Matrix Games Forums

First is simple. When storming Odessa fortress and failing Germans+Romanians seem to take 0 retreat attrition. First attack at 1:1.5 might be ok as almost a draw. But second at 1:6.7 is too hard to explain. Probably wad, but i couldnt find the answer here or in the manual (they definitely didnt have the trucks to motorise 120k attacking army and 4+ romanian divisions to pass all tests is highly unlikely). Also no such problem elsewhere (only at Odessa - must be the fortress).

Second is about the 0FPE artillery (i know its a part of preliminary bomabrdment phase). I also know why the grille in another topic damaged 1 element from 20m (and i also know which element was that as its logical, for those that dont know there is a chance for incidents in the game and i can show you other funny examples). The problem is that because you dont track the shots, you also dont track the rof and and the ammo use. And i will give you the real example. I had this battle when i found a german normal inf regiment in the open, and decided to do a training drill on it with vvs and 4 divisions.

To my amusement even though i won the battle the said regiment inflicted more loses to me. By far. So i checked the battle result. The regiment was joined by a single Shkoda 305 mm gun. Which yes fired 0FPE and o no scored 254HPE. Well 254 was more than what my troops and my vvs and enemy troops and luftwafe did (combined). So i ordered investigation at STAVKA. The results were: Lets assume that said gun had 100% accuracy. Lets also assume that each hit was on 2 elements on average (as its a big focking gun). So it must have fired around 120 305mm rounds in a very one sided battle (so 1 day). When i check the data 1 305mm shell(light) weight is 287kg. x120 = 34.5ton. They had them in a hidden ammo depot(camoflaged as a hill). Conclussion: germans surely ambushed us with their new 303mm 120 multibarrel wunderrocket laucher. We have to invent the nukes or surrender to such unlimited power. Well i admit that according to data the gun can fire 10-12 shells per hour in theory, but in practice such guns rarely fired more than 10 per day. But hey with a ROF of 254/0 and unlimited ammo everything is possible isnt it?

Request: can you please start tracking the shots in the said preliminary barrage(see next - you need the shots for the rof and ammo). Limit the rof (the high rof is because of the outnumbering force, its in the manual and my force was indeed overwhelming) - or better use the real rof of the element as a maximum; and start actually expending the ammo as surely you aint tracking the ammo either(i bet 10$ there is no upper limit to this mecahnic). It will actually hurt more the russians as this preliminary barrage is the only way to do something to the 90+mor/xp troops (or you get the 0.00 to 0.1 HPE for every other element) on attack(you cannot hit what you cannot see). But it can be also abused by the germans (a single elite division with such BFguns can hold x 10-20 larger force with ease - and you get decreasing gains by adding more attackers, while the guns get even higher ROF as per the manual). In any case it will make battles where one side is seriously outnumbering the other more realistic.

And please have a look at mgs. They just dont like to fire. Maybe they are cosidered to fire only single shots, but in the end when you check the board and see they have less FPE then everything you get sad. I guess they were nefed because of the Hans and the mg-34, but that is because Hans in 41 has 90xp and morale and makes good use of them. TMG CMG DP Maxim - are all just for the looks as not only they have low hpe(which is ok for mg), but also their commanders have a permanent dont shoot save the ammo for the rifles attitude. And they rarely remember that they have usefull side weapons on top(thats wad we know). 5man maxim squads are just a manpower pool drain atm and machine gun afvs are more dangerous to their own troops(still perfect for suicide raids as they have no other purpose - the best raider squad consist of T-38 BA-20 and all the maxims and other mg you can get - german player thinks i got 5k man busted and 100afv, soviet player - they were useless traitors in clownafvs anyways but at least they damaged the logistics).

Current stable version 1.3.whatever MP server game examples.

I try to keep it short.

1. The FPE/HPE in the combat report windows are occasionally playing tricks on us.
2. Regarding the Grille 20m attack, yes this happens, but you know the Ferdinand, a Tank Destroyer which could kill at 2km+ was after Kursk mounted with a MG for close protection to become the Elefant!
3. Artillery has the chance to hit multiple enemies with "1 shot" if the enemy is massed in numbers.
4. "1 shot" isn't always one "1 shot", for some elements a "shot" is more like a "burst".
5. maybe this posts is of interest for you (I didn't follow the latest updates, so no idea what changed since then).

