TacOps roads

Dr Zaius

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Do the roads in TacOps always represent a hardball road, or do these also represent good quality gravel or compact dirt roads?
 

Redwolf

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It doesn't really matter since roads in TacOps do not degrade when being used by vehicles.

Also, vehicles in TacOps always move at combat speed, never at maximum vehicle speed, so it doesn't matter for the speed either.
 

Hub

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If you want to represent movement reduction due to a lesser quality road surface, draw in your road/trail, and give it one of the "rough" values...
 

Dr Zaius

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Hub said:
If you want to represent movement reduction due to a lesser quality road surface, draw in your road/trail, and give it one of the "rough" values...
So how much greater is the movement rate on a road compared to open terrain? If I do as you suggest, what would the final movement rate be compared to open terrain?

Road + Rough 1 = ???
Road + Rough 2 = ???

etc.
 

Hub

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This taken from the TacOps Gazette:

"My quoting to you the basic and terrain modified movement rates used in the code for the various types of units would probably not be very helpful. A better approach would be for you to setup a test game and to experiment with giving orders to the three basic classes of ground units (tracked, wheeled, foot) to move along roads, go cross country, thru woods, etc. Observe how much ground a given class of unit can cover on your screen in one or two minutes. Use an index card for each class and mark the distance along one side that that type of unit can travel in woods terrain. Mark another side for clear terrain, roads, etc. The markings that you develop will be good guides for planning but remember that things like firing and being suppressed will usually cause units to cover less ground per minute. You can also see approximately how long it will take for a unit to get to a given waypoint in its future movement path by clicking on the little black button in the box labeled "Orders" in the orders window. Doing so will display a time next to each waypoint on the map - see Users Guide page 26."

I actually did this, but I no longer have the info, otherwise I would send it along- sorry. The roads depicted on the maps that originally come with the game are basically open terrain. In the Map Maker, you can default all woods/urban terrain to Rough 2- this can be used as a general rule of thumb. Be aware that by applying Rough values to roads, other than "open," will also make units more difficult to hit, as well as slowing down movement. I guess you could rationalize for or against this being a good thing (a vehicle bouncing up and down on a narrow, muddy, country lane may be harder to acquire and hit, but OTOH it is easier to see than if it were moving through woods of the same roughness value...
 

John Osborne

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http://www.battlefront.com/resources/tacops/Maproom/maps/thumbnls/Map110th.GIF
Don Maddox said:
So how much greater is the movement rate on a road compared to open terrain? If I do as you suggest, what would the final movement rate be compared to open terrain?

Road + Rough 1 = ???
Road + Rough 2 = ???

etc.
You can also go to TacOps Headquaters and down load map110 made by Matt (Rattler) Ohlmer that you can experment with on these type of questions. Here is the link to it:

http://www.battlefront.com/resources/tacops/Maproom/index.html



this is what the test map looks like.

John
 

Hub

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I did some testing and whipped this up (well, with my typing skills, "whipped" is probably not that accurate a description...) Hope this helps.
 
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Dr Zaius

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Thanks for the test map. Here is what I discovered using this map. I used a Bradley to move directly from one side of the map to the other with no other orders and no enemy units in LOS. Each unit moved 1km.

Wood/clear: 1:53
Wood/R1: 2:45
Wood/R2: 5:31
Wood/R3: 10:39
Wood/R4: 22:11

Clear: 1:52
Clear/R1: 2:44
Clear/R2: 5:29
Clear/R3: 10:49
Clear/R4: 22:19

Road/clear: 1:25
Road/R1: 1:27
Road/R2: 1:27
Road/R3: 1:27
Road/R4: 1:27
Road/water: 1:27

Town/clear: 1:51
Town/R1: 1:52
Town/R2: 5:18
Town/R3: 10:49
Town/R4: 22:32

There are some very minor variations here that are mainly due to small differences in the wayploint plotting, however, in general the results are consistent. Basically, what this table shows is that a unit moving on a road is completely uneffected by the other terrain in the location. Surprisingly, a unit moves at the same speed in Road/R4 as it does in Road/clear.

In short, this leads me to believe that other terrain types could be simulated in TacOps as the values above are somewhat abstract. You could simulate really dense forest by using the Woods/R4 combination while using Woods/R2 for regular forests. Woods/R1 could be used for scrub or brushy regions. Woods/R3 or Woods/R4 could probably be used for marsh or swampy areas too.
 

MajorH

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Don Maddox said:
In short, this leads me to believe that other terrain types could be simulated in TacOps as the values above are somewhat abstract. You could simulate really dense forest by using the Woods/R4 combination while using Woods/R2 for regular forests. Woods/R1 could be used for scrub or brushy regions. Woods/R3 or Woods/R4 could probably be used for marsh or swampy areas too.
True but this is an example of where reality or a map maker's wish to represent something exotic will clash with the desire of many hobby players for fast moving game play. Unless an infantry slogging match is desired or the map maker wants to encourage players to not use a given part of the map there isn't much point in doing very rough terrain. If the hobby player has mobile units he will just find an easier path. If he does not, then he is quite likely to become bored with watching infantry crawl through thickets and move on to another scenario or a simpler map.
 

MajorH

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Don Maddox said:
marsh or swampy areas
I used some or all of the following to represent swamps and marshes in the Camp Lejeune map.

1. Water (unit has to be amphibious to enter or cross).
2. Water + woods (unit has to be amphibious to enter or cross).
3. Rough1 through Rough4 (any unit can enter and cross). Rough can not be combined with water.
4. Woods + Rough1 through Rough4 (any unit can enter and cross). Rough can not be combined with water.

Woods + rough4 is the worst terrain possible in TacOps - that is still passable to all units.
 

Dr Zaius

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I understand. I have often seen scenario authors (for other wargames) create maps that are virtually guaranteed to be only useful for "in-your-face" infantry firefights as the terrain was too rough for anything else. Nevertheless, as you mentioned earlier there are times when a scenario author might wish to place a few small areas on the map which are unusual, or difficult to get through. A wise attacker would more than likely attempt to avoid such areas if possible, however, in small doses they can add to some situations by allowing a defender to canalize an attacker into a kill zone. They can also give an attacker a "back door" to sneak in and take advantage of a sloppy defender who fails to provide for proper security.

You point is well taken though. Such rough or unusual terrain should not dominate the map or no one will want to use it.
 
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