Russkies go home (to driving school) [pics]

[BulletRat]

Sounds simple enough, get the tanks to the other side of the map without em dying. My plan is to sweep each side of the road with my troops, who are currently all loaded into trucks in the column - easiest and quickest way to get em up the front is to drive the trucks up and then unload.

So I setup the trucks identically, pull out slightly, move up the road past the tanks, hang a sharp left and parallel park in the brush under cover of the pines. All is good, each truck will begin its journey at exactly the same time - hence arriving with all the precision one expects from a military convoy.

I press "GO", trucks start to move at exactly the same time, good, hello what's this? The lead truck decided he had to have at least 8 feet between him and the rearmost tank. He swerves off into the trees, realises hes going to get bogged there and backs up - right into the path of the second truck.

The second truckie decides he cant possibly wait for the first to get back on the road and keep moving oh no, much easier to go around the other side of that dirty great T-26, I know theres even less room but hey it's worth losing a coat of paint if it'll keep that bad-tempered commissar back there from blowing my skull through the windscreen.

Doh! Second truck runs out of room too - backs up into the third.... and so on - what we now have is a bunch of truckies each trying to outmaneuver each other to get to their destinations and keep their respective commissars happy. (See below)

I woulda blown the f*ckers away meself if only my mouse cursor would turn into crosshairs :mad:

Argh! Firstly why can't they properly judge their route (it was only 3 waypoints ffs!), secondly why can't they wait 5 secs for the first guy to get his sh*t right instead of stuffing up the entire column. :confused: :mad:

Eventually I halted em, and gave the now-dizzy troops the order to start walking - the trucks remained where they were for the remainder of the game, I was praying for a Stuka to come along and send them all to the big driving school in the sky.

Anyway, alls well that ends well.

[Le Tondu]

LOL! This is a good one BulletRat.

CMBB may have a pretty good tactical AI, but the driving AI is pretty bad. I hate to say this, but it looks like it was modelled after Homer Simpson.

Yes BTS, please fix or somefink.

[Aaron]

I use the Pause command ("P") between each row of vehicles. I haven't had much driving trouble since.

Aaron

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by BulletRat:

All is good, each truck will begin its journey at exactly the same time - hence arriving with all the precision one expects from a military convoy.

Therein lies the problem, IMO. You are better off dividing that convoy over 2-3 turns, with each truck starting off every 20 seconds. That way, the logjam will affect only 2-3 trucks before the turn times out. In addition, it reduces your losses if you run into an ambush.

[Thin Red Line]

Pause definitely works like a charm for the trucks.

[Sergei]

That's what you get for playing with Russians. How well would YOU drive after taking two bottles of vodka to "warm up", mister?

[Straif]

I think that CM simulates not a regular military transport column, but a military transport column under attack. Actual transport columns are out of scope of tactical simulation, IMHO. You have several tanks and trucks on a muddy / snowed Russian non-pawed road. It will be messy and not so smooth like it is on 405 in LA at 5 PM

Take this fact under consideration and add more pauses between vehicles, it helps a lot.

Best wishes,

Straif

[Moon]

Many problems with driving columns down a road that people complain about in CMBB are a result of unrealistic expectations. You simply cannot expect a column of a dozen or more vehicles to move as one. Keep bigger intervals, use "pause", use both sides of the road (all roads in CM have two lines), and split such movements over more than one turn is the solution. If, in real life, you'd ask a dozen truck drivers to start simultaneously and break simultaneously while driving down a straight road, you'd be surprised about the results.

And "improve the AI" is quickly said, but not easy to do. The problem is - well, how do you do it? The obvious solution would be implementing SOPs and/or a "column" order. This isn't possible with the current engine. The alternative would be to have vehicles stop when they bump into (or simply move too close to) a friendly vehicle in front of them. This, however, isn't always the smart thing to do either. CMBB's "evasion" routines were improved from CMBO, but still are not perfect for every situation. If you move a whole load of trucks down the road, be prepared for trouble when something unexpected happens. As with most features in CM that people sometimes complain about, you'll be usually better off if you don't try to do it *all* in one turn.

Martin

[Soddball]

How about using the system I use? If I want multiple vehicles to proceed along the same route, I add an extra waypoint in for each vehicle. That way, the first vehicle has (for example) 6 second delay, the second has (for example) 9 second delay, the third has 13 second delay.

This solves all your problems and will stop sissy jessy wierdos grizzling to mamma. Yeah. :mad: :mad:

You want to get some HOT MOLTEN TNT in your pants, boy. :mad: :mad:

[White Phosphorus]

Is that a penis they are trying to form with their vehicles? Maybe the drivers decided to humor you.

[Soddball]

Originally posted by White Phosphorus:

Is that a penis they are trying to form with their vehicles?

You need to see a doctor

[Mies]

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How about this for smart TAC AI behaviour. I played the Goetz scenario a couple of weeks ago as the Germans and was surprised about the few T34's I was up against. This explains a lot! TAC AI made a mess of things! :mad:

[ February 05, 2003, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: Mies ]

[laxx]

just to add to the excellent poinst raised above:

in alot of the scenarios, the roads are wide enuff for 2 columns of afvs. But it becomes troublesome if you intend to move the afvs as one.

As suggested above, Pause is one technique, Waypoints is another technique. Also consider using different speeds to prevent logjam, the front vehicles to use fast or hunt, the ones behind to use Move.

Also, note that not all similar tanks will move at the same speeds, i suspect HQ tank units move at different speeds.

[Panzer76]

We all know CM needs a "follow tha vehicle" commando, but as the big guy said, it cannot be done with this engine. So, we juat have to wait... and wait... and wait... oh, did I say that the new engine wont be ready for at least 2 yrs?