Artillery spotting....*sigh*

[OGSF]

What with having moaned about the apparent ineffectiveness of armour penetrations already this evening, I am loathe to launch into this one. But I am trying to understand the behaviour I am seeing with the artillery.

Mr 105mm Spotter has LOS to a clump of trees with US infantry in the area. Half way through the 3 minute count down the LOS is interrupted by a couple of smoke rounds from a tank. The smoke clears just as the rounds begin to fall.

But instead of spattering down amongst the infantry and breaking up the attack, the shells fall 90 degrees off course and only 50 yards from the Spotter, in plain sight. And continue to do so until I reset the orginal target with a green line adjustment.

It is my humble contention that:

a) If LOS starts clear, is interrupted but then clears again before the shells arrive, the spotter should be able to tell if the shells are landing in the right place or not, and

Blind Freddie can see that if his target is 500 yards "over there" and artillery starts landing 50 yards away on his left, then the fire needs adjusting.

When the shells arrive the spotter can see his target and can see where the shells are landing. Apparently he cannot "see" that they are not the same place.

This, coupled with the US armour's apparent invulnerability to armour penetrations, has made this evenings CM'ing a waste of time for me.

I just hope the full game plays better.

Update: After adjusting the fire and waiting another 50 seconds, the artillery arrives - falling short on top of my own troops. Retardo the Art Spotter strikes again. I quit the game in disgust.

[ December 30, 2003, 11:48 PM: Message edited by: OGSF ]

[Boo Radley]

As much as it pains me to agree with you, (Ack!), the same thing happens with me.

I target an area, smoke obscures it for a short time during the countdown and then clears, and STILL the arty falls wildly off target. Even retargetting with clear LOS, and I'm off the mark by at least 100 meters.

BFC, fix or do somefink!

[Treeburst155]

This issue has been discussed before. I've done quite a bit of testing on it too. If, at any time during the delay period, spotter LOS is obscured by smoke (not dust), the strike will be off target. Subsequent green-line adjustments are ineffective. The strike must be cancelled and replotted from scratch.

I suspect the brief blockage of LOS causes the program to treat the strike like a blind fire mission. Once the first round has fallen, no amount of smoke can cause the strike to go haywire. Spotter LOS must be continuous until the first round hits (is fired?).

Although I've not tested it specifically, I suspect that a smoke blockage of spotter LOS early in a turn will cause a strike that begins arriving just seconds later to be considered a blind strike. In this case, you have lots of wasted ammo before you can cancel the strike.

[Monty]

Quick solution could be a "warning" text pop-up the strike will be "blind" due to broken LOS ?

I mean the CM "engine" has obviously seen there was a moment of no LOS to the target, but i think its impossible for a player to notice that in most cases ( im not gonna track every second behind the FO on level 1 to watch if there is maybe a moment of broken LOS due to smoke)

Monty

[Michael Emrys]

I'm sorta doubtful that anything will be done about this until the new engine, which will presumably include a complete overhaul of the artillery mechanics.

Michael

[WineCape]

Thanks for the update Tree - I have experienced similiar problems, albeit with the CMAK Demo!

One can only hope that this issue will be addressed in CMAK. Has it been posted to the "bug" thread? If not, will you do so Tree?

Sincerely,

Charl Theron

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[ December 31, 2003, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

[Ligur]

Yep I know the feeling, after CM:BO I really can't remember having many artillery strikes on spot (CM:BO had, like, super fast arty compared to CM:BB so you could adjust all you wanted), and fixing the aim may or may not take half the game, whereupon the target is already somewhere else.

I find it almost TOO hard to fire for effect these days. Smoking a huge area is just about the only thing that works like I wish. On-board mortars, of course, totally rock.

[Boo Radley]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

If, at any time during the delay period, spotter LOS is obscured by smoke (not dust), the strike will be off target. Subsequent green-line adjustments are ineffective. The strike must be cancelled and replotted from scratch.

So the FO is standing there and he's called in the strike giving the coordinates and some smoke wafts it's way in front of him and suddenly, he doesn't know the coordinates anymore? Or he's on the radio reporting, "Wait! I can't see it any more! The target might have ripped itself from the space/time continuum and be anywhere by now!"

Makes sense to me.

[Redwolf]

It is a bug. If LOS gets cut anytime during the targetting before the spotting rounds fall then it is inaccurate.

It is not realistic and doesn't look overly hard to fix, with all respect. After all, it is a LOS check that needs to be removed here, not one added.

To me it looks like this got broken when Charles coded in that an already ongoing barrage doesn't switch to inaccurate when LOS is blocked while it is ongoing.

[John1966]

...spotter LOS is obscured by smoke (not dust),...

Maybe I missed something but my hairpulling moment with this happened when it was dust obscuring the LOS...

[Treeburst155]

John1966,

I've never been able to cause a strike to go haywire with dust clouds alone. The smallest bit of smoke will do it however.