Since the patch, units fire in perfect synchronization like robots.

[Graphic]

Anyone else notice this? Ever since the patch, units now all fire at the exact same moment. It goes without saying that this is very unrealistic and detrimental to the atmosphere of the battlefield. Each volley sounds like one loud rifle being fired instead of dozens. You can even pause the game and go look at the bullets perfectly aligned in mid-air.

I hope CA will address this bug in the next patch. It's really bugging me for some reason.

[Maleficus]

Heh... I guess I was too busy visiting death upon my enemies to notice.....


But now I think back a couple of hours to that last fight I had, yeah, you may well have a valid point

[Graphic]

Compared to CTD's and AI and whatnot, it may not be a big issue, but now that I've noticed it it's starting to really get on my nerves. It's sucking all the fun out of actually watching the battle.

[hoom]

I thought that was something we were after? Like a properly drilled line unit should at least start out firing with excellent unison in one big crack of musketry where untrained/poorly trained units should give a ragged mix of out of synch shots.

So are the militia types also shooting in unison?

[A Very Super Market]

I haven't seen it happen. Don't know what you're talking about, but I haven't seen it.

[Graphic]

I thought that was something we were after? Like a properly drilled line unit should at least start out firing with excellent unison in one big crack of musketry where untrained/poorly trained units should give a ragged mix of out of synch shots.

No, no. You're not getting me. I'm not saying it's wrong that they fire in an orderly fashion. When I say perfect, I literally mean "perfect." They don't simply fire in an orderly fashion like any properly trained unit at the time would. They fire at the exact same time. Each volley sounds like one single shot. The whole rank fires on the exact same frame. That's wrong.

The bug only seems to come into effect once you have Fire By Rank researched, and then it only effects Line Infantry.

Here, I took a video: http://www.xfire.com/video/b0f40/ (note the lag of recording throws it off a bit, but it's still pretty clear to see, especially the 3rd rank in the second volley at the end of the clip).

Then after they all fire with robotic precision, the reloading animations are all perfectly in synch as well, then they keep going on like robots. There's practically zero variation between each of the soldiers' animations or firing. This wasn't the way it was before, and it's not the way it's supposed to be.

I've got confirmation from several others. If you haven't noticed it yet, I suggest you make a custom battle, set techs to Late, and just have it 1 line inf vs. 1 line inf and watch them, and see for yourself. In a large battle, having 8 units of line infantry with fire by rank enabled sounds like 8 individual men firing a shotgun 3 times a minute

[Turbosatan]

No, no. You're not getting me. I'm not saying it's wrong that they fire in an orderly fashion. When I say perfect, I literally mean "perfect." They don't simply fire in an orderly fashion like any properly trained unit at the time would. They fire at the exact same time. Each volley sounds like one single shot. The whole rank fires on the exact same frame. That's wrong.

The bug only seems to come into effect once you have Fire By Rank researched, and then it only effects Line Infantry.

Here, I took a video: http://www.xfire.com/video/b0f40/ (note the lag of recording throws it off a bit, but it's still pretty clear to see, especially the 3rd rank in the second volley at the end of the clip).

Then after they all fire with robotic precision, the reloading animations are all perfectly in synch as well, then they keep going on like robots. There's practically zero variation between each of the soldiers' animations or firing. This wasn't the way it was before, and it's not the way it's supposed to be.

I've got confirmation from several others. If you haven't noticed it yet, I suggest you make a custom battle, set techs to Late, and just have it 1 line inf vs. 1 line inf and watch them, and see for yourself. In a large battle, having 8 units of line infantry with fire by rank enabled sounds like 8 individual men firing a shotgun 3 times a minute

But.... What was fire by rank meant to look like? Aren't those dudes firing... By rank? Not meaning to be facetious, just wondering how you know it's "not the way it's supposed to be"?

(Apologies if the answer's obvious, but I've been up all night watching the fights...)

[Dayve]

Without fire by rank researched, units let off a perfect volley. It isn't fired at exactly the same moment and it sounds like a lot of muskets are being fired rather than 1 big one, but once you research fire by rank, units fire at exactly the same moment, and yeah, it's very annoying.

Still, i'd put it last on a list of what needs to be fixed.

[Rhuarc]

No, this is exactly how fire-by-rank is supposed to work. What you don't hear (and it would be an awesome addition on CA's part, BTW) is the unit Seargent yelling the commands - Ready! Aim! FIRE!

This was the whole point of it. A single, unified volley to decimate the opposing line- and break their morale. The better the training of the unit, the more unified the volley would be. CA got this EXACTLY right.

[Nelson]

I believe perfect volleys were rare even by experienced troops. The sound of gun fire has been referred to as "the rattle of musketry". Parade ground evolutions in the field and under duress had to screw things up enormously.

