Combat Mission Basics: How Spotting Works
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they're not there.
Combat Mission Shock Force 2 is out on Steam on the 25th of August: store.steampow...
Vin's Geometric Unit Icons can be found here: www.thefewgood...
Holy crap. "Lower quality less experienced troops are more likely to talk amongst themselves, thus easier to be spotted by noise." Combat Mission sounds amazing, I need to buy one of these games.
Get the free demos at Battlefront first to decide which one you want to get first. They are all great, but do have differences depending on era, forces, and terrain. It's the BEST type game of this genre bar none!
@@vinnart you have a link to them?
See? SEE? I'm not antisocial, I just have high quality and lots of experience.
"You can't hit what you can't see"
88mm Flak gun in Eroudeville: Well, yes, but actually no
Freak accidents aside... :P
Whoa dude you really are very passionate with this game. This game is underrated and doesn't have much mainstream action but you are really trying to give it an audience.
I think most people doe not get to this game because its graphics and clunky mechanics.
Does*
@@stardekk1461 Most people don't get to this game because it's not sold on Steam and instead relies on an archaic on-site purchase system and ludicrous DRM.
@@Gekkibi not anymore
@@Gekkibi Yeah Hapless stands a relatively good chance of becoming the guy with CMSF2 going to Steam, his channel could grow exponentially depending on how well the game is received on a large distribution platform. Here's hoping the game sells well. For everybodies sake.
The way spotting works in the Combat Mission series sets it apart from other titles as a true representative of the way recon and line of sight actually works. In other titles an infantry unit could spot for a tank, and despite being no where near to it and neither having radios, the tank instantly sees what the infantry sees. It's a true oversight that makes so many potentially good games utterly fail at simulating battlefields.
I love this game but the spotting is the only thing that pisses me off. A veteran crew in a tank should be able to see the fucking tank in the middle of a field right in front of them, but half of the time they're just blind, even if I'm turned out. So many times have I been watching some sort of opening or crossing, just to see the tail end of a tank or vehicle appear briefly, then disappear around the corner because apparently my crack tank crew has the reaction time of a tortoise. If you're facing a direction and something moves into direct line of sight with little or no intervening terrain, you should spot it almost instantly.
God I love combat mission. Just wish I had more time to learn/play more pbem matches
Coming out on steam there will be more players
The graphics and Animations are alittle bit dated, not to take anything away from the gameplay tho. I would love a remake!
I recently got in an accident an down for a few months so I got none better to do than learn some good old military tactics. Final blitzkrieg is mad fun tho
Excellent presentation, and explanation of how the spotting, and passing of information through C2 works in the game Hap! Glad you find the unit icon mod helpful. Your explanation of how it improves the UI is precisely why I made it.
I just found you channel and I’m loving your content. Please continue!
7:00 Regarding C2 a unit doesn't receive spotting updates from friendly units via radio/voice if it already had spotted the enemy unit previously. For example a tank spots a panzer and then retreats from LOS and behind cover. An infantry squad in voice range that has LOS on the Panzer won't update the tank on the panzer's movement. The panzer can move across the map in LOS of the infantry squad but the original spotting position for the tank will remain unchanged. This was pointed out the BF forum.
Could u tell us how many range of the voice range plz ?
Oh so this is why I often have schizophrenic tank commanders, I'm annoyed when a commander keep hearing a tank behind a treeline but the tank had moved elsewhere 20 minutes ago.
Great video as always. Thank you so much for making this series.
Great video as always. I've been playing the WW2 packages for years. One option to increase realism is to use one of the optional rule packages that have been designed by players. There are a couple out there that I'm aware of. They require you to be honest, but really drive realism. As an example, if one squad has a visual contact, but no radio and is out of C2, you have to physically move that unit closer to another friendly to pass on the info (and potentially lose the solid contact in the process) or detach a scout to act as a runner. It stops you rolling a Sherman up to a target, even though it isn't aware of it. The Sherman has to be "told" first. I've replayed many straightforward and easy scenarios using these realism rules, and the results can be alarmingly different
Thanks man! I've never tried to use hardcore rules... pretty sure I can't trust myself to stick to them. Might give them a shot for a video some day, we'll see.
@@usuallyhapless9481 it certainly gives the otherwise beatable (generally, especially when you are defending) AI a fighting chance of winning
Another great vid Hapless. Great source of information, thanks
Very excellent video and thank you for doing this! I have been involved with combat mission since the beginning and I can tell you one topic that has come up over and over and over is spotting. You are helping a lot of people. Keep up the excellent work sir.
