Warzone 2100 Forums

By the way, I wish to express some concern about the weapons. First of all, I don't particularly like how flamers work. Imo, they shouldn't have a reload time, and work like real flame throwers, which can continuosly fire until out of fuel. Naturally, their damage must be dummed down, because rof is way up, and should work on a dps scale rather than how many shots it takes to kill a bunker. Speaking of bunkers, i find the damage that cannons do to bunkers, and almost any base structure, to be lacking. In reality a bunker could easily be destroyed by any modern main battle tank, such as American M1A2 Abrams or British Challenger 2, both of which have 120mm main guns, the former being smoothbore, while the latter being rifled. A single HEAT round fired from their guns could level any fortifications, or at least seriously damage them. I think, to increase the cannon versatality, it should fire HEAT rounds at bunkers and fortifications, HE at infantry and other soft targets like weaker base structures, and APFSDS at other tanks. Also, the thermite and plasmite bombs slow down bombers too much. DPS wise, phosphate bombsactually do MORE damage, due to rediculously fast rof, and reload times. Cluster bombs should be much more effective against vehicles. Modern cluster bombs contain bomblets with HEAT warheads, with fragmenting case, with incendiary material wrapped around it. HEAT warheads are most effective against tanks if they can hit the weaker top or belly armor, because top and belly armour are usually no more than a foot of standard steel, whereas rest of tank is protected with layered composite armour. Also, I think mines should be a weapon in this game. I think that there should be some kind of way to lay large numbers of mines. My first choice would be with a cluster dispenser system via VTOL, 2nd choice being artillery shell or rocket. Also, for the artillery you should be able to tell your artillery to blind fire in an area(in some games like C&C this is called force fire)

Player1 wrote: By the way, I wish to express some concern about the weapons. First of all, I don't particularly like how flamers work. Imo, they shouldn't have a reload time, and work like real flame throwers, which can continuosly fire until out of fuel. Naturally, their damage must be dummed down, because rof is way up, and should work on a dps scale rather than how many shots it takes to kill a bunker. Speaking of bunkers, i find the damage that cannons do to bunkers, and almost any base structure, to be lacking. In reality a bunker could easily be destroyed by any modern main battle tank, such as American M1A2 Abrams or British Challenger 2, both of which have 120mm main guns, the former being smoothbore, while the latter being rifled. A single HEAT round fired from their guns could level any fortifications, or at least seriously damage them. I think, to increase the cannon versatality, it should fire HEAT rounds at bunkers and fortifications, HE at infantry and other soft targets like weaker base structures, and APFSDS at other tanks. Also, the thermite and plasmite bombs slow down bombers too much. DPS wise, phosphate bombsactually do MORE damage, due to rediculously fast rof, and reload times. Cluster bombs should be much more effective against vehicles. Modern cluster bombs contain bomblets with HEAT warheads, with fragmenting case, with incendiary material wrapped around it. HEAT warheads are most effective against tanks if they can hit the weaker top or belly armor, because top and belly armour are usually no more than a foot of standard steel, whereas rest of tank is protected with layered composite armour. Also, I think mines should be a weapon in this game. I think that there should be some kind of way to lay large numbers of mines. My first choice would be with a cluster dispenser system via VTOL, 2nd choice being artillery shell or rocket. Also, for the artillery you should be able to tell your artillery to blind fire in an area(in some games like C&C this is called force fire)

The fuel usage for flamers would make them pretty useless I would think, since they must always be running back to the refuel station.

Mines were in some patch, I think it was 1.11 (or was it 1.12?), but I haven't tested how it did it.  I'll leave the comments to someone who knows more about this.

For the rest of the weapons, I haven't really played a full game with a full range of weapons, so again, I'll leave that up to the guy (Troman) who is doing the GPM changing .  He has been doing GPM stuff for many years, which predates (I think) to the release of the source code.  Funny how some people have selective amnesia over that, but that is another story. ???

