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You will get some idea by right-clicking on any point of the map and bringing up the terrain info. In the pop-up box, you'll see the values for "direct" and "area" hit. The lower the value, the better the protection the terrain provides.
Note, however, that there is more to it. The protection that terrain provides also depends on the deployment-status of your unit. So, in order to determine how much protection a unit has, you need to look up the terrain type and cross-reference it with the deployment-status of the unit. I assume that the protection-values that you can find in the MapMaker are the protection-values for "moving" units (i.e. the weakest deployment status). I found them to be quite consistent throughout the scenarios:
terrain type direct hit / area hit- village 61/81
- town 41/61
- city 20/41
- industrial 41/61
- factory 41/61
- woods 41/115
- light woods 81/100
- orchards 90/100
- marsh 61/61
- heide 100/100
- polder 41/41
Note that these values (found in the map maker) differ quite a lot from those that the ingame-terrain-info-box shows you. Especially the values for "direct hit" are much lower ingame than those of the mapmaker. I don't know why, but I assume it's because the ingame-terrain-info shows values for "deployed" units, whereas the Mapmaker gives the value for "moving" units? (Also an answer here suggests this: http://www.matrixgames.com/FORUMS/tm.asp?m=2713510) There is no complete matrix of all deployment states per terrain type available.
Here is some formation I could find in an old post on the Matrix forum: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3252882&mpage=1&key=dug�
According to the info given by this link, the protection against indirect fire (artillery bombardments and air strikes) is fixed across all terrain types (which is of course contradictory to the info in the MapMaker and the terrain-info-box...): moving 100%, taking cover 50%, deployed 33%, dug-in 20%, entrenched 15%, fortified 10%. The protective effect against direct fire, however, depends on terrain. The link gives some examples:
deployment-level / open / scrub / village / town / city
moving / 100 / 81 / 61 / 41 / 20
taking cover / 67 / 58 / 50 / 35 / 18
deployed / 33 / 36 / 40 / 30 / 16
dug-in / 20 / 25 / 30 / 25 / 14
entrenched / 15 / 20 / 25 / 26 / 13
fortified 12 / 12 / 12 / 11 / 11
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example: Let's say we have a base LOS-quality of 100, the unit we're trying to spot is a unit of tanks which is deployed (not moving, not firing) and there are 3 squares of open ground and 3 squares of orchards in between us. The mapmaker tells us that the blocking value of orchards for deployed vehicles is 13 - for open ground, we assume it's 0. Now, we deduct 3x13 from our base quality of 100, which results in a chance of 61% to spot the tanks (for/in each minute). So, most likely, we will see (and maybe fire on) the enemy unit every now and then in short intervalls (shorter than 5 minutes, which will make the sighting-age current).
Here are the LOS-blocking values (per 100m²-square) for the most important terrain-types according to the map-maker. The values refer to the type of the unit you're trying to spot and the action of the unit you're trying to spot. Lower values indicate that the unit is easier to spot, higher values that it is harder to spot:
terrain type - personell (deployed/moving/firing) - vehicles (...) - guns (...)
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Important official post on the Matrix forum:
"IIRC [...] that for the LOS tool we work on a guaranteed LOS range of 150m from the edge of a standard unit radius of 75m, so hence a 225m from the centre of the selected grid."
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
A stationary unit has several advantages over a moving unit:
If the units are on equal terms otherwise, an attack usually needs fire support: You should use artillery (or other long-range weapons) to suppress the enemy in order to prevent him from firing at your approaching vulnerable, moving unit. Once your unit gets within sight and weapon range of the enemy unit, it will fire on it, forcing it to retreat (thereby leave its entrenchments). In a well supported attack, your infantry will not suffer a single casualty.
Generally speaking, I think it's important to emphasize that a single tracer/firing action should be considered to be quite an important event. Combat in Command Ops is represented by relatively few but very decisive (and sophisticately calculated) fire-events. If you mess things up and your unit gets fired upon, there is a chance (depending on the quality of the enemy fire) that the unit fails it's morale check and tretreats. This usually means that the unit is out for at least 20 minutes (until it finishes retreat-recovery).
