Tanks driving through buildings

[DoctorX]

It seems no matter what side I play in a one player game, the computer can drive tanks through any building on the map, and I cannot. This means in a city fight, my tanks are confined to moving via the streets while the computer ends up driving tanks through the buildings. How can I fix this glitch??

[Other Means]

Do you have a screenshot, taken at ZERO magnification, of this happening, as it's never been reported before.

[JasonC]

Methinks he has seen *sound contacts* driving "through" buildings.

Those aren't actual placements, they are approximate locations you hear something. Can be 100m or so from the actual vehicle. Driving through a town, random placement of a sound contact marker somewhere near the real tank, can often put that marker on a building.

[Ales Dvorak]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Methinks he has seen *sound contacts* driving "through" buildings.

I think you're right.

[Corvidae]

I've seen it ,, In a QB, in a city, with mostly conscripts, as defender, My troops got a contact of a german panther in the building they were in,, They ran out and found someplace else to hide , Turned out it was a halftrack 3 buildings over,

[DoctorX]

Please explain "sound contact." In the latest example, I'll see if I can get a screen capture, it was the "Death Ride of 453" (I think, I'm away from my computer right now) with German King Tigers against JS-2s in a village. I had some JS-2s drive right through a building to attack, one was killed half in and out of a building.

[stoat]

It could be that you have the units enlarged to the point where it seems that they are partly in a building. Try using Control+C to make the units smaller and see if there is a difference.

[Ales Dvorak]

Originally posted by DoctorX:

Please explain "sound contact."

(Huh,my english is not so good).But you can read about sound contact in CMBB manual page 68-69.

Regards

Aleš

[JasonC]

Sound contact - with most fog of war settings, you can receive reports about enemy units that are incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate.

If you click on an enemy unit icon, sometimes you will see "?" in the information provided. That means less than perfect information. Often this is just about the unit type - e.g. Infantry? means there is infantry there, but you can't tell if it is a squad or a team, etc.

Sometimes you get "sound contact". In that case, even the location is not precise. You only heard the enemy, you did not see them. This frequently happens with enemy units firing at long range, from good cover. A firing machinegun might remain a sound contact until friendly units get within 200 yards, for example. That means they hear it firing but have not located it exactly. The icon on the map might be 100 yards from the actual position of the machinegun.

Sound contacts typically move around from turn to turn, also, as your men revise their estimate of where the sound is coming from. If you are sure it is the same unit, you can guess it is somewhere in the middle of their turn to turn guesses. You can also try to deduce where it is from which of your units it can hit.

Vehicle sound contacts are frequent too, but not because they are firing from cover. Instead it happens when you haven't reach a spot you can see them from, but can hear the clanking of their treads. On the other side of a hill, or behind a building, e.g. You can hear tanks at 400m or so even if you can't see them. It is easier if your own tanks aren't moving and making noise at the same time.

When you get a vehicle sound contact, the type will generally not be shown. Instead you will get a "tank?" icon with a red question mark. Sometimes a "light armor?" question mark, for halftracks, armored cars, and the like. "Truck?" is another, and can mean a truck or jeep etc.

The location of vehicle sound contacts can be "off" by 100m or so, again. The direction of movement can usually be seen correctly. Often you can tell from the ground and from turns you see the icon make, where it must really be (e.g. if its turns mimic those a road makes on the map 80m away).

Since they aren't a real position of a real vehicle, sound contacts can certainly move through buildings. Doesn't mean the real vehicle has. Just means the approximate direction of the sound is from that area.

If, on the other hand, you see a tank that is "fully resolved", exact type visible, then it is a real sighting. You can also try targeting it - a target line will "stick" on something you can actually see, while it won't on a sound contact. (You will just get "area fire" at the location).

If you see a real sighting moving through an intact building - or through rubble - take a screenshot and copy it into "Paint". Because that isn't supposed to happen. Hit "shift C" to cycle through the sizes and be sure you are on "realistic", not "+4", before concluding a real sighting is moving through a building, though. Because a +4 size tank is a big honking model meant to be easy for you to see at higher overhead views, not the actual size of the tank.

[MikeyD]

The vehicles and buildings on screen are only graphical approximations of the objects being shuffled about by the computer. When two objects collide there tends to be a bit of overlap between polygons before the AI realizes that they're touching. Add fog-of-war where you're 'seeing' a distant enemy Panther but the AI knows its really a PzIV and polygon overlap grows even more. And if you're playing overscale units the polygon overlap keeps on growing.

One reason why you're seeing this happen more with the AI is a human will tend to steer his vehicle down the center of the road without giving it much thought. The AI is just number crunching and vehicles tend to be steered around objects rather like a game of bumper cars.