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[Phoenix100]

Shouldn't it rout in place then? Cower? I thought you said that happened?

[Arjuna]

Yes if it knew there were lots of enemy in that direction but I suspect it did not. From the screenshot most appear to be masked by the woods.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

Shouldn't it rout in place then? Cower? I thought you said that happened?

If I understand it correctly "rout in place" occurs with units using emplaced weapons (e.g. artillery, AT guns, etc. that need preparation for transport before their weapons can move with the soldiers handling them.

Those units which are mobile throughout the game are free to run with weapons on their backs (foot infantry) or are primarily mechanized (tank units, mech infantry, etc.) for the unit will flee across the map.

They tend to flee in the direction of least attack power from their position. If there are hidden units (e.g. units set to ambush rather than attack hidden in woods) between them and the route of apparent least resistance, they'll run into new (and unanticipated) combat.

Pretty realistic overall.

Hope this helps.

[wodin]

No worries. I kept trying to say I see no problem either but others seem too..so maybe I was wrong and something was happening...so in a way i agree with you.
Thats why I never asked you to change it and couldn't understand your reply.

Also people can't help misunderstandings on a forum as their is no tone of voice thats why I usually try and be passive and full explain my mood at the time. Also my tumor doesn't help as it sends me off on tangents and can make me touchy or over sensitive..check out Pituitary tumor to see what I mean.


Dave with regards to Harry's screenshot what would be cool and stop people thinking something was up would be if you clicked on your unit the map only showed the enemy units that unit see's\knows about. Then it would be obvious that the unit didn't know the enemy was there and they ran into them. Sometimes I think things happen in game as WAD yet the info coming across might not be enough for us to realise it.

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

ORIGINAL: wodin

Dave I never asked you to change it...[&:][&:] Sometimes Dave you come across hostile when people are just trying to work things out sorry it had to be said.

Thanks for the back up Mr P.

I not actually sure slippage actually means anything really except the game telling you the time for the assault has slipped which isn't a massive issue..I just ignore it. I'm actually not one who is having a problem with this as I'm not playing the game and I also feel or believe it has no impact on the game anyway so isn't an issue as such so why would I ask for something to be removed? All I'm trying to do is help work things out for those who are.

If you want Dave I will contribute no more to the forum as I get the distinct impression you have an issue over something and I'm certainly not going to stay where I'm not welcome nor try and help a developer who actually has a low opinion of me.

For petes sake wodin stop taking everything so personally. All I have said is that as far as I am concerned the slippage works fine. I don't share your view that this is a problem. Now I could get very touchy and take my bat and ball home and not play here again, but that is not a very mature approach.

Just for the record I value your and every other contribution here but I reserve the right to draw a line under a debate and move onto the next issue. That is all I have done here, nothing more.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: wodin
Also people can't help misunderstandings on a forum as their is no tone of voice thats why I usually try and be passive and full explain my mood at the time. Also my tumor doesn't help as it sends me off on tangents and can make me touchy or over sensitive..check out Pituitary tumor to see what I mean.

Fair enough. How about you assume that responses that do not specifically mention your name are not specifically directed at you but to the group as a whole.

Dave with regards to Harry's screenshot what would be cool and stop people thinking something was up would be if you clicked on your unit the map only showed the enemy units that unit see's\knows about. Then it would be obvious that the unit didn't know the enemy was there and they ran into them. Sometimes I think things happen in game as WAD yet the info coming across might not be enough for us to realise it.

Another good suggestion. however, it gets tricky. If we only show what a unit can see when that unit is selected then you may miss out on other units that nearby friendly can see and that you would be privvy to. You may then issue orders only to regret it when you select someone else and see the said units. So really what is required are two states, ie show all known friendlies, show visible enemies. This could be a button on the display tool bar that you toggle.

[wodin]

A display tool toggle would be great. Actually I was thinking you get to see the enemies it see's and the enemy units it knows about through comms with other friendly units. Also you would still see all your units aswell on map as I wouldn't want friendly FOW aswell.

As for the other issue..i will take your advice..I apologise for my little outburst;) Sorry mate.

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Yes if it knew there were lots of enemy in that direction but I suspect it did not. From the screenshot most appear to be masked by the woods.

