Blind troops

[General Jack Ripper]

On 4/6/2020 at 2:25 AM, Aragorn2002 said:

Knowing Umlaut he investigated this situation very thoroughly before he posted it.

I see no evidence of that.

[General Jack Ripper]

On 4/5/2020 at 5:40 PM, Erwin said:

Regardless of smoke, unit should still be able to hear the tank (and therefore know that it's there)..  

Well, we have no idea if there was a contact marker or not given the sad lack of video coverage.

 

On 4/5/2020 at 12:30 PM, umlaut said:

My apologies. I´d completely forgotten that I wasn´t a certified bug reporter. Next time something like this happens, I´ll just keep it to myself.

If you want issues like this to be investigated and taken seriously, you might want to take your reporting of them a little more seriously.

You could at least include a save game. I mean, the absolute basic level of effort might pay off, if you did anything with it.

Otherwise, yes. You should keep it to yourself because you are doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

[Freyberg]

2 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

...

Otherwise, yes. You should keep it to yourself because you are doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

You have no manners.

I bet you're rude to waitresses too.

[Erwin]

Guys, this is not a new phenomenon or new bug.  I have experienced this strange LOS issue for many years and have simply learned to live/play with it.

However, these LOS issues are real and have been around since CM2 first came out. 

In addition, the inability of of units to hear a tank nearby eg: when waiting in ambush on the other side of a low wall, is also an issue.

[umlaut]

16 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

Well, we have no idea if there was a contact marker or not given the sad lack of video coverage.

 

If you want issues like this to be investigated and taken seriously, you might want to take your reporting of them a little more seriously.

You could at least include a save game. I mean, the absolute basic level of effort might pay off, if you did anything with it.

Otherwise, yes. You should keep it to yourself because you are doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

I have been debating with myself whether your comments deserve an in depth reply. I have decided that they don´t:

Your sad lack of civlized language and ditto abilitity of watching the video and reading my decriptions in this thread has convinced me that you are clearly not genuinely interested in an answer. It seems to me that you belong to the tiny group of forumites who percieve even the slightest indication of criticism of the game as some sort of heresy. And so, let´s shoot the messenger.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

We seem to have lost sight of the original topic.....CM does odd things sometimes, that's just how it is.

[General Jack Ripper]

4 hours ago, umlaut said:

It seems to me that you belong to the tiny group of forumites who percieve even the slightest indication of criticism of the game as some sort of heresy.

Nonsense.

All I'm asking is that you TRY to report an issue in a way in which we can all clearly see and understand what's going on.

I guess you'd rather be cryptic and indecipherable, to the detriment of all.

Thanks for the help.

18 hours ago, Freyberg said:

You have no manners.

I bet you're rude to waitresses too.

Has our understanding of the problem being reported advanced in any way since the original post?

No?

Then nothing of consequence has happened in this thread. Thanks for the waste of time.

[Bulletpoint]

If I could, I would increase infantry's general ability to spot vehicles at very close range (20-30m), to represent that even in woods and low-light conditions, a tank with its engines running has a big presence, attacting lots of attention and focus, and infantry would do their utmost to find out if a tank or truck that comes rumbling along is friendly or enemy. 

Troops in woods without any contacts will normally scan the terrain and look a bit left, then right, then straight ahead.. without any real pattern.

But if troops are in woods and there's an unexplained massive engine noise close by to the right, troops will not just look in that direction for 2 seconds, not see anything, then say "oh well", and look to the left to see if there's anything over there. They will keep focus on the noise and crawl forward just a little bit or peek past tree trunks to catch a glimpse of the vehicle. And in the game, that would translate into faster and more accuracte spotting tests.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[MOS:96B2P]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

If I could, I would increase infantry's general ability to spot vehicles at very close range (20-30m), to represent that even in woods and low-light conditions, a tank with its engines running has a big presence,

I don't know how difficult it is or what other problems / complications the following idea might have. 

Idea:  Make Armor an automatic tentative contact spot at 32 meters (4 Action Spots) no matter the conditions.  Or something along these lines.  Maybe light armor, and soft skin automatic at 16 meters?  So if the AI doesn't spot it sooner it becomes automatic at some point and their is no more worry about the spotting cycles etc.  Having said all that, the AI still needs a confirmed contact before it will shoot.   So this automatic tentative contact will not make the AI fire the panzerfaust etc. but will hopefully speed up the acquisition of a confirmed spot.        

[Bulletpoint]

4 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

I don't know how difficult it is or what other problems / complications the following idea might have. 

