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Concerned over rare pathfinding problems in SF2 demo


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3 hours ago, domfluff said:

I had a frustrating - but explicable - case earlier today in CMRT.

A team came under SMG fire from a nearby building, but they did not gain a spotting contact (I could see where the fire was coming from, and overwatching units *did* gain a contact icon, but the specific team under fire did not).

The team then ran for the nearest cover, which was the building that the fire was coming from. They ended up charging into the SMG fire, losing a man in the process.

I don't think this is an example of bad AI at all - just something that's an unfortunate consequence of the excessive information that we gain as commanders in Combat Mission - it's "clearly" the wrong course of action, but "seek cover when under fire from an unknown source" was an understandable decision to make in the moment.

I see nothing wrong in what you are saying and I do not know how TacAI is programmed to determine the nearest cover. If a team does not know the location of an enemy unit, it can act as if there were no enemy units in one place. It is logical.

It is just that if an unit is fleeing, self-preservation would be to fallback into friendly lines. Not going forward into the enemy lines to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. At the beginning of the episode, the security guard is always killed anyway... 😏

Seriously, the origin of this thread is that unit sometimes flees in the direction of the enemy lines despite the value of the "Friendly Direction" parameter.

But, this is a simplistic view. Friendly line direction can perfectly be wrong for a fallback. I have realized that.

This is surely a more complex algorithm based on these three basic questions:

  1. Which way is the "Friendly Direction"?
  2. Which direction(s) this particular unit is aware of the presence of the enemy?
  3. Which way is the nearest cover for this particular unit?

An algorithm such as:

  • If (3 != 2) then unit chooses 3
  • elseif ((3 == 2) and (1 != 2)) then unit chooses 1
  • elseif ((3 == 2) and (1 == 2)) then unit chooses Random(Alea Jacta Est)

I am sure the devs will find out. 🤗

Edited by ncc1701e
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8 minutes ago, ncc1701e said:

I see nothing wrong in what you are saying and I do not know how TacAI is programmed to determine the nearest cover. If a team does not know the location of an enemy unit, it can act as if there were no enemy units in one place. It is logical.

Oh quite - this is absolutely working as designed and correct, but it highlights how complex analysing the issues can be - if I hadn't been very careful in noting that the unit had no idea where the enemy was, as a player what you'd see was:

Unit walks towards a building, units hidden in the building open fire, sending them to ground. As the volume of fire builds up, they choose to bug out, and rather than run away, they decide to run directly *towards* the the same building the fire is coming from, losing a man in the process.

From the godlike perspective of the player, this action makes no sense. From the specific perspective of some confused pixeltruppen, it was a costly mistake, but a more than plausible one.

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28 minutes ago, domfluff said:

Unit walks towards a building, units hidden in the building open fire, sending them to ground. As the volume of fire builds up, they choose to bug out, and rather than run away, they decide to run directly *towards* the the same building the fire is coming from, losing a man in the process.

One of those heroic or daft actions depending on the result....    

What the hell is Michael Clarke thinking? He gets bowled for charging down the wicket and yet he leaves the ball.

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  • 1 month later...

It sounds like it.  I wasn't using the hunt command or moving one or two hexes.  Sometimes the vehicles just want to drive in a semi circle in order to reach a way point and the infantry guy did run through a wall and not around it.  It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so obviously a problem.  Sometimes it seems to be worse than others and makes me wonder about the Tac AI.

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