Silver Star nomination

[RedWardancer]

This goes out to the lone rifleman who called ICM on their own position to kill 2 BMPs and a BRDM-AT...and survived!

 

It was the classic Border Patrol mission with the Dogs of War group this afternoon.  I had control of the Pirahna section en route to Border Post 1.  When the enemy tanks arrived, I dropped off the dismounts into that small pond to the SE of our position and retreated the PCs.  Four shots, four damaged tanks but no kills.  So I used arty to kill off first one tank during the initial wave, then another tank with two BMPs during the second wave.  On the second barrage, the enemy fled into the pond but held position due to my troop there.  Under the cover of the smoke screen, I retreated my two MG teams north, but one last trooper was within spitting distance of those three.  So I called in the arty as the sacrificial lamb...AND GOT THE JOB DONE!!!  Everything else around him was killed.  

 

HA!

[Mirzayev]

A12 participating in the destruction of the enemy's "counterattack" consisting an enemy company comprised of T-90s and BMP-3s. A12 had a destroyed engine. 

[Marko]

 The medal of honour would be more appropriate. LoL 

 

[Ssnake]

I suppose we should kill troops if staying in the water for too long - first of all because it's an exploit, and second because usually hypothermia would set in.

[Gibsonm]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

... second because usually hypothermia would set in.

 

I guess if it was a Winter Theme.

[Ssnake]

I would make that dependent on air temperature (yes, I know that water has a much higher thermal inertia than air, but it's a start and it would cut both ways).

[Captain_Colossus]

troops would also generally be degraded leaving the water- shivering, cold, and suddenly they find they weigh more soaking wet with their gear.

 

since there are units particularly trained in cold water scenarios, and since users may wish to represent marine units which naturally operate in water, it may be useful instead of creating a blanket rule which kills all troops to calibrate behavior by the quality of the unit defined in the mission editor and/or use of penalty zones or a global setting in the mission editor which

increases the 'lethality' of the water for troops in the scenario as a function of time and temperature.

[Marko]

23 hours ago, RedWardancer said:

This goes out to the lone rifleman who called ICM on their own position to kill 2 BMPs and a BRDM-AT...and survived!

 

It was the classic Border Patrol mission with the Dogs of War group this afternoon.  I had control of the Pirahna section en route to Border Post 1.  When the enemy tanks arrived, I dropped off the dismounts into that small pond to the SE of our position and retreated the PCs.  Four shots, four damaged tanks but no kills.  So I used arty to kill off first one tank during the initial wave, then another tank with two BMPs during the second wave.  On the second barrage, the enemy fled into the pond but held position due to my troop there.  Under the cover of the smoke screen, I retreated my two MG teams north, but one last trooper was within spitting distance of those three.  So I called in the arty as the sacrificial lamb...AND GOT THE JOB DONE!!!  Everything else around him was killed.  

 

HA!

Maybe he is a navy seal. Oorah. LoL

 

[Grenny]

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I would make that dependent on air temperature (yes, I know that water has a much higher thermal inertia than air, but it's a start and it would cut both ways).

They often don't shot their weapons when thy could/should...so the infantry in SB needs any advantage they can get.

 

[Gibsonm]

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I would make that dependent on air temperature (yes, I know that water has a much higher thermal inertia than air, but it's a start and it would cut both ways).

 

I should probably leave it alone, but the very much tongue in cheek comment was more meant for those of us who tend to work in areas were being in the water is relaxing rather than a risk.

 

Indeed recently we have had issues getting / keeping people out of the water.

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Gibsonm

[RedWardancer]

13 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I suppose we should kill troops if staying in the water for too long - first of all because it's an exploit, and second because usually hypothermia would set in.

That's taking this just a bit too seriously.  

This guy wasn't in the water for long, having jumped in when the barrage came in.  Wasn't expecting him to survive neither the impacts nor the enemy vehicles either shooting him or running him over.  Pure luck.  The photo does not show how the surviving enemy dismounts were killed by the barrage but this lone trooper survived.  Pure luck, but it worked.  This time.  

 

Grenny said it best about how riflemen in this game often don't shoot their weapons.  Thankfully, the game does not provide details to dismounts such as satchels, thermite grenades, close assaults on opening hatches and so on.  But infantry are easy to kill so I think they should be left alone.  Willing to bet my student loans this would NEVER happen the same way again.   

Edited April 20, 2020 by RedWardancer

[Ssnake]

Nevertheless, it's possible to "park" infantry in water bodies and I'd like to create an incentive to not keep them in the water for prolonged periods, particularly when it's a cold weather scenario. It's not a top priority but at the same time I suppose we all agree that in real life, ordering soldiers to assume an observation post for a prolonged time in ice water usually gets you arrested for failure of leadership, if not murder.