In the WWII games, you get a lot of usage out of hand signals and shouting for info to pass from unit to unit. So you usually end up keeping guys within at least earshot or visual of each other to maximize info sharing and firepower on target. It's one reason I like those titles, it also gives a big edge to the elite infantry units as they very quickly access info and spread it to others.
One tricky thing is figuring out how the game sends that info vertically and horizontally across the army organization. I've read but not confirmed that units well communicate ONE level above or below each other. So a squad leader who identifies a tank won't readily make that info available to his battalion commander, it instead goes to the platoon leader, then up the chain. At least from what I can tell.
C2 and Information Sharing post on the official battlefront forums: community.battlefront.com/topic/119474-c2-information-sharing/
Yup, vertical sharing is per unit. That means that a random rifle squad will share with his platoon leader, who will share with the other rifle squads in the platoon, and with his company commander (who will in turn share with the other platoon leaders in the company).
Each of these hops takes time, which means that being aware of your TO&E structure and resulting C2 network is important. This is also why recon elements tend to be embedded at a higher level, so that they can share more directly with the commanding officer. This also means it matters where you attach individual FO teams and the like if bought separately. Higher-than-scale formations are represented as off-map assets (e.g., the division commander), but those will take much longer to contact and filter through, and obviously will need a radio connection to do so.
Horizontal sharing can be done by anyone, and it's how you're going to manage multiple vertical chains of C2. Spies in unconventional formations are notable for this - spies are great observers, because they're basically invisible, but they don't have radios or other methods of communication. That means that arranging a spy team such that they are in C2 of each other, and that at least one element of this team is within horizontal sharing range (4 spots) of another unit is important.
This also means that it can be a good idea to use HQ units for scouting (a "leader recon"), since that'll disseminate the information to the platoon faster. It's also why HQ XO units are for - these are typically otherwise fairly pointless units, but they usually have a radio connection to the HQ, which means they can be sent on an independent mission to share or pick up spotting contacts for the platoon.
What Domfluff said. C2 and Information Sharing is in line for it's own video at some point.
Once again an great video. Always love you explanatory videos on mechanics as units. It’s great in reinforcing things I already know and I always learn something new or had something clarified for me. Keep up the amazing work man.
Cheers man! Glad you enjoyed it.
Great videos. If you are looking for topics of other instructional videos, I would love to see one discussing the pros and cons of AFVs being buttoned up (versus the commander having his head out of the turret). Maybe that's not as big a deal for the modern titles but it's always been confusing to me in the CM WWII titles I play. I recall in ASL getting a die roll modifier that improved hit chances if the tank commander wasn't buttoned up. And I recall Otto Carius stating in "Tigers in the Mud" that he never buttoned up. But I usually end up with dead commanders when I try that in CM.
Great work, again. Thank you.
your channel is the bible of CM. well done.
Wonderful as always! I have a theory that certain unit types like scouts and observers are inherently better at spotting from experience with the WW2 titles, I would love to see an experiment comparing two riflemen and two observers with the same gear if that would be possible to set up? Thanks!
That's an interesting idea, and hard to rule out. It's also hard to test that reliably, given all the unknowns.
It's certainly the case that recon units tend to have more suitable equipment and (importantly) C2 structure - even things like the Recon platoon in a motor rifle battalion, which may not have the best spotting gear, still benefits from being a single hop away from the battalion commander in the radio net , so will share spotting contacts more quickly than a random rifle squad will (with the radio in the vehicle, at least).
Comparing scouts to riflemen is doable, the problem is that spotting has that random element so you need to do a substantial amount of testing to get a reliable sample. I was messing around with spotting/time-to-kill times with different veterancy values at one point... had a conscript team that spotted all targets faster than an elite team. Couldn't hit those targets mind, but it just goes to show.
Equipment has much to do with spotting as well. A troop carrying a set of Binos will spot much better than one without. This is more prevalent in the ww2 era Combat Mission games.
Cheers to another great video.
Nice! Shall we be seeing a bias towards SF2 videos for the next few weeks??? ;P
Yes. It was always the plan, but things have also accelerated somewhat :)
Amazing info. Subscribed!
so deep.. I'm buying this
Thank you!
Do you have a recommended modlist? Vin's is neat. I know I saw someone else mention sound effects mods and more. Would be nice to know what's good to sort the diamonds from the rough.
Great thanks for tutorials! Can you explain what mean " capture zone'' . Hold your unit on it, or destroy all enemy in some radius from zone? After the end of the scenario, I see that only my guys are near the point, and the opponents in the corner of the map are kilometers away and anyway I didn’t take this point.
