Build 4.4.257 Feedback

[jimcarravall]

If I read it correctly, a base unit lacking sufficient reserve supply may not send enough forward to the demanding unit.

Response to demands in those situations fill emergency requests first as constrained by available transport, and ration the remaining allocation to routine requests once the transport is freed from emergency demands.

You can look at the Base Unit as a kind of nozzle on a hose. If there's more volume requested from the base than it can send out, the response to routine demands will be deferred, and emergency demands rationed.

In addition, each SEP is set on how much of the potential scenario demands it can pass through (e.g. a historically-oriented designer wouldn't allow an air drop SEP to handle the flow of supplies requested by every air landed and ground combat unit in a scenario [Think of the Nazi 6th Army isolated in Stalingrad being supplied by air]).

Supplies would be rationed, and potentially some units ignored, based on either one or both of the SEP - Base linkages and transport availability.

Hope this helps.

[wodin]

Daz..I think it means 100% of the supply that was sent out got through..not actually 100% of what they need..hough as Dave says they could burn through a 100% supply very quickly..I suggest maybe we need to monitor our ROF's more often and keep check of a units suppky..what would be cool is if we get a message telling us a unit is down to 25% ammo..OR we have an option to click for a unit to say reduce RoF when they hit a certain percent of ammo left. i.e ROF reduce to low @ 25% ammo. Tigers Unleashed has that SOP for instance.

[navwarcol]

ORIGINAL: dazkaz15

ORIGINAL: navwarcol

The ammo thing I had seen from when I first got the game (a few days before the last build). The numbers do add up, and having seen some real firefights and the copious amounts of ammunition used in just 5-10 minutes, I could not complain about the game's data. Usually what I am trying to do is separate before the AI does its plan my own reserve from each btn, and from each level above btn... which in a large scenario leaves me with "micromanaging" at worst 8-10 units. These become the units that step in to continue the push where their pixel-brothers run low on ammunition, etc... This way the units that need resupply are not at the front in contact, when resupply comes also. I would like it if the AI did something like this also inside the individual companies, but that may be asking a lot.

Anyway..sorry for rambling.
Dave, I do notice one other issue that did not happen before...units in direct contact with each other, less than 100m away, sometimes disappear, even in areas with no concealment factored in.. " open areas". This could be because they are hunkering down during the firefight, but cannot imagine if an entire company is doing this at the same time.

This way the units that need resupply are not at the front in contact, when resupply comes also. I would like it if the AI did something like this also inside the individual companies, but that may be asking a lot.

How is the game modelled for supplying units in close contact?

I have always assumed that unless you get the yellow message with a % of the convoy lost, that when you got a "Resupply Arrived" message in the log you got 100% of what was sent, or you got no Resupply Arrived message at all.

Can you actually get a "Resupply Arrived" message, without a warning that you only received a fraction of what was sent, if indeed you only get a tiny bit of that supply, as per the query I posted earlier in the thread, ref only getting a few tins of beans when I wanted ammo?

I am not sure of modeling for "in contact" Daz...mostly I meant that the way I do it, is designed so that as the frontline units run low, I have a reserve force ready to step up "through" them to continue the assault/solidify the defense, while they "request emergency supply" and wait for it to arrive..so they are not stuck "on line" with no ammunition.
Daz..off subject..but the first two up there look like screen shots..what are they from?

[dazkaz15]

Thanks for your feedback Jim.

I've been reading up on the Universal Carrier myself as well. There is an excellent page here on its use in combat.

http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/Tac ... latoon.htm

navwarcol

Sounds like excellent tactical advice, thanks for your help.

Wodin

Yeah thats what I thoght.
100% of what was sent out, which means if its being rationed, will be less than what you need to top you up to full supply again.
Would be helpfull if there was a flag in the depot, or a message to let you know rationing is in effect, and by how much, so you can change the rate of your unit's fire.

[RockinHarry]

Haven´t yet come to test the new build, although I´d already installed at day of release. [X(]

Since supply (distribution) is mentioned oftenly here, I´d like to ask if the small AT weaponry, like Panzerfaust could be somehow seperated from dedicated infantrymen and make them a weapon for all personnell to use and rise stocks to more appropiate levels, without substracting rifle strengths. A stock of 10 (s/b closer to 20-30 at least) an infantry coy, will quickly get it down for emergency resupply requests and thus an unnecessary strain on the supply system.

