The Creators of COMMAND OPS 2 - The Most Advanced Simulation of Operational Warfare in a Commercial Game.
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Thursday 17 July 2014
Matrix Games has released a new official patch for Command Ops.
Download instructions
The official patch 4.6.279 is available for download here. The patch noticeably improves the experience by both refining existing AI, supply and combat simulation routines, as well as fixing a huge number of long-standing issues. See an abridged version of the patch notes below.
Owners of the Highway to the Reich and Battles for Greece battle packs need to log into Matrix Games Members Club, in order to access updated versions of scenarios and maps.
[{New Features}]
Combat Simulation
- Tank crews will now pop out their heads (and get them blown, occasionally)
- We introduced the possibility of target overkill (i.e. unless a vehicle brews up, it's still considered a valid target).
- Small arms and HE weapons fires now only affect the closest enemy unit rank, firing to the rear ranks only possible if there's a significant elevation difference.
User Interface
- Supply Routes used by active supply columns are now shown on the map.
- F6 will change the Unit Info Box to display whether or not the unit is capable of making assault. This cycles with the other F6 states (morale, cohesion and fatigue).
- Added Defend In-Situ check-box option to the orders view for attacks. When checked the force will stay put when it tries to defend after the final reorg.
[{Systems Reviewed}]
AI
- Overhaul the Firepower Influence code. This involved using higher fidelity influence maps. Previously these were a 300m grid. Now they area a 100m grid, the same size of the terrain grid. It also involved writing separate influence calc code depending on whether it was called from the path finding or the actual route values. This has improved avoidance routes, the way enemy firepower is heeded when retreating and numerous other code.
- Overhauled the Control maps, increasing the fidelity and improving all AI ode that uses map control as an input such as: computing supply routes, movement in the attack, retreating or delaying.
- Prevent sending supply columns to location where previous columns have been wiped out.
- Ensure Open spacing is used for all formations except in urban terrain.
- Ensure no delay between preliminary Move and subsequent Defend tasks.
- Reworked AFV targeting routines so "most threatening" hard targets are called first. This assessment depends on crew training, experience and fatigue.
- Mods to the code determining whether line units are Assault Capable to differentiate between inf and armour, to use gung-ho factors - units ignoring basic self-preservation - and small unit status to modify the recent casualties threshold.
- Mods to the Retreat code that reduce the probability of a unit staying put rather than running. It now checks to see if the time last suffered casualties is greater than the time last retreated and if so applies a reduction in retreat probability based on recent casualty counts.
- Mods to Movement planning routines to ensure that Move tasks conducted within an attack after the final reorg now check to split the force if units are already at the objective. Previously, this wasn't happening and the assault units could move about even though they were on the objective.
- Mods to the Split Forces planning routines (within Movement planning routines) so that units deployed or better are now considered for possible inSitu defends if near to objective. Previously they were required to be dug in. This makes it more likely that assault units at the end of a final reorg will stay put.
- Mods to Movement planning code to remove road column formation as an option if the unit is near to the objective and there are enemy threats within 2000m. This mitigates against units going into road column on the objective after an attack.
Combat Models
- Vehicles in mixed formations (i.e. Armoured infantry, Cavalry Squadrons, etc.) were being allowed to take fire from a longer range than when they engaged the enemy (that is, they're considered to be deployed 'behind' the infantry and now this is done consistently).
- Curbed the effect of marginal penetrations, that resulted in outright destruction too often (David King "Lieste" proposed a simple model that didn't give guns like the 37mm Recon gun on the M8 Greyhound a disproportionate killing power at longer ranges).
- The ability of AFVs to use terrain for cover depends now on crew training and experience.
- Accuracy of direct fire weapons was being affected by height differences too much, now it gracefully increases or decreases with the angle between firing and fired units.
- In some circumstances, not all shots fired (and hitting) were checked to see if they were penetrations (this affected high-ROF weapons).
