and so the actual delivery of these sould be spread out quite a bit depending on the varying quantities of supplies, the distance and terrain of the supply routes, enemy influence along these routes, the available transport and handling capacity of the Base's Depot and the available handling capacity of the receiving unit's. Then the Transport Columns have to return to the Base and again the time for this will vary according to the return route etc.

Can you voluntarily remove units from supply (For instance, there would be no point losing men and material trying to resupply a surrounded detachment)? Or is this automatically noticed by the check you mentioned to see if they can get through, and so the attempt is not made in the first place?

Automatically done for you. If the unit is isolated ( ie cannot be reached because of terrain ) or cut-off ( ie. supply route is hostile ) then no supply run will be raised. The unit's request will be aborted but left in the queue. Periodically throughout the day, the Depot will review and if it is now possible to get through it will then raise a supply run.

[Agema]

Many thanks. It sounds fantastic.

[John21b]

Sounds Fantastic! Finally a reason to attack and move into the enemy's rear area! Question, what happens if you locate and destroy a Bde or Div Base? In the time frame of this game can the log base be reconstituted? Thank you for solving a long standing wargame pet peeve of mine! Keep up the good work! Can you tell I am excited about this!

John

[SeaMonkey]

Not meaning to complicate this issue Dave, but will all combat elements have supply quantities in the same ratio, or will the engine try to supply all units to the same basic level, or will the engine identify certain units in a very active area and allocate over or additional supplies?

To clarify
1. Does the Depot send out the same amount of supplies to all its units?

2. Does the Depot try to bring all its units up to the same quantity of supplies on hand?

3. Will more active combat areas receive a greater proportion of the supplies?

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: John21b

Sounds Fantastic! Finally a reason to attack and move into the enemy's rear area! Question, what happens if you locate and destroy a Bde or Div Base? In the time frame of this game can the log base be reconstituted? Thank you for solving a long standing wargame pet peeve of mine! Keep up the good work! Can you tell I am excited about this!

John

Essentially, if you destroy a Base, the enemy will lose whatever supplies were in the co-located dump plus all the units that were drawing from it will now end up drawing from a Base further up the chain. Given that a Base has only a limited amount of transport capacity this should result in longer delays between resupply missions and/or rationing of available supplies for all units drawing on the new Base.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey

Not meaning to complicate this issue Dave, but will all combat elements have supply quantities in the same ratio, or will the engine try to supply all units to the same basic level, or will the engine identify certain units in a very active area and allocate over or additional supplies?

To clarify
1. Does the Depot send out the same amount of supplies to all its units?

2. Does the Depot try to bring all its units up to the same quantity of supplies on hand?

3. Will more active combat areas receive a greater proportion of the supplies?

The amount of supplies being despatched to drawing units is "demand drive" in that the drawing unit says what it needs ( based on its current stock on hand and its Estab supply levels ). If the total amount required by all requesting units exceeds that available at the Base, then a pro-rata rationing modifier is applied ( eg if stocks reqd = 1000 and stock avail = 2000, then each request will have its required stocks halved ).

So by its nature those units that are more actively engaged are going to require more and hence should receive more than those units not so actively engaged. Other than that there is no means for a player or the AI to specify that a particular force will get a bigger share. I have built the hooks in for this but it will have to wait to a later game to be implemented. Rome wasn't built in a day. [:)]

[jungelsj_slith]

It would be really neat to be able to prioritize specific units, or even prioritize specifc weapon ammo for a unit. For example, if I know that a certain inf company has been in contact with enemy tank units, I can prioritize it's need for PIAT/bazooka ammo, etc

Or if in a situation where A and B companies are out of supply, but I've withdrawn B company to the rear (and it wont need ammo for a bit), I can prioritize company A for full resupply rather than having it split between the companies

[Arjuna]

molotov_billy,

It would be really neat to be able to prioritize specific units, or even prioritize specifc weapon ammo for a unit. For example, if I know that a certain inf company has been in contact with enemy tank units, I can prioritize it's need for PIAT/bazooka ammo, etc

Yeh I can appreciate the desire to do so but that type of micro-management would be done at the tactical level not the operational level simulated in COTA. In any event I think you will find the AI up to the mark here as it will periodically assess each unit's resupply requirements. In doing so it checks every type of ammo. If any fall below the resupply threshhold then it will request a resup. So a unit that is being attacked by enemy armour and fires off most of its Bazooka ammo will request resup even though it may not need anything else.

