CS Game Scale - Manual Style

Hawk Kriegsman · (This post was last modified: 08-30-2009, 01:10 AM by Hawk Kriegsman.)

Mr. Guberman Wrote:The GDmd scale ain't six minutes and you know that as well as I do.

So are the designers of the game who state in every manual of the game that the time is 6 minutes per turn are also wrong. Can you explain to me why they would state that if it was not the case?

Quote:Rather than argue over that...we agree the scale is 250m per hex...scale has nothing to do with time, at that level.

You would be incorrect.

Rate of fire = time
Miles per Hour = time

Quote:As has been described, dammit (and you have not responded to), 6 minutes is crap...and you know it, Ed.

As Ed and I have done is point to every single version of the game's manual and point out (in my case) at least 2 sections where the designers of the game clearly point out that the time scale is 6 minutes.

Quote:Please quit being the curmudgeon..not because I want to win...but because your positition is hopeless...and just sad..., ...c'mon...

To argue aginst the source documention developed and written by the designers of the game is the only hopeless and sad position here. The designer's intent of scale is clearly documented.

Would it have been better if they had said a turn represents six minutes of action. Yes absolutely, but they did not. I have always accepted that this was the cases as Mike and Umbro pointed out.

Quote:...lets have a drink around and look at it...shall we not"?

We shall not.

Quote:...(can't find the little smily face)...for real,...this is crap...you farckin' lost it..what is it you are trying to make?...Ed?

Don't know what this means.

CS was deigned as a tactical level game not an operational level game. That being said the majority of operational level scenarios designed are fantastic and I play them all. They all have one major flaw however.

They in no shape manner or form model fatigue or supply on the opperational level.

Let's take a 60 turn scenario and use two scales of time. 6 minutes per the manual and 15 minutes which seems to be an accepted time among many of the large scenario designers.

We get 360 minutes (6 hours) per the manual and 900 (15 hours) per the flexible time scale crowd.

Let's start with the humble infantryman. He can move every single turn (double timing every other turn) for 60 turns and be fresh as a daisy on turn 60. That is hard to swallow for a scenario lasting 6 hours and is ludicrous for a scenario lasting 15 hours.

An isolated infanty platoon can shoot every single turn for 60 turns. There is no resupply fuction in CS. Yes every unit checks for supply but this is an abstract concept at best and our infanty unit is completely surrounded.

I am resonably sure that no infantry unit carried enough ammo to fire continuously for 6 hours let along 15 hours. I am also equally sure that most small arms could not be fired for 6 straight hours (let alone 15 hours) with breaking down or being ruined.

I have a coworker who is a collector of fire arms and has a collector's gun permit. I have fired his M1 Garand, MP 40 and Sten. After 90 minutes on the range I was tired. I do not think a man could fire a weapon for 6 hours straight let alone 15 hours.

The point is here that an infanty platoons limitations on ammo and fatigue are totally thrown out the window in larger scenarios.

Lets move to the humble King Tiger it held 227 gallons of gasoline, had an operational range of 75 miles on a road and 50 miles cross country, had a top speed of 23 miles per hour on a road and 10.5 miles per hour cross country. It consumes 3 gallons of gas per mile on the road and 4.5 gallons of gas per mile cross country.

A King Tiger can move at top speed for 3.25 hours on the road and can move at top speed for 4.75 hours cross country before running out of gas. This is far short of a 6 hour or 15 hour scenario.

This does not take into account any elevation changes or obstacles. This is also going at maximum speed. Having a mecahnical breakdown, throwing a track or getting stuck

The CS game engine has no provision for refueling. No truck with barrels of petrol have to go meet it and they have to spend no time hand pumping fuel into the King Tiger.

In any long scenario fuel consumption goes out the window both in temrs of getting the fuel to the vehicle but the time to refuel the vehicle.

Let's move one to the IS-2 heavy tank and its 28 rounds of ammo.

It could fire about 3 rounds per minute. In the game the IS-2 can fire every single turn no questions asked. It would be out of ammo in 10 minutes!!

Far short of of a 6 or 15 hour scenario. CS has no provisions for bringing the IS-2 its ammo. No ammo carrier has to get to it (nor does it have to disengage to go to the ammo carrier) nor do you have to spend time hoisting the shells (mostly likely by hand) into the turret and then into the ammo racks.

No matter how you view CS's time scale you have to accept a whole host of abstractions.

The game is and always will be about the action part of combat.

It is not and never was about resupply, getting orders, waiting in line for chow, having the MP's check your orders, wiring bridges, changing barrels on my machine gun, taking prisioners, evacuating wounded, etc, etc, etc.