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Fire Task not working in HTTR scenarios

Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor

Panther Games Designer
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Jul 31, 2014
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Hi all. I've raised this thread here so I can respond to a post on the Steam Discussions forum. Alas, Steam won't let me post an edited screen dump there, which is damned annoying.

IIsjen,

As I was saying on the Steam forum, I ran the HTTR Operation Garden Final Phase scenario and issued fire orders to various units. I did manage to get a fire mission executed successfully - ie the unit actually fired. See this screen dump:
HTTR Fire Mission.jpg

But what I found was that it didn't always work. So I stepped through the code and found that mostly it was because it failed to get a valid line of sight (LOS). Using the 2nd Irish Gds Recce Troop in the above example, if I placed the objective a little higher the LOS would pass through the village and the LOS would be blocked.
Village Blocking LOS.jpg
Also, on other occassions, the LOS was blocked because of the intervening terrain effects on the probability of visibility. This terrain, while very flat has a lot of vegetation in the form of polder and orchards. In our example the orchard where the objective is has a maximum vis range of 1500 metres. The range is just under 500m but the intervening terrain is predominantly polder. This represents flat farmland with ditches and embankments that are lined with trees and dense shrubs. These seriously diminish the probability of gaining an effective LOS. So, you need to be close. I've actually visited this neck of the woods and in general when you are on the ground you can often only see a 100m.

You also need to take understand that the enemy unit is really just a sighting report taken at a certain time. As time passes the report ages and its reliability and currency diminish. So you may still see the report even though right now you can't get an effective LOS on it.

We debated long and hard about whether to include the Fire order in the game, because of all these factors bearing on its effectiveness. In general play I never issue Fire orders. I leave that up to the AI to conduct fires as part of the reaction code that it implemented each minute. But the order can be useful for orchestrating your own attacks etc. And that's why we left it in.

What I think would help is if we had:
  • a report that you can't get a valid LOS when trying execute a fire event
  • automatically rule out your ability to place a fire order on a location the selected subject cannot currently see. This is a little more ambitious and more work and will need to be tested thoroughly. This may slow down the game a tad while placing a Fire order.
I've added this to our wish list and we'll try and implement it soon.
 

simovitch

Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2014
Messages
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Age
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Yes, I just tested a Bastogne scenario and it worked fine. Range, LOS, cohesion, good order, all have to be right for this order to work. I use it occasionally with the hopes of getting an extra punch in.
 
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