In fact, as a former reinactor of the American War for Independence I can assure everyone that try as we might to fire nice, tight volleys, they were hard to pull off even with just 30 or 40 men firing. Despite using modern FF black powder that is mixed and corned to perfection (vastly better that 18th century powder) it was still very hydroscopic thus hang fires could delay ignition and cause the “rattling” effect. Despite having plenty of time to prepare meticulously before each show, once we marched off, flints still shattered and vents still clogged. Or all the men might not hear the fire order due to some great artillery discharge nearby. Not to mention the fact that being Mark I human beings, on occasion the men became inattentive or distracted (even without any real danger) and fired late.

Seeing the men march and fire imperfectly has been a great aspect of Total War since at least Rome. Desynchronizing these actions makes it all look realistic. If the troops have reverted to automatons then that is a bad thing IMO. Combat was very different from the Queen’s birthday parade at the palace.

[TB666]

Nothing wrong with that video.
They have always done that so pretty sure that it is intentional on CA's side.
And the units that don't have ability to fire in ranks still fire at their own will.
So the patch hasn't changed anything when it comes to that.

[antisocialmunky]

If you use desynchronized animations, then no its not supposed to look like that.

[Rhuarc]

I believe perfect volleys were rare even by experienced troops. The sound of gun fire has been referred to as "the rattle of musketry". Parade ground evolutions in the field and under duress had to screw things up enormously.

In fact, as a former reinactor of the American War for Independence I can assure everyone that try as we might to fire nice, tight volleys, they were hard to pull off even with just 30 or 40 men firing. Despite using modern FF black powder that is mixed and corned to perfection (vastly better that 18th century powder) it was still very hydroscopic thus hang fires could delay ignition and cause the “rattling” effect. Despite having plenty of time to prepare meticulously before each show, once we marched off, flints still shattered and vents still clogged. Or all the men might not hear the fire order due to some great artillery discharge nearby. Not to mention the fact that being Mark I human beings, on occasion the men became inattentive or distracted (even without any real danger) and fired late.

Seeing the men march and fire imperfectly has been a great aspect of Total War since at least Rome. Desynchronizing these actions makes it all look realistic. If the troops have reverted to automatons then that is a bad thing IMO. Combat was very different from the Queen’s birthday parade at the palace.

Well, you are right of course. As a reinactor of the American Civil War (...ahem, War of Northern Aggression), my experience is with rifles and percussion caps. A whole easier to get a unified volley off. Flintlocks are a bit trickier for the reasons you stated. Still, I think in general a well trained unit should be able to get off somewhat of a consistent volley, else why would they attempt it? I also don't see complete consistency in the firing- animations are not ALL the same and there is sporadic fire. All in all, in terms of the game, I think they did as good a job as they could in trying to depict rank fire as an improvement over fire-at-will. Oh they could make it a bit more sporadic I guess, but I don't really have a problem with it as it is now.

[antisocialmunky]

Why is it a war of Northern Aggression if the Missourians went to Kansas Territory first and the South attacked a Federal military installation first?

[Husar]

Well, I also think it is a bit too synchronized now, computer-accurate synchronization is not exactly fitting for the time period.

[hoom]

Yeah, I had a play with it last night & I do agree its a bit too synchronous, everyone standing up from reloading at exactly the same time, levelling muskets at exactly the same time etc.

Couldn't get a Militia unit during Late period though so don't know if it applies to them too?
Certainly Militia front row firing was pretty ragged.

[Mr Frost]

It also happen when larger units do that idiotic and needless {and plain made up} fire be file ripple fire "mexican wave" {I despise it incase you havn't guessed} .

After spreading out {to give the A.I. , whom I don't see doing fire by files much at all , a few free volleys and ensure that they will be inflicting serious friendly fire casualities on neibouring units they have spread out into} About 4 files 4 men deep will fire in perfect synch and then the next block of 16 men etc {in large units , this is a massive drop in firepower compared to proper rank fire} .

I don't remember seeing a desyncronise toggle in the options U.I. , could it be that this feature exists but the U.I. doesn't yet contain it ?
























P.S. :and I think that we should destroy the fire by files "feature" !

[AussieGiant]

Ok so I think we can gavel this issue through to the Change Request Board of the Comptroller.

Item 567a: Please desync, but not too much, the fire by rank functionality in Line Infantry, after the technology Fire by Rank has been attained in the Technology Tree.

Motion has been passed by a show of hands.

NEXT!!!

[hoom]

Platoon fire would be just fine if it sped up or used bigger groups based on the width of the formation so that it always gets back to the start just as the first group finishes reloading

[antisocialmunky]

I think that I read that the desychronized firing animations were a function of one of the graphical options like more than one face or torn sales are somewhere way back when. I mean, obviously this is a bug or something but I think that you don't get desynced animations at lower graphical levels.