Artillery

[monkeyb 0]

Are there any plans for modders to implement Arty later on a la http://www.thechainofcommand.com/ united artillery mod?

[Guest Ti0n3r]

woot ArmA will feautre arty out of the box!

WorthPlaying.com

Quote[/b] ]We were then told that a new feature is the player's ability to call down air strikes or artillery strikes, which wasn't shown but would definitely even the odds when faced with charging up a hillside against a waiting enemy.

[mahuja 12]

...that doesn't have to mean much. Esp if marketmonkeys have been involved, they could easily be referring to a script spawning and detonating shells...

Though on the other hand, it may be an easier version of the VBS artillery module. For all we know, they might have adopted the UA engine...

So until official word comes out, or until I see it myself, I'm not going to believe it has true artillery support in the game itself.

I'd hope for the first one to happen in this thread though.

[Guest Ti0n3r]

they could easily be referring to a script spawning and detonating shells...

I doubt that. Shell spawning would be a little too simple for a 2006 PC game.

The official statement + the arty seen in the official trailer is proof enough for me.

[UNN 0]

It will be interesting to see how the AI use it. The use of binoculars in OFP is limited when it comes to static observation for the AI, on a couple levels.

[Scrub 0]

Not trying to do a conspiracy theroy here, but does anybody know if a version of COC UA -is- used by BIS for ArmA?  IIRC, they had a new version they were working on for OFP about a year (more?) ago, interface and optimisation, you know, and it never was released.    

That would be a bit more than the cherry on top of ArmA for me.  

(Dinger? Any comment? anyone? Bueller?)

[monkeyb 0]

woot ArmA will feautre arty out of the box!

WorthPlaying.com

Quote[/b] ]We were then told that a new feature is the player's ability to call down air strikes or artillery strikes, which wasn't shown but would definitely even the odds when faced with charging up a hillside against a waiting enemy.

Thats good, I was hoping that would be the case.

Ah well now the wait will be even worse.

[jotte 0]

A variation/develpment of the artillery function avalible in the VBS1 ADF2 addon would be my guess.

[Nathan Bedford Forrest 0]

CoC'll update theirs I'd say

[Second 0]

I'm not big fan of COC or WGL-mods artillery. They shoot true shells that fly and hit, but they also consume power from processor as that power could be used to AI or something else. Also i'm not compelitily sure that OFPs or even AAs ballistic model is accurate enough to model some 30 km long shots. Not nice surprice to find out that indirect fire went short some 500m killing your CO. Creating shells and determing distripution by values and mathematics is more effective way.

Forexample COCs scifi map deploy firemissions and action-menu-panic are not that fancy as you shouting to radio WITH YOUR FACE RED coordinates, direction, length, etc. Again FDF-mod takes the lead with simple but realistic looking way (you tap firemission orders to SANLA. altough being too simple but then again how many of us are trained FOs (As a grunt in OFP you don't need to know how the gun works or how you place yourself to proneposition (legs, elbows, shoulder low etc.) you just tap "z" then "v" and press "mouse button 1").

I'm not trained FO and in COC unified artillery i didn't hit the target (two scattered infantry platoons inside valley) with my mortar platoon even at tenth adjusting round, when shell hit at 100m away from target and next (after tiiny-wiiny adjustment) round flew about half kilometer long. And that doesn't please me.

[gunterlund 0]

I'm not big fan of COC or WGL-mods artillery. They shoot true shells that fly and hit, but they also consume power from processor as that power could be used to AI or something else. Also i'm not compelitily sure that OFPs or even AAs ballistic model is accurate enough to model some 30 km long shots. Not nice surprice to find out that indirect fire went short some 500m killing your CO. Creating shells and determing distripution by values and mathematics is more effective way.

I think your really missing out on this one. With the WGL mortar system you can drop a shell within 10's of feet of the proposed target. I have had no problem interdicting troops. In fact its almost too accurate.

The CoC system can also be adjusted to the map size by adding logics to the mission.