I'm all for giving our Pixeltruppen every advantage like treating them as "dry" as soon as they leave the water (the case could be made that if you fall into an ice lake at -20°C, even if you get out of the water quickly you have a death spell on you unless you find cover in under 30 minutes (and only if you have superior stamina), to give them the longest possible time in the water before hypothermia gets them, etc.

I'm just against giving them a free pass. 

[Captain_Colossus]

the pacific ocean on the US west coast is cold all year around, and even seasons or days of warm weather doesn't change that, the reason is the local conditions of arctic currents flowing from up north rather than the warmer currents flowing east from warmer waters during summer on the US east coast. without a wet suit, or if you're not acclimated to it,

on some days in some areas the moment you jump in, the feeling is the wind is knocked out of you immediately, difficult to breathe, much less functionally rationally.

 

it is rather an unrealistic to have a general immunity to water and do as you like, at the same time, that opens another can of worms, now it could go too far the other direction and water behaves more like a minefield. sometimes the AI will wander into the water in its pathfinding routines and in that case kill itself. it's probably a similar analogy to night combat- once you start going down that direction, a chain reaction is set in motion, more bugs as behavior gets broken, more tweaking, which leads to more behavioral changes, more tweaking, more implied changes to the way everything interacts...

[Apocalypse 31]

 

18 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I suppose we should kill troops if staying in the water for too long - first of all because it's an exploit, and second because usually hypothermia would set in

I'm confused - how is this an exploit? Is artillery unable to kill troops in water?

 

And why wouldn't you just fix the issue versus adding another unrealistic approach to handling the problem?

 

The infantry aspect of this game is already completely constrained to the point of being vastly unrealistic and not fun. 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Apocalypse 31

[Gibsonm]

3 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

 

I'm confused - how is this an exploit?

 

Well at present a "gamey" player can get infantry to walk considerable distances (under water) to say flank a position.

 

They don't "swim" and aren't seen by the other player (I gather they walk on the ocean floor) they just emerge, ready for action at their destination.

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Gibsonm

[Apocalypse 31]

Just now, Gibsonm said:

Well at present a "gamey" player can get infantry to walk considerable distances (under water) to say flank a position.

Wading infantry through water for a long duration would be a painfully slow approach to 'gaming' or 'exploiting'. Have you seen that happen so often that it is considered a problem in Steel Beasts?

[Mirzayev]

1 minute ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

Have you seen that happen so often that it is considered a problem in Steel Beasts?

 

I was going to ask the same thing. In my eight years of owning Steel Beasts, I cannot recall a single instance of someone purposely placing infantry in water to gain an advantage in any network game I have ever played. 

[Gibsonm]

19 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

Have you seen that happen so often that it is considered a problem in Steel Beasts?

I think I've seen it twice, but not recently.

 

I never said it was or was not a problem - You asked if it could be exploited, I provided an example.

[Apocalypse 31]

Rant: I hate when games pick and choose which methods of pain that they're going to inflict on players in the NAME OF "REALISM" (according to a developer)

 

 

We should kill 50% of tanks to depict incorrect maintenance and dispatch procedures.

We should randomly disable drivers night sights for 25% of vehicles in game to depict low maintenance readiness rates for night vision devices. 

We could also remove 25% of the tanks from the battlefield because their crewmen are not medically fit to deploy into a combat zone, or have not completed all administrative paperwork required to deploy into a combat zone. 

 

It literally never ends....

 

In the case of SB infantry, I'd like to see realism applied to assist the player a little bit, instead of the imposed constraints that we currently have. It this thing called a GAME, and last time I checked this was the Personal Edition. We are reminded of that frequently. 

-How about Javelins that don't need to be setup for 20 seconds to employ, and Javelin teams that can actually move distances quickly. I've seen Soldiers on live fire ranges be able to put a Javelin into action instantly. 

-What about realistic sprint/jog distances for regular and elite soldiers - even the 'Elite' in this game are ridiculously out of shape - probably would not pass a basic US Army physical fitness test.

-How about rifleman that can actually hit their targets at distances under 20m without firing 5-10 rounds. A Soldiers who cannot hit a 25m target wouldn't qualify on a basic rifle qualification course

-What about the vast majority of Light AT Soldiers who freeze up or cannot seem to aim their LAW/AT4/RPG correctly when a tank is within clearly eyesite. Qualifying on the AT-4 is a task that infantrymen must accomplish, annually in the US Army. 

 

I could keep going, but I have a feeling that one of two people will tell me how wrong I am, and that none of this is a priority.

