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Roughly speaking, how much impact should Readiness have on performance? It isn't uncommon for a unit with very low readiness to fight well.

For example, I'm currently trying to remove a Soviet mechanized company from a town. It has 7% readiness and has been taking artillery fire for about 90 minutes or so. I only have tanks in the sector so I keep them at 2 hex range to fire away, thinking that their low readiness would mean they don't return fire much. However, I'm losing several tanks to ATGM's each turn. The performance of the defending unit is better than what I had expected, based on its low readiness. I might either just accept a marginal victory or restart. It is somewhat annoying to more or less lose like this, but I guess that Readiness only has a small impact on overall combat effectiveness, together with morale.

As usual, my tanks also insist on engaging the 2 Gremlin team unit first, instead of the unit that is taking out their tanks. Improved targeting priorities would be a nice addition for a future update, as the attacks on small irrelevant units consume ammo and distract units from the real threat.

Amusingly, when I put the tanks on screen so they might move by themselves, they decide to stay in the hex and adjust their minimum standoff range accordingly. It's Murphy's Law in motion: when a unit ends its move with Screen near some enemy units, it immediately moves back again. When you want a unit to move, it stays put. The precise "why" remains unclear in both cases.

It's difficult to understand how the system works, because of the inconsistent results for similar situations. When units run into the red numbers, they tend to schedule a Resupply mission. However, the Soviet mechanized company is perfectly combat capable and still planning an Assault mission.

It's difficult for me to understand why, when the system is supposed to do A (schedule an automatic resupply mission), the system sometimes does B and what I can do to influence that. If the results given by the system are different than the documented sequence of actions it's supposed to take, the results can be annoying instead of fun.

Ah well, time for the usual strategy of taking a break for a week or so before going back to FCRS. It's a rough gem, sometimes more rough than gem, sometimes just a gem.

At least I was rewarded with a teaser of sorts from an earlier project when the game crashed.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Amusingly, when I put the tanks on screen so they might move by themselves, they decide to stay in the hex and adjust their minimum standoff range accordingly. It's Murphy's Law in motion: when a unit ends its move with Screen near some enemy units, it immediately moves back again. When you want a unit to move, it stays put. The precise "why" remains unclear in both cases.

+1. Again, I'd like to see additional profiles and orders implemented, which will give players more control and improve the game a lot. Yeah, the game generates friendly FOW and C&C uncertainty and all that, which real commanders should expect. We got that. But real commanders can also provide more explicit instructions and establish SOPs which real units can then better execute. We need that.

I agree that the logic deliberate/hasty -> screen makes managing movement very difficult now that units try to keep their stand off much more agressively. When you want to move a unit forward just one hex into a battle position they often just retreat back because of the automatic screen order. You could use assault as an alternative to keep them in hold after the move, but assault takes at least 30 minutes of preparation time which often makes it impractical.

I also think that target priorities need some adjustments. I understand that air defense got the highest priority in real life, but in the game I would rate them a lot less importent (even more so if I don't have air available in the scenario anyway). It is particularly fustrating to see your forces waste shots on some SA-14 teams while tanks keep advancing left and right. If possible I would propose to at least lower the priority rating of MANPADS units. They are almost useless (not a threat) anyway and are left in large numbers when soviet rifle units are decimated.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
It's difficult to understand how the system works, because of the inconsistent results for similar situations. When units run into the red numbers, they tend to schedule a Resupply mission. However, the Soviet mechanized company is perfectly combat capable and still planning an Assault mission.

ComradeP, I've noticed a similar situation, are you talking about the AI controlling the soviet forces, I've seen the AI carry out assault orders with tank/mech inf units that have readiness & morale as low as between 7%-20% where as player controlled forces go into resupply mode when they get under 30%, I've always put this down to AI 'perk' and planned accordingly.

Hopefully one of the Devs can throw some light onto the situation.

