Delayed Bombardments
 

I've come a long way in scenario design from the days of simply massing an OPFOR along lines of advance towards objectives and letting the AI do it's best.

I like designing scenarios from the NATO/US/Commonwealth perspective (although that is about to change), but I want to gain more realistic Red Team tactics in the engagements.

Assigning movement way-points has been a learning curve for me, but I feel that for the most part, I've been able to better utilize terrain and tactics for an advancing OPFOR to better emulate proper tactics.

Going one step further, I've been experimenting with delayed artillery barrages in conjunction with delayed OPFOR assaults. Specifically for the case I'm presently working on, a SMOKE barrage covering an assault mid-game. I've been able to do this, and it works, but an artifact I've noticed is that in succeeding game turns from start of the game to the turn the bombardment initiates, the sound of a barrage is heard in the Opposing Force turn start (with, of course, no actual barrage hitting). It stops once the reinforcement turn for the artillery starts and the actual delayed barrage initiates.

I've gone through the game manual and I can't see this covered. It may simply be an artifact of the program. I see no harm in it, other than someone scratching their head over the noise, or it alerting a non-designer player that bad things are going to happen..sometime.

If anyone could offer a suggestion to me for doing this better, I'd appreciate the assistance.

Tom

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Can you send us the scenario or a save for possible debugging ?

It should not be doing that..........do you notice it only with delayed smoke ?



Don

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Yes, It is with delayed smoke. I haven't tried it with HE.

I just finished a playtest and don't have a save game. I was going to post the scenario this weekend but I'll put it up in a new thread.

Tom

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Thought again about posting the scenario before I can fix the issue so I'm attaching it to this thread.

Here is the scenario as it stands.

Thanks for the help.

Tom

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Is this delay done via proper programmed fire, or have you just assigned normal turn zero bombardment to a battery which is then made a reinforcement?.

The best way to do this in a scenario is to use the programmed fire technique, with the battery programmed only to fire smoke once on turn X. Being assigned to programmed fire, it wont be available to the human player for other missions till it has completed the programmed mission, unless he presses the button to cancel all programmes of course. Thus absolutely no need for the battery to be a reinforcement.

If it is a regular turn zero bombardment, then it has to be available to fire it. Making the battery a reinforcement in a later turn with a turn 0 mission is a sure-fire way to get weird results. My guess is that you have tried that way.

Artillery programmed fire is available if you have the full game (and a scenario made with a programme by a full game owning designer can be played by an owner of the free demo). The old-style turn 0 bombardment is the only one available to free demo holding scenario designers, of course.

Once I have the scenario I can look at it. If it is the turn 0 type bombardment, it may well be going half going trough the arty routine and then aborting, in which case I will need to put in a check for reinforcing batteries at the front - these will then lose any such mis-programmed fire plan.

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Now have got the scenario.

So which is the problem unit(s)? What turn have you programmed them to fire on?

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

These are the Soviet 130mm Arty units. I did not used programed fire (sorry, not familiar with it although I do have the full version of the game). I assigned the bombardment and set the artillery unit as a reinforcement. My bad (feeling stupid).

I believe the Soviet Arty is set for turns 8 and 11 (I'm at work right now and can't check it at the present).

I'll research the programmed artillery and probably will be able to fix this myself. Sorry if this has been covered before, my reading list is long and time is short.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me.

Tom

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Ok - never mind, I have found what appears to be the problem.

Some Russian batteries are assigned to fire turn zero bombardments, but are actually assigned as reinforcements for later in the battle. Thus they arent available to fire the mission.

The code is not checking early enough here for batteries being unavailable reinforcements, and so is aborting halfway through the indirect routine, when the target is determined and the map jumped to etc.

I'll need to fix that.

Batteries as reinforcements cannot fire in turn zero - they are not there. The code dhould be silently clearing these illegal fire missions, and that will be sorted soon.

As stated before, us the programmed fire routine instead of assigning the batteries as reinforcements. If you have the full game this should (?) be fine. No need to use reinforcement rules here, the battery wont be available for the player till it has shot its pre programmed mission.

There is no way though to do this with the free demo game, of course.

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Thanks.

I have the game on my work laptop (don't tell), and I just found the 2014 manual update explaining the programed artillery. I'll change that tomorrow and run a test to see if I got it right.

I appreciate the time and assistance given!

Tom

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

You found a valid bug, though.

Any arty assigned a bombardment when it is not physically present should now have its mission cancelled.

One thing about this scenario that is mightily confusing, is that the A0 command unit is off map as a reinforcement on a vehicle also off map as a reinforcement. But the off-map vehicle is selected - not the on-map units there. In fact I did not discover any units to play with until I scrolled about the place.

On restarting, hitting the N key will advance the player to select an on-map unit, but even if you actually tell them in your scenario intro text, they likely will not read it (or understand it).

Off-map A0 units can cause confusion, so it is best to have him there from the start - most of the game code is based on him being there (e.g. lists, positioning of the unit selection cursor as here)...

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

[quote=Mobhack;835284][quote=Grant1pa;835281]Understood and an easy fix. I'll correct that.

I did play around with the programmed fire on a new basic scenario and have gotten the batteries to fire at the assigned location at the assigned turn. However, I found that I can't set multiple units to fire at different turns. Programmed fire seems to allow only a single turn for multiple units. When I set different arty units to fire at different turns, they all revert to the last unit turn selected. I can work around that though.

Thanks again.

Tom

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

If you need a unit to fire in turns 1,3,5

select unit, advance firing to turn 1 with the + key, plot what and where to fire
now advance the + key to turn 3, plot what & where to fire
then advance the + key to turn 5, plot what type of fire and what is firing.

That should only fire the plotted batteries, with the plotted type of ammo, in those turns only.
The batteries will not be available to the owning player until the programme is completed (or the owner cancels all programmes with the appropriate key). No need for fiddling with reinforcements.

It is straightforward once you know what you are doing. Only way to redo a programme once you have decided you have made an error is to clear and restart though. Set yourself up a little test assault scenario with 2 or 3 batteries and play with that as a training exercise.

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Thanks, in progress as time permits during my watch. I'll learn it!

Tom

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Very interesting thread.

Thanks Tom for posting.


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Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

I've noticed with my own attempts to get the AI to use pre-plotted artillery that any pre plot after about turn 15 is ignored and the AI takes control of it's artillery starting about turn 15ish.

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

An alternate solution is to purchase an light observation helo. In Scenhack change the helo from platoon to company. Return to the Editor and cross attach artillery units to the helo. This will give rapid response without problems of exposing an A0 unit unnecessarily while keeping an AO unit with a reinforcement turn.

Also, you could purchase an observation helo, insert a FO in the helo. Make the FO unit a company and cross attach artillery and the helo to the FO.


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Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

Light helos are one of the FOO types. No need to insert a separate FOO in them.

Re: Delayed Bombardments
 

True. However there are a number of design considerations and preferences one may consider.

You may not be comfortable making a vehicle (with it's larger size) a company formation. Additionally, with a Fwd Obs you would could drop him to cover additional areas while the obs helo is covering other areas of the map (increased flexible). And we must consider the small size of the Fwd Obs as well.

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