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Question about LOS, AI and targetting..


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I'm new to the whole CM series and noticed a few oddities while playing this afternoon. Sometimes it appears that LOS isn't calculated correctly. I had a tank trying to take a shot at the top part of a building where some AI were spotted but the game kept insisting that I didn't have good LOS. I obviously positioned my camera to match that of the tank and I clearly had a shot. Sure, it wasn't that big but it was there nonetheless. Is there some limitation perhaps that tops of building can't be targeted? I've seen this happen numerous times. In situations where there's no question that you have a clear LOS, targeting works fine but certain situations where you're trying to fire just left of an obstacle for example give me the most trouble. Its almost as if you can't fire on someone else without exposing yourself first.

Another issue I've seen was when I had an AI soldier cornered between a building a cement wall and no matter what my commander team did, they could not hit the guy. We were maybe 8 meters away and had clear LOS. Why does the AI miss when they're really close to their targets? Is it because the engine is coded that way - almost to miss on intentionally like an RPG? I think in real life you would expect a soldier with even the most minuscule amount of experience with a rifle to hit their target by their 30th try. Can someone explain why this happens in game? That's just one example. I can put 2 guys in front of a whole firing squad and they wouldn't be dead right away. Half the people would miss for some reason. Just trying to understand why this is.

My third point is related to issuing commands. Aside from playing in realtime, is there a way to give a unit a move and target order in the same turn if the original position of the attacking unit didn't have a clear LOS? As an example, I had a few men in position behind a building. Obviously no LOS to the target. I wanted to lay down some suppression fire with this unit of men but it takes 2 turns to pull that off. I should be able to move my men 2 feet and then start firing on a target but instead I have to move them out of cover - simulate- target - simulate. It seems like the target arc could be used to mitigate this but that's not the same. I want them to start firing. I think there should be no limitations with what you can set up during your turn. If I want to move someone out of cover, suppress, pause, and then return to cover I should be able to do that. Am I looking at this game genre wrong?

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I'm new to the whole CM series and noticed a few oddities while playing this afternoon. Sometimes it appears that LOS isn't calculated correctly. I had a tank trying to take a shot at the top part of a building where some AI were spotted but the game kept insisting that I didn't have good LOS. I obviously positioned my camera to match that of the tank and I clearly had a shot. Sure, it wasn't that big but it was there nonetheless. Is there some limitation perhaps that tops of building can't be targeted? I've seen this happen numerous times. In situations where there's no question that you have a clear LOS, targeting works fine but certain situations where you're trying to fire just left of an obstacle for example give me the most trouble. Its almost as if you can't fire on someone else without exposing yourself first.

I believe there is an issue with ordering a unit to fire on a building where it can't see the base of it. Unless it can actually see the unit that you want to fire at or the base of the building, you end up with some difficulty trying to target the upper floors. Unfortunate, but it is what it is.

Another issue I've seen was when I had an AI soldier cornered between a building a cement wall and no matter what my commander team did, they could not hit the guy. We were maybe 8 meters away and had clear LOS. Why does the AI miss when they're really close to their targets? Is it because the engine is coded that way - almost to miss on intentionally like an RPG? I think in real life you would expect a soldier with even the most minuscule amount of experience with a rifle to hit their target by their 30th try. Can someone explain why this happens in game? That's just one example. I can put 2 guys in front of a whole firing squad and they wouldn't be dead right away. Half the people would miss for some reason. Just trying to understand why this is.

This one I'd definitely need a pic or save. I am having trouble envisioning this situation.

My third point is related to issuing commands. Aside from playing in realtime, is there a way to give a unit a move and target order in the same turn if the original position of the attacking unit didn't have a clear LOS? As an example, I had a few men in position behind a building. Obviously no LOS to the target. I wanted to lay down some suppression fire with this unit of men but it takes 2 turns to pull that off. I should be able to move my men 2 feet and then start firing on a target but instead I have to move them out of cover - simulate- target - simulate. It seems like the target arc could be used to mitigate this but that's not the same. I want them to start firing. I think there should be no limitations with what you can set up during your turn. If I want to move someone out of cover, suppress, pause, and then return to cover I should be able to do that. Am I looking at this game genre wrong?

