goodwood Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 G'day, I have been a member of this forum since 1999, and have bought every every game in the CM stable other than Afghanistan. I have played all of them to death, and I have rarely questioned the game mechnicanics The issue that has peeved me off in the latter versions of the franchise is the pathing of vehicles. Nothing peeves me off more in any game I have ever played than the idiotic performance of vehicles moving in circles and turning their soft end to the enemy fire. This has been around for several years now and it appears that the good folk at BFC are not bothered fixing this issue, it spoils what is an excellent game. I just watched my SPW 250 H/T recce vehicle do quick waltz, like it was on a ballroom dance floor, for the 60 sec turn it spun around in circles, waltzed backwards and forward and finely exposing its butt to infantry small arms fire, needless to say it ended up on the scrap iron pile. Very disappointing. Please Battlefront fix this problem before offering another module. It should be your priority as it does not do any justice to a great game. Ron 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I rarely if ever see this problem with CMBN vehicles. Maybe you are asking them to do unreasonable things? GaJ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpabrams Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Well the vehicles require some management. Waypoints have to be chosen wisely, watch your speed when turning and know if your vehicle can corner worth a darn. Avoid making turns around objects. When doing a 180 degree facing change it is best to "change facing" before proceeding in the opposite direction. Giving a vehicle facing north a movement command to travel straight south will be disasterous for example. The vehicle will pivot in a circle and it can get ugly. Time your routes when in "convoy" movement so vehicles don't bunch, use the pause command and allow at least 5 seconds between vehicles. Routes need to be specific and use many waypoints. Simply picking a couple of waypoints to cover 500 meters will lead to disaster as the vehicles struggle to pick the corrrect route. Practice. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poesel Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 GaJ - if you ever have to move more than three vehicles in tight spot you will see that. I have to agree with goodwood that vehicle pathing is not, let say, the bright side of CMBN. My favourite anectode was a truck that couldn't find a path where I ordered it and decided to reverse through its own, known minefield (and NOT under fire). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I have to agree with goodwood that vehicle pathing is not, let say, the bright side of CMBN. ... and GAJ's and dpabrams's point is that instead of suddenly expecting the TacAI to become able to read your mind, take the time to tell it exactly what you want it to do. Otherwise you will continue to get undesirable behaviour. Like GAJ I very rarely see this problem, but then I give orders for my vehicles to execute 3-point turns when needed, I give long pauses (generally 15 seconds) between vehicles in a convoy, I use Slow or Move around road corners and plot those corners as two or three waypoints, etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I had a Stuart that couldn't get through a gap my Engineers had created in some bocage, it detoured into a known enemy kill zone in an attempt to get there and got knocked out. Obviously i would of preferred it to stop if it couldn't follow the specific path i had plotted rather than improvise, so it would be an improvement if units just stayed put and waited for another path to be created if they cannot follow the prescribed one. However until there is some solution to this the best workaround is to have an empty map of the battle you are fighting, then if you want to move something somewhere that you think could be a tight squeeze you can test it on that map before committing the path to the game, although this adds yet more work to a work intensive game it's better than seeing the sort of movement behaviour this thread points out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaws Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 @Goodwood, please make some screen shots or video, or even a sketch will do. AI is a problem not only for BF but for all games. However mostly you bypass problems by giving the commands in a different way. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I had a Stuart that couldn't get through a gap my Engineers had created in some bocage, it detoured into a known enemy kill zone in an attempt to get there and got knocked out. Before v1.10 it was possible for engineers to blow a gap that wasn't big enough for a vehicle to follow through, in which case you'd have to widen it by a second breach. In v1.10 I haven't seen this occur. Steep 90º turns at Fast speed produces problems because the driver might overshoot, so either give intermediary waypoints or slow down before the corner. Also try to avoid bunching up your vehicles. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jurpo Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Steep 90º turns at Fast speed produces problems because the driver might overshoot, so either give intermediary waypoints or slow down before the corner. Mmh. Unnecessary micromanagement. The AI could well calculate that it's instructed to make a tight turn -- basic geometry there -- and coming to the turn adjust speed by itself accordingly, while otherwise proceeding at best possible speed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Mmh. Unnecessary micromanagement. The AI could well calculate that it's instructed to make a tight turn -- basic geometry there -- and coming to the turn adjust speed by itself accordingly, while otherwise proceeding at best possible speed. Amazing! I bet BFC wishes they had thought of that. Steve, hire this man post haste! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childress Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Vehicle pathing is far, far better now than in the CM1 titles and require less babysitting. Just a bit of common sense is required when issuing commands. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chainsaw Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 You should have seen CMSF 1.0 - 1.7! Now there was some crazy pathfinding issues! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wodin Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I remember reading that when it comes to corners you must set alot of waypoints and don't make them to sharp. I stuck with this advice and have few issues using it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WineCape Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I remember reading that when it comes to corners you must set alot of waypoints and don't make them to sharp. I stuck with this advice and have few issues using it.indeed. Longish plot-paths in general are fraught with danger; advice posted here on how to minimize such AI freakish behaviour, I find, are spot-on to such a degree that I don't have to pull my beard out anymore. