Actual Tac-AI complaint about the Gold (spoiler alert)

[Eridani]

Hey Guys...

I hate to be the spoil sport witht he first complait, but something has been bugging me about the Gold....

The beta demo had a problem in that units would NOT EVER break an area-target... at least this is what I found... I lost many shermans this way, plinked by a stug just meters from where it was dutifully area-targeting... this made me rather mad

Now I notice however that the opposite problem is true in the Gold...

I like to position my 150 in an area where it can supress hill 217 to prevent allied use of that as an artillary position. This only works if the gun continously fires at the hill and never stops, even a stop of a minute can be enough time for a spotter on the hill to call down artillery and take it out (it has LOS to the hill ONLY... so only a guy on the hill being bombed can take it out.

The problem is, the tac AI is now EXTREMELY eager to stop area targetting, and I have seen it several times cease its area fire to target a unit who is only visable for a matter of seconds... then when that unit vanishes it just sits there and doesn't shoot anymore... usually meaning that next turn it is dead because it stops supressing the spotters on the top of the hill.

Is there a happy medium? personally I would like area fire to be as sticky as any other targetting order... I.E, to stay as long as there is no direct threat on the life of the unit targetting... Also, if its possible, is there any way to program the tac-ai to resume area bombardment fire after it takes any sort of defensive action (or in this case pointlessly targets a unit it has no hope of killing because of its ass-slow refire rate)...

just thought I'd ask (I can make a movie of this problem if anyone is interested... it happens a lot to me.. mostly because of how I use the gun)

-EridanMan

[krm]

I have to agree. Particularly with the IG. It tends to be very sporadic in its targetting choices as though the gunners came from the indecisive gunnery school of weenies. It will target a unit 600m away, moving into a depression, when you've given it a target 300m away, stationary

[Guest Ol' Blood & Guts]

Yeah, I noticed that too when I played the Germans. It kept retargeting moving units that it had no chance of hitting. But when the AI plays it, it seems to stay on target. What gives??

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"Why don't we say that we took this one chance, and fought!"

"Stupid humans. Hahahahahahaha!"

--from the film Battlefield Earth

[KiwiJoe]

Yeah I have 1 hell of a time just keeping that IG alive.

Seems as soon as I fire it the AI calls in mass art support. Realistic I guess but I wanna rip some infantry squads up with it

As for targeting I guess if it spots a "better" target in the distance - like an art spotter then it chnages target. Would be good if u could give it a prefrence list at the start of the game ie. target tanks, then art, then mg nests etc.

[Hunter]

Good idea KiwiJoe. I think the ability to set target priorities should be added to the list (if it isn't already on)

Bruce

[Lee]

What I don't understand is I thought that the tac-AI wasn't supposed

to change targets (particularly area targets) unless an enemy unit

presented an immediate and serious threat to the friendly targeting

unit. I thought that problem was already fixed since the beta demo?

What gives with them changing targets on a whim? I can see where

that would be very costly in a lot of circumstances.

[Lee]

Does this happen frequently, or is it just a sporadic thing?

[Lee]

Charles, any word yet on whether this is a bug in the tac-AI or a

variable that is a little off?

Have any other players noticed the same problem?

[TZEENCH]

Ive had this happen with both the IG150 and the AT bunker, It switches back and forth, then fires every now and again.

I watched that poor bunker track 1 tank then another, then switch to the last one, All while under fire from 4 sermans, "Umm witch one boss" then was killed with a slit shot. It took about 7 rounds of he to kill it. It returned about 1 shot.

That poor IG150 its so SLOW, you tell it to fire at the house on the hill, it spots a platoon co running down the slope to the right, it trys to track then looses the target when the unit gets into the woods. and its still turning, then it spots a inf unit coming down the road to the left, TURN..... you get the point.

I find it easyer to hide the gun till after 17 then counter attack with it as support.

[Bullethead]

On a similar subject, the Gold Demo continues a problem that the old demo also had:

When playing a Hotseat game, player 1 ends his orders phase and hits GO. Up comes the request for player 2's password. Immediately after player 2 enters his password, the screen flashes back to the same thing it was showing when player 1 hit GO. Thus, if player 1 was viewing any of his units when he hit GO, player 2 gets to see them. The only way to avoid this is if player 1 moves the view away from his units before he hits GO, which he sometimes forgets to do.

