Invisible Units

[potski]

Is it just me, or do we get much more attacks from "invisible" units? In earlier games, and on one of the artwork loading screens it says, when a gun, such as AT or AA opened fire it revealed its position. A player can avoid this by firing once and then immediately moving backwards deeper into cover, but it's quite a bit micro. However, the AI never did that, Units at the edge of a treeline became visible once firing, and I'm sure that was the case during the beta. But recently I see tanks getting stressed from being hit, where I cannot see on the map where the fire is coming from. Obviously, with the ranges and hills, you can be sniped from quite far away, and it might not be obvious where to look. But I've seen this happen where a group of tanks is being attacked by an AT gun in trees, where it couldn't have come from very long range, or from a hill, and in Army General with not huge numbers of units on the map. Taking the time to study, I thought that muzzle flashes seemed to be coming from a particular bit of forest and sending an infantry unit there revealed an AT gun. These invisible guns can easily become devastating for a group of tanks, as they don't seem to auto-target the AT gun to return fire, if they can't see it.

This evening I had further confirmation. Sending a group of ISU's into a forested area there was an AA gun auto-cannon quite close to them, I knew its position as I had seen it firing at my planes just before, but thought I had knocked it out by strafing it. The ISU's got a hail of cannon fire, but the gun firing it was not revealed. I zoomed in on the map and could see where all of the tracer was coming from, but the ISU's didn't seem to be able to despite being hit dozens of times, and were picked off one at a time while they fired at other targets. Taking control of them, I tried a Fire at Position to send a couple of their huge HE explosions as close as I could to where the AA gun was located, but seemingly without any effect. It's almost as if when it is invisible it cannot be hit. Perhaps it did get stressed, but with no icon visible for the AA gun, you can't see whether the explosions had any effect.

Is it a bug in the way the optics work?

[FREEZED]

it is working as intended, some unit do not show up automatically when they fire so you need to use recons on some cases to spot those.

[Wombat Warrior]

Actually its not. As I and other have reported artillery doesnt always render giving you mystery explosions, just had a game where an at gun sat in an ambushing position in full view of 3, yes 3, recon units and it still got 10 shots into a tiger without being spotted. This is by far one of the worst executed games at lauch I have ever played.

[Kaziglu Bey]

Nothing odd here. Some guns have decent stealth and units like the ISU's are blind mice by nature. Always keep at least some regular infantry around your tanks.They can spot most units well enough.

[skc]

Originally posted by Wombat Warrior:

Actually its not. As I and other have reported artillery doesnt always render giving you mystery explosions, just had a game where an at gun sat in an ambushing position in full view of 3, yes 3, recon units and it still got 10 shots into a tiger without being spotted. This is by far one of the worst executed games at lauch I have ever played.

No, its executing far better. A tank should not necessarily see where the shots are coming from. I've seen it in MP and my tanks are being hit but I cant quite see what from. Thats fine, it's my fault for sending the tanks in blind.

[僕の名前 (仮)]

Tanks optics was nerfed some time ago, recon or infantry could see gun shooting, but tanks alone can't.

[potski]

OK, this makes sense. IRL a tank commander from inside his tank had really limited visibility. Though, of course, if not under direct fire they would open the hatch and stand up with binoculars to get a good all round view. Ideally if they are not moving and not being fired on, then their optics would improve, but at a much higher risk that the first shot against them kills the commander.

I guess the issue is that the artwork loading screen tells you that a gun always reveals itself, when it doesn't, and that was (I'm sure?) the way it always worked in previous games. I guess I can't reproduce it against the AI to get free shots if the AI knows to always accompany tanks with infantry, which is what I normally do especially in forested areas, so I don't really see this against me very often. The attack by the ISUs wasn't accompanied by infantry as they were supposed to be clearing the way in exceptionally highly defended area on the highway map, historical battle, around the cross roads in the woods on the left as Soviets. That was clearly a mistake. But an initial assault with infantry and flame tanks was annihilated. Not sure how to deal with that one, short of massive artillery preparation, and aerial bombing before sending in infantry with the ISUs to take out that AA gun. I guess the gun won't fire on the infantry first, so they can still act as "spotter" for enough time to allow the ISUs to get some fire on it..

But guess I never bothered so much with infantry with the tanks, when the tanks were in a very open area where enemy AT infantry couldn't get close and they had clear views of where AT guns might fire on them, thinking they would immediately spot a gun if fired on, even if their optics are poor. Such as sitting on a ridge line with clear views in front. They seem to have multiple shots bounce from their armour without still spotting the gun that is firing, and even a heavy tank will succumb to several free shots like that. A group of medium tanks against a 75mm gun that doesn't reveal itself will get wiped out fairly quickly.

It makes more interesting gameplay and tactics as you can no longer guarantee to dominate a position from high ground with tanks, such as the map with three or four hills that are 100% open on top, where you don't want to put infantry for fear of arty fire. But the tanks now just get sniped if they sit there for any length of time. The AI is pretty good at it!

[jswarpaint]

When I use my AT guns against the AI usually they cannot see them until AFTER the 2nd shot but often they seem to know the exact unit I have hiding in the woods and if its infantry with no AT they just run there tanks all around it right at it but this is another issue woo hoo