(WIP)
- First, the volume of fire is determined. The game takes the % of men of the unit that can fire on the target according to the formation-effects of the current formation (see Annex "formation effects" in the manual). E.g. road columns have a very small allocation of men to the front. I don't know if cohesion plays an additional role here.
- The game also detemines how many and what kind of men/weapons in the target unit can be targeted (again - see "formation effects"). Additionally, there seems to be a complex routine to make heavier weapons less likely to be targeted: "Further, when firing we divide the unit into three zones- forward, middle and rear. Separate line of sight checks are done from each zone of the firing unit to each zone of the target - eg front to front, middle to middle and rear to rear. This filters out a certain percentage of targets and firing weapons if there is no line of sight for a particular aspect. In general a greater percentage of heavy weapons are assumed to be in the middle and rear zones."
- Once the game knows how many men/weapons are firing at how many targets, it determines the volume of fire. First, it seems as if all eligible weapons need to undergo a "reliability" check (all weapon-types have a reliability-stat) in order to fire. Then, the volume of fire obviously depends on the rate of fire-setting of the task the unit is currently carrying out. And of course all weapons have individual rates for all three settings (rapid/normal/slow). I've read that fatigue might reduce rate of fire.
- Once the volume of fire has been deteremined, the game takes into account the hitchance. Obviously this is where cover and deployment-status of the enemy unit come into play. Also, range/accuracy is a major factor (see the detailed ranges and accuracy of all weapons in the Estab Editor). Also units that fire downhill get a bonus, while units firing uphill get a malus. There might be many more factors that are unknown to me (unit training, unit experience, morale, cohesion, leadership...?). Also I assume that moving units have a malus on accuracy.
- Somehow, the volume of fire must be multiplied by the hit-chance to determine the effect of the fire. Even if a fire-action does not cause casualties, it might reduce the opponent's cohesion, raise suppression, cause fatigue. Effective fire might also force the receiving unit to check whether it loses morale.
- When a unit has fired, ammo is comsumed for each fired weapon according to the rate of fire. There is a short delay between the firing-action and the reduction of ammo. Keeping track of ammo can be very handy when you want to know what kind of weapons of the unit have actually fired. Moreover, cohesion might drop (?), fatigue may rise.
Fire-actions on armoured units work a bit differently, as they take into account armour values and penetration .... to be continued.-----------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
"Units firing up have a 0.8 and units firing down a 1.2 modifier on their effectiveness. The values for the deployment types depend on other factors. Suffice to say that they range from 0.5 to 0.125. "
* That is not quite true. I've just seen my unit of tanks fire a grey tracer. I took a look and found that I had 5 Churchill VIII 95CS in the unit. Their 95mm tank howitzers can actually fire "bombard"-ammo. So in fact it does seem as if tracers depend on ammo-type. (But then HE-rounds are considered to be anti-tank ammo....?).
Most of this is based on Bletchley_Greek's answer here: http://www.matrixgames.com/Forums/printable.asp?m=3526437
- The higher the aggro-setting of the task the unit is currently carrying out, the better (i.e. less likely the unit is to fail the check).
- If the unit is carrying out a static task (hold, defend, rest, reorg...?), then the higher the unit's stubbornness-stat, the better. If the unit is carrying out a task that involves movement (move, assault, ...?), then the higher the unit's aggressiveness-stat, the better. Remember the difference between tasks and orders (e.g. a defend-order usually generates a move-task, followed by a defend-task).
- The higher the unit's current cohesion, the better.
- The higher the aggressiveness-stat of the unit's commander, the better. The higher the determination-stat of the unit's commander, the better. (One would assume that this is task-specific, just like aggro and stubornness for the units themselves?)
- The better the current deployment-status of the unit, the better. (the forum-post suggests that there is a malus for 'open order' (=moving, halted, taking cover?))
- The cover provided by terrain also plays a role
- The distance to the unit's HQ (Now this is really interesting! Unfortunately, the post does not state if this refers to the organic HQ or the actual/player-structure-HQ. And also there is no precise info on the exact distance...)
