return fire and suppressive fire

[hkh0003]

I got this game 4 days ago so I'm not too familiar about how it works. So please correct me if I'm wrong, I think in this game the AI does not return fire if they can't figure out where exactly the enemy is? And there's no way, except for indirect fire, to lay down suppressive fire even if the muzzle flash is detected?

Am I right?

It's a great game, would be better if you guys can incorporate these functions in the future.

[CCIP-subsim]

To be fair, it also sort of goes along with the fact that you cannot actually target direct fire in general, and have to rely on units themselves to do so - it usually doesn't really bother me since I assume that units will sort out their own suppression fire better than micromanaging them would. Of course, that's not always true, but it usually is!

I suspect it might be tricky to put in, mostly because of AI limitations (where the AI a) isn't going to be great responding to it; b) will likely be either much worse than the player at using suppressive fire... or far too good at it (i.e. essentially cheating). it'd certainly like to have the option eventually, but given the scale at which AB usually plays (and the fact that there's always the indirect fire to do suppression with) - I actually don't think lack of manually-ordered suppressive fire has an especially big impact on his game right now.

I would like to see a bit more nuance in terms of suppression though - for example, I've already played around with that a bit in my Chechnya mod by slightly boosting the anti-armor properties of some small arms (which means they'll fire on vehicles that they have no real chance of killing, but can at least force them to button up and sap their morale). Firing small arms at armor in order to disorient it and force them to button up or evade is actually a VERY real-world tactic, as old as armored warfare itself - but at the moment in AB it's a very "all or nothing thing"...meaning that if you allow small arms to fire on armored targets, they'll engage them like they would a soft target, meaning they'll unload as though they're shooting to kill - spending lots of ammo and revealing their own position in the process. It'd be neat if units instead could be made to take very occasional, hard to detect pot-shots with intention to suppress rather than kill (especially against targets that they cannot kill themselves but could help prepare for a kill by something else).

[exsonic01]

This has been discussed before, check my previous post:
fb.asp?m=4630475

In short:
Players: "We need area fire"
Devs: "No we can't. We need to consider player - AI balance. AI can't perform area fire 'wisely', and it is hard to code for AI to when and where to perform area fire. We won't give an option for players which AI can't do"
Players: "How about alternatives? Like enable units to target flash icon or unidentified yellow icon or etc..."
Devs: "Maybe we can consider fire back to muzzle flash icon, but that dries up ammo too quickly."
Players: "Then give us resupply feature together, what is the matter?"
Devs: "We are not fully convinced to introduce resupply in AB yet"
...

So, I'm not sure what devs are thinking now. I wish we have area fire & resupply option, because suppressive fire is 101 of any real army, which would help the battle against enemy in cover-rich environment. There has been discussion with resupply as well, like fb.asp?m=4556081 this post.

[exsonic01]

ORIGINAL: CCIP-subsim
It'd be neat if units instead could be made to take very occasional, hard to detect pot-shots with intention to suppress rather than kill (especially against targets that they cannot kill themselves but could help prepare for a kill by something else).

Maybe it would be great to introduce "suppressive fire" button for all direct-fire units from right-click menu option, just like mortar units have HE/Smoke/Illumination option.

The command that induce target unit to fire to 9 tiles (1 target tile + 8 adjacent tiles). Just harass fire, so should have low firing rate. Make AI randomly choose 3~4 tiles from 9 tiles include target tile of center.

Then, induce AI use such suppressive fire option against yellow icon in the optimal range or user-set-range, and muzzle flash icon.

It would be possible to such suppressive fire option in SOP panel, with suppressive fire range as well.

[hkh0003]

Thanks. I searched for "return fire" but missed this one.

Yeah I totally agree with you. Without suppressive fire/covering fire, at least everything in infantry tactics needs to be rewritten. I was creating an ambush mission and I found out that an infantry platoon with merely LAW can take out a column of IFVs and tanks with ease. Just because their grunts couldn't figure out where I was. Very unlikely to happen in the real world imo.

[Lowlaner2012]

I believe the dev is making hidden infantry easier to spot when firing in the next patch...