Veitikka
Posts: 1304
Joined: 6/25/2007
From: Finland
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JoonasTo
A basic attack-move command, where my units behave like on a contact order but they don't forget the order upon hostilities completely. Rather they would continue their order to take up position once the hostiles have been eliminated. Currently advance keeps going, regardless of opposition and contact stops at opposition, while deleting the order. This means you have to create new ones if you wish to keep advancing. It's a drag. This shouldn't be too hard to implement(freeze order at contact, unfreeze once hostilities end) and would reduce the amount of needless micro a lot, improving playability.
This is not simple to implement in the current system. Technically, when moving, the first 'waypoint' is not actually a waypoint set by the player. It's just a destination where the unit/formation is traveling to, even if it looks similar to the other waypoints. The point here is that it cannot be disabled/activated. To disable it, the whole remaining path should be reconstructed after stopping the formation, and this is tricky. A long time ago a design decision was made that the current way is how it should work, and the whole system has been built on top it. It's not easy to change now. Perhaps in the future, but there are many other things on the list, and formation movement and waypoints can be very complex issues.
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Ability to separate companies into platoons. The full company is often too large of a unit to use for tactical maneuvers and so you are forced to micro the units in smaller groups. You have to suffer the added command delay and micro for individual unit commands. Ability to detach platoons from the company would alleviate this, again, improving playability.
The data structure we have doesn't know how many 'platoons' there are in a 'company'. Companies are just big formations. Again, this is another design decision that everyone was happy with a long time ago. A lot of work is required to change it (the database included). Perhaps one day in the future...
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Unit AI should be able to take line-of-sight/height into consideration when deciding defensive positions with the defend command at least. Currently you have to individually order a defensible position to each unit, thus suffering hugely from the command delay and the added micro. I'm starting to sound like a broken clock here but this would massively improve playability as well.
If I recall correctly, the defend order does take the LOS into consideration. It's not always possible to see the target location without moving far from the unit's position in the formation, and in such cases the LOS is ignored.
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Oh yeah, also having an option to set default SOP values would be very welcome. Currently units unloading from transports just go to quick movement option with max engagement ranges. This is almost never what you want so you're forced to wait on command delay there again. Again, small thing but a really huge thing when you have infantry unloading all over the place.
In the upcoming campaign system some of the SOP settings from the previous setup phase are remembered. Other than that, how should the default SOP values be set in the UI?
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As a whole, I'd like more autonomous unit decision making. Having a game with command delay but lacking the prerequisite unit AI is not a good match. If wishing to simulate real-life situation here, the unit AI is a must.
This has been discussed here earlier, of course. The 'seek cover' SOP option was implemented to help the issue. The main problem is that we have the huge formations, and if the individual units start improvising on their own it will hinder formation movement, that can already be slow.
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Universal command delay values are also not quite right. German(both east and west) and Finnish doctrine is very mission driven while US doctrine is very detailed top lead. They are further differentiated with radio discipline differences, where German and American are very proliferate while Finnish is quite strict. Thus command delay should reflect these. So instead of double command delay for all individual orders, the US should have only a small malus(or maybe no malus at all) for giving individual orders while German should have a moderate malus and Finnish would suffer the full malus.
The main purpose of command delays is to discourage micromanagement. The player will benefit from micromanagement options, whereas the AI opponent will suffer. Ideally the game should be played by issuing orders to formations only.
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Speaking of command delay, what does the CommandDelayMod value do? Like US has 20+20 while USSR has 30+0. What is the effect of the second number?
The latter value is added to subsequent waypoints.
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Finnish training value is also unnaturally high, considering it is a peaceful conscript army without recent war experience(since WWII) and a short service time of under one year. Clearly creator bias. 
The training and morale values can be debated of course, but 75 is what the engine sees as an 'average' value. Doesn't the West German army have the same traits you listed?
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Aside from that, an AI that doesn't suicide it's tanks by deciding they are the best scout element for towns would be nice. 
Are you talking about the recon tanks that some factions have?
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