mass fire replacing rank fire

[mikeCK]

I know that this would not be popular so I would never recommend it for the mod...but how would I go about getting rid of the rank fire drill (which I have already researched) and replacing it with the new "mass fire" that TROM has for Grenadiers. After reading several books inclusing Duffy's (cited by Tomsin for some of his stickied history briefs) it seems that firing drills pretty much devolved into "fire at will" after the first volley due to confusion and human nature. I know there is no way to model this "changeover" so I would rather just have mass fire all the time.

I also like the muskets firing a little at a time instead of one "boom" as the whole rank of muskets fire at once....not so immersive for me.

Anyway, post of PM me if that is better.

[mikeCK]

No bait on the hook I guess....

[JaM]

why rank fire? Voley fire is absolutly unusefull as it is a waste of men placed in any ranks behind first. I would strongly suggest to replace it with mass fire and move rank fire a little bit higher in teh tree.

[hitokiri2486]

I think he's saying he wants mass fire, not volley fire. Unfortunately, I don't know how to mod the tech trees, although there is a tutorial for that in the mod workshop.

[mikeCK]

Yes..I want mass fire for all units except elites that could use rank fire. I don't think I would have to mess with the tech tree...only "turn off" rank fire so that even if you researched it, you couldn't use it. Sage PM'd me on this and there seems to be several files involved. More than I care to dig into.

[Casusbelli]

I would also like to do this. It seems to me the most realistic firing mode, if only we could limit it to the first 2 or 3 ranks.

[JaM]

btw, rank fire should be available much later than platoon fire mode - First recorded usage of this fire mode was during battle of Minden (1757) where unsuported British infantry destroyed French elite cavalry thanks to their discipline and rank fire at distance below 30m - They stopped all cavalry attacks that day - French were just not able to do anything against them. Some descriptions of that battle says that at distance below 30m hits made havoc in closely packed French cavalrymen, and falling horses made a barrier for second and third ranks of attacking cavalry.

Sad thing is that we cant reproduce this, as infantry will fire at will against cavalry in ETW.... (would like to know whose idea it was...)

[RazAlgul]

btw, rank fire should be available much later than platoon fire mode - First recorded usage of this fire mode was during battle of Minden (1757) where unsuported British infantry destroyed French elite cavalry thanks to their discipline and rank fire at distance below 30m - They stopped all cavalry attacks that day - French were just not able to do anything against them. Some descriptions of that battle says that at distance below 30m hits made havoc in closely packed French cavalrymen, and falling horses made a barrier for second and third ranks of attacking cavalry.

Sad thing is that we cant reproduce this, as infantry will fire at will against cavalry in ETW.... (would like to know whose idea it was...)

maybe CA thought that the soldiers would get freaked by the horses and would start to shot in panic around to scare them......I mean...wouldn't horses be scared by musket or cannon fire??

[mikeCK]

I wish that CA would have just made all firing drills researchable but then give each an "activiation" button like that for "Fire and advance"...which is worthless.

[Beastro]

I wish that CA would have just made all firing drills researchable but then give each an "activiation" button like that for "Fire and advance"...which is worthless.

The lack of buttons has pissed me off since I first bought the game.

[JaM]

RazAlgul: Horses were trained to handle musket and cannon fire. But another thing is when in a close cavalry formation suddenly majority of horses fell down - horses behind them have no space to avoid them... rank fire must be very effective against cavalry if used properly - at distance below 30m musket had flat trajectory which ment very little dispersion to the side - most of hits would wound/kill horses, not raiders, but killed horse makes a perfect obstacle for another cavalry rank....

[«Ŵesleƴ»]

Im trying to do the same thing but for a select unit the new us marines I changed everything for the marines in the unit_to_unit_abilities and unit_land whatever removed the rank_fire platoon_fire Improved_platoon_fire i also removed the square formation and fire and advance but in battle they still use this this has me very frustrated....any help would be great

But if you want to remove those from all units in the game you can go into the pack.file/db/unit_class_unit_ability_junctions and delete all the lines with rank_fire or platoon_fire make sure to go into options and uncheck use first row as column header to fully delete it

this will remove it from all units but i was trying to only remove from 1 unit

I think that units could still use these if they have the ability in the file unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions_tables but i think this was the problem i was having when i would remove rank_fire or platoon_fire from a unit the units class still had the abilities im not 100% sure of this yet as i havnt tested it fully but it seems to work with my marines which are elite infantry do not use these firing drills but britains guard infantry still use platoon fire as i didnt remove the ability from them

the thing i dount like about mass fire is the men spread out i would like to remove that but not sure how... its weird because light infantry units fire like this without spreading out....I had the new us marines firing like this then i changes somthing now i cant get them to fire like that anymore but i can get them to use mass fire

