Artillery bug?

[Panzer76]

Ok, if this has already happend to someone, and have been discussed, please say so.

The setting:

1500 QB ME battle, I am the Soviets. I have a 82mm FO 6 tubes in a heavy building, 2nd floor. I area target where I think the germans might be coming.

After 1 min I see that the germans will be coming somewhere else, where I dont have LOS, so I move my FO to a place where I have LOS (but dont move the target).

Next round I change the target (no rounds have been fired yet), and since it's a small change, I get a green line.

Next rounds fire starts dropping, WAY WAY away. Like 200 m NW of my target, pretty close to my ORIGINAL target. I try to walk the fire, I try to select a NEW target (blue line), but whatever I do, the fire is ALWAYS hopelessly inaccurate, always around 150-200 to the NW of selected target. In the end I had to guess where I had to target by placing my target 150-200 SE of where I wanted the rounds to fall.

It seemed that my corrections where made in relative to my original target, and not current target.

The FO was rested, always had LOS and was never under fire. Green quality.

Needless to say, this was pretty frustrating and the FO had 0 effect on the battle.

Has this happend to anyone else? Is this a know bug?

[Nik]

I noticed that problem ,too :mad: . I think we have to wait for the patch

[Dschugaschwili]

Did you hide your FO?

Dschugaschwili

[Pud]

yep, there is a very large discussion over http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=002845

[Michael Emrys]

Yep, there's been a lot of griping over this and related issues. Like everyone else, I await a pronouncement from BTS. In the meanwhile, I can't be sure whether or not this is an intentional design decision.

I know that historically a lot of things could cause a fire mission to go astray, especially on the Eastern Front. The maps were often lousy and both the FO and the firing battery could be mistaken about their positions relative to each other and the target. Sometimes whoever was doing the calculations simply screwed up. I don't know if any of these things are the answer, but they are something to think about.

Michael

[ November 06, 2002, 08:30 AM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[Panzer76]

Pud, thanks for the head up.

I read the tread but could not find any responses from BTS. Also I would like to add, that the FO had LOS at all time, I "walked the fire" and retargeted, but nothing helped. It still fell way off.

I COULD see that this was intentionally IF the re-plotting improved the accuracy OR the the fire landed somewhere completly random, BUT this is not the case.

I find it VERY strange that it ALWAYS landed 150-200 m to the NW of my new targets, this indicates to me that it either was a VERY freaky coincidence, OR it IS a bug, I belive it is a bug.

I will try to see if I can repelicate this bug.

It would be nice if any from BTS could comment on this

[Panzer76]

*bump*

Any officially response to this?

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Panzer76:

*bump*

Any official response to this?

[Bullethead]

Panzer76 said:

I area target where I think the germans might be coming. After 1 min I see that the germans will be coming somewhere else, where I dont have LOS, so I move my FO to a place where I have LOS (but dont move the target). Next round I change the target (no rounds have been fired yet), and since it's a small change, I get a green line. Next rounds fire starts dropping, WAY WAY away.

FOs can't talk while moving. Wire FOs have to string out more wire, radio FOs have to tear down and then reassemble their rather bulky WW2 radios. So when you moved your FO while leaving his target line in place, you converted it into blind fire. It was like the FO got killed or suppressed while the spotting process was happening--communications for fire control was interrupted. This is why it scattered to begin with.

It seemed that my corrections where made in relative to my original target, and not current target.

I believe what's happening here is that once an FO has FFE going, all new target orders for that FO are treated as "adjustments" of that FFE, until the FFE is stopped. Thus, once you have scattered FFE, as long as you keep shooting every turn, you're still working with that same "blind" target.

Try a simple test. Repeat all the above steps of picking a target in LOS and moving the FO while leaving the target in place. When the FFE comes and it's scattered as a result, delete the FO's target and wait 1 turn, then issue a new target. I bet that solves the problem.

In CMBO, FOs could talk while moving but they can't now, so don't try it any more . Also, in CMBO, if the FO was killed or suppressed at any point, the whole fire mission came to a sudden end. This is not the case in CMBO, which keeps things going in an attempt to simulate what happens in real life. Problem is, CMBO got it wrong IMHO. This is mostly because the CM engine doesn't follow real life in having the FO/player specify the number of rounds of FFE in advance. So it has to somehow fudge things. You're looking at the result.

