Paul Vebber
Posts: 11430
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Portsmouth RI
Status: offline
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Larry has hit on what the design is trying to reward, think platoons, not individual units!
The comment that the AI should do Opfire for you is exactly what happens now, based on expereince of teh unit, its suppression and the hit/kill chance, and number of "shots" remaing, the AI determines if an opfire is "triggered" by certin events.
The problem is that the "perception of threat" is whats important! What that requires to do right is a list for each unit of what the "perceived threats" are in a priority order. That is the sort of change only a new game could implement.
So we are left with a desires to implement detailed "ROE" or rules of engagment, engage only certain targets with certain round types at certain ranges.
Well think about what that means! Turning units "off and On" or saying don't fire unless fired at until the enemy is within range" are unambiguous. That is a LOT different than assuming a specific degree of target ID, acquisition and threat assessment has been made.
The design assumption is that, while you the player are an eye in the sky with OUTSTANDING situational awareness, your troops are mere mortals (well Ok they have ESP to share targeting and ID data instantaneously, but that requires more "lists" of with whom and how fast info can travel around the force, and with what accuracy - again new game) who do not have the knowledge you the player has about the ID of all the enemy units.
To implement detailed control of ammo type, implies the "troops" all have teh same amount of info about the enemy that you do. Instead the assumption is that chaos regns and your troops, depending on experience, a good deal of time pick correctly, but a are far from perfect and waste a significant portion of their "silver bullets" on the wrong thing!
On a smokey chaotic battlefield where you just saw a TIger disappear behind a bilding, and a few seconds later - motion near teh other side - BANG you shoot that Sabot round - but dang it it was a HT poking around as teh smoke clears a bit and the Tiger is motoringback the other way...
Command, control and communications is teh bugaboo of wargaming. "Realism" form a C3 standpoint just isn't fun because teh reality is there still is very little "control". IT was even worse in WW2.
SO a Game has to balance an inherant lack of consistency between "realism", (which I like to call "detail" because as was stated, anybody who uses the word "realistic" with a GAME loses any credibility in my book...we do it all teh time, but mean "technical detail" 99% of teh time...) and FUN.
Games must be FUN or no one will buy them, but each design picks certain issues to deal with, and certain ways of dealing with it. I deal with C3 issues a lot in my "real" warfare analyst job, so I tend to fail toward "less control is good". A lot of people don't agree, becasue to them, they hate lose a game because their Cyber subordinates screwed up something they knew better of!
To come full circle, as Larry as said, you can adjust your TACTICS to account for this lack of control, and oh by the way they tend to be more "historical" too, becasue realworld commanders can't expect detailed orders about what to engage when with what, and aduft their tactics instead.
OPfire is and has been a "pet peeve" of mine, and will be one of my focal points for possible changes
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