- If the unit receives fire by enemies it can't see (see spotting), there is a special malus.
- The unit is currently taking direct fire (but e.g. tanks are not afraid of small arms fire)
- The unit is currently under artillery bombardement.
- The unit is currently being hit by an air strike.
- The higher the unit's training, the better.
- The higher the unit's experience, the better.
- If there are friendlies nearby that are already retreating/routing, then there is a higher chance to fail the check.
- Casualty rate (Unfortunately, the post does not give more precise info. Casualties suffered only recently, all casualties?)
- Armour shock effects. Quote: "Passive armour shock effect (this basically makes infantry outfits more sensitive towards enemy concentrations of armour); /// Enemy attack shock effect (amplified if the attacking enemy has a clear superiority of armour)"
Note that the actual morale-level of the unit is not listed in the answer to the forum-post. Maybe it was forgotten, but maybe it only comes into play later (see below).- carry on with its current task
- retreat in place (immediate "retreat recovery")
- conduct a retreat-movement and then go into "retreat recovery"
- rout
- surrender
- bunker down (I suppose this refers to composite units only - the HQ calls off an attack or probe)
The kind of reaction depends on the unit's current morale level and on whether the unit is currently under fire or not. Also, I suppose that a higher deployment-level increases the chance for a unit to retreat in place. Additional quote: "The most likely result is to retreat in good order. Routing is more likely to happen if the unit is already retreating. Note that surrender in CommandOps is rarely an "all or nothing" affair, units disintegrate over time. Note that a morale failure pushes units down a slippery slope: a unit that bunkers down is more likely to attract more fires, and hence, to retreat. Retreating units are more vulnerable, and their casualty rates go up, triggering more important morale failures, so they eventually rout. Routing units are extremely vulnerable to fires, and are prone to disintegrate while on the run if under pursuit by enemy forces or exposed to important amounts of enemy firepower."ORDER TO A "SINGLE TOKEN" UNIT:
- The unit starts to process the order immediateily. You'll notice that the background of the unit's task-symbol turns pink. This means that the unit is processing new orders.
- Processing an order takes some time (ca. 10-15 minutes). Allegedly, the duration is influenced by the staff efficiency value (force tab/ Cmd) and the training and experience of the unit.
- Once the unit has finished processing the order (background of task-symbol switches back to white):
- the unit cancels its active/former order.
- the unit assigns a new task to itself based on the new order. You'll see that the unit now has a new task-icon.
- Note that even though a unit does not start its movement until the starting time of the task, it will already adopt the formation it will use on the movement by the time it has finished processing its order.
- However, this does not mean that a unit starts to carry out its new task immediately. Rather, the starting time for the new task is set to a time-point which is calculated thus:
- The most important question is how force delay is calculated. Unfortunately, this is shrouded in mystery. There is lots of info in the manual, but I can't say that it helps. I have not seen any consistency that the manual would help to explain, to be honest. I'm not sure if command overload, and command ranges/distances work as intended.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------time at which the order has been issued (not processed) + force delay of the unit receiving the order
So, for example: At 05:30 you issue an order to a company. The company has a force delay of 15 minutes. The company starts processing the order at 05:30. As it finishes order processing (after 10 minutes at 05:40), it assigns itself a new task. The starting time of that task is set to 05:45 (order issued at 05:30 + force delay 15 = 05:45). So your unit will strart to move at 05:45.