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 G'day, I have been a member of this forum since 1999, and have bought every every game in the CM stable other than Afghanistan. I have played all of them to death, and I have rarely questioned the game mechnicanics The issue that has peeved me off in the latter versions of the franchise is the pathing of vehicles. Nothing peeves me off more in any game I have ever played than the idiotic performance of vehicles moving in circles and turning their soft end to the enemy fire. This has been around for several years now and it appears that the good folk at BFC are not bothered fixing this issue, it spoils what is an excellent game. I just watched my SPW 250 H/T recce vehicle do quick waltz, like it was on a ballroom dance floor, for the 60 sec turn it spun around in circles, waltzed backwards and forward and finely exposing its butt to infantry small arms fire, needless to say it ended up on the scrap iron pile. Very disappointing. Please Battlefront fix this problem before offering another module. It should be your priority as it does not do any justice to a great game. Ron There still is too much of the "path-inventing" going on. While I agree that with enough game experience and enough micromanagement of speed and plot points you can bring it down to a bearable level, I question whether this is the wise thing to. Micromanagement should be reduced, not upped, in a game like this. The way it is it is distracting for the RT players and deadly for the WEGO crowd. I have never seen the overall realism gain from what CMBN does here. Following the path as plotted by a player closely and not deriving from it for some non-transparent reason is what I think would be overall more realistic. I realize that the game engine tried to be a little more micro-realistic by throwing in some micro-physics, but how much gain is there for overall game realism? The result of what the engine is trying to do is higher level unrealism, namely turnign vehicle's asses to the enemy (very unrealistic) and inability to simply follow a road (very unrealistic). I still argue that this is one of those piece of code that was worth trying. But failure should be admitted and the code taken out and shot. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRMC1879 Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Vehicle pathing is far, far better now than in the CM1 titles and require less babysitting. Just a bit of common sense is required when issuing commands. Absolutely - I think the pathfinding is really good now. The only thing I always do is plat two or three angled way points when I want it to make a turn. Not only does it make it work better but if you do it correctly the vehicle doesnt lose speed. Really - I think this guy picked one bad example and flogged the whole game for it. Really I just dont get that attitude. Honestly - 99 times out of a hundred when I plot movement - vehicles pretty much do what I want them to. I dont get the complaining. The only point I see the plotting really struggle is when traffic jams build up. that really the point you need to be careful. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sirocco Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I plotted a movement of a lorry down a road in a QB. A couple of waypoints for a slight bend, then a final waypoint at the end of the long straight road the bend turned into. The road had a bank to the right which covered movement. I was more than a little surprised to find the lorry had mounted the bank and was driving in full view of the enemy, which needless to say opened up on it and scored a hit which affected the morale of the passengers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~Viajero Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 +1 to the OP, not that happens in every game and if you are careful in your orders, but still when it happens it tends to be quite silly and with dramatic outcomes. I just had a kubelwagen wandering off to my own minefield because the AI decided the path I ordered (a straight line by the way) in the first place was somehow blocked (maybe by another vehicle) and chose a completely different rout. I know the route was possible because a few other vehicles had gone thorugh it before (cleared bocage). Not only the kublewagen ignored the route (not even pauses) but as I said it decided to drive into my own minefield... In the same scenario one of my spw also decided to ignore my route and go through the same minefield. This time the vehicle sutvived but it was eliminated by my opponent troops happily waiting for it at the other side of the minefield... As I said I know the path was possible because plenty other of my vehicles had used it already. I have the turns if someone is interested... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpabrams Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Setting paths is the players job not the TAC AI. Commanders bare the responsibility of plotting moves realistically, taking into account the specific vehicle, paths, geography, speeds and turning. If you expect the TAC AI to do this for you, you will be disappointed. The world is an imperfect place and so are PC games. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childress Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Absolutely - I think the pathfinding is really good now. The only thing I always do is plat two or three angled way points when I want it to make a turn. Not only does it make it work better but if you do it correctly the vehicle doesnt lose speed. I often observe dance academy etiquette when a vehicle pauses and politely allows another to proceed. Rare, irc, in the CM1 series; you'd often get a cluster-****. One appreciates good manners in this day and age. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sirocco Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Setting paths is the players job not the TAC AI. Commanders bare the responsibility of plotting moves realistically, taking into account the specific vehicle, paths, geography, speeds and turning. If you expect the TAC AI to do this for you, you will be disappointed. The world is an imperfect place and so are PC games. Well, in my case, I could have added a couple of pause and face orders as the lorry entered the bend. Perhaps that would have ensured a proper path? But then, when you have a lorry making its way down a perfectly serviceable road one might expect it to handle such things all on its lonesome without the need for micromanagement? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Setting paths is the players job not the TAC AI. Commanders bare the responsibility of plotting moves realistically, taking into account the specific vehicle, paths, geography, speeds and turning. If you expect the TAC AI to do this for you, you will be disappointed. The world is an imperfect place and so are PC games. I agree, but i would like to see a vehicle stop if it cannot navigate an allocated path rather than try and improvise one, at least from a position of rest it is better suited to defend itself while waiting for the turn to finish. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I don't have much problems with vehicles spinning around or doing 28-point turns like in CM1. However, it would be so much nicer if, when you plotted a point, the line showed roughly the path the unit will actually take, and not just a straight line. Perhaps if they ever put movable waypoints back in, this could get done along with it. Nothing worse than missing a little gap in the bocage and then watching your infantry merrily run out into the open to be gunned down. Also, I don't think it's asking too much for units to go around known minefields, instead of going straight through them, unless directly ordered to. Mostly this is a problem in WeGo, some unit will "discover" a minefield and the units directly behind will happily run right into it themselves. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpabrams Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Well, in my case, I could have added a couple of pause and face orders as the lorry entered the bend. Perhaps that would have ensured a proper path? But then, when you have a lorry making its way down a perfectly serviceable road one might expect it to handle such things all on its lonesome without the need for micromanagement? Perhaps the driver was texting on his cell, changing a CD or a deer ran out in front of him. Or the phantom red car ran him off the road? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I agree, but i would like to see a vehicle stop if it cannot navigate an allocated path rather than try and improvise one, at least from a position of rest it is better suited to defend itself while waiting for the turn to finish. But ... improvising a path is navigating the allocated path! That's the very essence of navigation - "how do I get from A to B?" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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