Now going to give St vith a try with the new build. [8D]

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: RockinHarry

Haven´t yet come to test the new build, although I´d already installed at day of release. [X(]

Since supply (distribution) is mentioned oftenly here, I´d like to ask if the small AT weaponry, like Panzerfaust could be somehow seperated from dedicated infantrymen and make them a weapon for all personnell to use and rise stocks to more appropiate levels, without substracting rifle strengths. A stock of 10 (s/b closer to 20-30 at least) an infantry coy, will quickly get it down for emergency resupply requests and thus an unnecessary strain on the supply system.

Now going to give St vith a try with the new build. [8D]

If you're looking for historical accuracy, you need to look at the basis of issue for the small AT weaponry at the time it was used in combat.

Military units are around what those who define battle doctrine think to be reasonable for the mission the unit will address in battle. The structure goes down to how many soldiers of the specialized skill (e.g. those primarily assigned close in AT responsibilities) would be assigned to the unit, and how many weapons were necessary to make them effective at their specialty (e.g. one heavy machine gun per two man crew, one AT weapon per AT soldier).

Under duress, any soldier with minimum training could use the weapon in combat, but it was still issued in relation to the number of soldiers assigned the weapon's primary task in the unit structure.

If you're interested in how the Panzerfaust was used by the Nazi Army, you have to look at the Table of Organization and Equipment (a US term) for those units to determine the basis of issue.

Changing the allocation can be addressed with alternate estabs, but the more tinkering done inside units on whim, the less historical fidelity for the simulation.

Hope this helps.

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

ORIGINAL: RockinHarry

Haven´t yet come to test the new build, although I´d already installed at day of release. [X(]

Since supply (distribution) is mentioned oftenly here, I´d like to ask if the small AT weaponry, like Panzerfaust could be somehow seperated from dedicated infantrymen and make them a weapon for all personnell to use and rise stocks to more appropiate levels, without substracting rifle strengths. A stock of 10 (s/b closer to 20-30 at least) an infantry coy, will quickly get it down for emergency resupply requests and thus an unnecessary strain on the supply system.

Now going to give St vith a try with the new build. [8D]

If you're looking for historical accuracy, you need to look at the basis of issue for the small AT weaponry at the time it was used in combat.

Military units are around what those who define battle doctrine think to be reasonable for the mission the unit will address in battle. The structure goes down to how many soldiers of the specialized skill (e.g. those primarily assigned close in AT responsibilities) would be assigned to the unit, and how many weapons were necessary to make them effective at their specialty (e.g. one heavy machine gun per two man crew, one AT weapon per AT soldier).

Under duress, any soldier with minimum training could use the weapon in combat, but it was still issued in relation to the number of soldiers assigned the weapon's primary task in the unit structure.

If you're interested in how the Panzerfaust was used by the Nazi Army, you have to look at the Table of Organization and Equipment (a US term) for those units to determine the basis of issue.

Changing the allocation can be addressed with alternate estabs, but the more tinkering done inside units on whim, the less historical fidelity for the simulation.

Hope this helps.

Speaking of bulge battle period and beyond, where the Fausts were rather an abundance weapon and you can´t really count much on official KstN of that time. Can throw some figures, but the main point is that unlike the Zooks, the Fausts weren´t specialst weapons and almost distributed to anybody and his grandma (Volksturm..) from late 44 and onwards. A short instruction, was all that needed to get them employed. Btw, found a couple among Flak unit equipment, few hundred meters from where I live in a forest (dissolvement of army group B event, during last days of Ruhrkessel battle in aprill 45).

Having that low ammo numbers means, that unnecessary emergency resupply requests got triggered, when you can rather assume that the troops have these at hand or at least nearby at the Bn trains and not pulled from a regimental supply depot, far in the back.

[Arjuna]

I'm OK with increasing the number of fausts, Piats and Bazookas. I agree that historical accounts do indicate that these were carried in larger numbers than officially authorised.