ORDER TO A "COMPOSITE" UNIT:
For example: You issue an attack-order to a Battalion-HQ-unit (which commands 3 infantry companies and 2 support assets) at 05:30. Let's say that the battalion-HQ has a force delay of 60 minutes. The battalion-HQ immediately starts processing the order, which takes 15 minutes (05:45). Once processing is finished, the battalion-HQ-unit sets a task to itself (e.g. it issues itself a movement-order to the fire-base location of the attack) and generates a new hierarchy for its subordinate units: it puts A coy in command of B and C coy - this is the attack group - while itself takes control over the two support assets (the fire-base-group). You can look up the hierarchy by using the "Current Op Plan Structure"-OOB-filter. As the battalion-HQ finishes processing the order, its directly subordinate units now start processing their own orders. You'll notice that both support assets and A coy will now turn pink and process orders (but not B and C coy, as these are subordinate to A coy!). Once they've processed their orders, they set themselves tasks and B and C coy start processing their orders. Note that ALL tasks that result from your initial order to the battalion-HQ have their starting time set to the time of the order (05:30) + the force delay of the receiver (60 minutes) = 06:30. So, none of the battalion's units starts moving before 06:30 (except for some formation/facing changes).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTACK:
MOVE:
DEFEND:
Note that if you're giving order to single-token-units, the unit's task-symbol is often located exactly underneath (hidden under) the order-symbol. You can access it by clicking on the order-symbol once more.
* official quote: "The STandard FUP Reorg Durations depend on the size of the force: Force Size = ArmyGp, Army, Corps, Div, Bde, Bn, Coy, Pl, Sect; const int kStandardFUPReorgDuration[] = { 60, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 20, 15, 10 };"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is going to be very complicated.... :D
... to be continued.
(WIP)
Some first notes:
As soon as one weapon-type within a unit runs lower than 50% of its standard load (you can look that up in the weapon's performance tab), the unit makes an emergency resupply request. Note that this is very often triggered if a unit fires - for example - HE-rockets with their RPGs. As the standard load of HE rockets for RPGs is usually very low, a single shot might already trigger an emergency resupply-request of the unit.
Once the supply-column reaches the unit, you will note that it does not only bring supply for the weapon-type that had triggered the request, but also for the other weapons in the unit. I assume that the "ammo" setting of the task that the unit is currently carrying out determines how much ammo the supply-run carries? Also, it seems as if ammo can never get higher than the sum of all the standard loads of the weapons in the unit.
Moreover, it's interesting to note that there seems to be some time-intervall until the unit can request emergency-resupply again. E.g. 2 HE-rockets for my RPGs arrive and are immediately fired away, yet the unit (who had just received these two rockets) does not request resupply. (Perhaps the supply column must first return to the depot?).
One thing that is very interesting: If a unit has sent a resupply request and the column has already dispatched but has not yet reached the unit, you can see the actual movement-route of the resupply column from the base to your unit if you turn on "supply lines". (For other units who are not in the process of being supplied you'll just see the ordinary lines to their depot.) The last part of the supply-column route is blue. If I remember correclty this last part of the transport is supposed to be made by the unit itself, not by the supply column (I guess this keeps the supply column safe when it resupplies units up front that are under fire...).
ARTILLERY
(WIP) meanwhile: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3286717&mpage=1&key=�
ON CALL-REQUESTS
You don't have to give all bombardment orders yourself, as this might get very tedious very soon. You can let the friendly AI handle some of it for you. Units in CO2 can request for artillery bombardments by friendly arty units. All arty units that are "on-call" (and not on a "direct support only" task) are eligible to answer a request for arty support. An artillery unit is "on-call" if it is deployed and has either no task at all or a defend task.
Sending requests
Every minute, every unit checks whether it is aware of an enemy unit worth triggering an arty support request. A stationary unit checks it's surroundings in a 2000m radius, a moving unit checks some (unknown) distance ahead around (radius unknown) of its movement path. If there are (reports of) enemy units in the specified range, the unit might call for arty support on it. The chance for sending a request depends on: 1) Is the enemy unit currently visible to the unit/an active threat (higher chance) or a sighting of some other unit/general intel (smaller chance)? 2) Is the enemy unit active (higher chance), i.e. firing, assaulting, reorging, bombarding) or not (smaller chance)? If a certain threshold is reached, the unit (maybe rather its direct superior?) will call for arty support.
