Matrix Games Forums

Counter battery, especially Soviet, is possibly the biggest mystery by far in my time playing this game.
Are there certain hidden values in scenarios which affect counter battery orders?
It seems quite rare that especially Soviet artillery is able to strike back even if they are just sitting at counter battery for hours with AI allowed to make fire solutions.

Can't speak for NATO as I've only played a couple as them, but I've noticed this as well. Only rarely they will shoot and I haven't seen them hit anything yet. Despite the manual asserting the importance of CB operations it seems rather superfluous, at best something to leave on so they're not just on call. It's far more effective to locate enemy arty however you can and eliminate them directly rather than relying on CB.

We have noted in a couple of posts that something came off the rails with CB as it works on the on-map units. We have two routines to cover CB fires. One deals with the off-map assets that get attacked automatically when they shoot (if detected and engaged that is) and then there are the on-map arty targets that should be able to be attacked by your on and off map arty units that are set to CB fire. Something in that logic is not working as it should in the Red Storm code base. WE have things working well in the new code base for Southern Storm and in some cases in testing maybe too good. That's development for you. For now, with Red Storm, you can either hold off using CB for on-map targets or you can try some test scenarios with edited data files and up the CB Detection level and see if that helps with the on-map issues. The downside of that is it does not fix the original scenarios.

Sorry for the problem. [8D]

Not to worry, thanks for the clarification.

Funny, because in my games Soviet CB has always been deadly. I usually play the NATO side and if I don't shoot and scoot ALWAYS I'll get hammered after a couple of turns. Other than scooting, the only antidote is to wipe out as many rear area Soviet HQs you can detect. This will disrupt their comms and hence their CB.

Gino, it depends a lot on the number of firing tubes and if they are on or off map. If you have set your arty to CB use, but the other side has only a few tubes in use and is not shooting them much or they are relocating then CB fire can be limited. Again, we hope to have that all worked out better for Southern Storm. [8D]

I played only multiplayer this and last year so the experience is from that.

Can confirm what Ginetto and Searry say. In Single player Soviet CB is way more effective for some reasons. But in Multiplayer it rarely fires, in some matches not even once. Realized this while playing as Nato and as Soviets. But I am glad to hear it gets improved in Southern Storm. This is probably one of my most played games and I can't wait to see more of the sequel and play it for myself.

A question, when you guys play multiplayer do you have the FSCC on or off when you see poor CB fires?

I have usually FSCC always turned on, no matter what side I play as.

Always on and almost never CB fire, you have to be lucky and fire at them via TOC or actually spot enemy arty to fire at them.