Idea:  Make Armor an automatic tentative contact spot at 32 meters (4 Action Spots) no matter the conditions.  Or something along these lines.  Maybe light armor, and soft skin automatic at 16 meters?  So if the AI doesn't spot it sooner it becomes automatic at some point and their is no more worry about the spotting cycles etc.  Having said all that, the AI still needs a confirmed contact before it will shoot.   So this automatic tentative contact will not make the AI fire the panzerfaust etc. but will hopefully speed up the acquisition of a confirmed spot.        

Infantry already pick up the sound of tanks and get a contact marker at hundreds of metres. So the problem is not due to a lack of the tentative contact.

[MOS:96B2P]

50 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Infantry already pick up the sound of tanks and get a contact marker at hundreds of metres. So the problem is not due to a lack of the tentative contact.

The opening post of the topic gives video example of Sikh infantry walking up to a tank and not noticing it.  Umlaut later explains the infantry did not even have a tentative contact for the tank.  The opening narrative from the first post is in italics below.     

Sometimes there seems to be something seriously wrong with spotting in this game.  These two Sikhs walk right up to a firing german tank - without ever noticing it!

When infantry have a tentative contact for armor at long range it is not a problem.  I agree.  I think the OP had a problem when his infantry did not notice armor at close range.  My idea was to make the spot, via tentative contact, automatic at a predetermined close range.  This would hopefully eliminate the sometimes unrealistic results that come from relying on the spotting cycle, die roll, facing etc (or whatever it is that the game is relying on).   

So at 33 and above meters the system works as it does now.  At 32 meters and below the system gives an automatic tentative contact. Then this would hopefully facilitate the spotting system getting to a confirmed spot if confirmed is appropriate (actual LOS and not behind a tall wall or building etc).   

Edited April 13, 2020 by MOS:96B2P

[Bulletpoint]

19 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

The opening post of the topic gives video example of Sikh infantry walking up to a tank and not noticing it.  Umlaut later explains the infantry did not even have a tentative contact for the tank. 

Infantry always have contact markers for close by tanks. But the game has a graphics bug that sometimes makes markers disappear, based on camera angle and altitude and who knows what else. Also there's a bug where markers sometimes don't get updated - they stay in the location where they were first picked up, even if the tank later moves.

So I'm guessing the marker just was not visible to him in this case.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[umlaut]

I dont think I have said that there was no contact marker for the tank. I have just checked - and the sikhs had it all through that turn.

But still: They never spot the tank - and when the turn ends, they are 4 meters away from it!

[MOS:96B2P]

On 3/22/2020 at 3:27 AM, umlaut said:

Would the smoke and dust be sound proof too?

My bad.  I took this to mean there was no tentative contact sometimes also referred to as a sound contact.  I also watched the video and could not see any tentative contact displayed.  My wife may be right about me needing glasses.    

[umlaut]

5 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

My bad.  I took this to mean there was no tentative contact sometimes also referred to as a sound contact.  I also watched the video and could not see any tentative contact displayed.  My wife may be right about me needing glasses.    

You could see no contact markers, because I had turned them off to avoid confusing them with contact markers for other units. I had also deselected the PIAT team in order to show where the tank was - if they had been selected the tank would have been invisible too.

[MOS:96B2P]

12 minutes ago, umlaut said:

You could see no contact markers, because I had turned them off to avoid confusing them with contact markers for other units. I had also deselected the PIAT team in order to show where the tank was - if they had been selected the tank would have been invisible too.

YES!!!!!!!  I STILL don't need glasses!   

I suspected that when @Bulletpoint said Tentative contacts were not the problem I might be missing something.  But since I believed there was no tentative contact I thought he might finally be wrong about something this time.  Maybe next time......   .     

Edited April 14, 2020 by MOS:96B2P

[Bulletpoint]

25 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

YES!!!!!!!  I STILL don't need glasses!   

I suspected that when @Bulletpoint said Tentative contacts were not the problem I might be missing something.  But since I believed there was no tentative contact I thought he might finally be wrong about something this time.  Maybe next time......   .     

Oh, I'm far from infallible.

I believe I was wrong about something back in... 2017?

 

 

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

It was mentioned here that the size of target arcs is impacting on spotting checks but if I recall it right in another thread it was stated they do not impact spotting. What is true?

Edited April 14, 2020 by Aquila-SmartWargames

[Bulletpoint]

14 minutes ago, Aquila-SmartWargames said:

It was mentioned here that the size of target arcs is impacting on spotting checks but if I recall it right in another thread it was stated they do not impact spotting. What is true?

Very good question, that has been discussed several times.. without any consensus, I think.

The main line of thinking is that setting and arc does NOT affect a unit's ability spot.

However, I seem to have noticed several times that it might.

And Steve just the other day posted saying that setting a wide arc would spread a unit's attention too thin, while setting a narrow arc would do the opposite. That can be interpreted as saying that the arc somehow helps narrow a unit's focus.

