How come tanks fire when suppressed below 50?

Lynz · Post by **Lynz** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 1:17 am

The tips says units will not fire when suppressed below 50; however, tanks do. Not only that they'll fire first. What is the point in suppressing them, wasting valuable ammo and getting zapped when you move a tank or infantry forward to have a crack at them?

junk2drive · Post by **junk2drive** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 2:54 am

From the Manual Additions thread

Reaction Fire

* Units that are hidden will not shoot and reveal their position unless they have a significant chance to hurt the enemy, or when they feel its time to shoot or die.
* Units that are hunting are harder to detect and your men may not notice them.
* Units always get a bonus shot in the opponents turn for opportunity fire. If they did not shoot in their turn they also get their base 2 shots. If they are elite they can get an additional bonus shot.
* Units that are visible will fire all but their last shot at anything they detect. Their last shot will be saved for something they think they can hurt, or when they feel its time to shoot or die.
* Units that are close to be suppressed will fire their last shot as there is a good chance that waiting for the enemy to shoot will mean you're suppressed and never get the chance to fire back.
* The criteria for damaging the enemy reduces as they get closer. E.g. at long range you might need a 25% chance to use your last shot or fire from cover. When adjacent you always shoot, even with a 0% chance to hurt them.
* Vehicles have variable detection rates. They are best in the forward 90 degrees. Weaker in the side and poor to the rear. Closed top tanks are worse and tanks without turrets even worse. Some tanks were notorious for having poor visibility and these are also heavily penalised on detection.
* Retreating tanks are usually good targets to shoot at as you often get rear/side armour shots. If you missed you were just unlucky. A 35% chance to miss means you should hit 1 in 3 times. There is a ~1 in 8 chance you would shoot 5 times in a row and miss. 1 in 8 is a pretty common occurrence. There is a ~1 in 60 chance you'd shoot and miss 10 times in a row.

Did you see a message that the enemy tank was suppressed?

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 3:51 am

They also take huge penalties when reacting. It's to prevent you being able to keep armour suppressed using just deeply inferior units. It might be true that we could do a better job making sure people know it.

Cheers

Pip

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:22 am

pipfromslitherine wrote:It might be true that we could do a better job making sure people know it.

Actually Pip, the tip is wrong all together and hopefully you can ammend it. Junk2Drive posted all the tips and perhaps (as a group thing) the players can review those tips and you can update them accordingly (when able).

The tip that Lynz is talking about ....

IDS_LTIP5, "Tip: When a unit's morale drops below 50 it is suppressed and will not return fire.",

This, perhaps, should read ....

"Tip: When a unit's morale drops below 50 it is suppressed and can only return fire.",

OR ...

"Tip: When a unit's morale drops below 50 it is suppressed and has limited return fire.",

-Merr

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 3:46 pm

The thing is, only armour will return fire at all when suppressed, and then only (IIRC) when fired upon.

Cheers

Pip

Lynz · Post by **Lynz** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 1:38 am

Thank you Merr, that is the tip I was referring to. Tanks do fire, and they do it before you fire at them. As soon as you move into range, a tank below 50% will fire. Nothing wrong with it returning fire when fired upon, assuming it survives, but I thought the idea of suppressing them was so you could have first crack.

Richie61 and I were just discussing it in our current game so I thought I'd get it clarified.

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:42 am

Lynz wrote:Thank you Merr, that is the tip I was referring to. Tanks do fire, and they do it before you fire at them. As soon as you move into range, a tank below 50% will fire. Nothing wrong with it returning fire when fired upon, assuming it survives, but I thought the idea of suppressing them was so you could have first crack.

Richie61 and I were just discussing it in our current game so I thought I'd get it clarified.

Hi Lynz,

I can see what you mean when trying to get something clarified without peaking at the actual code. The tips can be rather vague.

If I might suggest something .... I create some SOLO quickbattles and I've been playing them constantly as I test out new stuff. Each time I play, I try out new tactics and focus on the game mechanics to improve my own skill and understanding of how BA plays out.

Here's the link to that thread ....

viewtopic.php?t=28686&start=0

I consider the scenarios like a BootCamp .... Where you are thrown into different terrain with slightly different forces. They are good if you focus on the cause/effect aspect without getting bored with playing a vanilla scenario over and over again. Although, after awhile, even random stuff gets a little boring

.

-- Merr

Lynz · Post by **Lynz** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:58 am

Thanks mate, they look great.

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 6:22 am

pipfromslitherine wrote:The thing is, only armour will return fire at all when suppressed, and then only (IIRC) when fired upon.

