Paul Vebber
Matrix Legion of Merit
Posts: 11430
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Portsmouth RI
Status: offline
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The special opfire message appearing in your turn is a display artifact, sometimes the part fo the code that generates the special opfire messege gets overruled and the mesege appears, but the enemy unit that is supposed to fire never does becasue of morale failure. Its one of those "its easier to just ignore than fix" right now...if a ASpecial opfire messege flashes up and no fire occures, well you just ignore it.
The same thing happens sometimes when "point blank opfire" flashes up and a DIFFERENT unit then uses regular opfire, so it looks like a unit pont blank opfired greater than 2 hexes away.
As to Specaial opfire being "whacked", well its its supposed to be EXACTLY THAT! Random fire by a desperate enemy that you don't expect. A couple of points:
There are 3 seperate special opfire situations that all get checked for all units every time the circumstances are met. "General" special opfire whenever a unit moves in you LOS and you have 0 shots, "Return" opfire when you get shot and have no shots, and "point blank" when the enemy moves adjacent (if advance stance) or within 2 hexes (defend stance or in cover is C2 is off) The "point plank" kind is much more common than the other types.
Note that if you are triggered for special opfire you have to pass a morale check that returns you to "pinned" status (failure of which sometimes causes the spurious messages) then after you shoot, you take a morale/experience check, failure of which causes 2-5 suppression to be added (making subsequent special opfire less likely and less accurate)
Range and ROF and suppression are key componants in generating special opfire, it will happen much more often at shorter ranges than longer ones. SO the key is suppressive fire with longer range weapons (preferrably out side "point blank")
Units in defend stance or "in cover" special opfire much more often than advancing units (reflecting overwatching fire)
The "multiple" that is used as a rnge of random number draws for determining special opfire is:
(12-ROF)*mult*range*(suppression/10+1)
Mult= 15 for defend, 20 advance for Point blank and return special opfire and 30 defend and 50 advance for "regular"
So a typical inf unit with no suppression, defending at range 1 and ROF=9 would be 3*15*1*1 = 45 a random(45)< experience indicates special opfire, so unless the unit is an imbicile, it will get a special opfire shot, assming it spotted the approaching enemy.
Now if it had 10 suppression and the enemy was at range 2 this drop to 3*15*2*2 = 180, so now even a 90 experience unit only has a 50% chance.
Now for a "regualr" opfire shot for a moving tank with ROF 6 at say 10 hexes the number jumps to 6*50*10*1 or 3000 so this is simply "dumb luck" at this range that , since its checked every hex for every moving unit, if an enemy horde is advancing you will likely get lucky every couple turns with each unit.
So range and suppression are keys here, and getting "in cover" or a defend stance makes a big difference. The idea is that as you get closer, the enmy will defend itself more tenaciously and the "soak off" tactics don't work as well. At some point though, too much special opfire will cause enough suppression that the unit will be left in a retreated or even routed state even if you don't shoot at it. Strength of number s can overwhelm, but it has to be MULTIPLES of teh enemy strength, not an extra squad of two. Melee is a key ingredient in this new soup too, as in city fighting getting into melee with an enemy is a key way to eihter wipe it out or suppress it to the point of ineffectiveness quickly.
The asynchronous nature of IG-HUGO games makes linear causality a problem...it isn;t logical, no, but as I explained in another thread:
http://www.matrixgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=002684
and
http://www.matrixgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=004726
Events in an IGO-HUGO turn are NOT sequential and inherantly illogical, but the idea is the results at the end of a pair of player turns are believable...NOT that they are played out in a linear and logical sequence. Something which is by definition impossible where one unit can "use all its time" before the next unit does anything!
That is the whole point of special opfire! Because you can move one unit its entire turns movement,and based on what it finds, move another unit its whole movement, and so on and so on you can pack hours worth "sequential" ops in a single turn if you have enough troops. Since alot of this obviously happens simultaneously, then one is left with the problem of balancing the players "gods eye view" and ability to intricately violate all sorts of laws of time and space to advance and conduct attacks, special opfire adds back the inherant strength of the defense to respond to these machinations in some manner, albeit random.
One can argue its too much or two little, but basically becasue of the abstract nature of the turn its basically a mater of personal taste. And one does not need to edit the OOBs to change this to ones taste. Turning "national characteristics" off removes the Russian "fanatical defense", Lowering experience using troop quality reduces opfire as does lowering the spotting value (as units are tougher to spot they tend) to be shot at much less often. INcreasing infantry toughness tends to reduce casualties making fire in general more suppressive but not deadly. Etc.
IT pains me to continually hear floks complain they don't like an aspect of the game, and then say its too hard to change the preferences! Obviously from the divergence in opinion on every one of these topics, its impossible to please everyone, so we tried to offer as many ways to customize tthe game to individual taste as we could!
You just have to be careful becasue after you play a pbem game your game preferences will be changed to those of the last pbem game you played, so after you play pbem always check your preference setings before you start a new one!
[ June 01, 2001: Message edited by: Paul Vebber ]
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Special Op Fire and Point Blank Fire seems whacked - 
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