Buginator wrote: The fuel usage for flamers would make them pretty useless I would think, since they must always be running back to the refuel station.

Mines were in some patch, I think it was 1.11 (or was it 1.12?), but I haven't tested how it did it.  I'll leave the comments to someone who knows more about this.

For the rest of the weapons, I haven't really played a full game with a full range of weapons, so again, I'll leave that up to the guy (Troman) who is doing the GPM changing .  He has been doing GPM stuff for many years, which predates (I think) to the release of the source code.  Funny how some people have selective amnesia over that, but that is another story. ???

About the flamethrowers, I was merely describing how they operate in the real world. I, too, would find it annoying to have to refuel them after they shoot. No, I merely would wish to see that the flame throwers fire continously, rather than having a reload time, which I think is rediculous. By the way, I think that flamethrower armed vehicles should either have their armor beefed up, or have a longer range, or both. IMO flamer range should be about half of MG range(forgive me if it already is, but i think the range should be increased, at least one square). Also their armor is laking. Their weapon is close range, i think they should have more armor so they can actually survive to get close enough to their targets. Makes sense, right? I mean, their armor should be just as much as your typical cannon armed tank, if not more. In fact, old flamethrower tanks were converted from standard gun tanks(Usually, the flamer barrel resembled the standard gun, thus fooling the enemy into thinking it was a regular gun armed tank.) and thus their armor was the same. Also, fuel for the flamer was carried internally, rather than in a big fuel tank on the turret. Realistically, it would be pure folly to mount the fuel externally, and even if it was, it wouldn't be smart to mount it on the highest point on the vehicle, where it would be exposed to enemy fire. Well, anyhow, enough about the weapons, let's talk about the Beta. Did I mention that units in HOLD GROUND stance don't shoot at enemies unless manually targeted by clicking on them? Somehow, ill be playing, with my units in GAURD stance, and they'll magically change to HOLD GROUND stance. I wouldn't be too mad about that if they actually shot at the enemy every once in a while without me having to babysit them. Hmm... I don't wanna talk about the pathing, that's too popular. I still think cannons should do a bit more damage to fortifications. machine guns shouldn't take out a bunker faster than a cannon. Speaking of which, i find the MG calibre's to be unrealistic. Example:Standard MG is 7.62mm. That's a regular rifle sized bullet. I think that the standard calibre should be listed as 12.7mm/.50 cal., at least for realism. Heavy mg weapon should be changed from 12.7mm/.50 cal. to 20mm. Also, I think the LIGHT CANNON should be relisted as a gun type weapon like the MG's because it is a 40mm weapon. All of todays 20mm/30mm/40mm weapons are fully automatic. There are even 76mm weapons capable of fully automatic fire. It is used in some Italian designed anti aircraft artillery tank, and it is capable of firing a burst of six shells in less than 10 seconds. Supposedly it is superior, not to mention much cheaper, compared to anti aircraft missles. The shells have proximity fuses, and can effectively destroy any modern aircraft. They can even shoot down missles, including cruise missles. Well, I guess that's about it. 

P1 you posting soooo many words  . Dude, relax  ;D . Sorry, off-topic.

A4tech wrote: P1 you posting soooo many words  . Dude, relax  ;D . Sorry, off-topic.

I have to agree though.

Player1, if you need to make a large post, at least break it up into paragraphs please.  Much easier to read.



That said, my opinions about your points...


1)  Flamethrowers should fire continuously...

--- While that might be a nice aesthetic change, I don't think it's a good use of resources in the current code.  To my knowledge, the fire rate (and animation) of each weapon are tied to each other, so to make a "continuous fire" weapon would mean to give it a very high rate of fire with a very low damage modifier.  However, given the way damage (or specifically, armor) works, making said change would cause a big problem with the flamethrowers.  The whole damage calculation routine would have to be rewritten to accommodate that... which would be unreasonable.

2)  Tank weapons with variable weapon loadouts...

