I have been doing some experiments in the game editor with formation stacking of 18th C muskets in formations of 400. I find I can stack 3 formations without any sign of elbow room problems. When I stack 4 formations there is clearly a slight elbow room problem. The individuals of the whole set of four stacked formations, or at least the ones around the outside, start being edged or pushed out a little. This must be about the limit of defined elbow room I guess. I doubt formations could blob any more than this during an attack but I will have to test it. If I am wrong it will prove even greater crushing of the elbow room spacing is possible under combat attack conditions. It is interesting to see that normal formation spacing between soldiers must be a distance that is slightly less than 4 times elbow room allowed for stacking. Can we leverage some of these "discoveries" or assumptions to do something about stacking? Where is this "elbow room" defined and has anybody experimented with it? I guess that Cavalli's Realism mod might have touched this parameter a little? Am I right or wrong? But please, anybody with information about elbow room let me know.
I added boundboxes to each individual .object file - make them too large (ie so that units bump into each other) and they have real trouble walking through forests and very susceptible to musket fire (because they’re a bigger target) What it did allow me to do however was make some units (like chasseurs) less easy to hit, and making tgem smaller also meant more could fire at any one time
Could you explain how this was done, maybe there could be a satisfactory balance between the prevention of blobbing without compromising the ability to walk through forests.
Yes, I really do wish there was a solution, or at least a partial solution to blobbing of troops (I call it compression or crushing) and also a solution to prevent stacking formations one on top of the other. In realism terms, crushes did occur in battles. But if you have ever been in a crowd crush you will know that as it gets much worse then some people can't breath and some people fall and get trampled. People can die in a crowd crush. You certainly could not wield a musket, fire and load it in a crowd crush. Heck, you can hardly use your real arms let alone fire arms. Troops need elbow room and we need a way to stop the worst of crushing and over-stacking. Even if we could reduce it partially that would be good. I am toying with a few parameters but without genuine new routines I know that won't get me far. With Cavalli's fire system, I wonder if with a wider formation spacing, and staggered spacing, could the 2nd rank fire too? Then, limit all musket formations to three lines. But I wouldn't make the lines too long if I were you. Troops would be less dense. Pikes would have to be treated the same way. It would suit a 4x map if you modded the entire game to suit a 4x map. The Realism Mod's large buildings would suit a 4x map too. Just spit-balling here.
The second rank can actually fire with a unit width of 0.2, so there would be no need to jostle for,ations, though I’ve already made them all 3 ranks (just cos it looks nice, mostly!) I’m a bit computer-less during the week cos of work, but I’ll show you how to add collision tomorrow, Loner
As promis'd - copy this into one of the .prop files in objects/units (say, musketeer18 for starters) and play around with the numbers. It won't cause units not to fire over each other until you enable that in misc.script, so it will just affect collision for now. collisionmeshproperty : section.begin {refurl=.\data\objects\ref\refunit.prop; refkey=collisionmeshproperty} UseCustTransformed = True CustomBoundingAABBMin.X = -0.15 CustomBoundingAABBMin.Y = -0.5 CustomBoundingAABBMin.Z = -0.15 CustomBoundingAABBMax.X = 0.15 CustomBoundingAABBMax.Y = 0.8 CustomBoundingAABBMax.Z = 0.15 section.end
I’m afraid not - it will stop units merging during melee and so make those look a bit more sensible, but the only think that will stop blobbing is if units were forced to keep their formation, something I’m not sure is possible
I am wondering where the magic of your firing system happens. I have found a few changed lines in miscext2.script, weapon.script and if I recall correctly in unit.script but there have to be some new master definitions and functions somewhere, am I right? How does it work, basically? You can always start a conversation with me.
Thanks for this, must be doing something wrong, been fiddling with the numbers but nothing changes, does it matter where you add this extra information, I've just put it at the bottom.
Very strange - I'll have a look and see what else I might have done. On mine if I increase it too far regiments have real trouble walking through woods
"It's a bad position, Wellington. That wood behind us is unsound. If they push us back it'll be like a wall. The army will be cut to pieces." - General Picton "There is no undergrowth there. A battery of nine pounders... A whole army can slip through it like rain through a grate." - Wellington