For occupy objectives (the ones that don't go away when you touch them), the side that has troops in the area gets the points assigned to it ('captures the zone'). They have to be in the area and there have to be no enemy troops in the area.
I take exception to the title of this video. I have been playing their Combat Mission games for over 2 decades now and there is very little about their spotting engine that is "simple". It is also worth noting that an icon does not necessarily mean that your units "see" anything. They gray icons generally represent sound contacts (in the old engine that was all they were used for...in the current engine I have no idea). Excellent video otherwise. ;)
Sound contacts spotted by a listening patrol aka standing patrols. I found a scout team moving with his plt headquarters in a contact to movement technique gives a pretty good idea of the enemy setup early in the game. I move in hunt mode with frequent stops. Headquarters humping 10 second intervals.
Not sound contacts. Just contacts.
@@Tom_Quixote Spider sense is tingling!
So does the game account for shadows when trying to spot enemy? i am just wondering if its worth having troops prone in shadow areas than not if you had a choice of course scrub and any kind of cover even terrain is better- but if it was a flat area? or even moving troops a long a shaded path would be worth it?
I am 99% sure the game doesn't take shadows into account. The degree to which lighting affects spotting is controlled by the general lighting levels of the battle- this varies by time of day (and can change, particularly at dusk and dawn) but to my knowledge actual cast shadows don't have any impact on spotting.
I know this is 3 years late....but thank you for the video! Could you share the scenario you are using, so I can follow along?
IIRC this is just a quick battle- if you play hotseat mode you can put the units on both sides wherever you like
@@usuallyhapless9481 Thank you so much for the reply! I posted this only a few minutes into your video, but now having gone through the entire series, You explain things in such a wonderful way. Thank you so much for making these!
Hi new to combat mission and i have a quick question. What movement order should i use to storm hostile buildings : assault or hunt. I tried using assault ( i mean it sounds appropriate ) i seem to take a shocking amount of casualties but using hunt makes them move so slow that i was in danger of running out of time
Video coming on Friday ;)
@@usuallyhapless9481 which campaign is the easiest. Also does taking casualties in the campaign matter. Just lost 2 recon vehicles and a squad to a tank snipe from all the way across the map (they were at the corner of the map so i forgot about them until i saw smoke rising), but i was already 30 minutes in and i didn't want to start all over again. I was using wego/ turn-based mode.
Just finished mastering the wargame series and decided to try out this. To think i thought wargame had a steep learning curve
@@georgeofazgad2176 The US Task Force Thunder campaign is probably the easiest. The NATO ones are definitely much harder. Whether vehicles and casualties are resupplied depends on what happens in the campaign, but I would probably try and keep everyone alive.
@@usuallyhapless9481 right but usually how much casualty are you willing to take before restarting. For comparison i lost one striker and took 15 casualties in the final training mission. Would that be considered heavy and warrant a restart in a notmal campaign? (I lost 6 guys to a single at rocket) that slammed into the centre of the rooftop where i set up to scout the town). These losses seem heavy but it is a town assault
Storming any building is extremely hazardous as you've found, the trick is to keep the enemy suppressed while doing so. Either by softening up the area they are in with large HE fire (tanks, mortars) first, and/or small arms fire from your other (non-assaulting squads). Note that friendly fire _is_ a thing in Combat Mission, so use the 'target briefly' command on your suppressing squads to keep the enemy pinned down while your assaulting squad makes its way in.
Ideally you want your suppressing squads to stop firing just as your assaulting squad enters the immediate area being attacked, getting the timing right on this is tricky and important, if your suppressing squads stop firing too early, the enemy may recover and take down your assaulting squad, if they fire too long they risk hitting the assaulting squad.
Don't even think about using large HE while your assaulting squad is making their move, as blast from these weapons will almost certainly do damage and suppression to your own guys.
I'm not by any measure experienced or familiar with Combat Mission, I just have SF2 and play quick battles for fun. Aside from my compliments for the game, one thing I've never really gotten is the main difference between Scout and Regular units? I saw someone said in this comments section that scouts dont actually spot better than your average infantry squad, so is the difference superficial or maybe something to do with information sharing?
Small note: I came into the CM series with most of my tactile experience being with Wargame Red Dragon, a title where reconnaissance troops have much much better spotting capability than normal infantry, although as a whole the WG franchise by Eugen is a much more arcade like take on warfare
The quick answer is that all pixeltruppen are equal... but differences in equipment and organisation matter. So a 'scout' is not inherently better at spotting than anyone else, but he might be more likely to have equipment that that helps with spotting (like binoculars) and scout formations (like Scout Platoons) tend to be quite shallow, which makes information sharing easier because there are fewer levels to travel through.