Answering requests
If a unit sends an arty support request, all arty units in the "on call" pool are eligible to answer it. I assume that the game simply goes through the arty units until one of them passes a positive check or all have failed. The chance for an arty unit to answer a request depends on:
1) The ammo level - the more ammo an arty unit has, the more likely it is to answer a call
2) The structural distance to the requesting unit. Basically, all arty units that share a common superior (any number of levels up in the OOB structure) can answer a requesting unit. However, the greater the OOB distance, the smaller the chance. For example, Corps-level artillery is rather unlikely to answer the request of a company. And an artillery unit that had been assigned to battalion A will be more unlikely to answer the call of battalion B than, for example, an artillery unit that had been assigned to battalion B, or perhaps even the regimental HQ.
3) The Judgement stat (see force-tab/cmd) of the directly superior unit of the arty unit which is being checked. It's not sure that a higher judgement rating automatically leads to a higher chance, but rather a less random chance.
Direct support only
You tick a "arty direct support only" box in your orders. What this should do is to make any artillery units that are part of the order uneligible for support requests unless they come from its current "task-force" (i.e. the group of units that have been assigned this very order). This should make sure that the artillery is not occupied firing requests made by other forces.
(Still very WIP, need to conduct more tests)
In the formation-effects (annex B, p.198), you'll see that there is a cohesion-value for each type of formation. How to interpret this value for single-token units?
While moving, a unit usually loses cohesion. The loss of cohesion doesn't seem to be connected to the unit changing its facing on the move (as the manual suggests), but rather it seems to be based on the "moving" status itself. Cohesion-loss-rate might be influenced by the unit's training and experience.
However, there are also instances in which I've seen units recover cohesion while on the move. I suspect that there is some calculation going on in the background, setting positive factors (formation type, unit type, etc.) against negative factors (terrain type, formation type etc.). For example, motorized units seem to be more likely to recover cohesion on the move than foot-units. And units in road-column that are below the cohesion-threshold of the road-column formation tend to recover cohesion on the move until they reach the threshold.
By movement alone, a moving unit only loses cohesion until it reaches the threshold given by the appendix. For example, a unit that moves in road-column will never have its cohesion lowered below 90 by movement alone (i.e. unless other factors such as enemy fire and formation-changes set in). Likewise, a unit moving in vee-formation will not have its cohesion lowered below 50, etc. Once cohesion reaches the threshold-value, cohesion simply stays at the formation-threshold, even though the unit keeps moving. Here are the cohesion thresholds for all formation-types (note that these are based on my tests in the actual game, the info given by the manual is wrong in some cases):
Units lose larger junks of cohesion when they're changing formation. For example, when a unit reaches the destination of its defend-order, it will change from road-column to its specified defend-formation, which will lead to a loss of cohesion. Cohesion loss due to formation-changes might very well lower cohesion below the cohesion-thresholds of the new/old formation.
Changing facing does not seem to affect cohesion?
Stationary units recover cohesion fast (as the negative factor "movement" is missing). I suppose that stationary units with a reorg-task recover cohesion even faster.
Movement speed is a combination of:
MODIFYING ACTIVE ORDERS
(WIP)
UNDERSTANDING UNIT-STATS
(WIP!)
Unit stats
- Aggression: The higher the aggression of a unit, the more likely it will continue to carry out a task that involves movement (move, assault) in bad conditions (being under fire, low cohesion, etc.). In other words: the less likely it will be forced to conduct morale-tests, or the less likely it will stop its movement. //// Moreover, aggression might also increase the chance for a unit to fire (at longer ranges - based on the three ranges of each unit: ambush/effective/maximum - these ranges are represented if you turn on range-rings)
- Stubornness: The higher the stubornness of a unit, the more likely it will continue to carry out a stationary task (defend, hold, reorg, rest?) in bad conditions (lower chance to go into retreat-mode).
Unit-leader-statsARCHIVE OF INTERESTING OFFICIAL POSTS ON THE MATRIX & PANTHER GAMES FORUMS
These are official posts that provide some insights into thow the game works. I'm just collecting them here for my own reference. I'll be adding most of the info to the posts above (hopefully in a way in which everyone can understand them).
Even some I was not aware of.
Good job Mogli.