Using another vehicle to UNDITCH?!?

[ww2steel]

Just a fluke? My Su-152 gets stuck about 50 seconds through a turn. Immediately after that I give a nearby T-34 (that just passed it) a reverse order pushing the SU at about 20 degrees from straight back. No sooner had the T pushed the SU about two meters before POP, the SU comes unditched and reverses! I had thought I had heard of this tried before, but as vehicles cannot get stuck in reverse I wonder if anyone tried backing into the stuck vehicle? Maybe a coincidence... who knows. I'll play the turn a few more times to see.

Mike

[ww2steel]

Oh crap, I pressed okay so I lost the autosave. Anyway, sounds like some time in the mud for me! I took screencaps if anyone cares I'll take the time to upload them if this seems to work.

My theories:

1) Coincidence

2) Being hit from the front forces the SU into reverse mode. Not the ordered reverse mode, we know this does not unditch, but a 'game' reverse mode. Since you cannot get stuck in reverse, perhaps this frees the vehicle.

I'll do more testing when I'm done with this battle.

Mike

[ww2steel]

Tried it one more time, it worked.

Mike

[Cuirassier]

interesting...

[zmoney]

Yea this worked for me as well in the recent George MC made operation. One of my HT's got bogged in the snow but as another HT passed it like 30 seconds later it bumped it from the back and kind of knocked it side ways and low and behold it freed it's bogged comrade.

So I think this does work.

[ww2steel]

Okay, some preliminary testing: (Not really statistically significant yet, but interesting nonetheless....)

For a baseline: vehicles in deep mud, mix of soft ground and openground. The stuck vehicle has another vehicle of equal weight (all KTs) within 40m. To keep everything the same, I saved the game with these two stuck vehicles and replayed it many different ways. The stuck vehicle without assistance becomes immobilized 5 out of 12 times (42%). The stuck vehicle with assistance only became immobilized 3 of 13 times (23%). I know this isn't significant without many more tests (which I'm doing).

ALSO- REVERSE IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF NOT GETTING STUCK. Two of my KTs in reverse (going to rescue others) did get at least bogged. (This comes from an earlier thread about getting stuck that I think stated you can't get stuck in reverse.) I don't know yet if they get stuck or not, but they do at least bog.

More coming,

Mike

[Bannon DC]

Are you talking about "Bogged" vehicles or ones that have gone beyond bogged to "immobile?"

I have wondered if you pushed an immobilized vehicle out of the mud (with crew still on board) onto a road if it would be able to move again. But the AI seems definative -- NO GO.

[ww2steel]

Bogged, certainly. I did attempt to push immobilized vehicles around to see if they would get unstuck. No luck. As I think the immobilized vehicle represent one that is hopelessly stuck or has lost a track I don't think pushing it onto differeent terrain will help. ...plus it's really hard to push it far.

THE NEWEST RESULTS- PUSHING A VEHICLE *DOES* HELP FREE IT!

Of the 34 vehicles that got stuck, only 7 of them stayed immobilized after contact with the other 'rescue' vehicle. That's 21%.

Of the 57 vehiles that got stuck that I did not send the rescue vehicles, 22 of them became immobilized. That's 39%.

Now, the sooner you can get the rescue vehicle there, the better. As a stuck vehicle usually resolves itself within about a minute and a half, a vehicle on the other side of the map obviously won't help.

Also I noted that it seemed that when another vehicle was closeby (within 20m) the vehicles seemed to free themselves more often. Meaning- when the rescue vehicle was approaching the stuck vehicle and the vehicle freed itself what seemed a little more often than otherwise. I have not tested this reliably yet.

REVERSING officially does not stop getting stuck. My rescue vehicles bogged repeatedly, twice becoming immobilized. In one case that was pretty cool the rescue vehicle bogged about a meter from the stuck vehicle. The stuck vehicle freed itself at almost exactly the same time as the rescue vehicle bogged, so I pushed it out. Rescued the rescuer!

In short- pushing another vehicle out does help marginally, and it is pretty fun to do. More fun at least than just sitting there waiting to see what happens! While a 20% increase does not seem like much think about it this way: one bogged vehicle in 2.5 becomes immobilized. If you help it, only one in five will become hopelessly stuck!

More coming!

Mike

[ April 25, 2006, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: ww2steel ]

[slysniper]

You have decreased the odds by half, that is a big difference in my book. So when you give the order to bump the bogged vehicle is there anything special which you are doing or are you just ordering it to move close to the bogged one.

[ww2steel]

Move over and behind the bogged one. It'll push it along, so the fast/reverse/whatever point must be far enough behind it that it won't reach it in that turn, but close enough that you can adjust the direction if need be as the rescuee is pushed to one side or the other. Don't worry about the rescuer vehicle 'pivoting' right next to the rescuee- I found that many times the exact instant the rescuer stopped pivoting and started pushing again was when the vehicle came unglued.

[Pirx]

Presumably the rescuee vehicle got bogged for a reason, such as unfavorable terrain. How often did the rescuer vehicle get bogged while attempting the rescue? You should take this into account before concluding that attempting a rescue is wise.