- Green AFV crews will now be exposing their vehicles sides and rear more often, than more experienced crews do.
- Now exposed personnel will duck for cover when receiving fires.
- Reduced target overkill by small arms fire.
- Burst radius has now a greater effect when mortars and guns are fired against personnel.
- Suppression from small arms and direct fire HE increased substantially.
- Vehicle passengers are now more exposed to enemy fires.
- Tweaked the Anti-Armour Fire Resolution code to provide a more realistic casualty rate for crew based on historical research. Previously we were using a simple random number based on the size of the crew. This resulted in an average of 50% casualties each time an AFV was destroyed. Historically it should be around 26%. The new algorithm delivers on that.
- Anti-Armour and Anti-Personnel direct fire accuracy reviewed to provide with more varied outcomes (to-hit probabilities were quite "binary").
- Weapons are now allocated to range brackets in a way that takes into account the expected effect of the weapon at a given range. This makes unit commanders to use mortars and machine guns in a more intelligent way.
- Weapons fire resolution algorithm reviewed so weapons with higher firepower are fired always first. This avoids certain (random) situations where the crew of a heavy machine gun were shooting their side-arms rather than the machine gun.
Supply System
- Reviewed Interdiction of Supply Columns. This involved tweaking some constants in the code that regulated the number of hits the vehicles in a supply column received depending on the capability of enemy units to project firepower on to the vehicles location. This has the net effect of greatly reducing the number of vehicles killed on the transport columns. The effects of this are greatly amplified by increasing the fidelity of the influence, concentration and control maps. Player should now perceive that the supply routes being used have been notably improved.
- Reviewed how Bases draw their own supply. This is now done using the same rationing modifier as the rest of the forces drawing from the base, and avoids Bases starving other units drawing from the same source. Fixed a couple of minor bugs which meant that the on-hand fuel amount was being used instead of the on-hand quantity of ammo in some cases.
Intel & Fog of War
- Keep enemy units spotted for longer
[{Major Bugs Fixed}]
- Ensure Static Units not exempted from disbandment. Fixes a problem were and a depleted static garrison could linger at an objective denying the other side victory.
- Fix IsEqual() bugs. This function is part of the class representing force groups and is called when comparing force groups throughout the code. There were several bugs inside this which often meant that two different groups were deemed to be equal and vice versa. Once this was corrected we had to substitute the IsEqual() for IsEquivalent() in some cases. This fixed a number of issues including some cases where a force would fail to get an order.
- Ensure attack force group is populated before assigning to reserve task, this caused rare CTD's.
- Ensure units do not draw from zero priority SEPs, this was causing untils to choose as their supply source locations farther than it is reasonable.
- Ensure consistent treatment of on-hand fuel levels throughout scheduling and reaction code, this was causing weird behavior on motorized/mechanized units at times.
- Ensure that the objects storing the state of on-map units are saved properly. Fixed issue where facing changes not saved.
- Fix bugs in CreateAdvanceToReserveTask(), which caused the AI to assign crazy - loops, unreasonable detours, etc. - approach routes to parts of the attacking force. This included ensuring that the approach route was being used rather than a truncated route and preventing the duplication of the location where plans of units in the attack to march on the form-up zone and then on to the objective.
- Fixed lock-up problem in Road Column formation. Now the advance guard won't be waiting for an infinitely long time for the task boss to move forward (and the other way around).
- Fixed bug in the Intel and Fog of War routines where spotted units were consistently reported as infantry.
- Fixed several instances where casualties where counted more than once.
- Fixed several issues in the code scheduling the sub-tasks assigned to units in an attacking force, that were getting wrong the start times. This has improved greatly the ability of the AI to coordinate complex - i.e. multi-HQ - attacks and has side-effects on the likelihood of a force on the move launching an attack on nearby enemy units, as now the code assessing the feasibility of the attack works in a broader number of situations.
Official Patch 4.6.279 Released