Does this explain it any better? The german unit was constantly engaged by the US column (and vice versa) few hundred meters to SW and its rout started after beeing air attacked. Btw, didn´t my save file sent get through? [&:]

[/img]

[Arjuna]

ramses,

I have just got the new Move Stalled code working. As you cann from the screen dump below I have used your save as the testbed. I have set your Defend task for KG Gutman to Bypass. The TryToMove() code now checks to see if the unit is stalled - ie senior HQ or Base within range of enemy. If so it will send a report depending on the outcome of an assessment. It checks to see if the unit can bypass and if so calls AssessBypass(). If this generates a new route significantly different from its current one then it will send orders and implement the new route. In which case you will get a "stalled and bypassing" message as in this screen dump.

If the route is not significantly different it increments a cautionAdjustment value in the task. When next it tries to move it repeats the process only this time using a bigger caution factor. It will repeat this process till either it gets a good bypass route or the cautionAdjustment hits 3.0 ( it starts at 0.0 ). If it hits the max cautionAdjustment then it will force a replan. This may end up with the same tasking and route as the force currently has but it may do something different - enopugh to break the logjam. In which case you will get a stalled and replanning report.

[Arjuna]

Here's the unit action log messages. It's doing a double bypass message at the moment. I'll have to fix that.

[Arjuna]

KG Gutman eventually got through. He did stall again but waiting paid dividends with other friendlies eventually masking the enemy.

[Alchenar]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna
Another good suggestion. however, it gets tricky. If we only show what a unit can see when that unit is selected then you may miss out on other units that nearby friendly can see and that you would be privvy to. You may then issue orders only to regret it when you select someone else and see the said units. So really what is required are two states, ie show all known friendlies, show visible enemies. This could be a button on the display tool bar that you toggle.

Having all the LOS tools hidden away in the Movement tools tab is one of the few UI choices that I'd describe as absolutely terrible - it makes sense that the Movement tools themselves are hidden away most of the time: I'm only going to use them when the game is paused and I'm thinking about my next set of complicated orders.

However I want some kind of LOS information all the time. All it would take is a toggle button on the bottom bar for 'threats' that does exactly what the current threats button does, and maybe another one for 'awareness' that simply draws red/green lines on the map when you click on a unit (ie. like the command/supply lines but to enemy units) and we get exactly the information we want in a way that can be toggled on and off in an instant.


e: I mean if space is an issue, who ever turns off grid lines or the objectives? Just replace those buttons.

[wodin]

Alch see my recent suggestion about range rings and how they could be shown as range\los rings (Though it would be a very jagged ring)that would be a quick way of seeing what area they could shoot at and see.

I'm not that keen on lines for fow I'd rather have units disappear and only see the enemy units on map the friendly unit see's....but lines will have to do.

I wouldn't use red and green line sagain though too confusing if I was going by Alch's suggestion..try two different colours.

Dave what about my suggestion that high combat rated HQ's like HQ's for tank units rated at 4 or 5 should be willing to move into the enemy and not worry to much about the presence of the enemy..where as HQ's for Inf reg\battalions with a rating of 1 are the ones the current system is perfect for. Just seems odd that an HQ with a rating of 5 would be unwilling to attack or close into the enemy.

[Alchenar]

Rings don't really work because LOS doesn't ever look like a ring.


The 'threats' lines work really well though, and I wish the interface was set up so that I could toggle them on and off much more quickly and conveniently (this is where someone tells me there's a keyboard shortcut I was unaware of).

[wodin]

Alch it wouldn't look like a ring as such it would be a very jagged line with some abstraction going around the unit, the line following the LOS so imagine drawing a line round the edge of the area LOS of a unit it would go allround the unit but follow a very uneven line but it will only go out as far as the range of the weapon that way you have LOS and Range all in one (not sure what you meant by LOS doesn't look like rings, as I'm talking about a tool, threats don't have red lines pointing to them either in real life)..it's just a good way to see exactly the area the unit can see and engage at at the same time..it would be a jagged line going all the way around the unit following the LOS but reaching out to the range of the weapon chosen (range rings changing depending on weapon you look at on the side bar was part of the suggestion). I the range you can engage a unit you see is more important for a unit than if you can see it and it's out of range. This line would tell you that if it's within it you can see it and engage it. At the moment the range rings give you the max but aren't really that useful at the moment because they don't take into account visibility. Dave liked the idea but said it would be too much for the CPU to work dynamically when a unit was moving.

Yes the threat lines work but I'm not sure they give you the info of exactly what units the unit can see but just the ones that are close enough to be a present danger. Thats why clicking a unit and then on map you only see the enemy units your unit can see is great and you can combine that with the threat lines. AT present you can't actually see what enemies a friendly unit can spot no matter the distance.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: wodin

Alch it wouldn't look like a ring as such it would be a very jagged line with some abstraction going around the unit, the line following the LOS so imagine drawing a line round the edge of the area LOS of a unit it would go all-round the unit but follow a very uneven line but it will only go out as far as the range of the weapon that way you have LOS and Range all in one

The problem with that mate, and it does sound like a very good idea, is that how would you represent dead ground within that line shape?

