Playtesting WinSPMBT patch

[Listy]

Question, if they where spotted by the tanks, how did the tanks spot them?

The Squads moved to that position, the tanks didn't spot them. The arty landed. THEN the tanks spotted them. As I had control of the PLO side at that time, I know I didn't move them. They where way out of range, sitting still not taking any actions apart from losing men, and they got spotted?

[DRG]

They were spotted becasue one or more of the tanks had those hexes in view and the game determined, through calculations, that there was sufficient movement in the hex, after the bombardment, for whatever reason to cause them to appear. Remember.......EVERY time you run save fifteen you are going to end up with a slightly different result becasue the random number generator and you are now in full view of Vision 50 tanks. Why don't the vision 50 tanks pick up the other units out in the open? Well ,for one they aren't moving. At least, I didn't move them when I ran that turn and it looks like the units that were spotted , in at least one case, was shown to be moving. Maybe it was all that jumping around beating out the flames on their uniforms.

There are abstractions in the game because warfare is not chess and strange things happen sometimes. Occasionally the game rolls snake eys for some poor bastard and he's spotted out in the open and 100 yards away someone else doing the same thing and the game rolls box cars and he gets away unspotted. Sometimes you can sneak scouts through enemy lines and sometimes you can't. That's just the way things go sometimes. Life isn't always " logical " and the game reflects that.

Don

[Listy]

**shrug**
I know all that, I just thought it was odd, so I reported it.

There was the curving bullet from hell, that was fired square on the posterior of BTR, and hit it's front slope, but that's just one of those things.

One thing about AI deployment, is there anyway to spread it out a little more? I mean a pre-game SEAD will often end up with a huge tally of kills due to the AAA radar being in the middle of a column of tanks, and if the SEAD's armed with cluster munitions, it's all over..

I've also noticed "splash" damage coming from tanks main gun HE rounds. By splash A I mean infantry units a hex away from the aim point is getting casualties. I'm guessing that is intended?

[Mobhack]

1) if the SEAD plane is firing ARM, and you have the new 2.0 exe then the plane will fire a stand-off PGM attack now (ie it will fire ARM and remove itself from the map).

2) Yes, tanks main guns WILl do splash damage in the next hex, as noted for the blast circle changes. MMG teams at range will sometimes have a 1 hex radius as well. Bith intentional.

Cheers
Andy

[Pyros]

Hi Pyros,

Playing a new scen by Ulf Lundstrom, "Cornered Rat", USMC v Iraqi rebels
in 2004. Just have 2 Harries attack with Mavericks against fortified house
spotted by a scout helo with LOS. Both Harriers fire their Mavericks with 99%
accuracy reported and destroyed both forts.

Cheers
Scott

[Pyros]

I am playing a pbem with Davide and here are some comments:

1. On turn0 (setup) I have planned ahead several air missions (sead) in random. Then in turn1, my sead have targeted unseen AA mobile platforms very effectively!

2. On turn2 I have executed several airdrops (para) behind/next to the enemy positions and the only known issue is that when my unfortunate para troops got shot and had to retreat (run for their lives) they used to pop up a smoke grenade and then come closer to the enemy (since they have airdroped behind the enemy lines,they have by default to retreat towards their home-side and this way they used to come closer to the ones who shoot at them. I don't know if it possible to make somehow the unit to retreat to a safe zone of control or at the worst case to remain pinned.

cheers,
Pyros

p.s in another test scenario I noticed that the best bunker-buster aistrike attacks (Vietnam era) were the 250 or 500 bomb attacks

[DRG]

Listy said:

One thing about AI deployment, is there anyway to spread it out a little more?

Set up a generated battle on a 100 x 100 map with 10,000 points. Choose two "European" opponents but this will work the same with any nation. Set the battle to Meeting engagement.

Set the purchase to Computer and the deploy to Human

Press continue

When the next screen appears press Auto Deploy

Take a look around the map. Go to preferences and set the ID tags on so you can see the units clearly then Zoom the map out

Now press the ' = ' key. You will see the units redeploy

Now do that 50 more times. That ' = ' key is doing exactly the same thing as the "AI" does to deploy every time you press it.

Note that the units set up differs each time. Sometimes you get a concentration of force, sometimes the units are spread out across the map, sometimes you get two groups. Sometimes you get groups on the north and south map edges with a light screening force in the middle of the map and it's different each time. It varies each time the ' = ' redeploy key is pressed and in many cases, unless you are playing with maximum points on small map it does spread the units out and sometimes it does not and it does not always concentrate and all that is coded that way so each time you play the AI something a bit different will happen

Apologies if you already "know all that" but the game does NOT always concentrate it's force and is fully capable of spreading out it's troops but it does not do that all the time because if it did people would complain it never concentrates is force.


The above test will also work on larger and smaller maps with larger or smaller forces. However, if you pick a smaller map and allow a high point count there is less room to spread out the deployment

Don

[Listy]

Ok it was just an oddity I've noticed before.

Another thing i've noticed is the AI's use of Airmobile units. When It by's them it tends to wait until it's very last turn then it come screaming forward and tries to get the V hexes.

I personaly have never seen it do an air assualt in the middle of a game.

[Mobhack]

I have, several times. Near the objectives, or near the centre in a meeter, or in the rear (rarer) to overrun your gun line. As designed. As is the near the end attempt on objectives. Guard your rear

Cheers
Andy

[wulfir]

Listy said:
I personaly have never seen it do an air assualt in the middle of a game.

I have, even in previous versions. And I like it, another justification for existance of the noble anti aircraft branch.