[dinger 1]

Okay, I'll raise to the bait:

Quote[/b] ]

I'm not big fan of COC or WGL-mods artillery. They shoot true shells that fly and hit, but they also consume power from processor as that power could be used to AI or something else.

When you squeeze off an M16 in "Burst" mode, you use as much processor power as a UA battery firing a round. You'll find that in the heat of combat, UA is consuming very little CPU power. We tried to keep things as lean as possible for the time.

And for calculating a ballistic solution, neural nets are really fast -- far faster than a traditional ballistic calculation

Quote[/b] ]Also i'm not compelitily sure that OFPs or even AAs ballistic model is accurate enough to model some 30 km long shots. Not nice surprice to find out that indirect fire went short some 500m killing your CO. Creating shells and determing distripution by values and mathematics is more effective way.

You don't have to be completely sure. We researched the matter long before we released UA, and we are completely sure.

Actually, in a sense, you're right. If you simply tell the AI to fire the shells in a certain direction, and -- assuming TTL is not a problem -- measure where they land, you will find the granularity you speak of.

So we put in a firing routine that gets us the precision we need, while still having ballistic shells -- UA's 'natural' precision error is on the order of centimeters. We then add in some barrel and wind dispersion, calibrating it so that the Probable Error values come out at plausible for any given range. If you don't like those values, you can set your own: we've opened the variables for you.

So to answer your question, we use mathematics -- some really fancy math, to be precise -- and we use the game engine to get the best of both worlds. The only additional load on the game environment UA provides over a traditional artillery script (and I've written those, too) is caused by A) having the firing units on map and B) caused by the AI reacting to shells that are being fired from actual units. As added bonuses, we get all kinds of interesting terrain interactions, and superior tactical situations.

Quote[/b] ]

Forexample COCs scifi map deploy firemissions and action-menu-panic are not that fancy as you shouting to radio WITH YOUR FACE RED coordinates, direction, length, etc. Again FDF-mod takes the lead with simple but realistic looking way (you tap firemission orders to SANLA. altough being too simple but then again how many of us are trained FOs (As a grunt in OFP you don't need to know how the gun works or how you place yourself to proneposition (legs, elbows, shoulder low etc.) you just tap "z" then "v" and press "mouse button 1").

Yes, UA 1.0 does not have a dialog system; Yeah, FDF has a FED-type device. It's true that dialogs are nicer. But you'd be wrong if you believed that since UA 1.0, we over at CoC have been sitting on our butts, or that we never intended to put a dialog on top of it.

If you want to call stuff in as a trained FO, well, I agree, you should run out and buy the VBS1 Artillery Module, complete with its nearly 20-page Call For Fire interface. (but it's still dead easy to just yell in fire for effect, 123456, infantry company in open).

I agree that OFP is a game, and it shouldn't require such a barrier to entry as being able to read a map in order to play it. But that doesn't mean that designs should be made so the least motivated can master it. Again, we're not all trained FOs. It should be simple enough to get shells on target.

On the other hand, being a FO is a specialty, like being the commander, or the guy who drives tanks, or the guy who blows up tanks. For me, a proper game should offer depth to the roles. We can all fly helicopters, but only the best in-game pilots can take teams in NOE at the lowest profile possible, minimizing detection before delivering everybody at the perfect infil LZ. Likewise, everyone should be able to call in artillery, more or less, but the more experienced should be able to bring in just the right linear sheaf of VT HE on the infantry column sneaking up the valley.

And when I'm playing in a MP group, I want my helo ace flying me in, a good stealthy leader, a proper sniper, and a guy on the radio who call in a lot of pain. Oh yeah, and I want gunterland backing me up on mortars. I don't need to play all those roles -- just one of them. My buddies play the others. That sort of depth is what makes games like this rewarding.

Quote[/b] ]

I'm not trained FO and in COC unified artillery i didn't hit the target (two scattered infantry platoons inside valley) with my mortar platoon even at tenth adjusting round, when shell hit at 100m away from target and next (after tiiny-wiiny adjustment) round flew about half kilometer long. And that doesn't please me.

yeah, things like elevation differences add to the complexity of artillery. When you use a static "mathematically generated" method of spawning shells, the problem is much simpler.

