Orders not carried out

[wlmiv]

I was playing a Red Thunder scenario called the Myth of Invincibility.

Playing the Germans I moved my AT gun limbered to a truck up to the Potato Sheds and beat my opponent there.

My opponent decided to rush the Potato Sheds and were approaching half way there.

I had ordered my AT gun to dismount. I had given no order to the truck driving the AT gun. However, rather than allowing the AT gun to disembark the truck decided to drive away with the gun still attached. The truck was protected between two houses so it could not be hit. The Russian vehicles were not visible to it unless those vehicles could fire through the house which provided cover for the vehicle to disembark. I do note that the Russians were firing on the house as a form of suppression fire. But rather staying in cover, the truck on its own initiate drove  out into the open and was quickly destroyed with my AT gun still attached. Needles to say I am miffed.

My question is why would it do this? What triggers the AI to override one's orders? What triggers the AI to act against what would have  been a safer decision to stay put?

My plan was to disembark the AT gun and then have the driver either bail out or attempt to reverse their vehicle's way out. I am really quite frustrated because this was a needless loss that was the result of the computer programming rather than my own decisions.

I would think that maybe in a future update, Battlefront would allow the orders to disembark for vehicles like trucks or armored personnel carriers to be carried out above all else. If there is a threat of immediate danger those orders must be given priority before the vehicle is allowed to drive off. If anything, maybe the driver should bailout if they know the truck or armored personnel carrier is going to be destroyed while carrying out a disembarking action for its passengers in the rear. In other words, the AI programming should be set up to allow for disembarking of passengers as its main priority. These orders must override the self preservation instinct (panic) of driver of vehicle whose actions may be more costly. May be there should be an override order or a stay put order that makes the AI recognize what is the priority command while allowing the driver to bail out of his vehicle if it is in immediate danger. This would be a better result than having the driver of the vehicle drive away with all of the passengers still on board causing the to go down with him like a Captain Ahab.

[BornGinger]

Are you sure that you didn't order the truck to drive up and paus behind the house for maybe about 45 seconds after which you wanted it to drive away to another position?

And are you also sure that you didn't order the AT-gun crew to disembark the truck and move the AT-gun to its position while the truck was pausing for 45 seconds?

If the answers to the above is "Yes, I did pause the truck so the AT-crew could jump off and move the gun to its position before the truck continued on its route", I'm sorry to say that the game doesn't allow vehicles to pause and have passengers leave them.

Vehicles can pause and allow passangers to embark them before they continue on their route but of some strange reason they can't pause and allow passangers to disembark them before they continue.

[wlmiv]

No. There was no timed pause

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

they can't pause and allow passangers to disembark them before they continue.

This is the very reason why I did not give the truck orders.

Edited January 18, 2022 by wlmiv

[kohlenklau]

Game Engine manual page 62-64

[Erwin]

Units under threat will react.  Vehicles will back away from a threat (often into an even worse situation and get KIA).  Looks like that is what happened to your AT transport before it could unload.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

16 hours ago, wlmiv said:

No. There was no timed pause

This is the very reason why I did not give the truck orders.

Ironically, a permanent Pause order at the end of the truck's movement might have prevented the problem, however I'm not 100% sure that the gun would have dismounted.....I suspect it would, but I've never tested this particular combination of orders.

[A Canadian Cat]

On 1/18/2022 at 11:03 AM, wlmiv said:

I had ordered my AT gun to dismount. I had given no order to the truck driving the AT gun.

If the AT gun's orders are placed at the end of a long set of truck orders there is nothing you can do. When the truck ends its move if it is safe enough then the AT gun can disembark and set up. If the truck has no move orders you can give the AT gun team a dismount order - that order will be executed before any new truck move orders (including automatic ones). This means if you are trying to setup an AT gun you might be able to intervene to limit some of the chaos.

