fire_by_rank

[FactionHeir]

Hello all.

After being somewhat annoyed by this attribute gunpowder infantry have, I did a few tests on what happens if you remove it.
Well, it turns out that the units still won't fire as xbow or archer units do, and only 1 person per column will fire his gun per barrage:

i.e.
XYXYXXX
YYYXYYY
YXYYYYY

where X denotes shoots and Y denotes not shooting

In general, the unit will fire less evenly with not everyone shooting at the same time, but the next row will not start shooting unless everyone in all columns are either idle or reloading.
So in a way its like having fire_by_rank but with uneven shooting/reloading times yet without the "move front to back" walkings in between. Now, you'd think that this would mean the unit overall would be more effective and faster at shooting, but on average it is not: because of the uneven shoot/reload and the associated wait time of other gunners until everyone is reloading.
That is in campaign games where I usually do not get to deploy them in a straight 2 row formation.

In a custom game with 2 row formations, they will be roughly 5-10% faster at shooting and about 10-15% more effective at damaging the opponent because the individual shoot/reload plays less of a role if there are more people in a row and the likelihood of having another slow shooter in it.
The higher effectiveness stems from not everyone shooting at the same time and therefore aiming at an increased amount of individual targets within a unit. You can see that when you have say a full arq unit shooting a depleted 5 men ballista crew in close range - each salvo, only 1 or 2 men will be targeted/hit with fire_by_rank enabled while with it disabled, the ones already shot are less likely to be shot again and you can get 1-3 men being hit.

Other side effects of removing the attribute are a tighter overall formation, meaning it will be slightly more vulnerable to missile/artillery/charge but also fit more men per row in a given confinement of space - a double edged sword. Also less disciplined shooting, as in the earlier example of having men in different rows shoot (but only 1 per column) and different shoot/reload times. The benefit is that the walking around and associated bumping into and getting stuck while walking problems are solved and the units no longer get stuck when you have fire at will mode enabled and target manually anyway.

Anyone else did any tests on this attribute? What are your thoughts on its usefulness? Personally, I now disabled it for all gunpowder infantry mainly to fix annoyances. It doesn't overall affect performance much at all in a campaign battlefield situation due to both advantages and disadvantages mostly balancing out.

[fenir]

disabled long ago,


Fire by rank, ranks as almost useless. I found by strechting them out completely in two rows, with "Fire at will". More damage and shots are fired.

For example, in my orginal tests, I found that by having 3 rows, or just any number greater than two. The men spend more time running into each other,(and getting stuck there for 2 mins), or waiting for others to shoot.
I did time the firing in three rows with fire by rank, but i can't remember what it was. I know it was almost twice as long as a 2 row fire at will.
I did the tests using many units against arqubusiers and muskets. But then settled on the "Scottish rabble" vs Spanish Muskets.
I found that 2 rows with fire at will to be faster and more effective than any other formula.

There really needs to be a load button, and fire. And then continue in a fire by rank. Thereby realising the fire power of the musket.
Or, as the British did, Fire by company/platoon.

If we could model that in some way, or just effective fire by rank, would be nice.
But alass, I could not find a work around as yet.

still I would like to know if anyone has solved the problem.

fenir

[dopp]

Fire-by-rank is always nice to see. Maybe try increasing the spacing between men to avoid collision issues when switching ranks, plus make them highly_trained?

I've found that fire-by-rank shoots fairly fast the first time for each rank but then there will be a huge delay where the unit stands around doing nothing before the ranks start cycling through again (this time noticeably slower as well). It's pretty depressing to watch.

[AnthoniusII]

This way of firing would be inacurate for medeival armies...The 1st time a similare way was used was in the batlle of nagassino in jappan.In europe firing by rank was used after 1600s...

[Headlocked]

Hi All,

Musket infantry is my running pet project (see here).

Fire by rank in itself is not the problem; this is a red herring.
The crucial points are spacing and the reload times.

See DarthMod for a current sorta-fix for both, although I am working on it still, and slowly getting places.

Antoher thing i am trying to do is prevent the AI from 'mixing' up thier gun formations. This is tricky...

Regards,
HDK