Requested Feature: Ignore unit

[TeAcH]

Here's the situation as shown in the picture below.

My Tiger is in a bad spot. I know that a Firefly is creeping down the road and preparing to turn the corner to kill me. I know the firefly's turret is very fast. My Tiger's turret is very slow. So, in order for me to survive and be as close to on target as soon as the firefly appears to minimize my sluggish traverse, I face may tank right where I know the firefly is going to peer out for its shot.

Here's my problem, I also know that my Tiger is going to target bailed out crew in the woods to the left. I don't want this. For if my Tiger does that, and begins to track the crew when the firefly arrives, my very slow turret will not be ready and will take way too long to return on target. What can I do to prevent this? Nothing. Secondly, what prevents my opponent from using this as a gamey tactic against me to ensure a tank kill? Nothing (Fortunately, I am playing a very honorable opponent who would not purposefully do this).

So, the turn movies plays. My Tiger turns to face where I know the firefly is going to appear. While the first few secong tick away, my Tiger is just as I want him and in the best possible firing position. A few seconds later, bailed out enemy crews in the trees to the right do just as I feared! My Tiger locks onto them and begins to traverse its slow and mighty turret towards them. NO!! I scream at the monitor. Just as my Tiger gets the turret to shoot at some damn pistol toting, zero freaking threat of a crew, the firefly emerges right on time. The fly quickly swings on target while my Tiger tries forever and day to traverse right...right back where I wanted it to stay! The fly shoots and WHAMMO! You get the idea.

See the picture below:

Now, here is my thinking. I wouldnt have cared so much if the Tiger had seen a threat to itself and thus followed the same course of action as desribed above. But to "unprepare" itself is just awful. So, wht I think needs to be considered, is an IGNORE UNIT command accesible when you right click on the selected unit (in this case a bailed out tank crew). That way, your tank will not target it.

Now, the naysayers are going to say, "Well, you saw the firefly, but your Tiger didn't". My answer is that tanks have radios. And further down the street, I had another Crack Tiger tank who could see the firefly dart in and out towards its firing position just before the aforementioned catastrophy. Why wouldn't that Tiger, or the other Tigers that saw the fly, radio some warning that a firefly was on the road etc, or whatever?" Besides, this Tiger on the preceding turn caught a glimpse of that firefly heading down the road in the direction. A crack tank crew would have said 'Dont turn the turret to fire our MG at some crew, lets wait for that firefly."

Q: The Ambush command would work in this instance. Why didnt you use it?

A: Would it work? It might work, the crew was fairly close to the firefly. The only other issue then is that there was a Cromwell approaching from the right (off camera). I may want to have the Tiger fire a range. Ambush has a range limitation doesnt it? What if there is a bailed out crew between me and lets say enemy armor in the background along a wide front. If I could tell a tank to ignore a unit (or if the AI could if that is possible though unlikely), then issues such as these could be either avoided or diminished.

What are your thoughts gang? And please leave the flames at the door.

TeAcH

[Frenchy]

You bring up a good point and I think it should be considered. It's happened to me. Also some tweaking needs to be done to the AI when targets as buildings are destroyed yet the tank (or whatever) continues to shoot at the rubble. The AI should cease fire.

[Sten]

Teach (Lamer-lingo) or TeAcH (eLiTe-esperanto),

this is partly taken care of in v1.03. The discussion on an even better fix is very active.

Frenchy,

this is taken care of in v1.03.

Sten

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Keep your whisky on the rocks and your tanks on the roll.

[Wittmann]

I've screamed in horror several times in 'Villers-Bocage-Tiger!' I've heard the 1.03 will hold armour targets much better...although a piat team is a major threat so may be a priority for 9 1/2 kilos of HE.

[Jarmo]

I haven't tried this, but if you'd set the tiger on ambush towards

the firefly, I think it wouldn't engage the crew.

[Pfalz XII]

For more information about this problem, see the thread I started titled Decisions, decisions--targeting that is! at http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/007084.html

[This message has been edited by Pfalz XII (edited 07-12-2000).]

[WendellM]

In one game, I found my tanks being taken out by a well-sited AT gun at long range. I parked my last tank on a hill where it could *just* see the gun's position well enough for area fire. But, my tank kept turning its turret 90 degrees to fire on a closer enemy MG (which was already being nicely suppressed by a nearby friendly rifle squad).

Just to be stubborn, I left my tank up there for three turns, and on the fourth, it was knocked out by the AT gun I kept trying to get it to engage (and not the harmless MG it had a fetish for).

Rather than (or maybe in addition to) an "ignore unit" command, I'd really like a "dammit, fire at *this* target no matter what!" command for special occasions like this (though maybe/hopefully 1.03 will obviate this).