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-Bullethead

jtweller@delphi.com

WW2 AFV Photos: people.delphi.com/jtweller/tanks/tanks.htm

[Lee]

Well, I'm sure the tac AI shouldn't be doing such things, this is

the same problem we had in the beta demo. Friendly units would

break your target orders on the slightest hint of another interesting

target, when, in fact, they shouldn't *ever* break a targeting order

unless an immediate and dire threat from an enemy unit that is

dangerous to the friendly unit presents itself.

Thanks for reporting this guys, it seems to have happened to enough

people that is has to be some sort of glitch in the tac-AI and not

just a fluke.

Steve, have you or Charles been able to see this for yourselves?

[Count Sessine]

I'll have to concur: especially the sIG150 is next to useless in the Vot scenario as it constantly, and ineffectively, changes between targets. The same problem applies to tanks: when there is a Sherman tank 60 meters away on the other side of the hill on which my Stug is positioned, it is extremely irritating when the Stug changes its facing 90 degrees (thus exposing its side) because of a fleeting (non-threatening) infantry target several hundreds of meters away. What I'm saying is, that in that situation it would be nice to be able to 'lock' its positioning, although I realize this goes somewhat against the game's justified philosophy about 'selfpreservation first'. But when its not a question of self-preservation ? And on the other hand wouldn't it be annoying if the units didn't autoengage at all...?? hmm.

/CS

[Lee]

Well, the AI is supposed to only change targets if there is

a serious threat, so that's realistic. The problem is that it

is changing targets when it shouldn't, when there isn't a major

immediate threat.

It would seem that the range variable for infantry threats being

considered life threatening needs to be toned down quite a bit. So

only infantry that are close will cause a retarget to be considered

by the AI. And obviously other things would be considered as well.

I would imagine a flame thrower team would tend to get attention

sooner than an ordinary rifle squad might.

But breaking an ordered target to shoot at an enemy squad 200 yards

away sitting in the woods, shouldn't qualify.

[Guest Big Time Software]

OK, playing catchup on this one

1. Area fire -> I am pretty sure Charles just tweaked this a bit to be less likely to cancel. If not, it will be something we will look at for a patch of something.

2. 150mm Target switching -> I found the same thing. However, there is one thing that people aren't taking into consideration. The 150mm has a RoF that is VERY slow. Two rounds per minute IF you are lucky. So all that traversing back and forth most likely isn't doing any harm, even if it looks like it, simply because the gun isn't ready to fire.

3. 150mm survivability -> yup, it is damned hard to keep it alive. This is why it isn't a good idea to have artillery right in your front line The slow RoF mentioned above means that against a force like what the US has it is pretty much toast. There are far too many ways for the US to "reach out and touch" it Generally I lost my 150s to heavy artillery bombardments.

4. Target switching -> tanks should not be switching targets unless their primary one moves out of LOS. And because it can't know if the enemy target is planning on presenting itself again, very quickly decides to engage something else instead of nothing. Unfortunately, there is no easy way around this. If we went with a "lock" it would most likely cause more harm than good, so it isn't a viable solution in our opinion.

Steve

[Guest Big Time Software]

No Bullethead, I did not forget about you! Just had to get a response back from Charles first So without further ado...

5. Seeing other side -> this is most likely a video card hardware issue. Charles says that some cards swap video buffers out differently. There isn't anything inherently wrong with what your card is doing, but it isn't what CM expects. Probably nothing for us to do about it. Just in case, what card to you have?

Steve

[Ron]

I concur with the target switching of the IG and the AT bunker as well as the inability to make area fire 'stick' with these guns. I have noticed this a few times already in a handful of pbem games with the Gold Demo.

Another thing I just had happen was the strange behavior of the Sherman 105 while targeting the AT bunker. I had screened the bunker with smoke and moved the tank around the bunker's flank, outside of it's covered arc. When the smoke cleared I targeted it with the Sherman but instead of firing the Sherman popped smoke and reversed away. Shouldn't the tank 'know' that it is safe to fire? The bunker had been fully spotted. I realize the chance of knocking out the bunker was rare/low but still it shouldn't be acting like it is threatened should it?

Any comments would be appreciated even if only to let me know that this isn't a viable tactic! Thanks.

Ron

[Guest Big Time Software]

Pillboxs and Bunkers have roughly a 120 degree firing arc. Are you sure that you were well outside of that? At any distance away from the bunker the threat area is pretty wide. My thinking is that you were on the edge as the Sherman shouldn't have popped smoke unless it was threatened by something (most likely the bunker, but it could have been something else in theory).