So, for example lets say you gave the truck a long set of move orders and the AT gun an order to move a short distance to setup. If your turn ends and the truck is nearly done its movement and you can see the situation has changed you can make some adjustments. You can decide to disembark anyway - which you wanted to to in this example. To do that cancel all truck and gun orders. Then give the AT gun a dismount command and then move it into position. After that you can order the truck to do something or not - your choice but at this point you are guaranteed that the AT gun will dismount before the truck takes action on its own.

 

On 1/18/2022 at 11:03 AM, wlmiv said:

My question is why would it do this? What triggers the AI to override one's orders? What triggers the AI to act against what would have  been a safer decision to stay put?

Because the truck saw a significant threat and so reacted to protect it self. Typically when you are setting up an AT gun you will be fairly safe. In your case that safety didn't last long enough and chaos ensued. Welcome to Combat mission.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On 1/18/2022 at 4:03 PM, wlmiv said:

My question is why would it do this? What triggers the AI to override one's orders? What triggers the AI to act against what would have  been a safer decision to stay put?

Panic!

The truck driver is reacting to his perception of the battlefield not yours! 

He doesn't know what you do.

If you want to know what he knows, play in Iron Mode and click on him during the replay phase.....You'll discover that his view of the battlefield is rather more blinkered than the one you normally see. 

I suspect that you'll find that some time immediately prior to the truck starting to act silly from your perspective, a very prominent red contact icon became the primary & pressing concern from his perspective.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Sgt.Squarehead

[A Canadian Cat]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Panic!

This is the only part of your answer that needs adjusting. Absolutely Panic and Shaken states lead to soldiers reacting and ignoring your orders. In those states they mostly just try to flee. Soldiers in good order will also ignore orders and react on their own too. Many times tanks or squads forget about your target order in order to fire at other threats that they spot during a turn. Tanks will withdraw and pop smoke especially if they perceive a threat they have not spotted or cannot engage. In this example a truck or a half track is withdrawing because they are likely to be destroyed and don't have any way or an effective way to respond to the enemy.

The point is units do not have to have their morale effected to drop orders and take matters into their own hands. Morale effecting events do that too but they can also react on their own without becoming a panicked mess.

 

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

The truck driver is reacting to his perception of the battlefield not yours! 

He doesn't know what you do.

If you want to know what he knows, play in Iron Mode and click on him during the replay phase.....You'll discover that his view of the battlefield is rather more blinkered than the one you normally see. 

I suspect that you'll find that some time immediately prior to the truck starting to act silly from your perspective, a very prominent red contact icon became the primary & pressing concern from his perspective.

Exactly this. The Tac AI that governs the actions of each individual soldier makes its decision based on what that soldier sees and his role. A truck driver sees pretty much any enemy unit as a direct threat to his existence and he will easily take action to evade the threat.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It occured to me that Panic was the wrong word as it is one of the game's morale state.....'Imminent Fear Of Anhilation' would probably have been a better choice.

[Vacillator]

7 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

play in Iron Mode and click on him during the replay phase

I agree, this is the way (Mandalorian style).

[wlmiv]

I suppose 'Imminent Fear Of Annihilation' is the correct word. However, the driver was safer behind the house rather than driving off. If anything he should have bailed out of the truck and allowed the other units to dismount. 

This is why I say the developer's should have an override button whereby the driver will not drive off and allow the Truck to dismount. Instead if he feels threatened by Annihilation he will bail out of the vehicle while the dismount order is being carried out. 

[chuckdyke]

 

[Erwin]

Great video.  Thanx

[Sgt.Squarehead]

3 hours ago, wlmiv said:

This is why I say the developer's should have an override button whereby the driver will not drive off and allow the Truck to dismount. Instead if he feels threatened by Annihilation he will bail out of the vehicle while the dismount order is being carried out.

Nope. 

With all due respect, if you are driving softskin vehicles full of men into places where they can be shot at, you need to worry more about your tactics than you do about the game engine.

PS - @chuckdyke  Score one for the Sherman! 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Sgt.Squarehead

[chuckdyke]

Thanks, I won't even let a Sherman or for that matter any tank cross a danger zone with mounted infantry, let alone a truck with a squad of mounted infantrymen. If you let them dismount and then give them mount order they will remount the transport later at the last waypoint. The Shermans in this case where it is save. At least if they get shot at now not all of them get killed.

