Medium artillery and rate of fire

[RGA]

Been trying to understand what rate of fire means in game terms for medium (and presumably heavy) artillery so have done a few tests and looked at the results in the battle log file. What I am seeing with medium artillery (both German and Russian, not tried any others) is that during a battle they are the first to engage at range 6, fire three times at this range then run out of ammo. In my tests they started the battle with 4 ammo supply and there is a munitions unit present as well. Does anyone know how many times medium or heavy artillery are supposed to fire during a battle. I can see that they are the first to engage but don't see why they only fire three times and not 8 (8 is the rate of fire).

[RGA]

I've done another test with a defender in clear terrain, no command penalty and plenty of ammo and get the same results. The medium artillery fires three times only (at range 6) and the third time it suffers a penalty for low ammo (presumably because it uses 2 ammo per fire firing). There is plenty of ammo about in a munitions unit. Is this a bug ? Perhaps one of the developers could comment. Just feels like something is wrong here.

[Pocus]

The ammo unit don't resupply during battle. I don't know if this is by design that they have such ammo usage compared to innate stockpiles.

[RGA]

At present medium artillery is only firing 2.5 times a battle (the .5 is for the time it fires at half firepower for having low ammo having run out during the battle). This seems to under power medium (and possibly heavy artillery although have not checked that yet) for combat. You are better off buying field artillery because although it packs a lower punch it fires more often and is not restricted by running out of ammo. Currently medium artillery has a usage of 2 ammo per firing and a stock pile of 4, and if you can not resupply during a battle then what is the reasoning of the ROF of 8 ?

[Highlandcharge]

I would be interested in finding out what is happening here...

[Searry]

So this makes medium and heavy artillery nearly completely useless. Very interesting. Building arty in PBEM is probably a bad idea then.

[willgamer]

.... I don't know if this is by design.....

Not exactly the answer you're looking for when you Ask The Dev.....

[RGA]

I like the idea of Medium/Heavy artillery having a high ROF as it seems like a simple way to simulate (within the game) a battle that opens with an artillery barrage but only if the guns can draw supply from any munitions units present in the same location. The munitions units could represent ammunition stockpiles carefully stored for the offensive. Maybe early artillery could have a lower ROF which increases with upgrades to simulate more effective fire plans as the war progressed.

[Topeka]

Perhaps this is the reason that no one ever seems to run low on munitions.

[Highlandcharge]

Could the reason be a design decision that the heavy artillery barrage stops before the close fighting starts (an abstract so as not to cause injuries to friendly troops), then the smaller field arty kicks in, then the rifles and if anybody is left standing the bayonet...

[RGA]

From reading the wiki what I think is supposed to happen is that when an element first engages the enemy it fires with it's full ROF, so the medium artillery (at range 6) should fire 8 times. then as the range closes it should fire once each time as long as it's included in the support line. Would be good to get clarification from the devs but at the moment I don't think it's working as intended or to it's full potential for artillery.

[Stelteck]

Being able to fire a massive number of ammunition in one battle is a must in my opinion for a WW1 game. WW1 experienced very heavy and ammunition consumming artillery barrage.

The best way to do it would be to be able to draw ammunition from supply waggon during battle.

If not possible, maybe we could increase ammunition stock for artillery unit.

And it will be very interesting for the player as ammunition will be consumed really, really fast and ammunition production will be really critical, as it should be for an industrial war. Player will have to choose carefully when to engage ammunition consuming artillery.
It will add a lot of fun and strategy aspect.

[Merlin]

I suppose a negative aspect of relative familiarity with a game system is one stops paying attention to the little things. I haven't really noticed ineffective MA or HA, but then I haven't really been looking for problems with them. I also assumed the new ammo system meant the MUN units were essentially a separate supply system which works in parallel to normal supply, and thus I've tended to build a lot of them.

I don't really have time right now and won't for a few days, but if someone wants to try adding multiple MUN units to a battle and check performance then, we'll have a pretty good idea of how things are working.

[Highlandcharge]

True Merlin, the only thing I have looked for is in the battle report when you hover the cursor over the cohesion hits under the units, I seen from that medium and heavy artillery do cause more cohesion hits than light artillery... I was happy with that until I seen this thread...

[lycortas2]

I may just mod all of the MED/HVY artillery to stock 6 points and play a couple years and see how that affects things.

[Nico165]

Some clarification would be interesting to fully undertsand the system.

Currently managing ammunition is no challenge at all as WE. Just build 5 ammos factories in 1914 and you wont even need thinking about it for the rest of the game. Does not seem very realist.

WW1G and Commander The Great War have some easy to understand systems of modeling ammo use which provide limitations to the use of artillery and force the player to make choices if he wants to improve the situation. Maybe some inspiration for EAW ?

[RGA]

I may just mod all of the MED/HVY artillery to stock 6 points and play a couple years and see how that affects things.

