Movement under bridges

[Victor Semensi]

This may have been covered before but is it possible to have vehicles move under bridges? I downloaded the Stoumont Station scenario from the Belgian CM site. In it there is a high railroad bridge that splits the German forces with a road under it. When I plot movement it is treated as an obstacle. This seems to be the case in the Arnhem bridge operation as well.

Other than the bridge problem this site has some of the best maps I've seen. I notice that when maps are converted from ASL they tend to be very flat, at least in the Bulge scenarios covering Peiper,s battles. The ones from this site are based on topigraphical maps and visits to the actual sites of the battles.

[M. Bates]

I think that *not* being able to move under bridges is part of the game engine, and not the scenario design

[Tris]

Well, you're supposed to be able to move under land bridges--tall stone bridges over land tiles--according to the documentation. I haven't tried it yet, though, so maybe it doesn't actually work.

[Schrullenhaft]

I believe you should be able move underneath a tall land bridge. When you plot your movement the lines will go over the bridge, but the unit should still move through the "opening" on the bottom. I believe if you have the unit end it's movement underneath the bridge it may attempt to move to the top (if there is an available path for it to do so). So you'll need to plot your movement path beyond the bottom of the bridge.

[Mord]

I had a game where every vehicle in the op, all 66, were wiped out on the bridge. Everytime the crews evacuated they ended up coming out below the bridge and not on it.

Mord.

[This message has been edited by Mord (edited 12-05-2000).]

[Tris]

I think there's something screwy there come to think of it, because I once started a scenario that did have a land bridge but quit after I reached the bridge as I considered the battle about over. But I did hang long enough order a couple of units to traverse the road underneath the bridge and noticed the following turn that their paths were confused--the same sort of way these jumble when a unit is ordered from one abutting building to the next. I mentioned this at the time but no one responded, now that I think back. Apparently the pathing isn't quite right with land bridges.

[Schrullenhaft]

Charles had to do a bit of extra coding to get the "underpasses" of land bridges to work. What you're seeing is probably the result of the compromises made to get it to work in some fashion without overhauling a good chunk of the code (this isn't a slam on Charles' coding abilities).

Hopefully some of these features can be re-coded in CM2 so that they work/appear a bit more "naturally".

[Victor Semensi]

Thanks for the replys. I assumed that because I couldn't move the level 1 camera under the bridge and movement lines go over the bridge that units couldn't as well. When I actually plotted a move past the bridge, the HT in this case passed under it with no problem. My camera view did jump over the bridge as my unit moved under it though.

[Bullethead]

There are some problems with bridges, especially bridges over lower-level roads. In this case, the AI seems to regard the tile as a 4-way intersection all on 1 level instead of being 2 separate paths divided by impassable slopes, at least in part. Here are some examples of this behavior:

1. If you plot a movement path on the lower level, the line between waypoints goes over the bridge instead of under it.

2. As the unit moves following this path, its base goes up over the bridge instead of under it, even though the unit graphic itself goes under.

3. The camera viewpoint never goes under a bridge but always pops up on top of it when moved along the lower level in view mode 1 or 2. This is true even if the view is locked to a unit whose graphic moves under the bridge.

4. If a wrecked vehicle on the lower level is pushed so as to go under the bridge, it instead pops up on top of it. Then the pushing vehicle goes under the bridge without further impediment.

5. If a vehicle on the lower level is knocked out, its bailing crew appears on top of the bridge instead of under it.

6. If during the execution of a turn the AI has to replot movement paths in an area containing a bridge over a road, it will often plot waypoints so as to make a 90^ turn in the center of the bridge and go on the other path from that which it was originally following. That is, if the unit is on the lower level, there will be a waypoint on top of the bridge and then movement along the upper path, or vice versa.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[I/O Error]

I recently replayed the Arnhem scenario and vehicles and men COULD drive under that bridge.