Just what in hell is going on..late night Rant

[Berkut]

I have a stug III moving fast behind good cover to a new location. 25 seconds into the turn, it stops and goes into reverse, right into the open just as a cromwell hoves into view.

Before that during a campaign battle set up by Jason Cawley I have a stug do a strange forward/reverse...forward/turn to the left/turn to the right..forward/reverse dance in plain view of a sherman. It missed 4 shots against the stug no doubt down to the fact the gunner was laughing so hard.

In another game against jason, I have a scout car charge clear across an open area in plain view of a PzIV, despite orders for it to move slowly behind cover.

Then in another game I have a half track charge down a road, stop, rotate, then reverse down the road instead.

Everytime I examined the maps and saw no possible obstruction. There had been no enemy intervention(expect for the scout car, it had spotted a Panzerfaust, pinned it then killed it, then charged)

I'm sure it's been discussed before, but it really does drive me up the wall and leaves a bad taste in the mouth when I lose the vehicle.

So I put it to the distinguished members of the panel, should I reinstall the game from scratch or just suffer the indignity of losing vehicles to such a silly bug?

rant mode off, I'm off to bed

[Col Deadmarsh]

Are you sure you're not playing Close Combat instead? I have yet to see a drunk tank drivers in CM.

[JasonC]

Sounds like the antics of the "panic"-"evasion" AI, which kicks in when a vehicle thinks it is exposed and about to get killed, and isn't able to eliminate the threat.

In the case of your M-8 on our game, I think it was due to my schreck team opening up from the M-8s left front. There was a near miss and the M-8 buttoned up, and right after that pulled its bonehead move into the line of fire of my Panzer IV. I think it was trying to avoid the schreck team.

On the campaign game battle, one clarification - was it a StuG you saw this with, or a StuH? I ask because I have often seen it from a StuH, once it is out of "C" ammo (HEAT). With only HE, it thinks it can't penetrate the front of a Sherman and so tries to dodge in sometimes inept ways.

If it was an StuG with AP remaining, though, that reason won't work. Another possibility is the move order you are using. If you want to engage targets that appear, "hunt" is the speed setting to use. It may be that an order to move at another speed is being interpreted as "don't stop to fire", and then if a threat appears only evasive movement is tried.

I've had similar things happen to me only when my vehicle couldn't KO the threat it faced. But I am careful to use "hunt" if I expect to stop and engage enemies, so it may be I've just never run across another version of the "panic"-"evasion" AI.

I hope this helps.

[ 10-05-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Berkut]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

Sounds like the antics of the "panic"-"evasion" AI, which kicks in when a vehicle thinks it is exposed and about to get killed, and isn't able to eliminate the threat.

[ 10-05-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Apart from the M8, neither of these vehicles had been fired on and were in the process of moving from one covered location to another. They were never fired on or under any other kind of threat, like an arty barrage say...

Of course due to my crappy luck on these occasions something would show up and take advantage of it. I'm sure you can understand the frustration.

Losing the entire stug platoon during that campaign game has left a bad taste in my mouth. The Stug's strange acrobatics was not the only incident of bizaare AI behaviour, that I came across during that battle. And lately have observed odd behaviour in other units...Hence the question regarding reinstalling the game. I'm starting to wonder if some game files have been corrupted.