The MANPADs due to the AD bug are being seen as much more of a threat then they should be for most units. That is fixed for 2.04 now. We are also working to fix up a number of things with respect to orders, standoff ranges and AI interactions to those to get a better more realistic balance of action going. We will be doing the multi-order waypoints and some basic SOP additions in the next game (2.1). Those things we start to chat about in a couple months. Right now the focus is 2.04 and we are moving along in that endeavor.

Thanks for the comments and enjoy the game!

Capn Darwin: units were also firing at the MANPAD teams a lot before they fired back in the recent version. It was one of the reasons I commented on units with few elements being difficult to kill, as they were often priority targets even when they didn't really pose a threat.

On the other hand, that was when MG's could kill tanks, so it's quite possible that now that the MG's are no longer deadly against tanks, but the MANPAD teams fire at them, that they see the MANPAD teams as a similar threat to the MG's.

ComradeP, I've noticed a similar situation, are you talking about the AI controlling the soviet forces, I've seen the AI carry out assault orders with tank/mech inf units that have readiness & morale as low as between 7%-20% where as player controlled forces go into resupply mode when they get under 30%, I've always put this down to AI 'perk' and planned accordingly.

I guess it's an AI perk. Maybe they're not penalized as much for low readiness (and morale?) as the player, but that does make it difficult to remove an enemy unit from its position.

not 100% sure how to word this so hope this is right, is there any way to get rapid movement without going into screen when at the way point? i would like to get my troops to go into hold instead, as they always seem to take a step back from where ever i want them to hold, no matter what, didn't really happen too much before latest set of updates so for me it's a choice i know, been playing a while now, have plenty of ambush sites marked on map, got some great cover and kill zone setup, but getting there and staying put is the problem, never had it before, now get a great spot setup fast only to retreat as soon as they are spotted, before i get the chance to tell them to hold

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automatic screen order is a pain, everything else is turning out great, little thing to think on is looking at fixed units in campaigns mind you, if you give some a move order (deliberate/hasty) then cancel it, it sometimes moves it anyway to where your cursor is, not always mind you, happened once or twice in the Nato campaign, and no sorry no saves either.

so can we have the option to setup the final point command? hold, screen etc?

Ok, here goes. I hinted about his in another post. I have been pushing for the ability to set the profile (hold/screen)after a movement order since I have been involved with this project. FPC is a great game with great potential, but it has its growing pains and it weaknesses (that Rob and Jim are slowly trying to address). Going too fast and not thinking things thru will cause all sorts of problems--so patience is advised. However, Rob believes he has found an easy way to incorporate the end profiles as an option during the orders phase when you assign movement. IOWs, you can give a unit a hasty movement order and have it end with a hold order. If everything works out, we should be seeing this in 2.04. This will not solve every problem/weakness, but it will be a big improvement to one of the weaknesses in the system as it is now. Unfortunately will have to wait for 2.1 engine for any additional refinements to the orders system. However, just being to set the profile of the unit after any type move is a huge development in its own right.

thanks for the quick reply and update, anything that works well is worth waiting for, keep up the good work and happy gaming

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ORIGINAL: cbelva
Rob believes he has found an easy way to incorporate the end profiles as an option during the orders phase when you assign movement. IOWs, you can give a unit a hasty movement order and have it end with a hold order. If everything works out, we should be seeing this in 2.04.

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This will not solve every problem/weakness, but it will be a big improvement to one of the weaknesses in the system as it is now. Unfortunately will have to wait for 2.1 engine for any additional refinements to the orders system. However, just being to set the profile of the unit after any type move is a huge development in its own right.

Is v2.1 intended to be a new game or a patch? And if a new game, would it be fully backwards compatible with this current game? Reason I ask is that ProSIM's Armored Task Force series does this and that's a nice touch. It's something to consider up front.

Another thought. Might it be possible to provide a game option to allow players to adjust the default orders phase to experiment with shorter or longer command cycles? Without getting complicated, something simple like a 50% setting could speed up the cycles to 1/2 time but with only 1/2 the orders available. That could be interesting.

It's way too early for us to talk many details of what 2.1 is, compatibility, etc. There are still a number of variables being worked out both in-house and with Matrix at this time. Once we have a concrete plan we will share the info with everyone. [8D]