--- This may be true in a real-life situation, but for the purpose of Warzone, weapons are more designed with strength/weakness in mind, with only a passing resemblance to a real life situation.  A precise Suspension-of-Disbelief, if you will.  Or, if one wanted to be more lore-oriented, one could argue that (by the time in "the future" when WZ actually happens), some from of projectile-energy-dissipating technology has arisen that makes any type of tank round aside from some basic "SABOT" type redundant, at least in the face of other weapon-types.  In any event, balanced gameplay takes precedence over real physics, and the cannon-line of weapons fit their niche nicely.  What you suggest makes it sound like tank cannons would become the uber-weapon.

3)  VTOL cluster bombs should be more effective against vehicles...

--- While there are such things as AT-cluster bombs, I don't think that is what WZ defines as a cluster bomb; not that there is a problem with either definition, just that WZ's has no reason to be changed.  Now, perhaps changing the *name* of the cluster bomb to something mroe in line with its actual effect, then perhaps.

4)  Bombs slow down bombers too much...

--- I'll agree with this.  More specifically, bombs seem to have an effect whereby they standardize the speed of the bomber, regardless of body type; light bombers and heavy bombers fly at the same speeds.  This really shouldn't happen; each decision in WZ has a cost/benefit to it, but when the "cost" of the VTOL's speed is no longer part of the equation... well, ya.

5)  Mines...

--- Were in a patch back in 1.1x, but patch was unofficial, and WZ-resurrection started with the last official patch.  That said, if you can give some form of "effective counter" to the mines that doesn't make them an uber-strat, I'll go for it... but said counter has to indeed be overall effective, not a gimmick type (don't make a "minesweeper tank" that only destroys mines, pigeonholed units like this are the bane of any RTS).

6)  Force-fire Artillery...

--- A meritous idea, but I find it would suffer the same drawback that it does in C&C:  Chokepoint hell.  I do this in any RTS game with force-fire artillery; figure out general chokepoints, build a truckload of artillery, guard it with substantial AA, and just have it force-fire the chokpoint 24/7 until I'm ready to send my own forces through the pass.  As there is no "limited ammunition" in WZ, this would turn into a nightmare on any stage that isn't a giant flat grassland.  If you can refine the idea to give it a downside that doesn't involve a human-wave style attack, I'm all ears.  Note that force-fired artillery to clear out minefields (see above) would be a nice touch, but not a solely sufficient reason to give the command.

7)  Flamer armor increase...

--- Another balance question; after all, a flamer has to be able to close with it's specific target (like, bunkers), but if you make it strong against most direct-fire weapons, there will be no way to stop them...  I'll have to defer to people with more experience with flamer-attacks as to if that is needed.  P.S.; lore-wise, a flamer will have less armor than other tanks simply because of it's extremely volatile main weapon, which I assume has "sufficiently large" incendiary ammunition to maintain constant fire, and thereby is too large to store inside the main armored shell (many a battlefield flame-tank was only good for short usage due to the size of the ammo tanks you could put behind the steel, right next to the tank crew).  Also, I had always assumed that the reason weapons were "visible" mounted onto the top of the body was due to modularization; making all part's connections standard is the only way to have the same type of body be able to support multiple attachments, but to do that, the weapons had to be separate from the main body.

  Hold-ground non-firing...

--- I haven't run into this myself.  If it's a bug, then yes, this should be fixed.

9)  Machine gun sizes...

--- Picky picky today, eh Mr. Semantics? ;p.  don't forget that the whole premise of WZ's storyline is that all this technology was "lost", and is gradually being recovered, so although today's military might think a 7.62 is best fit for an infantryman, after a worldwide nuclear apocalypse, the first people to get a stockpile of them would rule the day ;p.

10)  Machine guns ripping through bunkers...

