crabbit

Thanks for the explanation! Indeed, I wasn't trying to assert that targeting the tops of things was necessarily in itself the whole story. A problem with unseen spotting rounds makes perfect sense. In fact, based on your reply I did a bit more searching and came across this, which I believe is what you were referring to...? http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98163 What's being described there does sound like it's almost certainly the same phenomenon I was seeing. I'm very happy to see they've got it targeted for the next patch. I think I'll put that particular scenario aside until then, because if I can't get that fire mission to land halfway correctly, my Panzergrenadiere are going to have a very bad time of it when they make the final push into the farm compound

Having a spotter target artillery at the top, rather than the base, of a hedgerow, building etc. causes very strange artillery behavior, at least in the second "Panzer Marsch!" campaign mission. I was trying to call in 150mm artillery to fall inside the American-held farm complex. I started out having the spotter call a linear fire mission right along the middle of the front-facing hedgerow, just as far back as I possibly could. Since the spotter can't see through to the middle of the hedgerow at ground level, this presumably means he's actually aming at the TOP of the hedgerow. After some extremely erratic spotting rounds, the spotter nevertheless seemed happy with the result and called fire for effect. Unfortunately the "Wirkungsschiessen" was just as far off as the spotting rounds, with half landing in the next field over, and not a single one in the actual compound. Baffled---because I'm pretty sure arty isn't supposed to be THAT inaccurate---I ran a few more tests. I tried calling in a linear strike using the two buildings inside the farm complex as the endpoints...again, a case where the top of the landmark is visible, but the base is not, being obscured by the hedgerow in front. Same deal; the artillery strike now landed way back in the field behind the farm complex. It's worth mentioning that the strike WAS tightly clustered, just that it was clustered in totally the wrong place. Finally, I tried instead targeting a patch of ground just in FRONT of the obscuring hedgerow. This time, the artillery strike was dead on. So based on this, it seems to me there's something funky that happens when you target artillery at the top of something, rather than the actual ground. Anyone else run into this?

All that makes sense. It does look to me like it's something to do with turning radius. And it seems like the halftracks have a really large turning radius, which causes them to do all kinds of crazy things even when one plots a path with only gentle curves. I think this might be a case where the simulation simply has to make use of bit more abstraction or fudging. That's what happens with barrel elevation/depression limits, if I remember correctly...? It would be a nightmare having the AI deal with that, so it's left out. Same thing with turning radius. If the AI can't be made to deal with it, then leave it out or make it less restrictive. In the big picture, vehicles turning on a dime is way less unrealistic than having them dance the hokey-pokey every time they need to pass through a narrow opening.

I must say, getting vehicles through holes blasted in hedgerows is an exercise in frustration. I'm currently playing the second scenario in the Panzer Marsch campaign. Got my Pioneere to blast some nice holes, and the Panthers went through no problem. But the halftracks, oh, that's a different story! Some make it through OK, some seem to chicken out at the last moment, make a U-turn, and take off to god-knows-where. And that's for near-identical movement paths, approaching the hole head-on---not at a funny angle---at "Move" speed. It really gets old having to reload your scenario and replot your movement paths over and over because half your Hanomags are acting like skittish horses coming up to a jump. Incidentally, this is one place where having non-draggable waypoints really adds insult to injury...but that, I suppose, is a whole other can of worms.

Me and a generous glass of scotch are currently working our way through the first mission of the Task Force Raff tutorial campaign. Oh look, it's my old friend the Greyhound! Not that I don't like LAV-25s, but...I've missed you. Ahhhhh. :cool:

For science...you monster.

I had no idea that existed...looks promising, thanks very much for the tip! Mmmmm...more giant robots

I am currently relying on Mechwarrior Living Legends to take the edge off the waiting. Can be considered practice too, in a way. If you squint at it just right, a Clan Madcat is KINDA like a Panther, with particle cannons instead of a KwK

The one in the Imperial War Museum in London does look rather sexy. Well, except for the hole through the lower hull. Which, presumably, is how it ended up in Allied hands.

Now THAT would be fantastic! And an excellent counter to PSN withdrawal. It's a shame not being able to skulk through the ruins of a distant planet picking off Space Naz--uh, I mean Helghast online. But if instead you get to order around a whole BUNCH of little dudes skulking around, with tanks and armored cars and mortars, why that would more than make up for it! ...speaking of which, maybe Exoskeleton mechs can be added to CM in a future module :-)

In reaction to the alarmingly high density of pinhead drivers on your commute, you resolve to get a RWS for the roof of your Camry. Having arrived at this important decision, you then agonize endlessly over whether to get the .50 cal or the 40mm version. CR

I've started playing recently, and I'm loving it! It's been a while since I last played a Combat Mission game, and it's good to be back... Anyway, I'm a couple of missions into the TF Thunder campaign, on the mission where you have to move down a long road and occupy "Objective Grease" at the far end of the map. Initially, you only have recon assets and a Bradley. I'm having a hard time making use of the recon guys. Now after a couple (ahem) false starts, I've won this scenario by just waiting for the tanks and Strykers to appear, and basically steamrollering the ambush trench systems. Minimal losses---no vehicles, just a few infantry casualties---but the recon guys played almost no role. In particular, they didn't spot any of the enemy infantry in the trenches; the assaulting troops found those. In fact, to be honest, I never even noticed the trenches on my first attempt, until the folks in them lit up my lead Humvee. I replayed this again, taking just one recon Humvee and moving it slowly up to the ridgeline of the first hill on the right until it had a clear view of most of the battlefield. Then just waited to see if he'd spot ANYTHING. No luck. And yes, I did make sure the guy manning the FLIR-looking thingy was unbuttoned. Eventually, after several minutes, a nearby shellburst took out the unbuttoned guy, and I gave up. So my question is, is there any way to make use of recon vehicles in this scenario or similar ones (other than as cannor fodder)? Are they just no good at spotting guys in trenches? I would have thought that with a thermal camera, they'd at least get a few "?"s. Thanks for any advice! CR