If your unit can not see the opposing unit, no matter what you can not in that turn issue a target order on it. What you can do is move, pause, area target and then move back. A little risky as you don't know what the other unit is doing during that period and you aren't actually firing at them (though the TAC AI may take over and have your units target them.)

If you can not have someone else at least suppress the enemy unit, I would be loathe to just charge around a corner and hope for the best. I am not sure of what you mean regarding genre, but in Combat Mission you can not order a unit to target directly what that unit can not see. Odds are if you send that team around that corner blind and haven't applied some amount of suppressive fire on them, your guys will be the ones needing letters written for. If you have another unit with LOS to the area around the enemy you can have them area fire and that may be enough to give you the drop.

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Re your 3rd question, if I understood you correctly, you can set a waypoint so your troops can move to a firing position, CLICK on that waypoint and order a PAUSE plus a TARGET command, then a 2nd (or more) waypoint back to wherever you want them to end up finally.

Re your first two questions I hope you don't get flamed as players have been complaining about the strange LOS and targeting issues since CM2 came out several years ago.

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Why does the AI miss when they're really close to their targets? Is it because the engine is coded that way - almost to miss on intentionally like an RPG?

To a limited extent, I believe it is, yes. I think someone from BFC has described it something like this: at the very last point, once a projectile has been determined to intersect with its target, that target gets a "saving throw" based on the terrain it's in to see whether it is protected by the terrain. This is to represent "microterrain" that's below the resolution of the game: small buttresses on walls, hollows in the ground, random rocks and logs, lucky cigarette cases, that kind of thing. I suspect that at close range, some of these saving throws might be (or ought to be) nullified, but even a slight chance can, in a lucky streak, come up over and over again, and you'll only ever notice when it does.

Or you might have got a glitch where the target was being drawn in the wrong place.

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Am I looking at this game genre wrong?

My impression from your description is, that you are looking at it more as a shooter game. Dashing around corners and shooting the enemy is common in Hoolywood movies and action games, but has not much to do with the reality. Whenever possible soldiers try to avoid suicidal situations, because only Chuck Norris and John Rambo survive them. ;)

If you are experiencing situations, where you are in need of Chuck Norris, you should take this as warning sign, that your tactics probably is not the best, supressive fire is missing and that there probably could be better solutions for the problem.

IMO you are also too much hanging on the display of the individual soldiers. Try to look at them more as parts of a unit. It's the unit that counts.

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<snip>I had a tank trying to take a shot at the top part of a building where some AI were spotted but the game kept insisting that I didn't have good LOS. I obviously positioned my camera to match that of the tank and I clearly had a shot. <snip>

Yes, this can be an annoying limitation that comes from the game design using action squares. For area fire you have to aim at the centre of the action square. If you cannot see the centre of the action square you cannot shot. If the tank can see the enemy in the window of the top floor then the can fire at the enemy but once they duck or leave the building you can no longer area fire at the very same spot you were just shooting at.

Sigh.

I personally run into this most often when fighting in an urban setting. It is frustrating when you cannot use your tanks to suppress suspected enemy positions in buildings down the street.

My third point is related to issuing commands. Aside from playing in realtime, is there a way to give a unit a move and target order in the same turn if the original position of the attacking unit didn't have a clear LOS? As an example, I had a few men in position behind a building. Obviously no LOS to the target. I wanted to lay down some suppression fire with this unit of men but it takes 2 turns to pull that off. <snip>

You can issue move orders to several way points and then select each way point and add pauses and target commands to each. That is the mechanism to allow you to give complex orders. For your example issue a move order to a location where you can target the area you want. Select that way point. Add a pause to that way point (press the pause button multiple times to increase the length of the pause) then with the way point still selected pick a target command to the location you want the unit to shoot. Then deselect the way point and add additional movement commands as needed to get your guys to cover again.

I would avoid using the cover arc for this since you don't know what is out there. If you know you want to fire at a suspected enemy position use the target command if you just want to watch an area and shoot if they spot an enemy, use the face command to point your guys in the right direction. Using both the face command and the target command the AI will usually switch to shoot at a spotted enemy that appears close by. However if you have a target arc set and an enemy is spotted outside the arc the AI will most likely *not* shoot at the enemy.

