[bug] people get stuck

[Bufo]

In some rare cases parts of an infantry unit will stay in place. I think the reason could be a vehicle on the edge of the map while these people dismount.

Save file: dropbox link

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by Bufo

[eniced73]

This has been an issue for a  "long" time now.  Thought it might have been treated in the most recent patch but it has not.  Playing an updated CMBN game right now and still seeing the same issue you are above.  About all you do is run that squad back towards the lazy MF'ers that refuse to get up and run.  Once they get close enough they will tell them to get off their asses and rejoin the squad.  Frustrating, I know.  Unless your micromanaging every squad it is easy to miss sometimes.

[Warts 'n' all]

I was hoping that it had been cured, but sadly not. I've just encountered it again in CMBN.

[com-intern]

iirc this issue predates any of the more recent bugs. I recall running into this way back in 2011.

[Warts 'n' all]

Oh yes, you're right about that.

[Bulletpoint]

I remember seeing this happen, but it's a long time since the last occurrence. At least in CMFB.

[Warts 'n' all]

On 7/28/2020 at 8:37 AM, Bulletpoint said:

I remember seeing this happen, but it's a long time since the last occurrence. At least in CMFB.

Hedgerows have always been treated differently in CMFB because it is set in winter, and the hedges are considered to be either devoid of leaves, or for them to have turned brown and brittle. Unlike in CMBN neither infantry nor vehicles are blocked by hedgerows.

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

Hedgerows have always been treated differently in CMFB because it is set in winter, and the hedges are considered to be either devoid of leaves, or for them to have turned brown and brittle. Unlike in CMBN neither infantry nor vehicles are blocked by hedgerows.

That's true. Also since I wrote that post, I went back and updated CMBN to the latest version. Now I'm quite often seeing pixeltroopers get stuck in terrain.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Grey_Fox]

Saw it in CMSF2 the other day, leader of the FO team moved off but not the assistant. Assistant decided to follow on the turn after the FO observer reached the end of his movement order.

Same happened in CMBS, one member of the scout team followed on the turn after the rest of the team finished their movement.

[Howler]

I took time to appreciate the detail of foot movement the other day when I ordered a KO'ed crew to 'Move' 500-600m to the rear (as a single way point) and noticed the gradual separation of the column. It took the wounded (yellow) minutes longer to cover the ground but they got there.

Otherwise, it's not something I notice and wonder if it's my tendency to break down squads and use of short (1-3 AS) way points when in contact that makes 'stragglers' a rarity.

 

[mjkerner]

I do the same, Howler (almost always breaking squads down), and other than yellow-wounded troopers lagging behind over longer distances, I don’t experience many “wanderers” either. That’s over all titles/modules (except I rarely play CMBS), all updated to the latest iteration. I get occasional (pretty rare though) odd pathing movements or weird trooper separations, but mostly in urban terrain with a lot of rubble and walls around the buildings, or “busy” hedgerow terrain.
 

So I’m curious if you guys seeing it happen again are by chance using split or un-split squads?

[Bulletpoint]

22 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

So I’m curious if you guys seeing it happen again are by chance using split or un-split squads?

Both. But I usually split squads.

[Warts 'n' all]

I've found that with Teams it will be one guy getting left behind. Whereas with Squads it will be two or three. I've also found that the behaviour is hit and miss, you can play seven or eight missions without it occurring at all, then suddenly you'll get hit by it multiple times in a single mission. Ho hum.

[Sgt Joch]

Infantrymen getting stuck is very rare lately. Pretty much all the pathfinding bugs have been squashed..

There is a confirmed bug which has been reported regarding units getting stuck in "Bocage" terrain in CMBN. It seems to happen when you give a general order to say a squad and the AI seems to have trouble figuring out the path. Then some men may become "stuck". The workaround is to be careful around Bocage terrain, split your squads into teams and give them easy to follow movement orders through or around the Bocage.

There is also a much rarer bug which I have seen where you give a long or complex movement order and you cancel the order before it is finished and/or the troops become pinned on different action squares by enemy fire. Normally, the troops should eventually rally on adjacent action squares, but in some cases, one or two men may become stuck on action squares far from the main body. I always keep an eye for these potential situation and if necessary move the team back to recover the stuck men.

I also get the impression the problem is more prone to happen in older maps like in CMBN or CMSF. I have been playing a lot of CMBS games lately and have not seen one instance of men getting stuck.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Sgt Joch

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Sgt Joch said:

There is a confirmed bug which has been reported regarding units getting stuck in "Bocage" terrain in CMBN. It seems to happen when you give a general order to say a squad and the AI seems to have trouble figuring out the path. Then some men may become "stuck". The workaround is to be careful around Bocage terrain, split your squads into teams and give them easy to follow movement orders through or around the Bocage.

