Ghost truck bug

[pawter]

I noted this abnormal behaviour a couple of times in the past but was only playing against the machine so it didn't bother me as I could abort the game if it really mattered. But now I'm stuck with it in a real game against a human opponent so I'd like to learn a solution, if there is one.

I am US in a CMBN QB in which I bought a 2.5 ton truck. Soon after starting I told platoon of HMGs and their officer to get in. Next turn a couple of the floating icons were greyed out and starting to drift off from over the truck to nowhere in particular. This drifting greyed icon behaviour I've seen on other aberant occasions relating to mostly intact infantry squads, but doesn't interest me here.

Problem is that in the next turn to try remediate the situation I told everybody to dismount but the two problem teams did not, then I told everyone (including the driver) to get back in; same problem but now the truck continues to be shown as unoccupied and is incapable of movement. After trying a few iterations of this with minor changes I've sent the 2 sound HMGs at a run forward to try catch up with the advance.

Now I've tried telling the driver, left behind, to fire upon the action point occupied by the abandoned truck to try coerce the 2 teams whose greyed icons have drifted off to a stable 150meters away, but whose pictured troop bodies are shown sitting immovably in the back of the truck. My goal was to get them all off the truck so I can reman it with the driver and move it forward as it is my only ammo resupply. Eventually he threw a grenade which killed a couple of machine gunners but at least forced that team to disembark, but the officer team being unharmed have sat tight.

Now, a couple of turns later, the HMG are not panicked, their (still greyed icon has returned) to float over them but there are no orders shown available for them to move, shoot or do anything including retreat.

Any thoughts anybody?

[Baneman]

Not really sure.

I do know that if you give a squad an order to embark and they do not finish that action in a WEGO turn, their icon is greyed out during the next orders period - basically you can't give them any orders.

This is very annoying if you wanted them to get in in order to Acquire ammo - you can't tell them to do that, even if only the last man hasn't "shut the door" and you have to wait another whole turn to Acquire.

I've not seen the icon drift away, but there does seem to be a bug with "wandering soldiers" drifting away from their squad. You seem to have gotten that as they embarked - it's been noted by someone else in an AAR thread as well recently.

Can only advise that you hang onto the turns, BFC may need examples in order to root out the bug.

[Brent Pollock (WBRP)]

I had two mortar crewmen from two different teams wander off towards the enemy, never to be seen again. It took me a few minutes to notice the flustercluck. They seemed to get left in limbo during PBEM WEGO while they all tried to load into the same truck. I thought perhaps I had overloaded the truck and broken the TacAI's brani.

[c3k]

pawter,

I'd like to look at this. PM me in my profile and we'll exchange emails. I'll need your opponents turn and his password, as well, if possible.

Thanks,

Ken

[pawter]

c3k

OK I'll ask my opponent. It's the first time I've played him so we'll just have to see how trusting he is.

I am very interested in the overload explanation. I normally just tell teams to get on transport and rely on the AI to tell me if it could accomodate the intended troops or not. I think I did overload the truck and in the next turn the number of green circles was significantly understated. I am going to test this with a hotseat setup.

[pawter]

Well it doen't seem anyone has any solutions to offer. Instead of testing a solo QB as intended, I recovered some game files from my recycle bin where H2HH had moved them and closely watched the turn where the troops mounted the truck. There was no 'overstack' involved; exactly 20 were told to embark.

As per experience with infantry the greyed-out drifting icons are caused by two individual troopers who took it into their heads to dash off randomly rather than sequentially climb on board. The resultant drifting icons are in consequence a form of weighted mean of the positions of all the troops in each particular squad.

I've seen this bug before for footsloggers, it is just this time where transport is involved it destroys the useability of both the troops and the vehicle.