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Learning the game the hard way :)


streakeagle

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Well, the limitations that RecceDG points out are accurate. If the players cooperate together though and the "LTs" try to use their "remounts," to borrow a phrase from RecceDG, usefully, then it should be pretty spectacular.

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Well, the limitations that RecceDG points out are accurate. If the players cooperate together though and the "LTs" try to use their "remounts," to borrow a phrase from RecceDG, usefully, then it should be pretty spectacular.

Well, with fully crewed I mean 14 players for a tank company (+an FO maybe). So the Lt's should lead their units and every vehicle is lead by a human player.

If vehicles are lost, the Commanders can become gunners on the remaining ones...and so on :-P

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then it should be pretty spectacular.

Probably no different.

Instead of the AI you'll have 14 or so humans who aren't used to taking orders being directed by one individual who still has the battle to fight. :)

Span of Command issues will be about the same as those TP / PL positions probably wont "step up" to do their job as happens in RL.

The phrase "herding cats" comes to mind. ;)

Edited by Gibsonm
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Probably no different.

Instead of the AI you'll have 14 or so humans who aren't used to taking orders being directed by one individual who still has the battle to fight. :)

Span of Command issues will be about the same as those TP / PL positions probably wont "step up" to do their job as happens in RL.

The phrase "hearding cats" comes to mind. ;)

Well, that's probably one beauty of conscription :-)

We've had a couple of those games with the 911 community...and as most german males have been serving(ok ,not anymore :-( ), it never compared to herding cats.

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Instead of the AI you'll have 14 or so humans who aren't used to taking orders being directed by one individual who still has the battle to fight. :)

Which is where the quality of a player can really come through. ;) It's not just about familiarity with the sim. Being a cooperative part of a team/unit is a quality all its own.

I like Grenny's comparison: it does compare to conscription or even volunteers with little training.

It's also one of the reasons playing with a VU can be rewarding.

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Which is where the quality of a player can really come through. ;)

Exactly, works great if everyone knows what they are doing (or happy to accept that the team’s goals may not match theirs).

But can also go the other way too. E.g. Prior to Grenny’s recent activity I had to explain to a possible member of B Sqn that he had to do what he was told. He was not free to take his tank Tp wherever he wanted within (or outside for that matter) the Sqn TAOR.

Perhaps that is why he didn’t make it on the day.

It's also one of the reasons playing with a VU can be rewarding.

Which is why I enjoy TGIF (that and the fact I don’t have to get up at 3 in the morning to participate in it :)).

Overall I guess you I’m suggesting you will have the same span of command issues with either:

1. An AI controlled unit where you need to micro manage.

2. A unit composed of people, where depending on its members you will probably still need to micro manage but in a different way.

Even with a Sqn fully manned with soldiers in their “right“ spots (so the dvr of 11B in RL is driving 11B in the sim) using SB Pro, I’ve had to micro manage, but that was in terms of how to use the sim, not executing the plan.

By and large I just “go with what you have” and let the AI do its thing on the basis that on operations “sh*t happens” and you can’t be everywhere at once so if vehicle X does drive into the pond well just adjust the plan and keep going.

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I have saved the hasty defense with M60A3s and spent the evening replicating my successful plan from the original M1 version. Now, I get to see how much the M1s make a difference over M60s. Then, assuming the M60s get slaughtered, I will knock down difficulty and possibly Soviet ammo to see if that gives the M60s a chance.

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Ok, the M60s get slaughtered... but I still hold the line almost as long as I did with M1s until I got a couple of wins.

Here is the one statistic that tells the story best:

When I lost with M1s, I usually had 39 or more vehicle kills to 10 tanks lost: 3.9:1

With M60s, they frequently die before they even get a shot off, but in the right circumstances, they can get several kills almost as quickly and easily an an M1, which leaves me with about 9-11 vehicles killed for 10 tanks lost: 1:1

I can see that if I could use artillery effectively, I could buy a lot of time with it. I can also see that M60s need player control even more than M1s. If they can fire from a halt and catch the flank of an advancing element with a clear line of sight, a lone M60 can put a hurting on them quickly. As before, I get much better results breaking the units up into pairs or singles. When a platoon makes a mistake, the whole platoon folds and there are only two platoons in this misison! Even pairs die together too quickly. The M60s that got the best results were ones that were alone and got a little prompting from me on when to retreat and when to engage rather than following the plan.