I think you're right that it's bocage that triggers this bug, but it also occurs when splitting squads in teams and giving very simple movement orders. I saw it happen today when ordering a 2-man team to move along a 50m diagonal section of bocage. One guy stayed at the beginning while the other guy ran ahead, but then stopped and started crawling back.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Warts 'n' all]

@Bulletpoint I concur, even simple orders can trigger this behaviour. Although most missions on my recent stumble up the road to Montebourg were bug free, there were two where it happened so many times I was having to replay turns over and over... Grrrr!

[Falaise]

I agree with you
I generally play in a divided team in the bocage and even in this configuration and even with simple orders there are sometimes blockages.
Most of the time a soldier stays behind and joins the others with a lag, often by crawling, it is enough to redo the order of movement in rapid and the latter joins the rest of the team.
more rarely, those who left first go back to join the motionless one
despite all this is overall quite rare and personally part of the element that adds realism to my taste
that a soldier remains behind: a moment of hesitation, a technical problem (my rifle is jammed, I broke my laces, I lost my helmet, I have an urgent call ) in the RL world it happens all the time

[Warts 'n' all]

28 minutes ago, Falaise said:

I lost my helmet, 

That sounds very painful. 

[Bulletpoint]

37 minutes ago, Falaise said:

despite all this is overall quite rare and personally part of the element that adds realism to my taste
that a soldier remains behind: a moment of hesitation, a technical problem (my rifle is jammed, I broke my laces, I lost my helmet, I have an urgent call ) in the RL world it happens all the time

If we are creative we can explain away nearly any bug with such stories, but it is not very helpful to find and fix bugs in this game. I know you like the game and want to be kind to the people who make it, but in order to help them improve it, it is also necessary to sometimes focus on shortcomings and things that should be improved.

[Falaise]

I don't try to be friendly with the game designers even though I bless them every day for making such a game available to us !!!
I try to be pragmatic because bugfixes tend to lead to more annoying, if not unplayable, bugfixes, and the banzai bug is the best example of this. for me the most embarrassing is the bug when units enter through multiple doors even though I have learned over time to split groups before entering
They've probably reached the end of the system

[StieliAlpha]

On 9/15/2020 at 9:22 AM, Falaise said:

despite all this is overall quite rare and personally part of the element that adds realism to my taste
that a soldier remains behind: a moment of hesitation, a technical problem (my rifle is jammed, I broke my laces, I lost my helmet, I have an urgent call ) in the RL world it happens all the time

In a current game, I am moving infantry to the front over a long distance with “long” move orders (say good for 5 turns). What I see (and I think that it is new), is that the leaders race ahead. I agree, it technically makes sense, because they are lighter equipped, but in RL leaders certainly would stay with their units.

For the same instance: It is a little annoying, that they do not automatically follow the roads but spread out and walk cross-country.

[mjkerner]

Usually, with a MOVE command they will walk along the side of the road. (Makes for a good “moving up to the front” video.) But as you say, Stielalpha, over time the lightly loaded and healthy versus heavy loaded/yellow-wounded will move faster.

[c3k]

As stated, this is a known bug.

To avoid it, set shorter movement paths. This will tend to keep the men together and none should get stuck.

Also, break down into teams. (The pathing uses teams. A squad path is based on the teams in that squad. Breaking the squad down simplifies the AI "problem" and "solution".)

 

If it DOES happen, stop all movement orders. Then, take a single point movement command with an endpoint in-between the split team. E.g., if 3 men are up by a wall and 1 man is back at the previous turn's start, 100m away, the start point will be the geometric mean of the 4 men's positions. From there, draw a short (10m) move (Normal, Quick, etc.) back towards that 1 man. In a turn or two, the team will rejoin at that endpoint.

[Warts 'n' all]

5 hours ago, c3k said:

 In a turn or two, the team will rejoin at that endpoint.

"In a turn or two," Your men could get shot to pieces. The rest of your advance could grind to a halt etc etc.

This bug should have been sorted once and for all, within weeks of the release of the Big Bundle six, or however many years ago. And that is coming from someone who regularly got abused for being a "fanboi".

[Gumboots]

28 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

"This bug should have been sorted once and for all, within weeks of the release of the Big Bundle six, or however many years ago. And that is coming from someone who regularly got abused for being a "fanboi".

Yarp. If this rolls out with future releases onto Steam the Combat Mission series may get burned.

P.S. I am a fanboi. I don't want this to happen. I want Combat Mission/Battlefront to succeed so I get more and better games and sink thousands more hours of my precious life into them rather than do something productive for the good of mankind.