Something insane I found out: Admins have officially ruled that using an Excel spreadsheet to manually calculate mortar and OB coordinates is completely allowed and not metagaming. Yeah, you read that right.
So, normally, coordinates are randomly offset every round to prevent people from just memorizing map locations. This is why spotters exist, you laze a target, relay the new coords to the mortar or OB team, and they fire based on the numbers. That’s how it’s intended to work.
But here’s where things get nuts. If you laze just one known coordinate, you can figure out the offset for the entire round. From there, you can literally plug every possible tile into an Excel spreadsheet and reverse-engineer the entire map’s coordinates. This means you no longer need a spotter at all. You can just laze one tile at the start of the round, input the offset, and then start free-firing OBs and mortars anywhere you want with perfect accuracy.
And somehow, this is completely allowed. The admins have ruled that because you’re technically using in-game mechanics and not pulling static map data from outside sources, this is fair game. The only thing you need is one lazed tile to get the offset. After that, it’s just math.
So, next time you see an OB land way too fast or a mortar strike hit dead on without anyone even being there to spot, just know: Some dude is running Microsoft fucking Excel and playing CM like a goddamn accountant.
I have to use excel all day, I’d probably kill myself if i used it to call in an OB.
The alternative is you can just lase the coords, check the map to make sure you won’t hit a wall with your offset, then offset by 6-10 in the primary retreat direction and get a good OB every single time lol.
it’s 100% impossible to stop people from doing this so I don’t think the admins could possibly give a fuck but as many people have said this has existed for years and almost nobody uses it (plus it doesn’t account for weird nightmare shit fucking everything up)
E: you don’t even need a spreadsheet you can just do the math in your head (or alter the code on the webmap to display the post-offset coords)
OB doesn’t seem like much of an issue unless someone REALLY knows EXACTLY what they’re doing and has a clear scope of the tactical&strategic situations.
Blind OB mostly only functions to be able to do certain high-risk maneuvers. And if you hit xeno backline to try to fuck up their retreat path – they still have unlimited resin.
As for mortar… Minimum range 25 tiles maximum range 70(?) tiles. Mortar needs everything he can get to be effective in his current state. If mortar had unlimited range, then sure this would be an issue.
This seems like an excellent admin decision and I’m glad they made it. Surprised it’s controversial at all.
It doesn’t really matter at all because only 10% of the playerbase plays mortar semi-regularly and 90% of CM players would rather die then do 4th grade math, so the actual round impact is negligible enough for staff to not care
It’s not negligible when someone knows how to do math since it bypasses the spotter mechanic and lase timer to respond. It’s just multiplicatively better and more reliable as a result, making mortar way more oppressive to fight. But it does definitely reward knowledge on how to use the weapon system.
But luckily the mortar nerf also solved this anyway by nerfing the range so, it’s not that big a deal.