For what it's worth, I played a scenario where I wanted my tank to drive up to a ridge and spot an enemy tank. I made sure to give my tank a contact marker through C2. Well, my tank spotted nothing and got taken out. So I decided to reload the turn several times and see what the odds of spotting in that situation actually were.

I ran the same turn and orders 3-4 times and each time, my tank spotted nothing and was destroyed.

Then I tried setting an armour arc on the location of the contact. My tank near immediately spotted the enemy and took it out. I then re-ran the turn a couple of times with the arc, and each time the result was the same - with varying spotting times, but I did get a spot each time.

So that's the best info I can give... if you invest the time to test this out methodically, I'd love to hear what you find.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Erwin]

Generally, unless the target is in front of the tank's turret it's always better to gave a covered arc with its center pointed at the presumed location of the target.  But, is that helping spot or simply helping kill since the turret doesn't have to move?  

It makes a lot of sense that a covered arc should focus the unit's attention in the desired direction and help with spotting.  It definitely did that in CM1.  But, I also definitely recall that after CM2 was released 13 years ago, we were told by BF that in CM2, a covered arc made very little difference in spotting ability.  Perhaps that has been changed in the various upgrades/updates, and now it is worth setting covered arcs all the time when faster spotting is required?

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

The only thing that I incorporated into considerations is vehicle hulls or at least the turret facing should point into the direction of presumed enemy contact, despite the obivous reasons my experience indicates to me that they spot less good on flanks and rear, especially in the distance and also close-by when the cmdr is not opened up which would naturally make sense aswell. 

But I never payed attention to arc sizes and also perceived them to do no/little difference in spotting and often use circular ones and just the arcs when facing is needed but with @Bulletpoint´s and @Erwin´s additions taken into account it makes me wonder. About this "target arcing" enemy contacts, I also sometimes had this impression but dismissed them as being coincidental.

If true this could mean you could "focus beam" attention on tentative contacts or suspected enemy positions in order to quicker get results or get them at all. At lot of scenario styles like ones emphasizing reconnaissance would get a complete different meaning for me. Although to some extent I do hope it practically makes little difference as I am not sure if I would welcome the additional micromanagement of always keeping target arcs in shape. Nevertheless you never done learning in CM and I will pay more attention to this. 

This reminds me somewhat of the testing I did with the BMP-3 radar in order to locate concealed infantry units. I´ve made a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unTyMNPIGLc 

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Aquila-SmartWargames

[umlaut]

48 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Then I tried setting an armour arc on the location of the contact. My tank near immediately spotted the enemy and took it out.

Yes, that is what I would usually do in a similar situation. But in this case I gave the PIAT team a 360 degree arc - instead a focused one on pointing in the tank´s direction
- because I have had several experiences where the target suddenly moves outside the armor arc. And then I could have been in the situation where the team did see the tank
- but wouldn´t fire at it, because it was outside the arc!
So damned if you do, damned if you dont.

Edited April 14, 2020 by umlaut

[Bulletpoint]

55 minutes ago, Aquila-SmartWargames said:

Although to some extent I do hope it practically makes little difference as I am not sure if I would welcome the additional micromanagement of always keeping target arcs in shape.

Yes, I agree with this.

[Erwin]

It was easier to set target arcs in CM1 as one could create 180 degree arcs in the desired direction with one simple click.  In CM2 it's more fiddly and time-consuming.

3 hours ago, umlaut said:

But in this case I gave the PIAT team a 360 degree arc - instead a focused one on pointing in the tank´s direction
- because I have had several experiences where the target suddenly moves outside the armor arc. And then I could have been in the situation where the team did see the tank
- but wouldn´t fire at it, because it was outside the arc!

I find that usually it's best to simply set wider (up to) 180 degree arcs.  The "center" of that arc should point towards the desired direction.  I have assumed that this focuses the unit's attention in the desired direction, but at the same time it's very unlikely that the target will move outside of that arc.

The question is what is the % advantage of setting a directed covered arc vs no arc or a 360 degree arc.  If the advantage is minimal (as we were led to understand by BF over ten years ago) we save a lot of time not having to worry about it.  

But, perhaps updates and upgrades has changed spotting in that time(?).  

[Freyberg]

7 hours ago, umlaut said:

I dont think I have said that there was no contact marker for the tank. I have just checked - and the sikhs had it all through that turn.

But still: They never spot the tank - and when the turn ends, they are 4 meters away from it!

If they had a sound contact, but no visual contact, and it was not something that happened often, I wouldn't be too worried.

Firstly, we all know there is a high degree of randomness in the game, which is as it should be; and secondly, in RL, infantry in proximity to a tank would be trying very hard not to be seen themselves, so between those two factors, I would just put it down down to luck rather than a bug.