--- As a general rule, they don't.  The problem is, early in the game, the upgrade level of the walls is low, making their armor pathetic.  Once you research your fortifications though, this changes.  Try using an MG vs a light-cannon against an unupgraded wall.  Now try taking their upgrades (the Assault Gun and the Heavy cannon) against a wall that has all 3 hardcrete, and all 3 supercrete upgrades.  The cannon will win the day (well, in multiplayer.  in singleplayer there are those 2 extra MG upgrades that change things, but that's a problem with the upgrades, not the weapons themselves overall).

11)  automatic 76mm guns...

--- The determinations of what is what type of weapon aren't so much it's rate of fire, as it's main effectiveness target.  After all of the upgrades, a light cannon basically fires just as fast as a machinegun, but it's still considered a cannon simply because of its effective damage modifiers against specific targets.

12)  AA machinegun tanks...

--- Alright, c'mon now, this has nothing to do with WZ ;p.  Yes, a VT-fuse equipped AA battery will be more cost effective at bringing down airplanes than a missile... assuming it hits.  I have yet to see AA rounds that adjust their trajectory mid-flight to the point where it can intercept the flightpath of a supersonic craft that so much as nudges it's stick ;p.  The effectiveness of any sold-shot AA is being able to fire in "front" of the target, but planes and cruise missiles these days can steer erratically to make such a prediction impossible at longer than a couple thousand yards ;p.

themousemaster has done a very good job in his reply and I more or less agree with what was said. but i do have something to add to  point 6

themousemaster wrote: 6)  Force-fire Artillery...

--- A meritous idea, but I find it would suffer the same drawback that it does in C&C:  Chokepoint hell.  I do this in any RTS game with force-fire artillery; figure out general chokepoints, build a truckload of artillery, guard it with substantial AA, and just have it force-fire the chokpoint 24/7 until I'm ready to send my own forces through the pass.  As there is no "limited ammunition" in WZ, this would turn into a nightmare on any stage that isn't a giant flat grassland.  If you can refine the idea to give it a downside that doesn't involve a human-wave style attack, I'm all ears.  Note that force-fired artillery to clear out minefields (see above) would be a nice touch, but not a solely sufficient reason to give the command.

While constant force firing can be a problem sometimes, Warzone2100 actually already has an effective counter... The CB radar! As long as the artillery is firing all it would take is for a CB radar truck or tower to be in range with attached artillery of its own, and BOOM BOOM BOOM the artillery that was raining an impenetrable curtain of death in now getting a taste of its own medicine and is reduced to smoking rubble.

themousemaster wrote: 1)  Flamethrowers should fire continuously...

--- While that might be a nice aesthetic change, I don't think it's a good use of resources in the current code.  To my knowledge, the fire rate (and animation) of each weapon are tied to each other, so to make a "continuous fire" weapon would mean to give it a very high rate of fire with a very low damage modifier.  However, given the way damage (or specifically, armor) works, making said change would cause a big problem with the flamethrowers.  The whole damage calculation routine would have to be rewritten to accommodate that... which would be unreasonable.

2)  Tank weapons with variable weapon loadouts...

--- This may be true in a real-life situation, but for the purpose of Warzone, weapons are more designed with strength/weakness in mind, with only a passing resemblance to a real life situation.  A precise Suspension-of-Disbelief, if you will.  Or, if one wanted to be more lore-oriented, one could argue that (by the time in "the future" when WZ actually happens), some from of projectile-energy-dissipating technology has arisen that makes any type of tank round aside from some basic "SABOT" type redundant, at least in the face of other weapon-types.  In any event, balanced gameplay takes precedence over real physics, and the cannon-line of weapons fit their niche nicely.  What you suggest makes it sound like tank cannons would become the uber-weapon.

3)  VTOL cluster bombs should be more effective against vehicles...

--- While there are such things as AT-cluster bombs, I don't think that is what WZ defines as a cluster bomb; not that there is a problem with either definition, just that WZ's has no reason to be changed.  Now, perhaps changing the *name* of the cluster bomb to something mroe in line with its actual effect, then perhaps.

4)  Bombs slow down bombers too much...