[This message has been edited by WendellM (edited 07-12-2000).]

[David Stone]

Villers-Bocage here too...

I started employing 'gamey tactics' like:

1)Reversing the Tiger to the left or right a little bit. It kept its slow turret from turning away (so fast) from that pesky British tank playing hide & seek behind a building. Of course, don't expose your side armor too much.

Stoner

[TeAcH]

Thanks for all the comments, including yours Sten...I think. =P Were you slamming me? I cant tell. Ah...Ive had a long day. Hopefully you werent.

TeAcH

[Formerly Babra]

Teach -- if you still have that turn handy, try area fire on the Sherman's approach location. I have a hunch that will work. The cat should ignore the crew but won't ignore the Sherman (assuming it won't be scared away). The only problem then is if it appears before you've had a chance to reload.

[Lorak]

Teach,

Not sure if you did this or not. But did you try targeting the Firefly even though it was out of sight? Not sure if your tiger would have held that target long enough for the firefly to appear. But just a suggestion.

Lorak

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"someone you trust is one of us"..........the illuminati

*

http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/combatmissionclub

Lorak's FTX for CM <--Proud member of the Combat Mission Webring

[Midnight Warrior]

Rather than add a "ignore unit" command I would rather be able to enter a target point. The target point would be selected much like an ambush point. You could use the target point as a proxy for a real target. If you target the target point then a tank would keep its tuurent pointed at the target point until a real target comes within a certain distance (or perhaps angle) of the target point. This would inhibit firing on low threat targets. The target point could also be used with the Hunt command to achieve hull down positions for area targets.

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March To The Sound Of The Guns

[Jarmo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Midnight Warrior:

Rather than add a "ignore unit" command I would rather be able to enter a target point. The target point would be selected much like an ambush point. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That could work, and something definitely ought to be done.

Here's what happened to me, I sent a sherman hunting over a hill

towards unsuspecting Panther to get a flank shot at it.

As the turn started the sherman spotted some infantry a couple

hundred meters behind it...

I was repeating "this is a bad dream", as I watched in horror the

General Sherman buttoning and starting to rotate it's turret.

By the time the sherman came in Panther's view it's turret was facing

completely backwards!

[This message has been edited by Jarmo (edited 07-13-2000).]

[RMC]

This and the other thread are dedicated to the frustration of the TacAI not making the choices we want. The TacAI just can't maintain the kind of situational awareness that the player can. I've had situation where a tank was engaging enemy armored target and I backed him up to then hunt forward again in the hopes of getting a hull down position. Problem was once out of LOS he wanted to shoot at some infantry. His turret was turned to the side when he went forward again. In Real Life, the crew would still know that the enemy armor was to the front and would be ready.

Hopefully V1.03 will fix some of this problem, but I am not 100% confident that tweaking some variables will solve the problem. It may ameliorate it a little bit, though. A new kind of order might be the best solution, but harder to implement. I found myself wishing for a "rotate turret" order to get the turret to point in the direction I wanted.

The area fire solution is inferior because tanks fire HE when targeting areas (to get an area effect) and you don't want HE loaded when the firefly rounds the corner. "Turret hit - no damage" The timing would have to be prefect such that the tank is able to reload AP from the moment the enemy tank appears.

The tanks in close combat had similar problems that were addressed by the return of the defend command that set an arc for the tank to cover. On top of that was their ambush command that didn't focus on a point but on a field of fire covered by the unit.

I haven't experimented with ambush and tanks. I haven't bothered because I assumed the same range restrictions apply to tanks as to the infantry units. Can you have a tank set to ambush a spot 1000m away? If so then call it something like "boresight" instead.

[von Lucke]

At present (v1.01) there are three solutions:

Target an Ambush Marker. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. The ambush marker works like a trigger switch, telling the targeting unit it's OK to shoot now --- unfortunately, the target that gets shot at isn't nescessarily the one that is rolling through the ambush marker. I've seen ambushers fire on units 90 degrees to the intended ambushee!

Area Fire in the direction you expect an approach from. Again, this sometimes works (if you've got the ammo to waste), but it also sometimes disuades your intended victim from approaching at all.

Hide. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but I've found that 'hiding' AFV's will ignore a lot of petty targets, but let loose on the real threats.

Only thing that can be done is tweak the TacAI a bit more (ala v1.03), and see what happens.

[This message has been edited by von Lucke (edited 07-14-2000).]

[Cybeq]

I have noticed the problem you speak of but my fix is simple and effective. Simply taget the ememy you want to fire on. Even if it's out of LOS it will train it's main gun on said enemy until it gets a shot.

