Z Fire

[Isto]

The layout of the preference screen might be holy to some ppl.

[Felix Nephthys]

Is Z fire this much of an issue? I was under the impression that Z fire had been fixed with the latest patch, eliminating a "cheat" that was in there. Since the computer player NEVER uses Z fire then any fault would lay with human players and their use of Z fire. I don't think this issue can ever be resolved with the use of yet ANOTHER slider or button to somehow adjust the effectiveness of Z fire, there are ALREADY sliders and buttons to adjust how direct gunfire affects other units. There will simply be NO magic combination of slider adjustments and button settings that will give EVERY player the game experience that is most satisfactory to them.

There seems to be two sides of the Z fire issue involved, those who feel it is TOO effective, and those who feel that it isn't effective ENOUGH. For those who feel it's too effective, it seems to me that they would be on the receiving end of Z fire during their games against another human who uses Z fire, perhaps excessively (whatever that means to another player). In my definition of excessive use of Z fire it means a player who uses it to "plow the road" as it were in front of their troops, simply firing ahead with their units at locations to their front indiscriminately, hoping that they will be able to suppress anything that MIGHT be there. Of course, this uses up ammo at a HUGE rate meaning you will either be out of ammo in a short time and unable to fight, or you bring ammo vehicles right along with your front line units which is the act of the Dalai Lama of idiotic tacticians. On the other hand, you COULD be fighting against another player who uses it effectively, only firing at units who have fired at them but have not been fully spotted and this may subsequently break up what you thought would be the perfect ambush. I can see how this would definitely piss you off but this is how it works in real life, deal with it.

Now, for those players who feel it isn't effective enough, you may hate that Z fire was modified in the last patch to eliminate the cheat. You may use Z fire to "plow the road" as I mentioned above. This may be because you either don't quite understand the use of dedicated indirect fire units, or you aren't patient enough to wait for them to fire. My advice is to either learn how to use your indirect fire effectively, or develop some patience (it's a virtue as you may have heard). If you can't do any of the above then I don't know what to say to you, perhaps this just isn't your game and maybe you should play something that is more to your liking. For my part, I feel that Z fire is fine as it is and is even better since the latest patch.

[sigeena]

Yes, I also agree that the current iteration is somewhat better. As the restriction on Z-fire has made it more challenging for me. It's fairer to the AI since they don't use it. And it also equalises 2 human players gaming skill, since the less experienced player may not be as adept at z-fire.

[Isto]

I suspect the ones saying it is not effective enough mean units rarely take casualties from z fire and the ones saying its too effective have their groups routed before other units move in contact with them.

If this happens every single time it gets rather dull.

One house rule i have encountered is that players should stop firing z fire after the recieving unit gets pinned.

The most unsatisfying result is when a tank is surrounded by militia who shoots it retreating with rifles and the tank crew decides to abandon their tank and get slaughtered instead.

An advanced preference program would only benefit the game as those who do not want to use it would not even need to download it. This is probably something that would be inofficial and fan made.

The extra preferences could at least include the z fire effectiveness and enabling a warning for other terrain than rough or buildings. (Enable / disable warning on snowdrifts, mud, swamp etc)

One other thing would be an ability to choose what ammo type is used by clicking them on / off in the same way as weapon slots but this would be an in game element.

[DRG]

And as already stated, Z-Fire was returned to what we had intended in the last patch and we are satisfied now it does what we wanted to to do so any talk about "house rules" or past experience would be based on the previous version which had strayed from our original intent for it's use and effectiveness and is not applicable to the current version.

[Anton]

DRG, what have you changed in the Z-fire mechanics in the last version?

[zovs66]

From the manual:

A code quirk, some might call it a bug, that allowed players, particularly PBEM players, the ability to Z-Fire or X- Smoke into a hex with on map artillery then go to the bombardment menu and get a 0.1 delay for a full bombardment has been eliminated. It is no longer possible to do that and a side benefit for some players, but perhaps not to the players who loved to do "recon by Z-fire", is that it is no longer possible to Z-fire into a hex then repeat, repeat, repeat using the F key. Every Z fire now needs to be done individually because after a Z-fire the process is now reset to zero after each Z-Fire so that hex cannot be used to circumvent the artillery bombardment routine delay

[DRG]

Zovs post 27 gives the reason we looked into this but when we did we found it was doing things we had not intended

You can only Z-fire into Hexes you could see if they were in your LOS and you had the visibility to do so but it will no longer allow you to fire over obstacles and hit the hex behind the obstacle.

For example, if you have a MG with 40 range but the visibility is 10 and you are dug in on more or less flat ground then you could Z fire out to 40 hexes BUT if there are obstacles that even if you did have 40 visibility you could not shoot through then you will not be able to Z fire through or over them as they block LOS and all firing is done LOS.

Previously all kinds of things that would normally block LOS and normal firing had been "allowed" with Z-fire... the code drifted on us a bit over time because neither Andy nor I use Z-fire and if we did it was very conservatively but it's back to that we want now so all those old " house rules" about it's use should be tossed out the window

I am considering allowing the AI to Z-Fire if it takes Z-fire from a hex where the enemy is not yet seen but that is still at the " what-if" stage

[chris h]

Had my beef about this in a separate thread and you'll never convince me that Z fire in v12 is completely correct. My beleif is it should be the cumulative density of the terrain that stops it and that existing scenarios need adjusting to include more indirect fire elements. I was never against building etc blocking it. However it is what it is.

This post is about how you may somewhat allieviate the problem of suppressing unseen but known units with Z fire by using the MMG and HMG ability to spray their fire. As the online guide says 'This gives weapons like MMG's and HMG's the ability to create a "beaten zone" of area fire out of their own LOS to harass enemy troop movements'. Do it be finding a hex next to or even two or three hex away.

Of cause this won't work well in woods, you'll still have to banzai when you have little or no mortars.

[Felix Nephthys]

Originally Posted by chris h

My beleif is it should be the cumulative density of the terrain that stops it

It does.

Originally Posted by chris h

existing scenarios need adjusting to include more indirect fire elements.

The game comes with the tools to do this already.

Originally Posted by chris h

you'll still have to banzai when you have little or no mortars.

C'est la guerre.