 

Side Note: @RedWardancerThats a cool picture and great backstory. Thanks for sharing.

I have forwarded your Recommendation for Award to the next higher headquarters for approval. Pending the S-1 losing the paperwork...

Edited April 21, 2020 by Apocalypse 31

[Major duck]

56 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

Rant: I hate when games pick and choose which methods of pain that they're going to inflict on players in the NAME OF "REALISM" (according to a developer)

 

 

We should kill 50% of tanks to depict incorrect maintenance and dispatch procedures.

We should randomly disable drivers night sights for 25% of vehicles in game to depict low maintenance readiness rates for night vision devices. 

We could also remove 25% of the tanks from the battlefield because their crewmen are not medically fit to deploy into a combat zone, or have not completed all administrative paperwork required to deploy into a combat zone. 

 

It literally never ends....

 

In the case of SB infantry, I'd like to see realism applied to assist the player a little bit, instead of the imposed constraints that we currently have. It this thing called a GAME, and last time I checked this was the Personal Edition. We are reminded of that frequently. 

-How about Javelins that don't need to be setup for 20 seconds to employ, and Javelin teams that can actually move distances quickly. I've seen Soldiers on live fire ranges be able to put a Javelin into action instantly. 

-What about realistic sprint/jog distances for regular and elite soldiers - even the 'Elite' in this game are ridiculously out of shape - probably would not pass a basic US Army physical fitness test.

-How about rifleman that can actually hit their targets at distances under 20m without firing 5-10 rounds. A Soldiers who cannot hit a 25m target wouldn't qualify on a basic rifle qualification course

-What about the vast majority of Light AT Soldiers who freeze up or cannot seem to aim their LAW/AT4/RPG correctly when a tank is within clearly eyesite. Qualifying on the AT-4 is a task that infantrymen must accomplish, annually in the US Army. 

 

I could keep going, but I have a feeling that one of two people will tell me how wrong I am, and that none of this is a priority.

 

Side Note: @RedWardancerThats a cool picture and great backstory. Thanks for sharing.

I have forwarded your Recommendation for Award to the next higher headquarters for approval. Pending the S-1 losing the paperwork...

👍

[Volcano]

1 hour ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

-How about Javelins that don't need to be setup for 20 seconds to employ, and Javelin teams that can actually move distances quickly. I've seen Soldiers on live fire ranges be able to put a Javelin into action instantly.

That's nice, but a Javelin has a documented setup time and we went with that. Whether or not a crew can deploy a launcher "instantly" depends on several factors in SB that we don't model, because other ATGMs can also be deployed rapidly (much faster than the by-the-book setup) if, for example, the launcher is moved a short distance and is not unloaded first. If I recall, we went with the difference of the by-the-book setup time, and a video of it being used. Certainly we can have it setup a few seconds quicker, but it shouldn't be much quicker.

 

Quote

-What about realistic sprint/jog distances for regular and elite soldiers - even the 'Elite' in this game are ridiculously out of shape - probably would not pass a basic US Army physical fitness test.

This is a ridiculous statement. The issue is not how fast they tire out, its how fast they recover.  Careful balance has been taken to tire out infantry to prevent someone from sprinting a prolonged distance without having to briefly stop for rest.  Your complaint would be valid IF the infantry required 5-10 minutes to rest, and that simply is not the case.  The current behavior is a momentary exhaustion, to prevent all sorts of stupid and gamey behavior (ARMA/VBS-like always running behavior -- no need to MARCH).  Having been 11B MOS Q'd myself, I can say its realistic enough as-is, given the wargaming design decisions around the behavior.  Wearing full gear and running full sprint is not going to last long before you need a short rest, and that is what we are modeling (we are not modeling long term fatigue - rather its short term stamina).

 

VERY SPECIFIC stamina depletion rate decisions were made so that each method of movement has a real pro/con relationship, which is very important to ensure that each movement method has a reason to utilize it.

 

(Also, you aren't the only one around here with infantry experience either.)

 

Quote

-How about rifleman that can actually hit their targets at distances under 20m without firing 5-10 rounds. A Soldiers who cannot hit a 25m target wouldn't qualify on a basic rifle qualification course

 

The infantry have gotten much better with aiming (don't know if you are even looking at it), because a bug was fixed in their aiming behavior.  I personally witnessed (a few weeks ago) two infantry units that advanced to contact in the wood and killed each other nearly to the man within seconds. So although it may not have been specifically mentioned in the changes, this has gotten much better -- at least not warranting the level of ridicule that you are giving it.

