The First Dance

[CapnDarwin]

I tried this twice and got wiped out by the Soviet attack choppers.
The AI cheats by knowing exactly where the player starting positions are and we are not allowed to redeploy at all. The first turn and onwards is watching swarms of choppers fly directly to where my units are and then blow up the tanks and bradleys one after another turn after turn. It is depressing.

I regret buying this game. AI cheating just kills the game.

There is no AI cheating in the game, and the AI does not "know your locations"; it has to spot you as you do them. The AI follows a battle plan that sets initial directions and actions for units to move with. Most scenarios allow the player to have some adjustment to their starting locations. This one does not. I am going to note this setup issue in our Monday call, as I would like to see some additional routes north and south of those two setup zones added so the player has options. One of the Soviet plans has helos driving west of the objective area on a sweep, and I will bet money that is the plan you ran into, and it does put Mi-24s right in your face as you try to move forward. I will also note this to the team as a need for alternate routes.

Also answered on Steam with more info.

[CapnDarwin]

Darwin,

They may be treated as high rate of fire but, in my limited experience of actually seeing them shoot (which is very rarely as noted above), I have never seen one do any actual damage. I am aware they are shooting because of the different sound effect but no hits follow. I wonder then if the AI is choosing not to prioritise firing them because they are so ineffective?

Did this not come out in testing or did a bug slip in on launch? I have paused playing this otherwise excellent sim until this is addressed.

I see my Brads shooting and killing enemy units all the time with 25mm. There is an issue with their engagement of infantry units, and we will be working to address it in an update. Also, make sure to check your unit SOPs for the engagement range so they can deal with enemy units based on the situation and terrain.

[rmeckman]

I tried this twice and got wiped out by the Soviet attack choppers.
The AI cheats by knowing exactly where the player starting positions are and we are not allowed to redeploy at all. The first turn and onwards is watching swarms of choppers fly directly to where my units are and then blow up the tanks and bradleys one after another turn after turn. It is depressing.

Do do think playing this scenario as NATO is a rather brutal introduction to the game for newer players. The 11 ACR units have a lot of things going against them, so even experienced players are challenged. When I first started playing Southern Storm, I also felt like I had to adjust my expectations of friendly casualties compared to some other games. Even when you win, your forces can end up in pretty bad shape.

Once there are reports of enemy helicopters, using hasty moves to approach the victory-point locations is very risky. Your vehicles are easy targets bunched up on the roads. The Stinger sections in each company also become very important. I move them to locations where they can provide cover for the rest of the company. For Troop A, it is reasonable to halt the column under cover to wait for the Stinger reinforcement at 0100. The Bradleys and Abrams are a threat to helicopters if they are stationary in good cover.

I think the Soviet choppers are more aggressive in some scenario battle plans than they are in others.

[CapnDarwin]

Starting with the first in the timeline of the "war", you may want to use the filters, start with Easy and drop off the Large scenarios as well, play A Time to Dance, and the other Easy level scenarios to get used to the game, then go back for more challenging scenarios. It is listed as a Veteran scenario based on the challenge it presents.

[Bemused]

I see my Brads shooting and killing enemy units all the time with 25mm. There is an issue with their engagement of infantry units, and we will be working to address it in an update. Also, make sure to check your unit SOPs for the engagement range so they can deal with enemy units based on the situation and terrain.

It's not just a Bradley issue. I have described above that BMPs are also reluctant to use their 30mm autocannons. There are certainly issues with autocannon use against infantry. From my experience, there are also issues in their use against light-skinned vehicles where TOW is preferred to autocannon at short ranges.

As for SOP I had them set to IFV Stay and Fight. I sometimes tried IFV Ambush. I tried both Support Passengers and Hide nearby to see of there were any differences. Fire Discipline was set to Maximum Range as I wanted to engage the enemy as soon as possible. I presume there is no need to set this to Poin Blank in order to get them to use Autocannon?

[SgtZdog]

As for SOP I had them set to IFV Stay and Fight. I sometimes tried IFV Ambush. I tried both Support Passengers and Hide nearby to see of there were any differences. Fire Discipline was set to Maximum Range as I wanted to engage the enemy as soon as possible. I presume there is no need to set this to Point Blank in order to get them to use Autocannon?

Bradleys (or any other armed transport for that matter) will not shoot while stationary if the current order uses Hide Nearby and they have living passengers that are dismounted in the hex. Setting to Point Blank vs Maximum Range will have no impact on this.

[Tcao]

For the points above from Tcao:

3. All of those weapons are considered high rate of fire systems and are treated as such in the game engine.

Have a Happy Holidays!

OK from Wiki M2 BFV has 900 rds of chain gun ammo. 2200 rds of 7.62 mmg ammo. In FCCW, it is
90 chain gun
120 VSW

every min it fires either 1 chain gun burst or 1 vsw burst. That is either 10 rds of chaingun or 19 rds of MG? per minute?

[Tcao]

You will see this time that my Bradleys did fire some chain gun but not very much. This may be because it does diddly-squat. The combat results flash up quick enough but I kept a close eye out for kills from the 25mm. I didn't see a one so is the AI not firing it because it knows it is ineffective?

The reason for that is a 3 hex distance tigger. In <1500m 3 hex distance the IFV will use ATGM against other IFV, APC,ATGM AFV and soft skin vehicles , longer than 1500m it will refuse to use ATGM against targets mentioned above, instead it will use chaingun as primary weapon.
Only after ATGM depleted it will switch back to chaingun to engage other IFVs

[Tcao]

I tried this twice and got wiped out by the Soviet attack choppers.
The AI cheats by knowing exactly where the player starting positions are and we are not allowed to redeploy at all. The first turn and onwards is watching swarms of choppers fly directly to where my units are and then blow up the tanks and bradleys one after another turn after turn. It is depressing.