[Pawsy]

Knowning the exact amount of ammo in a unit on a hour by hour basis is pretty unrealistic. Resupply was mostly done at night and you could only expect the soldiers to have more than a standard load when in defence. Lets not turn it in to micro maangement of each round. Also what is published about offical rates of supply and consumption are mostly from the staff tables used by planners in HQs.

[Phoenix100]

Task Force Brewster. At the top of the pic. I gave it a simple order when it arrived, more or less. You can see the order. This is Spearhead v Reich (no CTDs so far, by the way) . TFB is desperately needed to assist Parker's lot at Baraque de Fraiture. It decided on a start time of 17.05, progressed to where it is now, stopped. There's nothing in the logs for any of the units in the group, except my order to move, recieved at 17.21, interestingly (given it gives the start time for the order as before the time it actually recieved the order, but maybe that's normal). I've surrendered and checked there's no threats that might cause it to replan (I have attack ticked) - there are none. In other words, it's just stopped, no reason given in the logs, and it's been stuck like that for nearly 5 hours.

It's not the first time I've noticed stuck units. I had a para mortar platoon reorging after its drop for four hours.......(I had given it a Move order). Got out of it by issuing orders again. Haven't got a save for that, but I have saves for this, I think. Do you want saves, Dave?

[wodin]

I am getting concerned we'll never get this patch signed off now to be honest like I think Jim is. I think if something only happens very rarely it should be left maybe...and just get the things that don't work all the time or fairly often sorted out.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

I'm OK with increasing the number of fausts, Piats and Bazookas. I agree that historical accounts do indicate that these were carried in larger numbers than officially authorised.

I tend urge caution on issuing weapons because I wouldn't like to see the game turn into Dungeons and Dragons.

It's quite conceivable that as the war progressed more weapons than authorized showed up on the battlefield.

When I was more recently working on combat load planning for US Army vehicles, the team would get feedback from our users (soldiers assigned to the program from active units to offer a "field perspective" during design discussions) that they needed more room in vehicles for equipment they'd say "real soldiers" would accumulate outside of the TO&E and basic soldier kit for the types of units the vehicle was being designed to support.

We'd make the TO&E part of he contract because vendors could claim compensation for "government authorized" costs above the budget during progress payment discussions.

So, the engineering solution was to stick with the TO&E.

If there's a desire for more weapons to show up on the battlefield than authorized to units, I'd suggest some form of constraint based on an analogy back into historical production numbers for the weapons (e.g. 1,000,000 produced during the war, 800,000 authorized, potential of up to a 25 percent increase in the ratio of the carried quantity to authorized quantity). Yeah, if a platoon had 40 members, there's potential each member could carry a Panzerfaust in addition to his Mauser, but then some other platoon wouldn't get the authorized quantity after the depot was raided by the first.

If the game mechanics would allow it without software rework (e.g. pick among baseline unit structures in the Estab), it would be ideal for the increased combat weapon load were triggered as a game option (more supply??) at start to keep too much alternate reality (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons) from creeping into the basic game's fidelity.

To increase the quantity the Estab has to be altered anyway. Why not keep duplicates which have "authorized" and "above authorized" available if they can be triggered by game option?

Hope this helps.

[Phoenix100]

Not much point in getting it signed off if it doesn't work in crucial respects. I'm sure Dave would wish to know where things are broke - that's the whole point of issuing it as a public beta. If he doesn't then he can say so - for my part I just present the probs to him, as asked. You want me to shut up, Jason? I'm surprised that you would make such a remark as a response to my posting about a Bn level unit getting completely stuck for hours on end - a clear glitch, and this not, as I said, the only time I noticed this in the last few days. And it doesn't really make sense to talk about things only happening 'rarely' - we've only had the build for a couple of days. I've played maybe four partial games with it - ie; ran things for about ten hours in four games and seen this prob three times. First and second times I left it, third time I posted. What counts as 'rare' when you've had something so short a time? If I play for another 4 days, on that evidence, I could expect over half the games to show this issue - so is that 'rare'? We were asked to feedback and so I'm doing it. You were so irritated with an issue - the footprint/boundary box prob - that you stated you were going to stop playing the thing until it was fixed. I really don't blame you as it's difficult to play the thing at the moment for me too, what with some scenarios crashing every five minutes, and other issues (like the footprint/boundary box thing) a constant feature, but the game is certainly getting better, I think (close combat much better now, for example) and if we all gave up on playing because it wasn't perfect then there would be no feedback about the build.