[Bullethead]

I said:

Try a simple test.

I just tried this test myself using my test scenario on page 3 of that thread linked above. So I was doing this with a 105mm FO with a 3-minute base delay. He completed his move before the 1st spotting round fell and the FFE was bang on target, even after I'd changed the target location.

So I added a 6-tube 81mm FO with a 2-minute delay and tried it again. This time, the spotting rounds fell while the FO was moving the FFE started that same turn. It was bang on target. And it followed my green-line "adjustments", always hitting directly where I was aiming, until the FO ran out of ammo.

So, 2 things to learn from this:

1. All my theories about moving an FO in my last post are incorrect. Apparently moving an FO has no effect on his accuracy.

2. I can only assume that you must have inadvertently clicked your target line on a non-LOS location, thus getting scattered FFE. In my test, this is impossible due to the layout of the map, but in your case obviously you were shooting right at the edge of your LOS, so it would have been possible for you. Scattered FFE seems incapable of correction, so the only thing to do is start over from scratch where you're sure you have an LOS (and wait 1 turn before attempting this).

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Bullethead:

2. I can only assume that you must have inadvertently clicked your target line on a non-LOS location, thus getting scattered FFE. In my test, this is impossible due to the layout of the map, but in your case obviously you were shooting right at the edge of your LOS, so it would have been possible for you. Scattered FFE seems incapable of correction, so the only thing to do is start over from scratch where you're sure you have an LOS (and wait 1 turn before attempting this).

Thanks for the response BH. I see you were very active in the fomer tread about this issue, and that you were a beta tester. I also noticed that you had never experienced this issue yourself.

I have read your possible explinations, and it doesnt hold true for my account.

1. The FO had ALWAYS LOS to the new targets.

2. I adjusted the fire approx 4 times.

3. I set a completly NEW target (blue line) 1 time.

Result was always the same.

Conclusion:

1. The LOS tool doesnt work. I doubt that very much.

2. I had an increadible amount of bad luck, 5 times in a row. I doubt that very much also, because of the patteren the fire landed in (always 150-200 m NW of target)

3. Its a bug. I belive this. Problem is of cource to replicate this bug. Next time (if it happens again) I'll make sure to save the game.

It's not as much the fact that it scattered, but the way it scattered also. (150-200m NW)

[Panzer76]

*bump*

[Bullethead]

Panzer76 said:

Conclusion:

1. The LOS tool doesnt work. I doubt that very much.

2. I had an increadible amount of bad luck, 5 times in a row. I doubt that very much also, because of the patteren the fire landed in (always 150-200 m NW of target)

3. Its a bug. I belive this. Problem is of cource to replicate this bug. Next time (if it happens again) I'll make sure to save the game.

I noticed in CMBO that there was a problem with the LOS tool not agreeing with the targeting tool. Try this sometime (you can use a tank or squad, it doesn't have to be an FO):

</font>

• Start with the LOS tool and move it so it shows you have an LOS on the very last pixel just before you hit some piece of cover. </font>
• Let go of the mouse, to make sure you don't move it while clicking. </font>
• While you still have an LOS, and not touching the mouse at all, hit the T key to switch from LOS mode to targeting mode, and watch what happens to the LOS/target line.
  </font>

In some cases, you start with a blue LOS line but then the target line will be orange/black for a blocked LOS. Then you hit the L key to go back into LOS mode and the line is blue again. All this while not touching the mouse at all. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to pin down the circumstances in which this happens, but it does happen.

Fortunately, this is only a problem for direct fire weapons, not FOs. Arty shells rarely land exactly where you click, thanks to the impact pattern of about 200m E-W by 40m N-S. So my advice to avoid this problem is to move the mouse a few pixels closer to the FO and further from the cover. Hell, even being 1 full tile off on an E-W line with the target really doesn't make much difference in the number of shells hitting near the enemy unit in question.

It's not as much the fact that it scattered, but the way it scattered also. (150-200m NW)

There does seem to be a tendency for scatter to happen to the NW more than any other direction. I have no idea why.