What is artillery placeholder for??

[JIMIROTTENSOCKS]

What is artillery placeholder for?

Is there a way to have mortars (mobile or otherwise) or are mortars represented by artillery and only written up in scenario briefings?

[Ssnake]

Well, it's a placeholder for a future artillery vehicle. It's exclusively intended to work as something that will show up in constructive, large scale simulations (Command Post Exercises), and doesn't do anything except driving around if scripted to do so.

[rump]

Well, it's a placeholder for a future artillery vehicle. It's exclusively intended to work as something that will show up in constructive, large scale simulations (Command Post Exercises), and doesn't do anything except driving around if scripted to do so.

So, when destroyed, it has no effect on Artillery availability?

-Rump

[Ssnake]

No.

[TankHunter]

It would really be nice to get arty assets that are part of the unit that you have in Pro PE.

[Skybird03]

It would really be nice to get arty assets that are part of the unit that you have in Pro PE.

There are other things first on my list. Namely infantry moving at two or three speeds. What they are doing now makes me loosing battles by laughing myself to death. Slowly crawling, walking, maximum speed running would be nice, depending on factors like distance to carrier and tactical situation (enemies present and recognized). If that is too complex, even manually ordering them to different speeds would help, for example when loading them in a safe situation, or needing them to sprint for cover, instead of getting killed in place because they do this funny thing they do now. an extreme example of "situationsunangepasstes Verhalten". That they sink into the ground a bit inside forest is a first step in the right direction, but it is not sufficient. the high lethality of infantry in SBP is a direct consequence from their inadequate movement habits.

Now I am wondering: what has this to do with artillery placeholders? :lol: Sorry, guys.

[Trout]

Yup, infantry are not very effective while moving. If they stay put in good cover they are nasty, but they are incredibly vulnerable when exiting or entering the vehicle, or when advancing with any command other than scout.

I"ve been playing around with inf vs inf situations and you need WAY more than 3 to 1 advantage to attack or assault succesfully.

I assume that with infantry vs infantry battles, the outcome is figured arithmatically? They dont actually SEE each other and shoot?

Yes, they should be able to sprint to and from the carriers or when covering open areas. But they should also be harder to hit when shot at by AI. Also, 2 prone units within grenade range should hurt each other more.

SInce SB is a military training tool, does it not give vehicle commanders the wrong ideas about the usefullness of dismounts on the attack?

Trout

[jrcar]

Trout,

The type of work we use SB for (battlegroup and above) we are mainly interested in getting players to communicate correctly, make decisions and inform superiors and subordinates what to do. The actual tactical outcome is almost irrelevant.

The weakness in infantry is why there has been a lot of work in that part of the code by the militaries over the last year, with more to come. But don't expect a low level MOUT fight from the first person (that is what we use VBS for).

And for all the militaries this is just one of many tools that are used that range from live firing to mapboard and seminar discussions.

Cheers

Rob

[Ssnake]

Another question is, how much more effort do we want to pour into infantry and could we spend that energy with better return on investment elsewhere. I see SB primarily as a simulation to facilitate leadership training, also crew training although that has been shoehorned onto SB to some degree because there wasn't anything better available at the time when these functions were added.

Can we improve the infantry?

Definitely.

Should we?

Yes, to some extent.

Will it ever be as detailed as those tactical shooter games, with animations of wounded soldiers dragging others behind cover and whatnot?

Definitely not.

If we wanted to make an infantry sim, we would have started with a shooter game. I'm not interested in an "also ran" listing, I want SB Pro to be the virtual simulation of choice for vehicle centric operations with a very strong wargame/constructive simulation element, and I want it to stay PC compatible and a low-cost solution.

That's the core of what SB Pro is, where it is strong, and where we're leading the market. We don't want to imitate what other game companies are doing, shoehorning some training onto a pure game concept, but to make a software that is instructional in the first place and entertaining where it supports instruction or at least doesn't stand in the way of it.

We can't do everything. Whenever we set a priority we're ruling out nine other alternatives which may be tempting, but since we can only make one choice we must pick the one that provides the greates value for all of our customers in most training situations.

Setting priorities is always hard, sometimes almost heart-breaking, but necessary in order to avoid pursuing too many goals at the same time and reaching none.

[Skybird03]

I am aware of that, Ssnake, absolutely. I do not talk of flashpoint meeting Steel Beasts. And no graphic gimmicks like wounded soldiers being dragged by the comrades. Infantry in SB in a way is an abstraction, somewhat like reminding that this aspect also plays a role in reality. But this abstraction currently is misleading, and to serious degrees worthless. Infantry can be triggered nicely for ambushes, but usually dies fast after they hit first. there is not much sense in trying to plan for tactical value with the grunts riding your IFV in your back. Because their way to move on the battlefield spoils almost completely their tactical value. So far, infantry only is for fixed positions, hidden (better: triggered) behind trees and bushes, or inside house. For everything else, they are almost useless.

I think that could be cured to some major degree "easily" (jajaja I know I know...) by leaving them untouched in all their current behaviour, just adding a manual command menu that tells them "to stay in place" (that option is already there: tactics menu), "to crawl on the ground slowly", "to walk" (like they do now) and "to sprint as fast as possible" . this is not meant to change their "AI", leave it untouched, let them decide by existing software code whether or not they want to move or not - just give the player the opportunity to generally decide on their speed IF they decide to move.

the player can then mark the units on map and say "Okay, this is a plae where I now expect artillery coming in soon, I want the IVFs to move out as fast as possible, so let the grunts sprint to their vehicles when I order them to load", and "this is close to the front, so if you guys want to change position and search for cover behind a tree or in that house, crawl on the ground", and the player can decide that they should sprint to that house where now they rise and slowly move there and make not only formidable targets but also expose themselves as long as possible.

You once said the current model is kind of a compromise between walking and running, standing and crouching. But that exactly is the problem, it fits almost no situation ideally, and works bad in almost all situation.

So, no AI and detection kind of stuff - just a switch allowing for two or three speed settings, without addressing anything else. I am completely aware of your limited time and personnel resources. That's why I do not see the need to invest into dedicated artillery units, for example.

[Ssnake]

Well, I hope that we will implement that "sink into the ground" thing in all terrain based on the "bumpiness" value set in the terrain theme. That will help a lot in general survivability.

I agree that if under fire the soldiers should crouch rather than walk, but for that we'd need a new animation for all the sprites and since the sprites were always intended to be a stop gap solution until we made the transition to 3D infantry I'm not sure if it would really be clever to invest more time into polishing something that's supposed to go.

I'm not sure if a "sprint" function would reduce exposure times much. Given the average gear that soldiers have to lug around (protective vest and helmet, gun, ammo, water, NBC protection gear, knife, ...) even without a backpack you easily reach 10 to 20 kg extra which slows every "sprint" to a moderate jog so I don't think that speeding up our guys would be realistic or desirable.

I agree however that they reposition too often, and that a crawl mode is needed. Definitely.

[LtGeorge]

If I were to think of only a few simple value-added features to the infantry, I agree with the previous suggestions of crawling and ground immersion while under cover. Beyond that, you probably won't get much return on the investment without completely revising them.