Unit data panels

[PoorOldSpike]

(manual pages 67-70) Click the arrowed buttons

AMMO:

DAMAGE: Green means no damage, through yellow, orange and red as it gets worse

DEFENSES (ARMOUR RATINGS): Green means very tough armour, through yellow, orange and red (weak)

Enlarged-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

HQ TANKS CAN CALL ARTY

He's flagged as an HQ (right circle) so he can press the Arty button (left circle)

And the Arty screen comes up, let's select the 105mm battery-

And place the impact point back down the road in case he's being stalked-

And in it comes after the usual few minutes delay-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

SEATING ARRANGEMENT
The 13 dots (circled) represent seats. Two are blue because they're taken by the 2-man crew, and the remaining 11 are grey because they're unoccupied.

Order a squad to get in by simply placing a waypoint on top of the vehicle a few feet off the ground, any type of movement will do-

Schnell! Schnell! the 8-man squad gets on board-

And 8 of the seats are now filled with green dots, (passenger dots are always green, crew dots are always blue.)
A black spot in the middle of a grey dot would mean the guy sitting there is wounded-

A Panther's 5 blue crew dots, and an Artillery's 6 green dots (the game classifies gun crews as passengers)

 

[Cue-Ball]

A Panther's 5 blue crew dots, and an Artillery's 6 green dots (the game classifies gun crews as passengers)

Actually, the green dots on artillery assets don't coincide to people at all. The green dots represent the number of guns/tubes available to call. When calling a strike you can choose one gun, all guns, or anything in between. BFC should have represented this in some other way to prevent confusion.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

Actually, the green dots on artillery assets don't coincide to people at all. The green dots represent the number of guns/tubes available to call..

Thanx mate I was beginning to suspect the green dots weren't gun crew. But to complicate things the Arty unit window says "4" (which I presume means 4 guns) yet there are 6 green dots, I shall have to try figgering the numbers out.
Also, in another game with a mortar, one of the mortar's green dots turned red, beats me why it did that, ha ha!

 

[PoorOldSpike]

Manual-

 

[Cue-Ball]

Thanx mate I was beginning to suspect the green dots weren't gun crew. But to complicate things the Arty unit window says "4" (which I presume means 4 guns) yet there are 6 green dots, I shall have to try figgering the numbers out.
Also, in another game with a mortar, one of the mortar's green dots turned red, beats me why it did that, ha ha!

I don't understand why there are six green dots on a 4-gun artillery resource either. All I know is what the manual says.

Never seen one of the dots turn red before. That's not mentioned in the manual at all, as far as I've found.

 

[Rico]

I think the green dots are the number fire missions the battery can perform... the green dots go red as they use up their ammo.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

Okay after more manual trawling I've made some progress in figgerin out what the green dots are in the gun data window (manual p. 103)

[/QUOTE]

They don't represent individual tubes or ammo, they're a "thermometer scale" and the dots begin turning red one by one as the firing units begin to overheat!.
If all 6 dots turn red, the battery will automatically reduce its rate of fire to prevent damage to the guns.
So the dots are a warning that your guns are getting hot and you can cancel the fire mission to let them cool, or if all 6 are red you can simply carry on firing at reduced ROF.

 

[Bootie]

Good to know.

 

[Cue-Ball]

I can confirm the red dots meaning overheating. I ran some artillery tests last night (105mm American) and the dots would slowly turn from green to red after sustained fire. Once they all turned red, rounds would stop falling. After a short time the last (furthest right) dot would turn green, a couple more shells would fall, and it would turn red again, stopping the barrage.

Why BFC didn't make this look more like something that people would immediately recognize as a temp indicator is beyond me. I find so many of the UI choices in this game just baffling.

 

[Cue-Ball]

One more thing about artillery: Ammo doesn't work the way you expect it to. In the following picture you can see that our 105mm artillery has 140 rounds of HE and 40 rounds of smoke.

That doesn't mean that you can fire 140 rounds of HE and 40 rounds of smoke. It doesn't even mean you can fire 100 rounds of HE and 40 rounds of HE or smoke. What it means is that your first 40 rounds can be either HE or smoke. Once the first 40 rounds are gone, so is your smoke (whether or not you actually fired any smoke rounds).

I made a thread about this in the BFC forums and commented as such in another thread, but this behavior is totally wacky and not what ANYONE would expect.

 

[AntiG3n]

That doesn't mean that you can fire 140 rounds of HE and 40 rounds of smoke. It doesn't even mean you can fire 100 rounds of HE and 40 rounds of HE or smoke. What it means is that your first 40 rounds can be either HE or smoke. Once the first 40 rounds are gone, so is your smoke (whether or not you actually fired any smoke rounds).

Interesting. Did not know this. Haven't had any issues with smoke rounds (its always there when I need it) but I will pay more attention. Doesn't seem realistic, I hope they change it if not.

 

[Earl of Grey]

Huh. Hadn't noticed that earlier. Have we beta testers missed something or was that intentional, I wonder... Will have a close look on teh thread. Thanks for the notification!

 

[PoorOldSpike]

SOME INTERESTING DATA
Last turn, Hiram Sedai's tanks inflicted a non-damaging hit on my Panthers turret front and it slammed into reverse (below) I never ordered it to, so obviously the thump on its turret must have given the crew the heeby-jeebies.
They're firing back but the shot hits the wall. (note also tracer rattling off the wall)
A scrutiny of its stats reveal why it reversed, namely they're only a green crew, they're out of command, they're 'Rattled', and their suppression inverted vee is starting to turn a funny rainbow colour.
We also see that its radio, optics and tracks are starting to turn a sickly yellow in its 'Damage' panel. but still working.
So why is he out of command?

This look at the HQ tank (circled) reveals why; namely its radio is bust (red x), so he can't give them any soothing words of fatherly advice to stop them cracking up!
Note too that one of the blue crew dots in the silhouette panel has turned gray, meaning that position is no longer occupied, so maybe it was the radio operator who copped it in combat earlier in the game-

Pos. The thing you refer to as 'their morale vee' is actually the suppression indicator. The more they are fired upon the more it lights up.

Thanx mate, i've edited in a correction