 

Secondly, everyone has to keep in mind that the infantry in SB are intended to be designed at a wargaming level of detail. This means all sorts of abstractions that cannot be directly simulated at first person shooter level are *intentionally* factored in to the little details like aiming routines, so prevent them from being laser accurate, to allow them to stick around longer, so an entire infantry platoon is not killed to the man in 5 minutes.

 

 

Quote

-What about the vast majority of Light AT Soldiers who freeze up or cannot seem to aim their LAW/AT4/RPG correctly when a tank is within clearly eyesite. Qualifying on the AT-4 is a task that infantrymen must accomplish, annually in the US Army.

 

I agree that behavior is frustrating, but they aren't "freezing", they are getting up to aim and realizing that the LOS is obstructed. In technical terms the obstruction (in any game, actually) is a triangle that would be positioned between the target and shooter. All too often what we think is an absolute clear line of sight under some trees is actually not, because the branches on the trees are handled as panels, where most of it is transparent. Imagine a square shape of two triangles, with a branch texture applied to it. Most of its going to be transparent, but to the AI, who you cannot have determine LOS by transparency on a texture (it would be too costly), it sees a "panel" in the way, that the user might see through.

 

The point is, this one is certainly a valid frustration, and the eventual goal is to have the infantry check LOS (somehow) *before* they get up to aim, and to allow RPGs to be fired from the prone position.  But honestly, even if the soldier could check LOS before kneeling, likely the same complaint would be made about the soldier "not firing" when "they should", but perhaps firing from the prone position would be the best improvement there.

 

Quote

I could keep going, but I have a feeling that one of two people will tell me how wrong I am, and that none of this is a priority.

 

Honestly, I am not sure what the point would be either way.  You have your complaints, and we have some technical level explanations on why the infantry behave the way that they do (not the least because they were initially "tacked on", and because of the "wargaming detail"). We are making improvements but in the end, you will still have your complaints, and there will still be technical limitations and specific design decisions that deviate from what you expect.

 

Certainly if you level these sorts of bombastic complaints then you will of course get an explanation.  And no one ever said that upgrading the infantry is not a priority; if that was really the case then we wouldn't have spent so much time fundamentally upgrading the infantry in 4.1 (infantry limbo, loading into PCs with door open indefinitely, infantry aiming improvements, infantry pathfinding improvements around buildings, etc).

 

 

[RedWardancer]

Some of you folks sound like insurance companies who don't want to give coverage to their clients:  

 

"Did he really exploit the system?" 

"Does this happen enough NOT to award this trooper?"  

"Was it set on novice difficulty?"

"How come he didn't just surrender?"

 

Well the heck with all of 'ya!  My main man could have died from the arty, the MG's of the enemy vehicles, or the guns from the enemy dismounts that lived about five to ten seconds after their PCs were destroyed.  His other two buddies were dead and the MG teams bugged out under cover of smoke, but he stayed to fight and get the job done.  GIVE HIM SOME PROPS!  

 

As the platoon leader, I'm giving him a battlefield promotion, a Purple Heart as I'm sure he took some minor injuries from that barrage, AND DOUBLE RATIONS OF BEER!!!  

 

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

[Apocalypse 31]

Not only is he NOT getting a Silver Star, but he is now under investigation for exploiting several articles of the UCMJ.

 

Please have him return his weapon and ammunition to the 1SG and report to trial defense services immediately.

[Assassin 7]

27 minutes ago, RedWardancer said:

Some of you folks sound like insurance companies who don't want to give coverage to their clients:  

 

"Did he really exploit the system?" 

"Does this happen enough NOT to award this trooper?"  

"Was it set on novice difficulty?"

"How come he didn't just surrender?"

 

Well the heck with all of 'ya!  My main man could have died from the arty, the MG's of the enemy vehicles, or the guns from the enemy dismounts that lived about five to ten seconds after their PCs were destroyed.  His other two buddies were dead and the MG teams bugged out under cover of smoke, but he stayed to fight and get the job done.  GIVE HIM SOME PROPS!  

 

As the platoon leader, I'm giving him a battlefield promotion, a Purple Heart as I'm sure he took some minor injuries from that barrage, AND DOUBLE RATIONS OF BEER!!!  

 

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Great Job Soldier! We salute you

 

 

[Ssnake]

I'm not saying that your pixel man wasn't worth a promotion.

All I wrote was that if a player decided to park an artillery observer (or any other infantry) in a freezing lake to protect him against much direct fire and artillery (they're not immune, but it requires a head shot), it shouldn't be supported by the simulation to leave him there for extended periods without consequences. With water temperatures close to freezing point, people will lose consciousness within 15...30 minutes. That's a fact. No military leader proposing to set up an OP inside a river or a lake, especially during the winter, would get a medal for "creative thinking".