Anyway, don't worry about it being too hard. Most OFP matches need more infantry than forward observers anyway.

[Cifu 0]

...Most OFP matches need more infantry than forward observers anyway....

Touche!

[Zerg 0]

Also i'm not compelitily sure that OFPs or even AAs ballistic model is accurate enough to model some 30 km long shots. Not nice surprice to find out that indirect fire went short some 500m killing your CO.

....

I'm not trained FO and in COC unified artillery i didn't hit the target (two scattered infantry platoons inside valley) with my mortar platoon even at tenth adjusting round, when shell hit at 100m away from target and next (after tiiny-wiiny adjustment) round flew about half kilometer long. And that doesn't please me.

Maybe you didn`t hit with theese modded mortars, but I assure you that that is certainly not due to any flaws of OFP`s ballistic model.

CTI shellers in team matches (using tanks as arty) regularly hit the enemy base over 5 kilometres away and often without any kind of spotter altogether (relying only on the coordinates). How many correction shells are needed for a first hit varies wildly (with the skill of the sheller), but once on target they do not loose their aim and are capable of making minor corrections to succesfully target induvidual buildings in the base.

Therefore something tells me the core OFP ballistics are very predictable and manegeble.

[Scrub 0]

Thanks for the words, Dinger. (Love the UA)

[mahuja 12]

I'm not trained FO and in COC unified artillery i didn't hit the target (two scattered infantry platoons inside valley) with my mortar platoon even at tenth adjusting round, when shell hit at 100m away from target and next (after tiiny-wiiny adjustment) round flew about half kilometer long. And that doesn't please me.

.... Here's a tip for ya. Order TWO(2) markers. That will often give you some idea of the distribution error.

If the previous marker landed at the edge of said area, and you adjust for it, the whole pattern will be off.

[snoops_213 75]

...that doesn't have to mean much. Esp if marketmonkeys have been involved, they could easily be referring to a script spawning and detonating shells...

Though on the other hand, it may be an easier version of the VBS artillery module. For all we know, they might have adopted the UA engine...

So until official word comes out, or until I see it myself, I'm not going to believe it has true artillery support in the game itself.

I'd hope for the first one to happen in this thread though.

what gets my hopes up are comments like

"for example, ambushing the convoy first may result in the capture of some artillery pieces that can then be used against the guard post and base to significantly reduce the enemy threat from a safe distance."

thats what placebo said in part 2 interview with RPG Vault. So heres hopeing:)

[mahuja 12]

what gets my hopes up are comments like

"for example, ambushing the convoy first may result in the capture of some artillery pieces that can then be used against the guard post and base to significantly reduce the enemy threat from a safe distance."

thats what placebo said in part 2 interview with RPG Vault. So heres hopeing:)

I'd like to believe myself, (I'm hoping for it) but even that doesn't quite convince me; the "ambush convoy" thing could be a separate mission, where having captured the artillery pieces would enable the spawnshell/destroy type script in the next, "main" mission.

[Guest Ti0n3r]

That would be a little farfetched, don't you think?

[ryankaplan 1]

no it wouldn't.

[Second 0]

THANKS TO YOU DINGER!

Seems like i've been wrong about CPU power and Ballistics consume in UA... then the answer must that i simply SUCK as FO. I don't think it's been matter of devotion to learn, i've tried to handle UA. But when i just don't get adjusting rounds and much less fire for effect to right spot. It is neat addon and as you said, it is good that game has depth (has it more and more by time). That was my opinion , which might easily change. I'm more that grunt which blows tanks up with launchers and shoots with rifle... at the end.

Can you give me answer to why forexample BMP1 73mm shots some times (extremely rarely) perform very strangely. If target is over hill and i shoot it, round hits hill few meters low of target and after rising aiming a bit it shoots over of target. by these events i'm not too sure about OFPs ballistics, but if you can clear this to me.