The problem I see with me getting objective results on these tests is that I have played this scenario enough times to know almost exactly where the AI are going to come from and how they are going to react to my tactics. I have lost the fog of war where I don't know what or how many are coming from where? But I absolutely love this mission and the low odds of winning. I would be proud to achieve a victory with M60s on hard difficulty even with the unfair intel from repeated play.

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I am more of an air combat flight simmer than a tanker and have fallen asleep in the middle of many dogfights. But as with my board games, I like rotating between air, land, and sea combat simulations. I spent 8 years in the Navy as a submarine sonar tech, so I don't spend too much time on the sea part--had enough of the long hours of boredom waiting for something to happen.

Congrats for beating "Hasty" on Hard settings, as it was said, its a difficult scenario to succeed given the large area that you need to operate. I too rotate between land, air and sea and also, a big hardcore fan of "independent wargaming factories" like eSim and since you were a Sonar Tech, there is a simulator currently under development who I bet will suit you like a glove on your next rotation. Its called Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, whose being developed by WarfareSims, the same creators of several harpoon upgrade mods. The good thing about it is that the dev team are always open to suggestion and the community does its part by actively contributing. Not long ago they were looking for sub experts to help on electric diesels. http://www.warfaresims.com/

For me the best sims are Steel Beasts Pro Pe, DCS A10C, and I'm anxiouly waiting for Command and also, Flexman's Apache Longbow Combat Helo sim.

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I am already aware of Red Pill -> Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations :) Sometimes new sims escape my attention for a few months... but with all the forums around, someone always lets everyone else no about a new contender. My PC (built in March 2005, but with a HD6870 gpu) barely runs LOMAC FC2 fast enough for smaller missions, so I am not getting DCS A-10C until I have a better PC... hopefully this year? But I have a Warthog HOTAS, so I am ready for it :)

I have gotten in another play of Hasty with M60s. Any M60 I take control of gets at least 3 kills before dying. The ones left on their own are lucky if they get one. I am better at ducking/engaging and choosing the right place/time to switch between them. I don't know if I would gun any better (but I think I would!). So, maybe the way for me to do better than 1:1 is to hold all my tanks to the rear except three, one North, one center, and one South, then send replacements as they die. All I need to do is buy about 15 minutes more time to win. Right now, I can solidly hold them to 45 minutes before one slips through. Today, I still had two M60s alive before a vehicle got off. Typically, all are dead before the enemy has even gotten half way across the map. So, I am improving. Even when I control the M60s, their speed is getting them killed. Frequently, can't retreat/engage fast enough. I absolutely love the challenge. It was very hard with M1s, and might be impossible with M60s. But I haven't done as well as I see is possible, so I am not giving up yet. I haven't even knocked down the difficulty level yet, as I see lots of room for improvement without degrading the enemy.

I love watching the M60s. I would really love to be able to crew one in the instant action mission. I was even able to take some hits with no damage this last mission. Had one lucky tank that took a long time to get killed. If I hadn't left it in the open while engaging a platoon or two, it might have lasted even longer.

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Now that the OPFOR motorized essentials - T-72, BTR, BRDM - are playable, it will be interesting to swap equipment between Blue and Red for certain missions, like the delay mission mentioned here.

It's a unique experience, when, say, you are defending with a coy(+) of offensively designed tanks (esp. reversing takes forever) that lacks thermal against a horde of TTS equiped M60s (or M1s for a challenge)

Although defending T-72s would outgun and outarmor M60s to a large degree, (or achieve parity in case of M1s) they cannot reverse fast enough nor can they use smokes to break contact. It calls for different tactics and different fire plans.

Also, if you would opt for BMPs rather than BTRs, you can see how deadly BMP-1s could be against M60/M113 mix with proper human guidance even when uncrewable.

Or, you might want to play as Red against your best Blue plan so far, thinking what human Red commander/each tank crew would've done in such and such situations...

