kbluck
11 Jul 03, 15:04
Well, I'm back from Ukraine. I had some fun showing your game to a number of Ukrainian army officer aquaintances, a few of whom served in the military of the USSR before independence. They were all universally impressed by the detail and the training possibilities afforded by the game, and wondered if there was a version translated into Russian or Ukrainian. I doubt that's very high on your list of priorities, and truth be told I wouldn't look too hard in that market direction because for them money is scarce and piracy commonplace, but for what it's worth, your game gets several ex-Commie thumbs up. I'd also like to say that ATF makes a 10-hour flight feel like a mere commuter hop, if you have the batteries.
I brought back a few presents for you. I had a fair amount of downtime to tinker with the game in some detail. I'll give you the best one first.
*****
I think there's a significant problem with target aspect selection. For the first example, refer to savegame "Javelin". I have a Javelin team approaching the T-80 in the OPFOR platoon ambush position near PL Steve from the back. However, when the Javelin fires, it attacks the T-80's *front* aspect, not the rear as you would expect. (Actually, you'd expect Javelin to attack the top aspect of ground targets regardless of the angle fired, but that doesn't seem to be implemented. No matter; it can be simulated with pKs.) I verified this by fiddling with the pKs after getting suspicious due to exceptionally poor kill performance in this otherwise ideal setup. I found that setting the front pK to 0 prevented the Javelin from firing at all, and setting front pK to 100 and all the other aspects to zero resulted in a guaranteed kill following a hit.
Initially, I surmised this was an issue specific to this situation of having a T-80 in a hole facing south and attacking from the north. As you know, the "default" orientation of a unit at rest is north. We've probably all seen the orientation "flip" as we dragged a resting unit into a hole during setup. I thought maybe the game wasn't accounting for the hole orientation and was still treating the T-80 as facing north during pK resolution.
But then, a second example showing almost exactly the opposite effect presented itself. For this second example, refer to savegame "Svir". You'll see a lone M1A2 making a valiant charge into OBJ Texas. Before he gets too far, he's going to get whacked by a Svir fired from the northernmost surviving T-80. It will almost always kill him, because it seems to be hitting the *rear* aspect, even though the M1 is clearly facing directly towards the T-80. Again, I determined this by playing with the database. If pK for the M1's rear aspect is set to zero, the Svir never fires. If pK is set to 100 for the rear aspect and 0 for front and everything else, the Svir fires and kills the M1. So here, we have a target not in a hole, not facing north-south, but getting hit in the rear instead of the front. Curiouser and curiouser.
*****
The second issue is a mere oddity. Refer to savegame "UnseenACE". In this situation, Javelins are in a position to engage some vehicles near the enemy infantry strongpoint by PL Steve. They will attack an Enemy M9 ACE and probably kill it, but that icon is not visible, at least not on my system. So, for some reason a valid target is not being displayed on the map as an icon, even though it is apparently in LOS.
*****
The third issue may be a misunderstanding on my part. It seems to me that weapons are not respecting "Time to Fire". Refer again to savegame "Javelin". Notice that when the clock is running and you remove "Hold Fire", the Javelin team fires *instantly* and any weapons effects are also applied immediately. The database states, however, that Javelin has a 20-second "Time to Fire." To my mind, that stat is intended to reflect target aquisition, aim time, and typical time of flight, which can be substantial for ATGM weapons. Given that assumption, my interpretation of "Time to Fire" would be that the clock starts ticking as soon as a team not in Hold Fire acquires a red LOS and/or selects a target, and the team must maintain a line of sight unbroken for the entire "Time to Fire" before the weapon actually "fires" and its effects, if any, are applied. That would certainly simulate one of the major disadvantages of wire-guided ATGMs, i.e. that the gunner must hold the crosshairs on the target for the entire flight of the missle in order to score a hit. If the gunner loses sight of the target while the missile is in the air, and fails to regain it promptly, the weapon will almost certainly miss. Admittedly, Javelin isn't the best example here, since it is actually a fire-and-forget, but I don't think you've simulated that in the game.
You can see similar effects when LOS goes red. If you track some unit with the info dialog, you'll see that the instant a target LOS goes red, any ready weapon goes off immediately, regardless of time to fire stats.