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My impression from your description is, that you are looking at it more as a shooter game. Dashing around corners and shooting the enemy is common in Hoolywood movies and action games, but has not much to do with the reality.

Actually, quite the opposite. I loathe shooters or anything that's not realistic. I play sims exclusively. Racing, military, etc. I've been searching for a sim like CM for a long time and I'm suprised that I didn't know it existed until I discovered CM:Touch on my iPad. Its quite funny how I found the PC version... I was doing a search for a "Combat Mission:Touch" clone for PC :-)

I believe Erwin described exactly what I'm trying to do perfectly and I will test what he suggested via the pause system. I'm not trying to target something I can't see or something that the unit in game doesn't have information about. What I'm saying is that I would like to suppress an area with fire in one turn once I've moved from my position of not having LOS to the target. Knowing that my 2nd move will give me LOS, I'm just trying to plan what to do at that point in one turn.

You can issue move orders to several way points and then select each way point and add pauses and target commands to each. That is the mechanism to allow you to give complex orders. For your example issue a move order to a location where you can target the area you want. Select that way point. Add a pause to that way point (press the pause button multiple times to increase the length of the pause) then with the way point still selected pick a target command to the location you want the unit to shoot. Then deselect the way point and add additional movement commands as needed to get your guys to cover again.

BINGO!! That worked perfectly. Is there a way to set a pause for less than 5 seconds? Probably not, huh?

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BINGO!! That worked perfectly. Is there a way to set a pause for less than 5 seconds? Probably not, huh?

No, but in that case I'd tell the AFV to fire on the move on that leg of the order -- just leave an area fire target in effect during a move segment -- since you're looking for suppressive effect and not necessarily trying to target and kill specific known enemy positions.

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BINGO!! That worked perfectly. Is there a way to set a pause for less than 5 seconds? Probably not, huh?

To be fair, pausing for less than 5s would probably just slow you down, while not achieving much in the way of lead downrange, or situational awareness. It's worth noting that at any given waypoint, your troops won't arrive all at the same time, and the first ones there will get some chance to Spot and Aim and Fire while the laggards catch up. This will get you as much advantage as pausing for less then 5s would.

After the first 5s, I don't think the game is determinable enough to plan to time anything with more precision.

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To be fair, pausing for less than 5s would probably just slow you down, while not achieving much in the way of lead downrange, or situational awareness. It's worth noting that at any given waypoint, your troops won't arrive all at the same time, and the first ones there will get some chance to Spot and Aim and Fire while the laggards catch up. This will get you as much advantage as pausing for less then 5s would.

After the first 5s, I don't think the game is determinable enough to plan to time anything with more precision.

Yeah actually just having a waypoint is probably a 5s pause as the team regroups. One of the reasons you don't want a waypoint in a situation where your team may linger in the open.

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Yeah actually just having a waypoint is probably a 5s pause as the team regroups.

Yeah. Less if it's a short movement bound, often even longer when you've given them a long reach.

One of the reasons you don't want a waypoint in a situation where your team may linger in the open.

Oh indeedy.

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Overall the features on this game are outstanding, but the playability is crap! The AI is a cheating POS! I ran three guys up behind an AT gun emplacement and had no LOS. WTF! Are you kidding me!! I'm standing 5-10m directly (no slope) behind the gun w/o trees or shrubs to block the view even slightly! And AT guns almost NEVER miss and they don't get rattled like my tank crews. I'll be pounding an AT gun emplacement @ 550-600m with four PZ IV and the AT continues to fire back knocking out three of my AFV’s never missing! Three shots three kills under conditions that would rattle the best AT gun crews. My tanks get hit once w/o penetration and the crew is rattled consequently I lose control of the vehicle. Sherman’s firing on the move don't miss while I can't return fire because my tanks don't have a LOS. I used to love this game but I can’t play it any more . . . the frustration is taking years off my life.