Do do think playing this scenario as NATO is a rather brutal introduction to the game for newer players. The 11 ACR units have a lot of things going against them, so even experienced players are challenged. When I first started playing Southern Storm, I also felt like I had to adjust my expectations of friendly casualties compared to some other games. Even when you win, your forces can end up in pretty bad shape.

Once there are reports of enemy helicopters, using hasty moves to approach the victory-point locations is very risky. Your vehicles are easy targets bunched up on the roads. The Stinger sections in each company also become very important. I move them to locations where they can provide cover for the rest of the company. For Troop A, it is reasonable to halt the column under cover to wait for the Stinger reinforcement at 0100. The Bradleys and Abrams are a threat to helicopters if they are stationary in good cover.

I think the Soviet choppers are more aggressive in some scenario battle plans than they are in others.

+1
Another tip in case the player has to move his formation forward under the threat of Hinds: change the Stinger team's SOP.

Change the Stinger dismount when enemy closer than 10 hex. So even they are moving, they will stop and deploy then engage Hinds with SPSAM

[HaughtKarl]

Oh man that's a great idea with the Stingers. I didn't even occur to me to try something like that and it left me scratching my head on how in the heck our these guys going to defend our units if they don't have enough time to come to a stop, grab their Stingers and fire away.

I wouldn't mind watching this scenario get played out by the pros on the next Matrix stream.

[Bemused]

The reason for that is a 3 hex distance tigger. In <1500m 3 hex distance the IFV will use ATGM against other IFV, APC,ATGM AFV and soft skin vehicles , longer than 1500m it will refuse to use ATGM against targets mentioned above, instead it will use chaingun as primary weapon.
Only after ATGM depleted it will switch back to chaingun to engage other IFVs

That makes sense for any fire at 3 hex range or more. I had plenty of turns with the Bradleys parked adjacent to enemy units where they still preferred MGs over the 25mm.

[WildCatNL]

OK from Wiki M2 BFV has 900 rds of chain gun ammo. 2200 rds of 7.62 mmg ammo. In FCCW, it is
90 chain gun
120 VSW

every min it fires either 1 chain gun burst or 1 vsw burst. That is either 10 rds of chaingun or 19 rds of MG? per minute?

I had plenty of turns with the Bradleys parked adjacent to enemy units where they still preferred MGs over the 25mm.

We currently are discussing a fix for 'fast fire weapons' not firing more than once in ground combat, and into more diverse combat responses when to weapon systems seem to have similar impact (MG vs 25mm) on targets.

[Jagger2002]

The reason for that is a 3 hex distance tigger. In <1500m 3 hex distance the IFV will use ATGM against other IFV, APC,ATGM AFV and soft skin vehicles , longer than 1500m it will refuse to use ATGM against targets mentioned above, instead it will use chaingun as primary weapon.

Shouldn't the 25mm chain gun be the primary weapon against the vast majority of IFV, APC,ATGM AFV and soft skin vehicles under 1500m? It should take out most easily. I would expect missiles reserved for tanks and anything else too tough for 25mm.

[hypeboyz]

Starting with the first in the timeline of the "war", you may want to use the filters, start with Easy and drop off the Large scenarios as well, play A Time to Dance, and the other Easy level scenarios to get used to the game, then go back for more challenging scenarios. It is listed as a Veteran scenario based on the challenge it presents.

I think what we are confused is "Is it easy for nato or russians".
Scenarios like the first dance and a time to dance look more like "play as russian" for single player to me. Would it be a better idea to state them in the scenario information?

[cbelva]

Since I designed this scenario, I thought I should wade in with some comments. I would have earlier, but I have been out of the net for a few weeks.

First, This scenario was originally designed in the early days of development for Tactical Transport as a test scenario. At that time, there was no Battle Plan missions for Tactical Transport. That didn't come later in development. It was designed to be played from the Soviet side. I felt the scenario would provide a good a good introduction to TT for players. There was work done to make NATO side playable once we had TT Battle Plans missions. However, this was never going to be an easy scenario from NATO's side. As pointed out earlier, the ACR is a recon force and not a heavy line force. They are not built to dislodge infantry. In addition, they are ambushed enroute to their battle positions at the Fulda River crossing. I had a notice in the scenario description alerting players to the difficulty of playing from the NATO side and recommending that they play from the Soviet Side. However, that warning got removed before release. It will be added back in a future update. I understand the frustration players have had with this scenario playing as NATO. To win a marginal victory would be an outstanding result.

Second, As stated by Capn D, the AI in FPC does not cheat. It uses and is restricted by the same rules as the human player. In fact, I have found that the AI is at a disadvantage to the human player. I do try and compensate for that disadvantage in the Battle Plans I create. However, it is not a cheat. They are designed to keep the player honest and not take advantage of the AI.

Third, I am going to be revisiting this scenario to see if there are some things we can do to tighten the play for NATO and give them a little help. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[blackcloud6]

I played this one last week as the Soviets vs. the AI and found it challenging. I played it on Custom setting with all Grognard settings except for automatic resupply I had on. I think you did a good job on this scenario.

[Bemused]

I think the scenario is fine Cbelva and I like a challenge. In general, I think the difficulty level of every scenario should make it clear which side is favoured (when it is easy or veteran). In the several times I tried it as NATO, my issue was with the ineffectiveness of NATO troops to do any damage to the Sovs, even when the latter were not in favourable terrain, esepcially the wekness of the Bradleys. I'll come back to it when the changes have been made and give it another go.