Thank you very much for your answers.

First of all i want to give my thanks to the devs that implemented the combat log. Big bow, i dreamed for that feature since wite1.

That helped me check somewhat what is going on.

1. For the 0 FPE - It seems a display bug for siege weapons. It is tracked in combat log, and so i count actually count the shots in another battle (i lost the log for the original one unfortunately). Also the hits are tracked and so probably also the ammo. (i do not observe any untracked preliminary phase in the combat log and siege arty fires in all arty phases ..).

Indeed the arty hits many times, and probably the 300mm+ hits even harder (i managed to check for a 203mm russian siege with 0FPE).

One problem with multihits is that we have something like:
... arty .. attacking rifle squad.
Then we have a list of 2Destroyed 5Damaged and 14Displaced hits. What does that mean?
a) Did all the hits land on the poor squad? (Then the after battle report will show stange data as less element will be destroyed then expected).
b) Did the hits actually hit random rifle squads?
c) Did the hits actually hit random elements?
Its not clear as its not visible what was hit (comabt log does not provide that info).


2. The retreat attrition got no answer.

3. For the MGs again in the combat log we can see:
(This is the whole firing phase at this range for them, 19 bullets fired from 12Maxims! GG. You saved the ammo boys you did)
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at Rifle Squad 39 - range 798 - shots 7
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at Pioneer Squad 39 - range 798 - shots 2
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at Motorcycle Squad 39 - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 50mm 39M Mortar - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 81mm 36/39M Mortar - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 37mm 36M AT Gun - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 8mm Schwarzlose AAMG - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 8mm 31M Machine Gun - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 8mm 31M Machine Gun - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at Pioneer Squad 39 - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 8mm 31M Machine Gun - range 798 - shots 1
7.62mm Maxim Machine Gun firing at 20mm 36M AT-Rifle - range 798 - shots 1

Now as you can see the mgs sometime actually burst. But how you shoot 1 shot with a fully automatic mg with 5-10rounds/sec rof while being a russian conscript, hell i dont think even professionals can do that persistently. And mgs mostly shoot just 1 shot as they do not like to shoot as i already said. So probably this is a general issue with all burst weapons/rof.

For example the T-38 also fires like this:
T-38 M1937 firing at Rifle Squad 39 - range 798 - shots 2
T-38 M1937 firing at Pioneer Squad 39 - range 798 - shots 1
T-38 M1937 firing at Rifle Squad 39 - range 798 - shots 7
T-38 M1937 firing at 50mm 39M Mortar - range 798 - shots 1

And also mg-34. But germans are pros so they can single shot and also they hit things (they still underperform, but noone notices).

And since mg hit chance is correct (very low, somewhere in 0.001 to 0.01 spectrum) -> mgs become useless.

On the other hand it seems at short range they fire more (so maybe range has effect on both accuracy and rof, not just accuracy, maybe it was done on purpose to not expend ammo). At 35m only half of the shots are single shot . But yes when you shoot 1 time and have 0.001 chance to hit you cant expect to get an iron cross ... So probably all high rof weapons underperform.

Easy fix is to make sure mgs fire at least a burst (5 bullets), but its better to check the system as a whole (as other high rof weapons surely suffer from that as well). I would prefer to touch fighter cannons here as we still lack data what is going on there in the log - there is no shot data. I have suspision that smgs are semi ok as they only fire at short range (so less single shots). Rifles are a nightmare to check as the combat log does not specify which weapon was used to shoot with ...

Or in short: i am very gratefull that you answered, and some of the info you provided is indeed on spot(points 3,4,5), but i dont think any of the issues is actually answered.

Note: If possible please move this topic to the tech issue one, i mistakenly posted in the main one.

Edit: If i check the ROF in my data editor, all guns and things are rated to their historical rof per minute rate. For example USV Gun ROF 15. However all mgs miss a 0 from their ROF, Maxim is 55 (should be 550-600), Mg-34 is 70 (should be 700 i guess). It just seems someone really hated the mgs in this game and made them to jam a lot. Or my data is corrupted i really dont know. Its a small mistake, just 10 times.