The main reason why i don't like UA (along with reason that i don't hit) is it's actionmenu based system. I don't get pleasure out of it. FDFmod you can write down fireposition-card to paper (reminding me of days in Finnish Defenceforces) where you put down firemissionscodes, main features of terrain etc... (and it has effect to assigning firemissions quicker) I'm not blaming the system, it's just not for me as i don't give a damn about actual howitsers and mortars in the map or how skillfully they were created and modelled (both which at start felt neat).

Most pleasure i've get of my own scripts, which can be assigned to actual FOs which handle indirect fire's use as it sees it "Best". I just shoot, fight and fear that next firemission lands upon me and not the next platoon to right. As still i haven't met the one that gives AI the same way of using indirectfire as to me, which means actively and unpredictaple.

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to second

UA whether the currently available version in OFP or its big brother in the VBS1 Artillery Module (AM) does not use the standard shell shot ballistics model in the OFP engine. So comparing UA's ballistics to the shell shot from a BMP1 73mm is a waste of time. Like comparing an Orange to an Elephant.

The CoC long ago discovered the limitations of standard OFP shot shell ballistics. They are reasonable for flat trajectories although just the same as trajectory calculation in any simulation they approximate more and more over distance. This is well known problem in simulation caused by an exponential increase in calculation load over distance. Add in lots of shells and bullets of lots of AI and players then suddenly your processor will stall out. The only solution is to increase granularity.

In fact I am amazed that the current OFP engine is so good. Even after all these years it beats other systems hands down.

That said we use our own proprietary Neural Net based ballistic technology for all our artillery simulations. Which is actually more accurate than traditional firing table solutions and uses about 100th of the computing power. The increased accuracy means we have to degrade the solutions to make them act like firing table based solutions.

As to interface and method of entry the VBS1 AM and indeed the as yet unreleased next version of UA both have digital entry systems, both are fully customisable for depth of simulation. Magic/Sci Fi point at a spot all the way up to and beyond VBS1 AM's capabilities.

As Dinger said he put together far more complex magic cam-create etc shells suddenly appearing out of the sky artillery long before FDF as did many others check out your OFPEC scripting history. I still think Dinger's was the best of those too. It was one of the reasons he was asked to join The CoC.

I and Jostapo had a real problem trying to explain why shells falling out of the sky just could not cut it. The reasons were complex and involved a massive amount of higher level math.

But for a simple explanation consider the following factors:

* Any one on the reverse slope of steep hill cannot be hit by flat trajectory artillery

* Steep trajectory artillery takes longer to arrive

* over shoots of flat trajectory shells on a reverse slope are larger than flat ground often by hundreds of yards

* Time of flight can only be accurately modeled with a true ballistic solution

* If you are on the lee side of a building your chances of being hit are lower even with steep trajectory fire (do a graph)

* AI reacts to Artillery that comes from a real gun

* Steep sided valleys may be completely inaccessible to fire depending on distance of the artillery from target and available charges...

The list goes on and it is why we at the CoC and in fact the majority of OFP MODs think magic shells created in the sky just does not cut it.

Kind Regards Walker

[wheres my rabbit ? 10]

coc arty ..what a load of rubbish...

are you guys deaf or something MIKE TANGO OSCAR!!!! :P

<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>best addon ever</span>

[deanosbeano 0]

well i think a mixture of both real guns firing and a slpattering of extra shells on impact of the fired shell, is the most lag free , acurate way for artilery.whilst i do agree the coc is a good second . as always i bow down to the work COC has put into its engine but for me its just oh so much of a muchness. just my opinion.for what i need. the underneath quick video does me every time.

artilery simple an effective

ps. cant seem to get it playin with firefox no script = off

best viewed with cough* i.e cough*

with added german lingo lol.

[dslyecxi 23]

Chain of Command: Unified Artillery v1.1 Beta Preview

48 screens, 7 videos, all showing off the new as-yet-unreleased UA 1.1.

If you guys were wondering what kind of improvements CoC did to the UA addon post-release of CoC UA 1.0, you should probably check that little article out.

Summary is basically that UA 1.0 was just the tip of the iceberg. UA 1.1 surpasses it in every single way, and it's faaaaantastic.