units driving into another one

[Zoppex]

i started playing a PBEM cenario wher I have a company of Panzergranadiers on half-tracks. All vehicles got the order to "Move fast". They all had a delay of 12 seconds. The problems is that some advaned faster than others and, finally, drove into each other. Is it a bug ? Any solutions?

[Captain Wacky]

Check the experience levels. Some of your tracks are probably more experienced and will have less of a command delay, and that will cause traffic pileups.

[jmg]

I think that if your vehicles aren't exactly pointed in the direction of travel, they turn first in that direction then travel on. So depending on how off center the vehicle is, it will take a second or two more to make that adjustment. That may be a cause for a vehicle catching up to one that wasn't exactly pointed in the direction of travel. Or the more obvious ones of terrain and elevation differences along the route. A vehicle going into scattered trees can get rearended by a vehicle in open ground that catches up.

[Moon]

There are two things one has to keep in mind to avoid jams - incidentally these are two things that you have to keep in mind when driving on a highway, too.

- keep a distance to the vehicle in front of you

- wait until the guy in front of you started driving before you do

In CM, this translates to giving Pause orders to following units. You cannot expect to start half a dozen of trucks at the very same second and have them drive like one vehicle in a column. Longer columns can take more than 1 minute (1 turn) to get going. This is realistic, or have you never wondered why you have to wait before you can start going even though the traffic light turned green a while ago?

Martin

PS. CM simulates acceleration and deceleration of vehicles as well as different speeds over different terrain types additional to the command delays, meaning that yes, vehicles can go different speeds even if they have the same command delay.

[Redwolf]

In CMBB the displayed delay is further subject to some additional random variance, for the same experience and same displayed delay.

It's easy to test by just setting up 5 of the same vehicles in a row and give them a group select order. They display the same delay but start slightly different.

[MikeyD]

CMBB does demand a bit of 'driving' experience on the player's part. The player soon learns not to give hard 90 degree turns to fast moving tanks for risk of problems with overshooting, and they learn to avoid (SLOWLY!) rotating armor in place when move-while-turning commands are done more quickly. And they learn to add progressively longer command delays to vehicles moving in columns to avoid traffic jams.

Hey, don't complain. The player's got to have some function in the game, otherwise it's just watching TV!

[Robert Olesen]

Traffic control is a p.i.t.a. in CMBB and CMBO. They must have forgotten to include MP's in the unit list

That was good advice, MikeyD. I didn't know why my armor was so SLOW in rotating in place.

I guess anything that talkes something away from the player's god-like abilities is good, but I'd still like a "follow that vehicle" command.