Heirarchies (and I beat the dismount drum again)

[kbluck]

A few suggestions that I think would vastly increase the utility of the Heirarchy features:

1. Make the View window resizeable so you can see your entire task organization at once. Right now, you have to constantly scroll back and forth, and it is easy to "lose" units while moving them about.

2. Show when an HQ element is "at capacity". Right now, the first indication is when a dropped unit "flips" into the higher HQ. At least, as far as I am aware.

3. Enable the creation of "ad hoc" HQ elements. Essentially, I'd like to be able to take any "leader" unit, like a PSG, and create a completely new "container" unit for that leader. This would be particularly useful for creating dismounted patrols and such. Right now I find myself "cannibalizing" inappropriate HQ units, like taking an engineer platoon, stripping out all the engineer units, and replacing them with infantry dismounts. Even worse, I can't give them appropriate missions when I do that, and often have to control the subunits manually.

On a side note to (3) above, I've noticed when you create a dismount unit under a mech platoon container, even though the platoon is made up entirely of dismounts, the pathfinding still thinks its dealing with a bunch of Bradleys or whatever and rejects paths though rough terrain. You end up having to plot individual paths for the elements to get anywhere, which defeats the point of putting them in a heirarchy.

As I've remarked before, these and other game mechanics (spotting rules in particular) serve to make dismounts almost useless in practice, which certainly isn't the case in the real world. I imagine most players just stick them somewhere and forget about them. This, of course, is par for the course in mech-heavy games, whether computer or tabletop.

Poor bloody infantry... It'll be very interesting to see the grunts shine in AATF. It would be even cooler, once that shakes out, to get some of its elements back into the next major release of ATF, or whatever its heir apparent will be called.

Thanks for your time,

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

1. Make the View window resizeable so you can see your entire task organization at once. Right now, you have to constantly scroll back and forth, and it is easy to "lose" units while moving them about.

I will be frank on this one. The reason the hierarchy (and all the other windows, for that matter) is because its damn hard to do. And, even if successful, it invites all kinds of unintended bugs and difficulties. Check out Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. How many of their dialog boxes are sizeable? Not many, huh? If they can't do it with their megabucks and resources... O.K. I'm done being a smartass.

2. Show when an HQ element is "at capacity". Right now, the first indication is when a dropped unit "flips" into the higher HQ. At least, as far as I am aware.

That's not a bad idea. Any ideas on what the user interface or indicator should look like?

3. Enable the creation of "ad hoc" HQ elements. Essentially, I'd like to be able to take any "leader" unit, like a PSG, and create a completely new "container" unit for that leader. This would be particularly useful for creating dismounted patrols and such. Right now I find myself "cannibalizing" inappropriate HQ units, like taking an engineer platoon, stripping out all the engineer units, and replacing them with infantry dismounts. Even worse, I can't give them appropriate missions when I do that, and often have to control the subunits manually.

You are not the first player to recommend this. I vehemently disagree with implementing it, though. It just isn't what the real world is like. Platoon leaders lead platoons. If the platoon leader dies, the PSG is trained to step up. But, in the real world, you can't take a platoon sergeant, give him six dismount teams from all over the task force, send him out on his own and expect him to succeed. It's a recipe for disaster, not because the PSG isn't competent, just because the element is 'ad hoc'.

I certainly invite other oppinions on the topic, however.

On a side note to (3) above, I've noticed when you create a dismount unit under a mech platoon container, even though the platoon is made up entirely of dismounts, the pathfinding still thinks its dealing with a bunch of Bradleys or whatever and rejects paths though rough terrain. You end up having to plot individual paths for the elements to get anywhere, which defeats the point of putting them in a heirarchy.

The AI can not maintain a formation in broken terrain. The speed calculations are just too intensive and would grind the game to a halt. If you would like to maneuver your dismounts as seperate platoons (something I often do myself), I recommend turning off their formation, turning off the platoons for a moment, and pasting the desired path to all of the teams, BCT-style. That allows them to move, somewhat, in formation over rough terrain. Sorry.

As I've remarked before, these and other game mechanics (spotting rules in particular) serve to make dismounts almost useless in practice, which certainly isn't the case in the real world. I imagine most players just stick them somewhere and forget about them. This, of course, is par for the course in mech-heavy games, whether computer or tabletop.

Poor bloody infantry... It'll be very interesting to see the grunts shine in AATF. It would be even cooler, once that shakes out, to get some of its elements back into the next major release of ATF, or whatever its heir apparent will be called.