--- I'll agree with this.  More specifically, bombs seem to have an effect whereby they standardize the speed of the bomber, regardless of body type; light bombers and heavy bombers fly at the same speeds.  This really shouldn't happen; each decision in WZ has a cost/benefit to it, but when the "cost" of the VTOL's speed is no longer part of the equation... well, ya.

5)  Mines...

--- Were in a patch back in 1.1x, but patch was unofficial, and WZ-resurrection started with the last official patch.  That said, if you can give some form of "effective counter" to the mines that doesn't make them an uber-strat, I'll go for it... but said counter has to indeed be overall effective, not a gimmick type (don't make a "minesweeper tank" that only destroys mines, pigeonholed units like this are the bane of any RTS).

6)  Force-fire Artillery...

--- A meritous idea, but I find it would suffer the same drawback that it does in C&C:  Chokepoint hell.  I do this in any RTS game with force-fire artillery; figure out general chokepoints, build a truckload of artillery, guard it with substantial AA, and just have it force-fire the chokpoint 24/7 until I'm ready to send my own forces through the pass.  As there is no "limited ammunition" in WZ, this would turn into a nightmare on any stage that isn't a giant flat grassland.  If you can refine the idea to give it a downside that doesn't involve a human-wave style attack, I'm all ears.  Note that force-fired artillery to clear out minefields (see above) would be a nice touch, but not a solely sufficient reason to give the command.

7)  Flamer armor increase...

--- Another balance question; after all, a flamer has to be able to close with it's specific target (like, bunkers), but if you make it strong against most direct-fire weapons, there will be no way to stop them...  I'll have to defer to people with more experience with flamer-attacks as to if that is needed.  P.S.; lore-wise, a flamer will have less armor than other tanks simply because of it's extremely volatile main weapon, which I assume has "sufficiently large" incendiary ammunition to maintain constant fire, and thereby is too large to store inside the main armored shell (many a battlefield flame-tank was only good for short usage due to the size of the ammo tanks you could put behind the steel, right next to the tank crew).  Also, I had always assumed that the reason weapons were "visible" mounted onto the top of the body was due to modularization; making all part's connections standard is the only way to have the same type of body be able to support multiple attachments, but to do that, the weapons had to be separate from the main body.

  Hold-ground non-firing...

--- I haven't run into this myself.  If it's a bug, then yes, this should be fixed.

9)  Machine gun sizes...

--- Picky picky today, eh Mr. Semantics? ;p.  don't forget that the whole premise of WZ's storyline is that all this technology was "lost", and is gradually being recovered, so although today's military might think a 7.62 is best fit for an infantryman, after a worldwide nuclear apocalypse, the first people to get a stockpile of them would rule the day ;p.

10)  Machine guns ripping through bunkers...

--- As a general rule, they don't.  The problem is, early in the game, the upgrade level of the walls is low, making their armor pathetic.  Once you research your fortifications though, this changes.  Try using an MG vs a light-cannon against an unupgraded wall.  Now try taking their upgrades (the Assault Gun and the Heavy cannon) against a wall that has all 3 hardcrete, and all 3 supercrete upgrades.  The cannon will win the day (well, in multiplayer.  in singleplayer there are those 2 extra MG upgrades that change things, but that's a problem with the upgrades, not the weapons themselves overall).

11)  automatic 76mm guns...

--- The determinations of what is what type of weapon aren't so much it's rate of fire, as it's main effectiveness target.  After all of the upgrades, a light cannon basically fires just as fast as a machinegun, but it's still considered a cannon simply because of its effective damage modifiers against specific targets.

12)  AA machinegun tanks...

--- Alright, c'mon now, this has nothing to do with WZ ;p.  Yes, a VT-fuse equipped AA battery will be more cost effective at bringing down airplanes than a missile... assuming it hits.  I have yet to see AA rounds that adjust their trajectory mid-flight to the point where it can intercept the flightpath of a supersonic craft that so much as nudges it's stick ;p.  The effectiveness of any sold-shot AA is being able to fire in "front" of the target, but planes and cruise missiles these days can steer erratically to make such a prediction impossible at longer than a couple thousand yards ;p.