Quick question: Let's say I have a spotting team and the choice to put them in a building, would putting them on the roof make them better at spotting then say, level 4 in a four story building in exchange for being easier to spot in turn?
Spotting is based on line of sight, so if they can draw better line of sight from a high rooftop, then yes (and they'll be correspondingly exposed to being spotted themselves). Of course, it's usually a good idea to shoot the crap out of the tallest building in the enemy's part of the map for exactly that reason...
Great video thank you. Do you have a guide on C2 and spotting and or sharing information with their platoon. And then where (vertical or horizontally) that information is shared. I am playing CMBN and it’s not clear on how it works.
If you still haven't seen Hapeless just made video about it.
Is the dust and smoke in the base software or is it a mod?
Same question for the explosions with fireballs?
It's not vanilla, it's Vein's Effects.
Is he saying pixel "troopmen"? I can't tell
"pixeltruppen"
If your vehicle is opened up how does that effect the vehicles spotting. I would think that being opened up would mean they can spot things closer and around them easier but at range keeping them inside to use the optics provided would be better? Any insight would be appreciated.
It depends a lot on the era. For WW2 and earlier Cold War kit, having the commander out of the hatch scanning with his binoculars and then directing the gunner to use his more powerful, but narrower field of view optic is usually the best move. With the more modern stuff, the TC can have optics and thermals as powerful as the gunner and his own independent viewer to use them through, so it can be better to button up.
Wish there was a way to tell what soldiers can and cannot see like in graviteam
It would be nice, but it would take so much uncertainty out of the game. That might sound counter-intuitive, but it's a big part of what makes the game stand out from the crowd.
Just use a selected units targeting function will give you its LOS capability.
Question: Are units easier to spot near burning wrecks in the night?
Sadly, no. The only lights that are modelled are sun/moon light and muzzle flashes. Of course, being next to a burning wreck that might suffer ammunition cook-offs is probably not a good idea anyway...
@@usuallyhapless9481 I was just wondering while playing campaign and there were abandoned pickups that you could easy ignite. Thanks for answer.
Don't they have cellphones
👍👍👍👍👍👍
can you make a opfor spoting test too? how easy and how fast syrians can spot NATO forces.
It's possible. From what I can tell, the actual pixeltruppen are just as good at spotting but NATO forces have better equipment. So, a US rifle squad has 3 pairs of binoculars, plus 2 M145s on the SAWs (3.4x optics) and 1 4x ACOG on for the Marksman. In your average Syrian infantry squad the squad leader has some binoculars and that's it, so they're seriously underequipped by comparison. Vehicles are even worse- something like a T90 might have thermal imagers, but thermal imagers that are a generation behind those in NATO tanks and simply don't have the same kind of resolution.
At least for the campaigns the biggest impact probably comes from the difference in experience between the NATO and syrian forces. The higher unit experience the harder it is to spot them and the better they spot themselves. In the campaign running green vs crack troops is quite common and that makes a massive difference.
I have a red card with a soldier and a question mark. what is it?
That's a spotting contact. So your units think there is some kind of enemy infantry over there, but they haven't identified it yet. You can still shoot at it with area fire if that's what you want to do.
why don’t I see grey contact icons
They are from a Mod.
Is ist best to play this game with a joy stick?
12:00 Ricochet penetrates tank twice?
This can happen, one shell can also penetrate multiple vehicles. Riccochets can also injure nearby troops.
no nato markers?
There are some NATO marker mods out there- I've given them a try in the past and honestly find it easier to have a little picture than it is to try and remember what symbol is which.
@@usuallyhapless9481 yeah they are burned into my brain from
graviteam and command
Have you got a any tips to boost fps as the game tends not to run the best it seems pretty unoptimised as of right now
We know many of you were anticipating the release of Combat Mission Shock Force 2.
Unfortunately, we have some bad news: we won't be able to release today as the game is still in the Steam review queue. It is entirely dependent on Steam, and there is nothing we can do but wait.
To stay on the safe side, we are delaying the release by one week; therefore, we will be releasing Combat Mission Shock Force 2 on Tuesday, September 1.
We apologize for the delay.
extremely complex game
Combat mission does not simulate heat detection so spotting ia not realistic
This game is only for hardcore wargamers. For casual players, just play Red Alert or C&C. Seriously 😁
Why do you always say “pixel troop man” instead of just soldier? Its so weird to me. Especially in instances like 1:59 lol
Excellent video though as usual of course :)
@@Mandatory.Testicular.Torsion pixeltruppen. I guess it's a joke.
why don’t I see grey contact icons
They are from a Mod