This doesn't appear to be the case.

When a unit moves, does the SetRoute function check for reaction fire that's different from the functions shown in the Fire_AP and Fire_HE functions?

If a unit fires, I assume it's running the appropriate functions ( REACT_UNIT_FIREAP and REACT_UNIT_FIREHE ) ... but, when a unit moves into LOS of a suppressed unit, the conditions in those functions above don't work ... I'm seeing units react that don't meet those conditions.

One example I saw ... There was a German HT with -100 morale that turned and fired on my moving infantry unit as it approached (range beyond 2 tiles). In the REACT_UNIT_FIREHE, there's a condition (GetAttrib(me, "Morale") > 0) that should have prevented that (IMO).

I'm seeing the same thing with Armor Units reacting when it appears they shouldn't ... Reacting to moving units compared to reacting to firing units.

- Merr

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 1:25 am

Yes, I can verify that tanks do give out fire EVEN WHEN SUPPRESSED and YOU HAVE NOT ENGAGED IN FIRE YET.

But that's why Pip said "IIRC".

So... now we got that figured out, what's next?

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 3:34 am

It might be true that we could do a better job making sure people know it.

I asked a year ago to update the GUI so that we can see this SPECIAL extra shot when it is available to our opponent's tanks.

As is I feel like the GUI is incomplete and I don't like trying to remember or write/look up stuff from paper when a simple AI icon is all that's needed.

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:07 pm

It's of course fairly easy to add an icon to the UI for the extra shot, but I'm not sure that we necessarily want to give the player every piece of information about the enemy? What do other people think?

Cheers

Pip

JMass · Post by **JMass** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:22 pm

pipfromslitherine wrote:It's of course fairly easy to add an icon to the UI for the extra shot, but I'm not sure that we necessarily want to give the player every piece of information about the enemy? What do other people think?

I would like to have more FoW, not less!

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:21 am

Why do we show the other bullets at all then? If this is something that I can figure out anyway by careful tracking, why must I go through all the effort when a proper GUI should show it instantly?

GUIs should make play easier, and not a chore to do. We are not asking to see units that are hiding in FoW... though there are a few exploits around that

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:33 am

Interesting, I forced a Kangaroo down to 35 morale, and yet it STILL gave opportunity fire when I moved an infantry next to it. So looks like it's not just PURE tanks that get this feature. A bug, or perhaps any ARMOURED unit still counts as a tank?

Perhaps I get it if, armoured truck counts, while organic trucks don't?

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 3:40 am

Grrr, I thought tanks that were suppressed were supposed to fire their bonus shot at a penalty. But it never seems like it to me. For example, yet AGAIN I sacrified a lot just to get my opponent's Panther suppressed.

He tried to run away, and I sent in my sherman at full speed to nail it. What happens? As soon as my sherman is 5 tiles close to the Panther, the suppressed Panther insta fires on me (nope, I didn't fire first at all), and BOOM!!! nails me right through frontal armour on that shot.

I don't know, if I am moving at full speed, and he's just moved the turn before, isn't taht going to be very hard to be accurate at that many tiles? And then he has to penetrate my frontal armour at that penalty at some sort of suppression penalty.

Seems the penalty is almost negligible or I'm just on a bad streak as of late. Anyhow... I shall persevere but it really puts a bad taste of gunpowder in my mouth....

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Tue Dec 13, 2011 7:47 am

Obsolete,

Have you ever heard the term ... "Don't corner a rat or you'll get bitten".

Suppressed or not, a unit will Open Fire if it has shots left, or has the bonus shot.

When you trigger that open fire, all bets are lost !!!

Penalty for being suppressed? ... We wonder what that penalty is all about ... Is it a hit chance penalty, likely not. About the only penalty that cornered rat get's is most likely a penalty "chance" that it's going to turn around and bite you right in the face.

A suppressed unit has half a chance to bite you.
An adjacent unit has double the chance to bite you.
A suppressed unit facing you (either turret facing or hull facing) has a better chance to bite you, compared to side and rear.

It's all about self preservation, IMO.
It doesn't seem to be about cowering, buttoned up, or any of those effects we might define as "suppressed".

- Merr

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Tue Dec 13, 2011 5:40 pm

A suppressed unit has half a chance to bite you.

Then that really has been my typical bad luck as of late...

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:22 pm

The details of how it gets decided are in the REACT_ functions in the Fire_AP and Fire_HE scripts. Basically any armoured unit can do the reaction even when suppressed. They get a 50% penalty in their chance to hit.

Cheers

Pip