For example an AFV may have a direct fire range of several Km but sat on top of a convex hill, he has a perfect view of the road running along the ridge 2Km away but he can see nothing in the valley directly below him because it's in dead ground.
How would you represent that? Unless you incorporate the current area line of sight tool within the range "shape line" maybe?

[BigDuke66]

So it's D3 of Höfen Ho-Down and I planed some final attacks to turn the tide to the German side, but I see some things the might should be looked at:

1. Füsilier company reverted to "Reserve" despite being ordered to attack, I guess maybe because the message for it being below the recommended threshold for its attack came up, can't check that back as the message list is empty when loading a turn, I had set the attack order with "Max losses".

2. After I had setup the attacks I wanted some more coordination and so unchecked the Assault at Box to set the time manually, I only had to change one of them but after running a while I recognized that almost all attacks had there assault times back to auto. Not sure why but maybe because I made the orders while the game was paused. Or should they switch back to auto when the automatically set time wasn't changed?

3. More a request: I saw a coy run out of ammo for its main weapons and I expect them to loose combat power similar to when being in a route or something like that, but nothing in that direction seems to happen.
A. This is bad because the player simply misses such low ammo units as he is usually in the view mode that lists the combat power(at least I am).
B. He has no clue about the real combat power in any action he orders as I can't imaging a unit in such a state bringing the shown combat power into any action it participates.
C. I wonder if units that ran out of ammo are in a vulnerable state at all, I didn't see this unit falling back or behaving much different from the others that had plenty ammo.


Dave I send you a load of saves for covering the first 2 points covering the time before I gave orders at all to a time far into the attacks and one save where the 3 coy 753 is in such a low ammo state.

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: dazkaz15

ORIGINAL: wodin

Alch it wouldn't look like a ring as such it would be a very jagged line with some abstraction going around the unit, the line following the LOS so imagine drawing a line round the edge of the area LOS of a unit it would go all-round the unit but follow a very uneven line but it will only go out as far as the range of the weapon that way you have LOS and Range all in one

The problem with that mate, and it does sound like a very good idea, is that how would you represent dead ground within that line shape?

For example an AFV may have a direct fire range of several Km but sat on top of a convex hill, he has a perfect view of the road running along the ridge 2Km away but he can see nothing in the valley directly below him because it's in dead ground.
How would you represent that? Unless you incorporate the current area line of sight tool within the range "shape line" maybe?

Yeah I agree..a tricky one.

Another thing I wish is the counters where bigger..one so you could see an AArm and an Apr combat power number for the unit always showing on the unit along the bottom underneath the unit symbol..that way you see all the time what the units is like against Inf and against tanks and you can still have the orders or what the unit is doing in the box upper right. Also room to have a spot or light light up if the unit is spotted. The size of the units in game limits the amount of quick available info that many wargames show on their counters. Maybe if we had another size counter that showed this info? SO we then have three different sizes?

[Remmes]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

ramses,

I have just got the new Move Stalled code working.

Arjuna,


Thanks for the fix; must have been a lot of work. It's a reassuring thought that they will actually be doing what they are told instead of making fun of me in their foxholes.

Ramses

[Phoenix100]

BIg Duke. Glad you've sent saves regarding orders mysteriously reverting to something you haven't commanded. I have been plagued by that, and assume everyone has. You set the variables and click run and watch them change to something else. I think it's to do with giving them on pause and the many problems and chaos that stem from the prrsent prob with that. At least, that's how I've read Dave's posts on it. he can correct if I'm wrong.

[BigDuke66]

Yea I hope it's the pause problem, squashing that will hopefully resolve some things mentioned in this thread.


Ammunition was on topic for a time, I too see a lot units run out of ammo, that's also why I asked what is up which such units and their combat power & behavior.
Just to clarify that I don't mind running out of ammo, if you setup attacks with high ROF a unit should naturally burn away what they have on hand, for me it's a simple "Give them hell!" order, that is also why you can set resupply priorities and that should really be used in such cases but even this can't help sometimes if the overall supply for the scenario is low, that is simply something a commander has to take into his calculations.


BTW Isn't the FOW lifted after the scenario ends?
At least I see a US unit that has 28 men & 1 AFV in the general tab but nothing listed at all in the E&S tab. I thought everything is revealed after the scenario ends.