Or if in a situation where A and B companies are out of supply, but I've withdrawn B company to the rear (and it wont need ammo for a bit), I can prioritize company A for full resupply rather than having it split between the companies

Again this is really not what Corps, Div or even Bde commanders get involved with - maybe something for a Bn commander. A Div commander might want to apply a resup priority for one of its Bdes but he would not be getting involved down to the company level. In any event, this type of feature will have to wait for a subsequent title.

[jungelsj_slith]

Thanks for the reply Arjuna,

Yeh I can appreciate the desire to do so but that type of micro-management would be done at the tactical level not the operational level simulated in COTA. In any event I think you will find the AI up to the mark here as it will periodically assess each unit's resupply requirements. In doing so it checks every type of ammo. If any fall below the resupply threshhold then it will request a resup. So a unit that is being attacked by enemy armour and fires off most of its Bazooka ammo will request resup even though it may not need anything else

Im not so sure that supply really has much to do with whether COTA is tactical or operational. If you're simulating ammunition down to the bullet, rocket and shell, and all of these things are extremely important to the outcome of a scenario (even at a company level), then in a perfect world (where dev cycles last forever ) we, the player, would need to resupply individual ammo types. If A company runs out of PIAT ammo and is the one company inbetween a tank company and it's objectives, you cant really say "dont worry about that piat ammo, this is just an operational simulation." If you say that this is modeled already, awesome

Again this is really not what Corps, Div or even Bde commanders get involved with - maybe something for a Bn commander. A Div commander might want to apply a resup priority for one of its Bdes but he would not be getting involved down to the company level. In any event, this type of feature will have to wait for a subsequent title.

I think despite what it may say on the box, in HTTR we end up playing all of these commanders in one situation or another. Think of this situation: I have 4 artillery units, which are extremely important assets to my division. 2 of them are in range of a major enemy assault, 2 of them are not. They are all low on ammo, and like in most situations, there is only so much artillery ammo to go around. I can let the AI handle it and give all 4 units equal ammounts of ammo, or I can mark the 2 units as prioritized and get twice the amount of artillery ammo to help breakup the assault and perhaps turn the tide of the entire scenario. Not a trivial thing, and I don't think it necessarily matters what officer in my division would have made that order - the point is, someone would have made the order, and since modern computer AI cannot conceivably handle every possible situation, I as a player need to be able to make the order. I was thinking something along the lines of a simple checkbox "prioritize supply." (if you've ever played hearts of iron 2, you'll know what I mean)

That's not to say that supply chains shouldn't be 90% automated. It's just in that 10% of situations where a diversion of the right ammo type becomes extremely important, a player needs to step in and divert trucks in a different direction. Otherwise I really do think you'll have situations where players are cursing "the stupid AI" for sending precious ammo to everybody when only a couple units really needed it.

[MadScot]

I'm wondering how realistic it would be to starve a significant portion of your force of supplies, though.

Human nature being what it is, I'm sure the Quartermasters in the 'low priority' units would find a way to 'acquire' some supplies from the chain anyway - think of the ruses that Patton's QMs used to get as much supply as possible during the drive on the Saar. In any bureaucracy - and that's certainly what the supply services are - it's one thing to set a policy, a whole other thing to implement it....

[Arjuna]

molotov_billy,

I don't want to get into a point scoring exercise here. Yes it would be nice to be able to allocate priorities but that is going to have to wait till another game. Please bear in mind that while not perfect the Resupply system in COTA will be a hell of a lot better and more realistic than in HTTR. Rome was not built in a day - but the Colloseum is nearly done, the crowds are beying for blood and it's time to open the gates and let the games begin. [:)]