Addition of playable OPFOR vehicles opens a lot of possibilities for fun games :smilelove-1:

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Using AI and scripting, the Red has it pretty easy, even against the M1s. I would hope that if I took personal control, that I wouldn't do worse! But it would take writing a much more detailed plan for the US side, and other than getting a chance to gun for T-72s, I don't see much fun in a nearly guaranteed slaughter. But with the existence of crewable Soviet equipment, maybe more mission will be written to challenge someone to win with Soviet equipment and challenging, but not impossible odds.

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Turning off map updates and (or) f8 view has been done before on tgif. One of them a company size force of M1's had to navigate 10-15 Kilometers to then attack a village defended by a smaller force of leo2a4. I was on the defending side and it took the attackers a long time to get to the village together and launch an attack. Rothikirchen I think it was called.

This was just after pro pe came out and it was an attempt to raise the level of challenge and realism with the new SB. Getting a Company of almost fully maned tanks to go 10+ killometers and attack together in good order with no map updates can be difficult. Add lots of roads that cris cross with hill's that all look the same and doing it becomes a victroy in itself.

We had save plans at the time and the scene was posted a few days ahead of time. Those that took the time to fly around in world view and get to know the terrain got less lost.

I think if the scene is not to complex a largely fully manned no map updates no f8 game would be fun to do again on TGIF and a good way to learn the hard way.

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Using AI and scripting, the Red has it pretty easy, even against the M1s. I would hope that if I took personal control, that I wouldn't do worse! But it would take writing a much more detailed plan for the US side, and other than getting a chance to gun for T-72s, I don't see much fun in a nearly guaranteed slaughter. But with the existence of crewable Soviet equipment, maybe more mission will be written to challenge someone to win with Soviet equipment and challenging, but not impossible odds.

Well I was suggesting using T-72 etc as the defending side (thus mentioned "equipment swap")

Soviet defend vs NATO assault/counterattack type of games I mean.

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  • 4 months later...

Wow, I'm getting waxed every time. I am trying to learn the game and it is maddening to have a Marder 200 yards from a BMP and hit engage and fire and it just sits there waiting to get shot. Is there anything I can do with AI vehicles to get them to shoot?

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Wow, I'm getting waxed every time. I am trying to learn the game and it is maddening to have a Marder 200 yards from a BMP and hit engage and fire and it just sits there waiting to get shot. Is there anything I can do with AI vehicles to get them to shoot?

You could try using to suppress order.And point to the Target using the point arrow.

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What affect does the gunnery rating have on the accuracy of gunners in scenarios?

I read on the gun range description that gunnery rating will set the rating for (all) the gunners in friendly MBTs. Is it only for the gunner in the tank you occupy or is it actually all gunners on your side? (it implies its for all gunners on your side of the battle)

also, is the "hit percentage" affecting anything or is it just a running score of how you are doing when you man the gunner's position in scenarios?

thanks and have a nice day

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What affect does the gunnery rating have on the accuracy of gunners in scenarios?

I read on the gun range description that gunnery rating will set the rating for (all) the gunners in friendly MBTs. Is it only for the gunner in the tank you occupy or is it actually all gunners on your side?

also, is the "hit percentage" affecting anything or is it just a running score of how you are doing when you man the gunner's position in scenarios?

(I did a quick search before I posted this and found no good replies ... please forgive if its already here somewhere and I missed it)

thanks and have a nice day

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What affect does the gunnery rating have on the accuracy of gunners in scenarios?

I read on the gun range description that gunnery rating will set the rating for (all) the gunners in friendly MBTs. Is it only for the gunner in the tank you occupy or is it actually all gunners on your side? (it implies its for all gunners on your side of the battle)

Your interpretation is correct. This is supposed to reflect the quality of the training of your own troops. You could create several profiles and then play with the good or the bad one to see how it affects the balance of a scenario.

also, is the "hit percentage" affecting anything or is it just a running score of how you are doing when you man the gunner's position in scenarios?

Just a few basic statistics, nothing else.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Dang these single player scenario's are tough. I'm getting some wins but I'm probably losing 60-70% of my battles.

Its Not a complaint. Its A compliment to the scenario designers who stuffed SB Pro PE with these excellent stock (and classic) scenarios. (if I was winning a lot I'd be less happy ... a real challenge it is to fight these battles)

By the way what does the Difficulty level do? I looked in the manual but didn't see a section on it.

The answer could be in there but I saw nothing obvious.

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