Cheating

[Cross]

Its off topic but can someone tell me what people are banging on about with opfire ambushes etc??
Ambushes work just fine opfire kills them as would expect no problems.
Op fire also seems to work just fine to me 99% of the time, just occasionaly crew or squad screw up or seem blind but thats life.
No idea how works nor do I want details but taking a tank for example with no opfilter set seems to take these into account.
Chance to hit
Chance to kill
Threat level
This means a stationary tank will engage the same target further out as it has a better chance to hit it, the tank that moved will save its shot hoping for a target it has a reasonable chance of hitting however if its fired on will probably decide to fire anyway as its now a threat.
It also determines threats if a tank comes in view at moderate range it will probably fire at it while it might well let an APC trundle about till it gets closer & is therefore a threat hoping for a juicier target. After a few games you get an idea of how your digital soldiers react though once in a while they try something a bit diffrent which is fine people get caught out. Took me about 3 games to sus after playing WAW with its shoot anything that moves mentality

I don't have a problem with WinSPWW2 ambushes/OP fire.

Op fire is reliable if your firing unit is not suppressed, and has not moved.

Like others have posted, I don't like to use tanks for op fire, that's what ATk guns are for.

A hidden unsuppressed ATk gun (best with filter set) is deadly with op fire. That's why you have to pay so many points for the things...

[Imp]

I don't have a problem with WinSPWW2 ambushes/OP fire.

Op fire is reliable if your firing unit is not suppressed, and has not moved

That was my point its no good trying to spring an ambush with fast moving/suppressed units they want at least to start the turn stationary for a good result.
Otherwise the unit does not fire because it deems its chance of being effective as to low or even worse because it has not seen it.
They did not fire the PF Piat etc because it would be a wasted shot as the chance to hit is remote. If they have been sitting waiting so setup they will have a go as now operating effectivly simples.

[low_bidder]

Cross, I consider a tank an AT gun on tracks. In part. A tank is more then that of course. However, the biggest part of an MBT's job is anti-tank work. Another difference between WW2 and MBT.
Or so it seems to me. In WW2 tanks were used a lot for direct fire support. A lot of modern MBT's don't even carry HE. In part because it was claimed that the HEAT round could do the job. Combat in the ME proved those claims to be spurious.
AFAIK, the current trend is to load a few HE rounds in the mix, but it is seldom more then 10%, which means 90% of the targets envisioned for the main gun will not be soft.
WW2 tanks had about a 50/50 mix, except for the dedicated Tank Destroyers or the dedicated infantry support tanks.
That might be why I'm having problems thinking in WW2 terms.

Back in the day, the chance to get an Op fire shot was pretty good. more then 90% as a guess. Now days it is about 40%, once more as a guess. That is from stationary shooters, in cover with good suppression and morale. My issue with that is ambush is an essential part of modern combat. While armored phalanxes did happen, they were the exception, not the rule. Most tank charges were in the desert. Some across the Steppes. You need open terrain to do a tank charge. As weapons improved in range and lethality, tank charges became suicide. A waste of valuable tanks and even more valuable crewmen.
So overwatch, combined arms and hunter killer tactics became the way to get the job done while preserving assets.
SP did an excellent job or modeling that aspect of mechanized warfare.
That is a major reason why a hex based IGO-UGO game is still hanging in there after 15 years.
So I was wondering if Cammo had decided to make a change to the formula used to calculate OP fire chances, or if somebody had found a way to control it outside the system ( AKA Cheating).
Or it is a ......bug (gasp).
I noticed that the OP fire 'problems' started at about the same time as the Op fire filter was added to the game. I love the Op fire filter and used it when my opponent has access to it also. I just wonder if the overwatch range is global and affecting the range gates throughout the program? I set my over watch range from 1 to 20 and now I seem to not have any problems with Op fir. I have only played a few turns with the new overwatch range, so I don't really have enough cycles to think about building an experiment. But I'm pretty sure the reason why a dozen tanks did not take an op fire shot was the overwatch range was set to 1 and the program saw that RRJeep as being beyond 1 hex away.
I had the tanks set to max range, no filter. so IF I'm correct about what happened, there is a bug.

[Cross]

Hi Low Bidder,

Both ATk guns and tanks are best against AFVs but the similarity stops there. Use them completely differently.

ATk guns are for ambushes and op-fire. Sometimes I set them for op-fire, sometimes I turn the range down to almost nothing, so that on my turn I can fire all 5 shots at spotted targets. But as soon as the ATk gun is spotted, it’s time to move it to a new ambush.

Tanks are not for ambushes or op-fire. Move them out, pick a target, fire a shot or three and then get back behind cover.


