Friendly Fire ?!!!!

[meeso]

i was just playing with AI and, as i was destroying its base, my units got mixed up between twin machine gun, medium cannon, and grenadier cyborgs. I observed that, since there were no enemy units anywhere anymore, my units got damaged and destroyed by friendly fire especially as the grenadiers fired from a distance while turrets moved close to targeted buildings. Also, cannons shot friendly units which happened to be located across its fire range and direction !! It's the first time i observe this, and i like it, though it's very difficult sometimes to control one's attack in a manner that does not lead to damage from own fire!

What do you think?

[lav_coyote25]

friendly fire, isnt.

[meeso]

friendly fire, isnt.

[ ]

[Outlaw325]

I've noticed friendly fire with artillery, but I've never noticed it from cannons and that (then again, the area of effect on a cannon is pathetic, so no surprise). Just spread your units out more, and use artillery first, and THEN send in the main assault force when the arty's done

[LZ compromised]

As far as I know, splash damage from your weaponry hurts everything, including your own units. So anything with an "s" in the Damage column here can potentially cause friendly fire.

[milo christiansen]

Also if your cannon misses and hits a friendly instead, it will hurt that friendly.

[meeso]

darn friendly fire is waaay too heavy with cannons. And problem is that, despite of that, cannons come too near the structures they're targeting as they fire at it, so there is also the splash damage !!! WHY?

I was just testing and managed to create a suicide pool of cannons where they just shot each other as they were aiming at targets! So funny. However there is no reason for cannons to get too close to their targets like this; it's becoming impossible to mass attack with cannons this way as they become intertwined together and around the targets they're shooting at, killing one another in big numbers and rapidly!

i do like that. natural and realistic restriction on massive attacks with cannons!

i have a savegame file for demonstration, but the .gam file is not possible to be uploaded here!

[Mats]

Try telling cannons to target at 'long range' instead of 'optimum'.

[Saberuneko]

Friendly Fire gives this game more realistic gameplay.

[lav_coyote25]

Friendly Fire gives this game more realistic gameplay.

yes, your correct, but it is most annoying thing i have ever lived through!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[meeso]

Ok .. here are my observation for yet another testing for friendly fire and splash damage:

1)
i built rows and rows of bombard pits and they did great in destroying hard AI, but then, enemy vtol destroyed one of my oil derricks close to the mortar pits. I neglected it; then an enemy cyborg engineer came out to acquire it and walked all through the pits to get to it. The pits fired automatically at the cyborg, and in few seconds, they all destroyed one another
i don't know but certainly more than 20 pits were destroyed by one another, and only because a lowly cyborg passed through them!

2)
Grenadiers and cannons suicide themselves very frequently because of the topology calculation thing, and also because of friendly fire as enemy units, especially cyborgs, sometimes burst running in their direction causing them to shoot one another. In a fast paced game, one sends units to aim at a target, and leave them at it without having to follow whether they will end up shooting themselves or one another because they are shooting the hill right in front of them rather than the target!! REALISTICALLY speaking, no unit ever shoots unless it will not kill itself or other friendly units. Having to organize this manually in a game like warzone is simply impossible.

Conclusion:
Splash/friendly fire is making it very difficult to use mortar pits because they fire automatically at the nearest target. a simple cyborg passing through them will destroy them all without itself firing anything at them! This is too bad. Splash/friendly fire also makes it impossible to amass cannons, grenadiers, or rockets, because of the same reason mentioned above (sending units in their direction will inevitably lead to self-damage), and thus makes it very very difficult to win opponent and AI, which also amasses units within its base which cannot be quelled unless by mass attacks! Finally, there are some nice "realistic" aspects in splash/friendly fire, but it is never realistic for mortar pits to fire at themselves! mortar pits must therefore be programmed not to do so. Although still, many of my units which were away from the mortars, died because they were in direct close combat with enemy units which the mortars targeted and killed along with friendly units as well; and this is just crazy.

Suggestions for solutions would be perhaps the reduction of damage by friendly/splash fire so that it becomes much much less than that. Otherwise games will last for tooooo long before one can win over another! However i support topology factors although sometimes units so unrealistically commit suicide because you simply sent them to bring down an oil derrick.

Finally a question, is this friendly/splash fire thing a new feature in WZ? i don't remember experiencing it even in 2.3.5 !!

What do you think?

thanks

[LZ compromised]

In a fast paced game, one sends units to aim at a target, and leave them at it [...] Having to organize this manually in a game like warzone is simply impossible.

Alas, this is true. Ordering a group of more than 5-6 tanks to attack something half a map away often leads to 80% of the shots fired at a random hill.
This is why I've come to send units not at the target, but rather at its location, and then let the squad fire at whatever they pick. Once they're all close enough to land a hit, I handle the attacking order manually.

The pits fired automatically at the cyborg, and in few seconds, they all destroyed one another

Would it be time-efficient to request the devs to make indirect-fire units neglect targets within a range of, say, 2 (for reference, flamer range is 2-3)?
It's a double-edged sword, in fact. While this would make unit management more foolproof, sometimes your artillery is caught without direct fire support. In that case destroying a lone pit would be as easy as getting an attacking unit next to it. It would probably cause complaining as much as friendly fire.

[Tiberian]

Would it be time-efficient to request the devs to make indirect-fire units neglect targets within a range of, say, 2 (for reference, flamer range is 2-3)?
It's a double-edged sword, in fact. While this would make unit management more foolproof, sometimes your artillery is caught without direct fire support. In that case destroying a lone pit would be as easy as getting an attacking unit next to it. It would probably cause complaining as much as friendly fire.

This is the nature of artillery units, and i think it would be good to implement

[NoQ]

Would it be time-efficient to request the devs to make indirect-fire units neglect targets within a range of, say, 2 (for reference, flamer range is 2-3)?

It is easy (i think it is even like this already), but it won't help. No matter how far two mortars are, they can destroy one another iff they can shoot at one another

[Nehellsan]

Anything weapon with splash damage (Bombs, Cannons, HPVs, howitzers) is friendly-fire friendly.