The spotting and invulnerability issues with dismounts is fixed in ATF version 1.02. We are well on our way to releasing this upgrade, which will hammer out all of those issues. (as well as aircraft over-vulnerability)

Poor bloody infantry... It'll be very interesting to see the grunts shine in AATF. It would be even cooler, once that shakes out, to get some of its elements back into the next major release of ATF, or whatever its heir apparent will be called.

Rest assured that I use the dismounts for missions in the scenarios myself (hell, I'm a light infantry fire support trainer here at the NTC). I agree that the spotting reduces their effectiveness and we have addressed that issue. You will see a marked improvement in 1.02.

[kbluck]

I will be frank on this one. The reason the hierarchy (and all the other windows, for that matter) is because its damn hard to do.

I guess it all depends on what tool you're using. I personally favor Delphi, and I can say that accomplishing this would be trivial in that environment. I don't know about Microsoft, but the applications I develop have plenty of resizeable windows and both modal and modeless dialogs with controls that track the sizing. For many dialogs there's no advantage to sizeability, so they're not. For this one, there's a very big advantage to being able to do so - it would make it much less painful to use when you have complicated heirarchies to manage. Also the Fire Log and Spot Report Logs would benefit from being able to see more rows if you have the pixels to spare. Now, the Fire Order, there's no reason to resize that. Opord window could go either way, although there's no huge advantage to it.

Sizing a child window relative to the parent isn't really all that difficult even if you're programming Windows API in plain old C. I guess I'd need to be privy to your internal source code to know why it's so difficult in this project. Maybe you're building your treeview in an unusual manner.

Could you at least make it bigger?


Any ideas on what the user interface or indicator should look like?

Well, for example, the game already ghosts units that are detached. A simple colored border on the heirarchy marker would be quite sufficient.


I vehemently disagree with implementing it, though. It just isn't what the real world is like. Platoon leaders lead platoons. If the platoon leader dies, the PSG is trained to step up. But, in the real world, you can't take a platoon sergeant, give him six dismount teams from all over the task force, send him out on his own and expect him to succeed.

Well, I understand your point. Real world, the PSG is more logistic than tactical in role anyway. But, in my experience, it was quite common to put a couple of squads under a senior squad leader for a patrol. It was extremely common for a PL to dismount and lead a platoon-sized foot patrol, usually reinforced to some extent. XOs not infrequently take command of special teams that are out of the COs direct control for some reason. Etc. The game has the PL strapped to a Bradley. The lazy bastards never get off the track! Had a bad experience at Ranger school, I guess. ;)

The point is that it is very difficult to split a platoon into mounted and dismounted elements and have both enjoy centralized control (and be able to assign missions to both) under the current mechanism. You're right that there is a limit to the qualified leadership, which is why I would require a free "leader" unit to form an ad-hoc unit. I would view the creation of such units as an abstraction, one of many already present in the game. It's not that the PSG is literally leading the patrol, although that's possible.

I agree it can be abused, with safeguards to prevent abuse adding even more complexity to the programming job. But, let's face it, players who are so inclined can abuse the system anyway. There's nothing to prevent players from operating flagrantly out of sector or violating LOAs, for example.

Perhaps a middle ground would be to address the big issue - dismounted elements. Give us something to HQ the leg part of a mech platoon, and that would be 95% of the problem solved, in my opinion.

The spotting and invulnerability issues with dismounts is fixed in ATF version 1.02. We are well on our way to releasing this upgrade, which will hammer out all of those issues. (as well as aircraft over-vulnerability)

Awesome! Now, if I could just get some sapper dismounts... :D

BTW, I don't remember if I mentioned this. I noticed mortar shots in this Fire Log seem to have pushed off the right side, so that you can't read the splash times. Using tabs to align your listbox columns, are you? Perhaps you've already fixed it.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I'd love to hear "splash" spoken five seconds before impact, so I'd have a chance to pause, scroll, and observe the results. An "incoming" whoosh just before enemy arty would be nice, too. I noticed you can hear the enemy guns firing --- that's a good reminder to get any idling units in gear.

Thanks,

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

Awesome! Now, if I could just get some sapper dismounts...

Version 1.02 also includes a database editor, which will allow you to add or subtract as many units as you want. It has a map editor, too.

Oops. Did I say that.;)

[Talon xBMCx]

Originally posted by CPT Proctor
It has a map editor, too.

Oops. Did I say that.;)


HA!!! We have it here in black and white ... err ... well in print.

Excellent news!!!! Any idea on an ETA for the upgrade?


Talon