CM arty modeling

[Suhiir]

The "real" frequency of any weapon/equipment system use VS how often players buy/use them is always an issue in any game. The AI can be "forced" to buy them less often via the X2, X0, X1, X3 radio codes. But most players will buy what looks good or what they want. Some (most?) do so out of ignorance (they have no clue how (un)common anything is), many just like playing with the best toys, and others just plain don't care about such things and only want to win their battles so pick whatever allows them to do so.

All that said all we can do is try to model any equipment/weapon as best we can keeping in mind it's "real" effects, it's "game" effects, and it's "game balance" effects.

Talk about walking a greased high wire!

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

The "real" frequency of any weapon/equipment system use VS how often players buy/use them is always an issue in any game. The AI can be "forced" to buy them less often via the X2, X0, X1, X3 radio codes. But most players will buy what looks good or what they want. Some (most?) do so out of ignorance (they have no clue how (un)common anything is), many just like playing with the best toys, and others just plain don't care about such things and only want to win their battles so pick whatever allows them to do so.

All that said all we can do is try to model any equipment/weapon as best we can keeping in mind it's "real" effects, it's "game" effects, and it's "game balance" effects.

Talk about walking a greased high wire!

What I was trying to get across is that they are a niche weapon at best for the time being (and the 2010-2020 timeframe in all likelyhood) and since they would be hard to differentiate from conventional cluster ammo in terms of game mechanics anyway it is not very cost effective to do so, say by using scarce weapon slots for example. The game is inhrerently inflexible when it comes to handling different types of ammunition for a given weapon.

[Kartoffel]

Just curious, but does anyone know what the exact area of a SP hex is? I know the width, which is 50m, but I don't know whether that width refers to the longest line of bisection or the shortest line. If I knew which bisection the 50m refers to I could figure out the area myself.

K.

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by Kartoffel

Just curious, but does anyone know what the exact area of a SP hex is? I know the width, which is 50m, but I don't know whether that width refers to the longest line of bisection or the shortest line. If I knew which bisection the 50m refers to I could figure out the area myself.

K.

Assuming I understand the question correctly the game uses a hexagon that's 50m from side to side as it's base, that's to say 25m from the center to any of the six sides, no clue offhand how long each side is, or what the total enclosed area is (my math skills aren't up to calculating this sort of thing without looking up the formulas).

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by Marcello

What I was trying to get across is that they are a niche weapon at best for the time being (and the 2010-2020 timeframe in all likelyhood) and since they would be hard to differentiate from conventional cluster ammo in terms of game mechanics anyway it is not very cost effective to do so, say by using scarce weapon slots for example. The game is inhrerently inflexible when it comes to handling different types of ammunition for a given weapon.

I agree.
They are certainly a high-tech niche weapon due to real-life cost and mass production manufactureing difficulty.
The problem, as was pointed out, is how can the game best model the overpressure effect of this sort of weapon.
Currently it's been decided the "flame effects" do the best job, with the unintentional (I assume) side effect of an automatic fire in the target hex.
Without knowing what the flame effects vice the CM effects are in the game code we can only look at the results produced in-game by a weapon and extrapolate on how it was produced.
While the overpressure effect is (I'm sure) best modeled via the game codes flame efects I'm just wondering if the end result, i.e. how destructive these weapons are in game (with the side effect of hex fires) is best modeled this way?
The in-game cluster munition effects seem to accomplish the same job of simulating AoE destruction without the fire side effect.
My question is - might this not be a "better" way to simulate these sorts of weapons?

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Note tables C-2 and C-3 (Which seems to more than support the current modeling.) this info is from the USA field manual.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita.../6-40/Appc.htm
Regards to all,
Pat

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

I thought some might find some interest in this article. I would like to point to a couple of items in the article, first the last sentence in para 3 that intimates the effectiveness of conventional artillery and the need of dispersal tactics (As was advised in a couple of posts in this thread.) to counter it and that basically CM is there to counter that tactic with the effectiveness of CM, well that's my read on that. Second the last couple of paras cover "SKEET" CM as currently being used by the U.S. and I had forgotten we stopped exporting CM.
http://www.defpro.com/news/details/17272/

Regards,
Pat