Ok i accept these things. The game is old and its software is rather limited by today's standards. But like the guy above said, force fire arty is not invulnerable. In a situation in which someone actually did build a large amount of arty, set them to force fire, and forgot about them, they would be very vulnerable to counter battery fire.

However, I still don't appreciate how machineguns were handled, and believe they should be changed so as not to say 7.62mm as standard size. Also, about the mgs, on first campaign mission, the scavenger infantry do too much damage with their rifles. The only reason i say change the MG so it says 50 cal. rather than .30 is because it doesn't make sense that your vehicles wouldn't be protected at least from small arms fire. It just doesn't make sense to me.

About the automatic anti aircraft arty tank, it has the ability to lead fire an aircraft or missle. That is to say, the fire control computer calculates how long a shell is going to take to reach the place where the targeted plane or missle is going to be. And because the high explosive/fragmenting rounds have proximity fuses, it almost always hits.

Oh yeah, VTOLS armed with phosphour and cluster bombs move pretty fast, but the thermite and plasmite bombers move really slow. I think that they should move faster. don't know about the heap bombs though.

Well i suppose that's it. Warzone is still a pretty good game, despite it's flaws, both real and imagined(at least by me ::)
Good day, sir.

Player1 wrote: Ok i accept these things. The game is old and its software is rather limited by today's standards. But like the guy above said, force fire arty is not invulnerable. In a situation in which someone actually did build a large amount of arty, set them to force fire, and forgot about them, they would be very vulnerable to counter battery fire.

However, I still don't appreciate how machineguns were handled, and believe they should be changed so as not to say 7.62mm as standard size. Also, about the mgs, on first campaign mission, the scavenger infantry do too much damage with their rifles. The only reason i say change the MG so it says 50 cal. rather than .30 is because it doesn't make sense that your vehicles wouldn't be protected at least from small arms fire. It just doesn't make sense to me.

About the automatic anti aircraft arty tank, it has the ability to lead fire an aircraft or missle. That is to say, the fire control computer calculates how long a shell is going to take to reach the place where the targeted plane or missle is going to be. And because the high explosive/fragmenting rounds have proximity fuses, it almost always hits.

Oh yeah, VTOLS armed with phosphour and cluster bombs move pretty fast, but the thermite and plasmite bombers move really slow. I think that they should move faster. don't know about the heap bombs though.

Well i suppose that's it. Warzone is still a pretty good game, despite it's flaws, both real and imagined(at least by me ::)
Good day, sir.

1)  Actually, I was primarily referring to the HEAP and Thermite bombs.  They are the only 2 I really use.  If other bombs don't have such slowdown, then... my bad.

2)  I always assumed the scavengers were using the equivalent of an AK47, and that a "viper" body was basically equivalent to a jeep, hence why they had some effect (don't forget, WZ only has concepts of "destroyed" and "not destroyed".  It's entirely feasable to assume that an AK can beat a jeep if a few bullets get into the front grill and jam the engine, or puncture the bottom of the fuel tank, or... well, whatever, a vehicle doesn't actually have to "blow up" to be destroyed, but the game has to render it somehow ;p).  Once you upgrade to the "humvee" (cobra), the MG bullets become far less dangerous (although the minipods become insane).

3) The thing about the CB battery is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it only counters artillery that fires at an ---ALLIED TARGET--- within it's range.  So if you are firing at the ground, even IF an enemy unit ends up getting hit, since it wasn't the target in the first place, it won't trigger the CB's effect.  And this is all assuming that the "chokepoint holders" artillery doesn't have a CB of it's own, and the instant enemy artillery rains in, they counterblast it with their superior numbers before going back to shelling the valley (which will have at least some form of point-defense in it, after all, to prevent a hover-rush from getting to the howitzers).  Again, the only way to then punch through is to send some ludicrous number of units.  Don't misunderstand, I realize these are all just tactical considerations within the game engine, but I don't feel that force-fire should be an option in any game that doesn't also include limited ammunition... which is a whole separate discussion.