[«Ŵesleƴ»]

ok my marines are now firing like mass fire without actually using mass fire only using volly_fire in the unit_to_class file they are classified as elite infantry so i removed all lines from elite infantry in the unit_to class except fire_volly then in unit_to_unit_abilities I removed all firing drills but left other skills i wanted them to use then in the unit_stats_land there are a lot of columns that are (unknown) so I went through and matched up my unit with a light infantry unit that i know fires like this and made sure all the unknown columns matched when asking true of false I dont know for sure which 1 made it work but now the first 3or4 lines fire at will at the same time as fast as they can reload

[Johan217]

UltraEgo, there is no need to edit the unit_stats_land for changing a unit's fire drills.

For the coming update I have examined those files - my first time I think it may be a good idea to remove all abilities from unit_class_to_unit_ability_junctions so we have the "bare minimum" of abilities that we want all units to share. And then add abilities on an individual basis for each unit on unit_class_to_unit_ability_junctions

There are in fact A LOT of redundant entries that were put there by CA itself. It's quite a lot of work and it's very easy to miss a unit by mistake, but I think it's worth it.

I'm not really familiar with all the firing drills, so I'm a bit shy to change anything there. Could anyone explain to me what the difference between platoon_fire and improved_platoon_fire is?

[«Ŵesleƴ»]

UltraEgo, there is no need to edit the unit_stats_land for changing a unit's fire drills.

For the coming update I have examined those files - my first time I think it may be a good idea to remove all abilities from unit_class_to_unit_ability_junctions so we have the "bare minimum" of abilities that we want all units to share. And then add abilities on an individual basis for each unit on unit_class_to_unit_ability_junctions

There are in fact A LOT of redundant entries that were put there by CA itself. It's quite a lot of work and it's very easy to miss a unit by mistake, but I think it's worth it.

I'm not really familiar with all the firing drills, so I'm a bit shy to change anything there. Could anyone explain to me what the difference between platoon_fire and improved_platoon_fire is?

yes, thats what i have been doing is removing the class abilities so the units can have more individual fire drills. I tried everything to get this 1 unit to fire like light infantry it didnt work right until i changed something in the unit_stats_land before i did only the first rank would fire like a normal volly_fire drill but now they mass_fire without using mass_fire which makes your units spread out

[«Ŵesleƴ»]

I'm not really familiar with all the firing drills, so I'm a bit shy to change anything there. Could anyone explain to me what the difference between platoon_fire and improved_platoon_fire is?

look at the effect_table/effects in db platoon_fire is 708 and improved platoon fire is 711 its an unknown column and i dont know what it does maybe they fire a little faster?

[Johan217]

I'm not going there, I'll leave that to Sage

[«Ŵesleƴ»]

Ok i have an update on what causes some units to mass_fire at will...take away the units class firing drills excepte fire_volley then in the units_stats_land in the column unit can skirmish this must be set to True now your unit should fire with mass_fire then fire at will.. Also dont forget to delete all rank_fire and platoon_fire drills from the specific unit in the unit_to_unit_abilities

[moopere]

I would also like to do this. It seems to me the most realistic firing mode, if only we could limit it to the first 2 or 3 ranks.

Ah, yes, and this is the killer problem. I don't find it reasonable that my lights and grenadiers can fire all their muskets even when in 10 deep ranks. This is the old 'block shooting' problem of NTW2 (RTW engine) and is far too much of an exploit as it allows massive firepower along a very limited frontage.

Given the way firing at will must have actually worked in reality I find it difficult to believe that even 3 ranks would have worked out well without significant numbers of casualties being inflicted to ones own troops. The front rank in particular, unless kneeling all the time would have been very vulnerable to getting shot in the back of the head with all the general body movement of grabbing a cartridge, biting it, ramming it, etc, etc.

In-game, I've noticed that my Grenadiers always get shot to pieces by rank firing enemies, so to this end in my utopia I'd prefer:

- volley fire with fire at will as an option (similar to the automatic 'fire at will' that happens now when cavalry are near)

- Rank fire

- No mass fire at all unless it could be limited to 1 or 2 ranks.

- No platoon fire as the game engine itself gets in the way. Platoons should be firing when they are ready to fire, not when the other end of the line has fired (or the bleeding officer in the middle is fumbling with his pistol which often causes a long delay).

Cheers, Moopere