I don’t have much experience with MBT, but if you use tanks and ATk guns in WW2, as described above, you won’t go far wrong.

Keep your tanks behind an infantry screen, as a general rule. Then they can move out, engage enemy infantry and tanks with AP, HE and MGs, then get them back into cover.


Armoured charges are still highly dangerous in SPWW2, as they should be.

Without getting into exact percentages, a first op-fire shot doesn’t have great accuracy and will probably miss; a second is far more deadly; a third is more dangerous still. Which is realistic IMHO.

And as said before, a stationary shooter has much better accuracy (in WW2). Another reason to use ATk guns for op-fire, but not your tanks. Your tanks have mobility, use it to keep them moving and shooting low percentage shots during your turn.


I doubt there’s a bug in the op-fire routine.

You could do some experiments to see if you can figure it out.

[low_bidder]

I will. Maybe. Spring has Sprung and it's great riding weather. Right temp and the bugs haven't came out yet. Plus I have a winters worth of neglect to repair in the back yard. Every time I look at the back window I have expect to see Livingston wandering around. Or Stanley.
I don't have the CD for WW2. Does it have a 'range filter' option like MBT?

[Cross]

I will. Maybe. Spring has Sprung and it's great riding weather. Right temp and the bugs haven't came out yet. Plus I have a winters worth of neglect to repair in the back yard. Every time I look at the back window I have expect to see Livingston wandering around. Or Stanley.
I don't have the CD for WW2. Does it have a 'range filter' option like MBT?

Love the spring, my favourite time of year. The snow hasn't even completely melted here yet. Seems like it's been on the ground for months! Longest I've ever seen. But it's 57F today.

The WW2 CD and filter is just like the MBT CD filter. But even without the CD you have an op-fire range filter, you just need the CD if you want the op-fire to choose the type of target to shoot at.

[Imp]

Low Bidder

A few things, ammo loadouts on modern tanks several OOBs let you buy the same tank with armour or CS loadout or have a tank with a high HE loadout for infantry support. Even setup as infantry support though ammo loads tend to be less than WW2 due to larger gun size, having said that most tanks in MBT are still more dangerous to infantry than WW2 counterparts due to advanced FC autocannons replacing MGs etc, I have no problem engaing infantry with tanks & often conserve HE for important targets.

On Opfire I disagree with you only played for a few years so no idea what it was like but I have no trouble with it. Regulary set up stuff for opfire shots & it nearly always does what I expect as in ignores low threat stuff but fires at the dangerous or close stuff. Admit its far more selective than WAW but once understand thats a good thing it chooses sensible targets. If anything sometimes it surprises me they still fire tank hit by arty with that resounding thunk then several RPGs & it still fires at the tank that moves into view.
The only time it gets tricky is low exp armies 60 or 65 for several reasons but the main one is these guys really do not have good battlefield awareness it is absolutly vital vehicles have infantry on the ground to see stuff because the tanks wont.
High risk example is I have walked infantry 3 hexes directly behind a low exp good order moving tank & assaulted it without being seen.
Its hard to describe but you get a sort of ripple effect in opfire.
Say a undetected unit fires from cover the unit that was targeted will probably see first & fire back, others near the target may see or be told.
If it fires moves again the others will join in either because they have now seen it or because they have been told its location, those that dont do what you would expect have not seen it & are out of contact.

[low_bidder]

Imp, Op fire requires a moral check that is influenced by lots of things, most of which I don't remember. That is why you get what you call a ripple effect. I see it mostly with infantry. IIRC, initial hit % is one of the checks for op fire. So a unit that didn't pass the first time might the next because another unit fired and it had a better shot at that second unit.
That is why I use the 't' key to target an opponents unit even though I'm not planing on fire at it that impulse. Not sure if it matters, but it seems to , which matters to me.
I have started setting the overwatch range of my A0 unit to 40 or so and that appears to have cured my Op fire problems. Of course I only have two games going now and my opponents are not very co-operative with my research efforts.

[Imp]

Quite possibly does reqiure a moral check though I have had heavily suppresed units still opfire at very close targets.
Still think one of main restrictions for guns is to hit chance & cant see asignigning target & not firing making any diffrence as it has not increased accuracy vs AFAIN.
If you want to research probably playing yourself is easiest though could manage 4-5 turns a week if want a guinea pig.

[Walrus]

Hey guys...
Since this discussion is about op-fire now...how about starting another thread.

It looks terrible that a thread titled 'Cheating' has been dragging on for 4 pages now.
Especially as there was no actual cheating going on eh.

Cheers
Walrus