Steve

[Ron]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>From BTS:

Pillboxs and Bunkers have roughly a 120 degree firing arc. Are you sure that you were well outside of that?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, it is a current pbem game and I still have the file. I reran it to make sure. The Sherman was outside the covered arc and instead of moving forward like I ordered, it popped smoke and reversed once the pillbox was exposed. There were no other threats. I loaded up a German game of VT to check the pillbox's LOF and it is red at that position so can't fire. Are you interested in looking at it?

Ron

On second look perhaps it is on the edge though the pillbox's LOF is red at that point. I will experiment a little and see if it happens again.

[This message has been edited by Ron (edited 05-16-2000).]

[Kraut]

This is the only serious gripe i have about CM. The relative lack of control you have during the action-phase. A lot of times i find my plans being totally screwed up because of the AI's behaviour. It's hard for me to lay a good ambush, even when using the ambush markers, and my units keep retargeting like nuts and sometimes end up not even fireing a shot (like with the 150mm gun). My men just don't wanna listen to me it appears.

Though the AI often performs well and is "thinking" in line with my plan.

I just wish there was some target command that was "exra sticky", and some "extra sticky" ambush marker.

If you use one of these, your men are more likely to hold fire or keep targeting the target you assigned, unless they are directly threatened.

MK

[Guest Scott Clinton]

Ron/Steve

> When the smoke cleared I targeted it with

> the Sherman but instead of firing the

> Sherman popped smoke and reversed away.

I have forwarded a file of this same behavior via Moon. In my instance the Sherman was clearly out of the arc of fire. I have seen this happen well over a dozen times (in replays of the various turns).

But just so I can fully understand...

Why would the arc of fire for the MG make a difference to a buttoned up Sherman anyway? I mean is a buttoned up Sherman SUPPOSED to see an MG42 as a threat and pop smoke?

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Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own.

[This message has been edited by Scott Clinton (edited 05-16-2000).]

[Lee]

Yeah, you would think a sherman wouldn't be very concerned about a

MG. It seems to be more of that "overrate the infantry threat

syndrome".

This is assuming that the sherman had good enough los to be able

to clearly identify the bunker as having only a MG in it. Else it would

have to assume there might be a dangerous gun in there. Perhaps that

is what happened.

[Bullethead]

Steve said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>5. Seeing other side -> this is most likely a video card hardware issue. Charles says that some cards swap video buffers out differently. There isn't anything inherently wrong with what your card is doing, but it isn't what CM expects. Probably nothing for us to do about it. Just in case, what card to you have?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

CM is using my Voodoo 2 card (Diamond Monster 2, PCI, 12 megs on-board, DirectX 5 drivers because no DX7 drivers and DX6 drivers have problems).

I also have a Diamon Viper TNT 1 AGP with 16 megs and DirectX 7 drivers. Can't figure out how to make CM use this one tho. I'd like to try it because the buildings are NOT transparent with the Voodoo2.

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-Bullethead

jtweller@delphi.com

WW2 AFV Photos: people.delphi.com/jtweller/tanks/tanks.htm

[Moon]

Scott - in that file you sent me, it appears that the Sherman was on the extreme edge of LOS of the AT pillbox, not (only) the MG pillbox.

For the record: I have had tanks move against pillboxes and bunkers of all the sorts and types that are in the game, from flanks and front and rear. I have never noticed any odd behaviour, i.e. when the tank is safe from the firing arc, it will not retreat; when it's an MG bunker, it will not retreat.

I have tested this with the current final build, and experienced no problems at all. But Scott's file is being checked into just in case...

[Guest Big Time Software]

Also keep in mind the angle of the tank to the potential threat. Coming head on the tank might not pop smoke and retreat. Coming at it in a way that exposes its flanks... not good

Kraut, I don't know what more we can do about this. For ever action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We think we have a happy medium here, and that more stickiness would create perhaps as many problems as it is supposed to solve.

The vast majority of the time things work out just like I want them too. My guys tend to do what I instruct and when they don't there seems to be a reasonable explanation. Pehaps it is play style, but besides the behavior I mentioned with the 150mm gun (which makes sense from a code standpoint, but doesn't visually look right) I don't have any consistant or nagging problems.

Steve

[Guest Big Time Software]

Since the demo was released, I did make a little code change to make targeting a little more "sticky", but basically what Steve said is right - it's very easy to go too far in the other direction.

Charles