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"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence." -Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

[RMC]

Cybeq,

Really? I've never had this work for me. I try targeting someone out of LOS and then moving to get LOS and it never works. They'll hold a target for a very short period of time and then it's "hey, look at that panicked crew from the bren carrier that has two casualties already - the one way over there on that hill..now he's a threat I need to deal with ASAP."

[WendellM]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>They'll hold a target for a very short period of time and then it's "hey, look at that panicked crew from the bren carrier that has two casualties already<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Heh-heh, all too true, RMC. A "sticky" target command in addition to the current one would be most welcome.

[WSCFan]

I've lost some Shermans this way. And it can't be blamed on the crew not seeing what I see. The cases I'm thinking of the Shermans kept targeting infantry 600m away on a flank even though I manually tried several times to keep them targeted on a Panther coming around a building about 80m away. The Sherman could see the Panther before it went behind the building and since they were the only two armor vehicles left alive could certainly hear each other at that range. I agree "ignore unit" isn't the answer. the TacAI needs to be a bit smarter. Command intervention shouldn't be needed to target a Panther at 80m...

[Guest Chris B]

A "Primary target" order would be nice that makes the unit fire at the target if possible, and prepare to fire if it looks like the target will come in view (i.e. rotate turret). This would work for infantry also, like artillery spotters etc.

The problem would when the AI would override this for more pressing targets like the other Tiger that just came into view

[Guest Simon]

How about just "priority"? Not necessarilly a TARGET command; but a command that substitutes for "hey guys there's an AT team that just ran behind that house" or "panther rolling behind that hill... disregard that MG and get us facing that direction"?

It's not about HQ telling the Tank commander what to do, but simply making up for an AI's inability to to make intuitive common sense decisions, that a real life tank commander would certainly be able to make.

The "priority" command could be rules based,

so an AT gun marking a Tiger as "priority" could mean "keep your eye on that bastard and ready a round of tungsten for when you get LOS". An M8 greyhound marking a Tiger as "priority" could mean "if that sucker comes out from behind that hill, REVERSE and get the hell out of there"

(i.e IF: incapable of killing it AND: it's capable of killing you AND: becomes visible THEN: get out of dodge ELSE: keep doing what you are doing)

Obviously in the case of a Tank marking another tank as a priority the tank would do it's best to keep the enemy tank targeted or stay facing it's last known position. Optionally you could allow your tank that has marked another tank, to set a long range ambush marker or make it rotate to the direction you think the priority will apear at. If you intuit wrong you pay, but at least that tank wont swing away from the highest priority to engage something that isn't a bigger threat.

Also unrelated but anyone else notice that Tanks that have lost their main gun from other tank fire will just sit there and get pummeled until you get a chance to order them out of there?

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Simon

http://members.tripod.com/~sjuncal/ammodump/

[Matt]

Here's my two cents. You know the Firefly is coming down the road, does your tank crew? Can they see it?

Think about it, you have a "God" like view of the battlefield. The crew inside the tank working that huge machine surely can't hear that Firefly (it's loud as hell in a tank) and if they can't see it, how would they know it's "about" to come around the corner.

-Matt

[Matt]

Oh yah, one more thing - that's what makes this game great. Mistakes on the battlefield, luck, uncertainty and the unknown.

Trust me, men screw up on the battlefield all the time.

Matt

[Guest Chris B]

>Here's my two cents. You know the Firefly is coming down the road, does your tank crew? Can they see it?

If they have never seen it before, they might.

But in CM, tanks will happily ignore tanks they HAVE seen that just went out of sight. If an enemy tank drops smoke and reverses, a tank will happily shoot away at harmless crew somewhere else and act as if it is completely unaware of the enemy tank when it comes around again, say when the smoke clears.

And as noted by someone noted in another thread, this favours the fast turret tanks who can play peekaboo with the slow turrets and fire shots without risking return fire. One second the enemy is there firing, and before the slow turret is trained on him, he is gone and the tank returns to firing on harmless target X.

[Mike Oberly]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Think about it, you have a "God" like view of the battlefield. The crew inside the tank working that huge

machine surely can't hear that Firefly (it's loud as hell in a tank) and if they can't see it, how would they

know it's "about" to come around the corner.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

On a danger ridden battlefield(such as in most of the situations that are modeled in CM),no tank would throw it's situational awareness into the wind to target some fleeing crewmembers with its main gun.In fact,it would nearly always simply ignore the crew,which I would like to see happen in the game.And a crack crew would go ahead and fire at a target that they had been tracking,rather than try to switch targets every time another appeared.Those are a couple of things people are complaining about.It's the only major problem with the game,IMO.

Mike