Edited January 22, 2022 by chuckdyke

[wlmiv]

The point is that they were not under direct fire. The truck was behind a house and  in cover. The T-34 was a possible contact that showed up during the turn and started firing on an empty house which the truck was behind. Instead, the driver drove out into the open and got all of his passengers blown up with him. Please read the original explanation.

I do say there should be a vehicle priority in the process of reaching a way point such as an "Unload on Contact" or an "Unload Main Priority" when no orders are given to the vehicle. The driver can jump out if he thinks he is going to get blown up based on the priority the officer (meaning you) sets. In my case, the vehicle was not in danger of being destroyed. It was not going to happen on that turn.

Let's say you drive a half track into battle and make contact. When it makes contact, the purpose of the half track is to give covering fire while the vehicle unloads its passengers. What if the driver starts to reverse preventing your troops from disembarking and then gets them all killed? Is this the role the half track is suppose to play? No.

I was on the Iron level too.

Edited January 22, 2022 by wlmiv

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, wlmiv said:

The point is that they were not under direct fire. The truck was behind a house and  in cover.

One of the fun challenges of CM is that one really doesn't know what a unit may or may not see or be aware of.  It's not uncommon in a game to see a tank (say) orient to face an enemy that one cannot see and no sound contract.  The Tac AI cheats somewhat in some situations.  You may never know why the truck did what it did.  You just have to trust the game.

[Artkin]

On 1/18/2022 at 11:03 AM, wlmiv said:

The Russian vehicles were not visible to it

I have noticed this behavior on occasion too. Partial contacts will sometimes cause your vehicles to flee. Super annoying.

 

It actually happened in my CMCW tournament game, but I can't show footage from that just yet.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Artkin

[BornGinger]

On 1/22/2022 at 1:40 AM, wlmiv said:

Instead if he feels threatened by Annihilation he will bail out of the vehicle while the dismount order is being carried out. 

I think in this case there should be the possibility for the driver to automatically return to the truck again when he has calmed down. If the driver doesn't some AI orderes might get undone and have the same result as when a vehicle gets bogged down and immobilised. The tank riders or infantry inside trucks will be stuck in the position where the vehicle got bogged down and immobilised or where the truck driver ran away and their AI-orders won't be followed.

Edited January 23, 2022 by BornGinger

[Sgt.Squarehead]

20 hours ago, wlmiv said:

The point is that they were not under direct fire. The truck was behind a house and  in cover. The T-34 was a possible contact that showed up during the turn and started firing on an empty house which the truck was behind. Instead, the driver drove out into the open and got all of his passengers blown up with him.

So what you are saying, in essence, is that you are somehow surprised that a man, sat in an unarmoured truck full of fuel, ammo & men, is concerned about being parked next to a house that is receiving medium caliber high explosive rounds and continuous MG fire? 

Blimey, the CM learning curve is gonna be very steep.....You might need some safety gear! 

20 hours ago, wlmiv said:

Please read the original explanation.

I did.

Please do not be rude to people who are trying to explain how CM works.....You are not playing Command & Conquer. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Sgt.Squarehead

[BornGinger]

20 hours ago, wlmiv said:

The truck was behind a house and  in cover. The T-34 was a possible contact that showed up during the turn and started firing on an empty house which the truck was behind. Instead

I'm fairly sure that this was a good example of the magical line of sight these games give infantry and tank crew. The T-34's crew probably managed to see the truck behind the house because their line of sight went in through a windows facing the tank, through the house and out through a window facing the truck with the result that they tried to shoot at the truck.

Pure Combat Mission magic.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

Pure Combat Mission magic

No magic needed! 

Either the other player used Area Fire, or the AI had Area Fire Orders. 

PS - Trucks @ Front Line = No-No.....That's why APCs (& then IFVs) were invented.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Sgt.Squarehead