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

I'm OK with increasing the number of fausts, Piats and Bazookas. I agree that historical accounts do indicate that these were carried in larger numbers than officially authorised.

I wasn´t necessarily asking for more Inf-AT ammo in the standard ESTAB (I´m doing my own figures for Custom ESTAB, or tweak them in mission editor, depending on given situation/mission setting), rather tried to point to a possible supply network clogging problem, when units/weapon systems with very low initial ammo count (like Fausts), start to trigger emergency supply requests more often.

Like jimcarravallah worked out, some units get more of the usual share, depending upon missions. So a prepared defender would likely collect more, in preparation of a possible armored attack, in sectors favorable to armor, while a moving attacker more likely would have minimum allotments. That´s roughly the base I´m working for my own mission making.

I assume that making weapons like Fausts, non specialist weaponry, is currently not possbile, coding wise. So I´d put that rather on a future wish list.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: phoenix
It's not the first time I've noticed stuck units ...

When I get a major update, I play each scenario in turn from either side, but I didn't have to go far after this last patch to notice my own stuck units as well as other issues.

In Advance to the Sure, the 317th Regt HQ units simply wouldn't move north to Bourscheid even after I gave it several orders to do so over three days of gameplay; the units had no fatigue, yet I kept getting those pesky "slipping" messages.

Further, I had numerous "application had to close" messages, usually when I tried to give units a line of march over terrrain with the shift key.

I have XP and suspect that some of these issues may have to do with all the .Net "fixes" I get almost monthy from MS, but I see that other players have had units stall, which reminds me of the "halting" issue that was causing so much agita in the HttR remake.

[Alchenar]

Ok so, question: what's the behaviour we expect to see with regards to ammo supply/consumption?

Maybe an infantry company can and should be able to shoot through all its rifle ammo in 25 minutes. But clearly WW2 didn't consist of a bunch of 25 minute battles at daybreak, after which everyone sat down and sipped tea until night-time when they'd get another 25 minutes worth of ammo for the next day. So something is off.

Someone explain what should be happening and we can start to test to see how the game state diverges from that.

[Remmes]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.


In Advance to the Sure, the 317th Regt HQ units simply wouldn't move north to Bourscheid even after I gave it several orders to do so over three days of gameplay; the units had no fatigue, yet I kept getting those pesky "slipping" messages.

Further, I had numerous "application had to close" messages, usually when I tried to give units a line of march over terrrain with the shift key.

I have XP and suspect that some of these issues may have to do with all the .Net "fixes" I get almost monthy from MS, but I see that other players have had units stall, which reminds me of the "halting" issue that was causing so much agita in the HttR remake.

I get the 'slipping' messages as well on my Windows 7 computer

[Remmes]

I have a stalled unit in the 'Battle for the roadblocks' scenario. Gutmann hq has orders to travel to the Wincrange junction to the southwest in order to set up a defensive screen. It just refuses to go there, even when given move orders instead of defend. If you give direct orders to the subunits, they do what they are told. When you tinker with this hq a bit it usually leads to a ctd. Savegame available if wanted.

[Arjuna]

For me to determine the stalled units issue I need a save. No save...no fix. It's that simple. Send them to support[at]panthergames[dot]com.

[navwarcol]

Before I post this, I need to note..when I post what I have discovered to be a "workaround" to a problem...it is not telling everyone "your problem is not important, just do xxxx to fix it".. My reasons for telling workarounds are more along the line of , sometimes if we know what works to "rig" the problem, perhaps it will help to find what caused it, and the devs can come up with a solution on a permanent basis.
Having said that, I am also getting a LOT of paused units. What has worked around it for me, has been stepping in, and grabbing each unit individually (which pulls it away from its current command structure...hence this may be an issue involved) then, I give it a move mission in the direction I was trying to move or attack with the entire formation. I do this to each unit of the formation, usually a battalion. Then they have usually started moving a few minutes later. When they reach their new destination, I reattach them to their previous HQ, and at that point, it seems to work.