[ww2steel]

The rescuer got bogged fairly infrequently. I was testing in open ground and soft terrain in 'deep mud' conditions. I was actually very surprised how few vehicles did get stuck of the kind of high pressure KTs. The point is- if you have a vehicle that can do the rescue it must be close by anyway, so the chance of a bog per any given minute as not that high even in the absolute worst conditions. Out of about 100 scenarios I only lost two immobilized rescuer vehicles, about 5 bogged in total.

[phil stanbridge]

My take on this:-

Pushing a vehicle doesnt help at all - it simply isnt modelled. It is a coincidence.*

When a vehicle bogs I thought you had to delete all further movement orders and tell it to halt where it is - this in essence models the crew/etc trying to "un-bog" the vehicle whilst it is stationary. If you leave the movement order the vehicle has a higher chance of becoming immobilised.

* Edit: - Just thinking out loud here - you CAN push vehicles out of the way when they have been destroyed by the enemy - maybe this in some way helps prove your theory???

[ww2steel]

Right, just like pushing them off a road or whatever to get them out of the way.

I didn't do a huge test, but I used control of 57 tests and an experiment group of 34 tests on the same two vehicles (just to make sure everything was identical). A 20% difference does seem more than would be produced by a statistical anomaly.

Funny thing is, as many players as CMBB has, there are an equal number of thories as to how to get them out. My dad thinks that travelling at hunt keeps them unstuck; I always used fast. I have been able to find no significant evidence that a reverse order, cancellation of the movement order, a turn (which would just be dumb) or anything else makes a difference in freeing the vehicle.

Mike

[phil stanbridge]

Travelling at normal speed helps prevent vehicles bogging, but it doesnt completely stop it. I read this on the forum many moons ago. Travelling "fast" means you have more chance of bogging due to more risks being taken (I guess). You have to take into account the conditions as well obviously.

[ww2steel]

Roger, I'll run some big tests on that too.

Mike

[Pirx]

I calculated the p-value for your test to be 0.10 (www.matforsk.no/loa/fisher.htm). This can be conceptualized as meaning there is a 10% probability that the observed difference was a coincidence, and therefore the porportion that will become immobilized is actually the same in both groups. This is based on your numbers from above:

Rescue vehicle: 7/34 become immoblized

No rescure vehicle: 22/57 become immobilized

That p-value is relatively low but is still above the arbitrary threshold of <0.05 that is usually defined as "statistically significant".

If you are interested in repeating your experiment, you may be interested to know that you need to do 100 tests in each group to have an 80% chance of detecting a difference that is significant at the p<0.05 level. This is assuming that 21% and 39% are the true probabilities of being immobilized with and without a rescue vehicle.

[ww2steel]

Hi, thanks for working that up. I don't think I claimed it to be "statistically significant", but I'm not going to search my posts. I did say that " A 20% difference does seem more than would be produced by a statistical anomaly. " Which is not really disputable. Moreover, by the time I have mmade this statement I have mulitplied the number of tests exponentially, just not updated the tests. Shoot, I logged 26.9 kilometers on Tiger I (mid)'s just this morning as part of a speed/ bogging/ immobilizing test in scattered trees. ...the results... 45.7% became immobilized from bogging. (And over a 100m stretch moving at fast, in very dry scattered trees a T1(m) would bog on average every 768.4 Tiger-meters. This gives a 13% chance that a T1(m) will bog in any 100m section of these conditions, and one would immobilize every 1681 tiger-meters which gives a 6% chance / 100m to immobilize. All of this at a whopping .39m/s or 1.41km/hr - .88mph! (Smokin'!)

Anyway- I did get the highest grade in my university statistics class, so I am good with the theory (like knowing that ~90 tests isn't S.S.) Unfortunately I have forgotten how to figure things like P factor. I will check out that like, because it would be great to measure that stuff.

I actually measure stuff much more often in CMBB than I play the game. Things like blast densities from artillery, differences between air and ground bursts in different terrains, in and out of foxholes, of course with different blast ratings. I have determined for every vehicle in the game actual rates of fire of the main weapons, and chances to hit targets at specific ranges, from that I was able to estimate engagement times at set ranges (given a standard size target silouette from the front). I have assembled myself a few hundred page vehicle guide for the game. I was thinking about selling it, (talked to Battlefront about it, but they wanted me to foot the initial bill of printing 2000 copies before they went on the market) but I just did it for fun, so when I got tired of working on something I just stopped. It's a great reference though that I use every game.

Anyway, I'll try to include P factor in my tests from now on.

Jeez, that's a long post!

Mike

[Mike Summers]

"Tiger-meters". That's one of the coolest terms I've seen on these boards yet. Interesting thread, btw. I've frequently been frustrated by the bogging of AFV's, and the seemingly inevitableness of them becoming immobilized. If it is possible to un-bog a vehicle, that would be good news indeed.

Tiger-meters...

[ww2steel]

You know, sort of like man/hours. :cool:

Mike

[Mike Summers]

Oh, I get it. I just think it's a very cool term. Kind of like beer-dollars, or CMBB-hours. You know.

[ww2steel]

beer dollars, there's another good one

[Pirx]

Hi www2steel

Just thought you might be interested in some probability calculations based on your excellent experiment. Thanks for passing on your interesting observations.