4)  Oh, I have no doubt that an AA will have a targeting computer capable of knowing where to fire to hit an approaching airborne hostile, the thing is, the "where to fire" calculation has to include both direction and velocity of the target.  If, after the firing begins, the target turns, THAT's where the missile will actually hit instead of the AA.  The self-propelled missile can turn with the target.  Even high-explosive AA rounds still need to get within a few dozen yards of the target (maximum) to have an effect... which, at (say, mach1) airspeeds, the target planes can be more than a football field off of the predicted trajectory by simply adjusting course a few tenths of a degree for just a couple seconds.  Against a slow maneuvering A-10 aircraft, maybe...

themousemaster wrote: 4)  Oh, I have no doubt that an AA will have a targeting computer capable of knowing where to fire to hit an approaching airborne hostile, the thing is, the "where to fire" calculation has to include both direction and velocity of the target.  If, after the firing begins, the target turns, THAT's where the missile will actually hit instead of the AA.  The self-propelled missile can turn with the target.  Even high-explosive AA rounds still need to get within a few dozen yards of the target (maximum) to have an effect... which, at (say, mach1) airspeeds, the target planes can be more than a football field off of the predicted trajectory by simply adjusting course a few tenths of a degree for just a couple seconds.  Against a slow maneuvering A-10 aircraft, maybe...

There is one serious limitation to the maneuverability of todays fighters: there is a pilot onboard, and he's capable of sustaining much lower accelerations than the aircraft itself. I recall some Russian MiG pilot speaking that while his craft was theoretically able to do a turn in about a kilometer radius, if he even tried to do a tighter turn than 5 km radius, he would probably lose consciousness. That's saying much... and that's why the AA artillery does make sense.

Not necessarily in Warzone, though. Balance first, as you said earlier.

What I find annoying is that there is no compilable mac version.  :'(

themousemaster wrote:
3) The thing about the CB battery is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it only counters artillery that fires at an ---ALLIED TARGET--- within it's range.  So if you are firing at the ground, even IF an enemy unit ends up getting hit, since it wasn't the target in the first place, it won't trigger the CB's effect.  And this is all assuming that the "chokepoint holders" artillery doesn't have a CB of it's own, and the instant enemy artillery rains in, they counterblast it with their superior numbers before going back to shelling the valley (which will have at least some form of point-defense in it, after all, to prevent a hover-rush from getting to the howitzers).  Again, the only way to then punch through is to send some ludicrous number of units.  Don't misunderstand, I realize these are all just tactical considerations within the game engine, but I don't feel that force-fire should be an option in any game that doesn't also include limited ammunition... which is a whole separate discussion.

Could we perhaps modify CB sensor to pinpoint the location of enemy arty even during a possible force fire situation?

Player1 wrote: Could we perhaps modify CB sensor to pinpoint the location of enemy arty even during a possible force fire situation?

Even if done, that only addresses half of my concern.

Not that I would mind having that be done, mind you.

Hmm... so I see. Very well, there will be no force fire available. But there are still other, albeit much more important issues to deal with here. I think, the two biggest concerns should be changing defensive structures so that instead of researching them, you can design them. I thought that by now they would have already implemented this, but maybe it will take longer than I expected. Second issue is with how vehicles move. IMO there should be a reverse gear, and tracks, vtol, and hover should be able to turn 360 while staying in same spot.

If there is to be a design dialog for defensive structures, there would have to be more parameters to tweak than just body and weapon... and I can't think of much else. Same problem with cyborgs.

easy cyborgs = body (small armor, medium armor,  heavy armor), movement type (on foot, or jet pack-hover), weapon
defensive = body (tower, bunker, wall), weapon