Also consider modding ammo usage per firing from 2 to 1. This would result in more firing but the same ammo usage. I tried last night but couldn't get it to work but will give it another go.

[RGA]

Some clarification would be interesting to fully undertsand the system.

Currently managing ammunition is no challenge at all as WE. Just build 5 ammos factories in 1914 and you wont even need thinking about it for the rest of the game. Does not seem very realist.

WW1G and Commander The Great War have some easy to understand systems of modeling ammo use which provide limitations to the use of artillery and force the player to make choices if he wants to improve the situation. Maybe some inspiration for EAW ?

Seems a lot of players in this game have more ammo than you can shake a stick at.

[PhilThib]

One of the issue may be solved by a little change in models. We are testing it

[RGA]

One of the issue may be solved by a little change in models. We are testing it

Great news Philippe

For myself I've just modded the ammo usage per firing from 2 to 1 for medium artillery and now get more firings from the medium artillery. I'll play around next with ammo stock pile.

[Stelteck]

Great news Philippe

For myself I've just modded the ammo usage per firing from 2 to 1 for medium artillery and now get more firings from the medium artillery. I'll play around next with ammo stock pile.

It is far more interesting for ressource management & gameplay to raise the ammo stock pile than to decrease the ammo usage in my opinion.

[RGA]

It is far more interesting for ressource management & gameplay to raise the ammo stock pile than to decrease the ammo usage in my opinion.

Maybe we end up with a combination of the two.

[VigaBrand]

It is far more interesting for ressource management & gameplay to raise the ammo stock pile than to decrease the ammo usage in my opinion.

You never understand the problem.
The medium Art has a RoF from 8 and uses only 2,5 because after two shots, it is out of ammo. The change from RGA means, that the consumtion will be the same but the art fires 4,5 times (from 8 it was designed for).
Is it possible to raise the art stockpile?
Modding Idea:
One Ammo per shot.
This means, first meeting at range 6. 8 Shots.
Than every range one shot. 5,4,3,2,1,0 (0 in?). Means 6 more.
So 14 Ammo per batterie. So the field art can fire one battle round before out of ammo. This means, you consume 14 ammo per battle with one battery and that brings what you want, that you get very fast out of ammo.
But that means, the field art is now 8 times stronger than now! (16 shot vs 2,5).

[Searry]

Does anyone know how the game prioritizes where the ammo is shipped to? Sometimes my Navies lack ammo so they're docked up for months even after I've built munitions factories for example in Kiel.

And by the way, if the Naval bombers lack ammo, they take attrition damage it seems. So keep those seaplane tenders docked up.

[RGA]

Does anyone know how the game prioritizes where the ammo is shipped to? Sometimes my Navies lack ammo so they're docked up for months even after I've built munitions factories for example in Kiel.

And by the way, if the Naval bombers lack ammo, they take attrition damage it seems. So keep those seaplane tenders docked up.

Here is the link to the supply wiki although I've not read it myself yet. Not even looked at supply.

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Supply

[Merlin]

I finally got a chance to run some tests on this. So far, MA and HA both seem to fire through range 5, and then quit no matter how much ammo you have on hand. Even nearly 3:1 MUN to artillery which, presuming the battery has 10 units of ammo to match the MUN units, gives almost 40 ammo per gun. That should keep them firing at reduced efficiency through range 3, but the guns go silent every time after 5.

[Lynxyonok]

I finally got a chance to run some tests on this. So far, MA and HA both seem to fire through range 5, and then quit no matter how much ammo you have on hand. Even nearly 3:1 MUN to artillery which, presuming the battery has 10 units of ammo to match the MUN units, gives almost 40 ammo per gun. That should keep them firing at reduced efficiency through range 3, but the guns go silent every time after 5.

Did you have a chance to check if certain battle plans affect it, e.g. the one slowing enemy attack? Also, if another enemy corps reinforces the battle during the second round, etc., do they get fired at as well by MA?

[Merlin]

I did it in what was essentially a multiplayer game to keep as many constants as possible, so no battle plans. The batteries will fire as long as they can, so it doesn't matter if another enemy unit joins the fight; it'll just be added to the list of potential targets.

It's almost as though the MUN units can't actually supply the guns, so most likely a bug.

[RGA]

From what Philippe said it sounds like a fix is being worked on for the 1st patch that will tweak the unit model for MA and HA possibly decreasing the ammo cost per firing, increasing unit ammo storage capacity, decreasing ROF or a combination of all these factors, but we are all a bit in the dark at the moment until someone in the know comments. Having munitions units supply artillery during battle may involve more coding effort and not be available for a 1st patch, not even sure it's a good idea, I wouldn't want my artillery to hoover up all the shells I had in one battle leaving bugger all for the following months.

[von Sachsen]

I may just mod all of the MED/HVY artillery to stock 6 points and play a couple years and see how that affects things.

How can you mod things? I changed the ammo storage in the models files for medium and heavy guns, but it is not showing up in-game.