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Overall the features on this game are outstanding, but the playability is crap! The AI is a cheating POS! I ran three guys up behind an AT gun emplacement and had no LOS. WTF! Are you kidding me!! I'm standing 5-10m directly (no slope) behind the gun w/o trees or shrubs to block the view even slightly! And AT guns almost NEVER miss and they don't get rattled like my tank crews. I'll be pounding an AT gun emplacement @ 550-600m with four PZ IV and the AT continues to fire back knocking out three of my AFV’s never missing! Three shots three kills under conditions that would rattle the best AT gun crews. My tanks get hit once w/o penetration and the crew is rattled consequently I lose control of the vehicle. Sherman’s firing on the move don't miss while I can't return fire because my tanks don't have a LOS. I used to love this game but I can’t play it any more . . . the frustration is taking years off my life.

lol play HTH, then your opponent can complain about the same things. ;)

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I used to love this game but I can’t play it any more . . . the frustration is taking years off my life.

You're learning. You're going to lose. Accept that and you'll live longer. Your points in order.

...the playability is crap!...

The interface is due (and in the process of recieving) an overhaul, sure, but it plays fine.

...The AI is a cheating POS!...

I have never caught the AI cheating. The builders of the game tell us flat out that it doesn't. Since they've nothing to lose by admitting that the AI gets a (much needed) helping hand by getting a bye on the rules sometimes (it's how most games set difficulty levels), and much more to lose by lying about it, I'm inclined to believe them.

I ran three guys up behind an AT gun emplacement and had no LOS. WTF! Are you kidding me!! I'm standing 5-10m directly (no slope) behind the gun w/o trees or shrubs to block the view even slightly!

First: trees or shrubs are not the only concealment. Did you have trees showing? That gets us all from time to time. Assuming you're not missing the trees, the terrain tile has far more effect at that range. If you were in a Dense Forest tile, and so was the ATG, it's possible that your troops simply couldn't see it, especially if they weren't very experienced.

Second: ATGs that haven't moved or changed their facing since game setup get a concealment bonus. Lots of people think this is inadqute; your anecdote may be proof that it's actually pretty good.

Third: do you mean you had no LOS to where you knew the ATG was, or that you hadn't spotted the ATG? If you had no LOS, there's probably some sort of glitch going on, or some terrain you couldn't see (cos you had it turned off). I'm guessing you meant your team couldn't spot the ATG, since that's much more likely (unless you had trees turned off). In that case, you should have been able to area fire on the place the ATG was hiding.

There are a lot of complications to spotting and concealment; they'll become clearer to you as you play and read here.

AT guns almost NEVER miss...

What ranges are you fighting at. ATGs don't miss much at close range; less than 500m is pretty much a hit. Especially if the target is anywhere near a TRP.

...they don't get rattled like my tank crews. I'll be pounding an AT gun emplacement @ 550-600m with four PZ IV and the AT continues to fire back knocking out three of my AFV’s never missing! Three shots three kills under conditions that would rattle the best AT gun crews.

Now that's where you're wrong. Possibly. What was the ATG hiding behind? If it was behind bocage, and the 75mm were hitting on the berm, or short, they will hardly be fazed if they're good. They pretty much must be good, because I've certainly suppresed ATGs with far less incoming than that. ATGs are a bit tougher to dislodge though, since they don't seem to break until they take a casualty, sticking by their guns through minute after minute of Pinned status, where other teams would bug out.

My tanks get hit once w/o penetration and the crew is rattled consequently I lose control of the vehicle.

Sounds like Green and/or low motivation/morale tanks to me. Experience and motivation play a huge part in determining how units react to incoming. Leadership and motivation play a huge part in determining how they recover from their pounding. At least that's how I see the two interacting. A Veteran or Crack ATG with positive leadership would be able to sustain that sort of assault from behind good cover.

If the ATG wasn't behind good cover, you got very very unlucky. Try rerunning the turn and see if it turns out different.

Sherman’s firing on the move don't miss...

Firing on the move is an unfortunately necessary kludge. This has been admitted by BFC. One day they'll find a way of making the AI stop and shoot. Then we'll all be much happier.

...while I can't return fire because my tanks don't have a LOS.

Sounds to me like another experience difference. Experience affects what your troops see. If you have green crews and they have veteran, expect to be beaten to the shot.

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