Thanks & Question regarding opportunity fire

[Tinhead]

Hi everyone,

even though I'm not home yet from work, let me thank you so much for this best birthday present of all!! You absolutely made my day!

I've been following SPCamo for all these years and was always hoping you'd come out with the windows conversion, because your SP publications always had so much more depth, gameplay-wise.

I also totally respect the coice you made on how you're publishing the monster and will definitely buy a copy.
So much for the thanks.

Now to the question: Ages ago I was asking, if SPWW2 would get this feature (wossname?? can't remember the correct term), where you can interrupt the enemy command execution, when one of your units spotted an enemy unit and decide, if you fire on it or not.
I found this feature from another well-known SP publication very handy for setting up ambushes and missed it dearly when playing Camo's SP games.
I can remember info, I got from Don (also ages ago), where he had reasons to not include it in their product. I can't remember the reasons, so I don't know anymore if they where good reasons .
So, as hope dies last, I wanted to know, as humble as possible, if you/they included it this time round?? Please?

Anyways, I can't wait getting home tonight! Thanks again.

Cheers

[Arralen]

Opfire is included.

Hitting the space bar for every opfire is not.

But you can set the max fire range of those units waiting in ambush to a very low value. And don't forget to position them in a way that they can't see and be seen from the advancing enemy to avoid premature firing for sure ..

[Pyros]

Hi,

Although there have been improvements over the reaction fire on various situations (mainly issues connected with the Z-fire), the player can't have direct control on the units involved in this process.
What the player can easily adjust is the reaction range of his units. By doing such a thing he may have almost direct control if he manage to create a multi level/depth defense based on defensive zones with different reaction ranges.
IMO, the best tool would be to have some switches in order to decide the range for soft/hard targets etc... but this is very complicated.

cheers,
Pyros

p.s The difference in the efficiency between the two existing system depends on the situation of the battlefield. On massive tank battles you may get an advantage if you have the chance to destroy enough of your enemy armors (by massive OP firing) before they have the chance to fire for a second time. In a small skirmish with very few units the option to decide the moment of the opportunity fire works fine (but you must have very few units on the field)
Another interesting aspect of the WinSPMBT OP firing system is the firing support that you get from the friendly units that are close to your position. Whenever you perform an action, if these friendly units spot an enemy unit (that would be consider as a threat) then they will shot at this enemy unit. Again, if you wish to have direct control over the target acquisition of all your units you should set (to all of them) a very small reaction range in order to avoid this kind of supportive fire.

[Tinhead]

Interesting info - I like the supporting fire feature. Well, I'll survive, working with the max ranges for traps. Now that my mouse cursor doesn't move like a dying seaturtle on land anymore, I'll get along with that way better..

What you said here:

Pyros said:
IMO, the best tool would be to have some switches in order to decide the range for soft/hard targets etc... but this is very complicated.

is exactly - now that I think of it - what I had in mind hundreds of times, when my whole Leopard platoon, waiting in ambush, opened up on a poor passer-by scout unit with their main guns.. But II agree with you, that it would be pretty complicated to implement.
But there needs to be room for improvement for SPCamo anyway..

cheers

[PlasmaKrab]

Pyros said:
Another interesting aspect of the WinSPMBT OP firing system is the firing support that you get from the friendly units that are close to your position. Whenever you perform an action, if these friendly units spot an enemy unit (that would be consider as a threat) then they will shot at this enemy unit. Again, if you wish to have direct control over the target acquisition of all your units you should set (to all of them) a very small reaction range in order to avoid this kind of supportive fire.

I think I'm slightly off-topic here, but this seems to be linked to an annoying problem I have often had in urban areas.
I more than once had one unit cornering an enemy squad at a street corner, blazing at them, seeing them perfectly (and I player saw them too), and when I sent another unit to back up the first, even though the enemy was well cleared out, they (the enemy) got the first shots at my second unit who ran off in panic!

Isn't there supposed to be some kind of comm between units, even if relayed by the HQ (myself)?

Or is this some radio issue, or as t been corrected since?

Thanks for any answer

[Mobhack]

There is no "supporting fire" feature I'm afraid.

However - fire fights get triggered by op-fires, A fires at 1, 1 fires back and B decides to shoot back at 1 as does A, then 2 decides that A would be a good shot and so on in a cascading manner.

The original SSI code did not consider someone firing op-fire a valid target for op-fire themselves, ie op-fire code was not recursive. Our op-fire code is recursive, and we did that some time back (2+ years ?).

So - more of a "fire fight" - but also sort-of "support fires" as your freinds can also shoot at units op-firing your originating unit - provided it triggers an exchange of op-fire in the first place. (By firing, or moving etc).

Cheers
Andy

[FJ_MD]

PlasmaKrab said:

I think I'm slightly off-topic here, but this seems to be linked to an annoying problem I have often had in urban areas.
I more than once had one unit cornering an enemy squad at a street corner, blazing at them, seeing them perfectly (and I player saw them too), and when I sent another unit to back up the first, even though the enemy was well cleared out, they (the enemy) got the first shots at my second unit who ran off in panic!

Isn't there supposed to be some kind of comm between units, even if relayed by the HQ (myself)?

Or is this some radio issue, or as t been corrected since?

Thanks for any answer

You have to suppress the enemy before moving another unit near, or the enemy will use op-fire.

[PlasmaKrab]

FJ_MD said:
You have to suppress the enemy before moving another unit near, or the enemy will use op-fire.

Well, of course I have to.

But what if I don't have enough time/shots to rout them?
You'll tell me that's too bad for me , I should have had.

What I meant is: shouldn't there be something to reflect communication between units?
I mean, first unit sees the enemy and pins it down, second unit of same platoon come as backup, it should be well aware they are bound to trip into someone mean, and know _precisely_ where they are because their buddies of unit #1 have told them! While the enemy unit has less chances to see them coming since they are busy fighting off unit #1 (maybe this is counted with suppression).
How can unit #2 be subject to op-fire in this case?

Oh, I guess we should open a subforum for silly upgrade suggestions

Thanks anyway!

[FJ_MD]

It is hard to say "know precisely where". You are in a battle environment.


A turn is less than 5 mins. Let's presume you see the enemy (a whole platoon) 50 meters from your position, you call me by radio and tell me they are there. "Okay!" I say "I'm coming". But I don't really know where exactly the enemy is, so they may have scattered in good defensive positions and see me coming very easily.

[PlasmaKrab]

Well OK, I'll let it at that.

Maybe just different views on tactics modelling. Since I have no field experience whatsoever I can't speak up.

I guess that was a bit of the ole 'tactical network' bubbling up...

Hey, wait a minute, tactical network DO exist now...