At any rate, as I said I don't know what you intended for time-to-fire. I though it was worth mentioning, though. I will say that if this sort of "insta-fire" is in fact the intended effect, it gives defending units a substantial advantage to be able to pop advancing enemies at any range if they appear out of cover even for a mere second, and (IMHO) unrealistically buffs the ATGMs and other missiles which already largely dominate direct fire in the game.
Regards,
--- Kevin
I brought back a few presents for you. I had a fair amount of downtime to tinker with the game in some detail. I'll give you the best one first.
*****
I think there's a significant problem with target aspect selection. For the first example, refer to savegame "Javelin". I have a Javelin team approaching the T-80 in the OPFOR platoon ambush position near PL Steve from the back. However, when the Javelin fires, it attacks the T-80's *front* aspect, not the rear as you would expect. (Actually, you'd expect Javelin to attack the top aspect of ground targets regardless of the angle fired, but that doesn't seem to be implemented. No matter; it can be simulated with pKs.) I verified this by fiddling with the pKs after getting suspicious due to exceptionally poor kill performance in this otherwise ideal setup. I found that setting the front pK to 0 prevented the Javelin from firing at all, and setting front pK to 100 and all the other aspects to zero resulted in a guaranteed kill following a hit.
Initially, I surmised this was an issue specific to this situation of having a T-80 in a hole facing south and attacking from the north. As you know, the "default" orientation of a unit at rest is north. We've probably all seen the orientation "flip" as we dragged a resting unit into a hole during setup. I thought maybe the game wasn't accounting for the hole orientation and was still treating the T-80 as facing north during pK resolution.
But then, a second example showing almost exactly the opposite effect presented itself. For this second example, refer to savegame "Svir". You'll see a lone M1A2 making a valiant charge into OBJ Texas. Before he gets too far, he's going to get whacked by a Svir fired from the northernmost surviving T-80. It will almost always kill him, because it seems to be hitting the *rear* aspect, even though the M1 is clearly facing directly towards the T-80. Again, I determined this by playing with the database. If pK for the M1's rear aspect is set to zero, the Svir never fires. If pK is set to 100 for the rear aspect and 0 for front and everything else, the Svir fires and kills the M1. So here, we have a target not in a hole, not facing north-south, but getting hit in the rear instead of the front. Curiouser and curiouser.
*****
The second issue is a mere oddity. Refer to savegame "UnseenACE". In this situation, Javelins are in a position to engage some vehicles near the enemy infantry strongpoint by PL Steve. They will attack an Enemy M9 ACE and probably kill it, but that icon is not visible, at least not on my system. So, for some reason a valid target is not being displayed on the map as an icon, even though it is apparently in LOS.
*****
The third issue may be a misunderstanding on my part. It seems to me that weapons are not respecting "Time to Fire". Refer again to savegame "Javelin". Notice that when the clock is running and you remove "Hold Fire", the Javelin team fires *instantly* and any weapons effects are also applied immediately. The database states, however, that Javelin has a 20-second "Time to Fire." To my mind, that stat is intended to reflect target aquisition, aim time, and typical time of flight, which can be substantial for ATGM weapons. Given that assumption, my interpretation of "Time to Fire" would be that the clock starts ticking as soon as a team not in Hold Fire acquires a red LOS and/or selects a target, and the team must maintain a line of sight unbroken for the entire "Time to Fire" before the weapon actually "fires" and its effects, if any, are applied. That would certainly simulate one of the major disadvantages of wire-guided ATGMs, i.e. that the gunner must hold the crosshairs on the target for the entire flight of the missle in order to score a hit. If the gunner loses sight of the target while the missile is in the air, and fails to regain it promptly, the weapon will almost certainly miss. Admittedly, Javelin isn't the best example here, since it is actually a fire-and-forget, but I don't think you've simulated that in the game.
You can see similar effects when LOS goes red. If you track some unit with the info dialog, you'll see that the instant a target LOS goes red, any ready weapon goes off immediately, regardless of time to fire stats.
At any rate, as I said I don't know what you intended for time-to-fire. I though it was worth mentioning, though. I will say that if this sort of "insta-fire" is in fact the intended effect, it gives defending units a substantial advantage to be able to pop advancing enemies at any range if they appear out of cover even for a mere second, and (IMHO) unrealistically buffs the ATGMs and other missiles which already largely dominate direct fire in the game.
Regards,
--- Kevin