Problems of the CM engine

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

My favorites (beside the artillery system, that must be IMO completly revised):

a) A gun (or tank) targets a moving vehicel. It is natural that they sometimes loose LOS to the target. Why do they try to aim something else immediatly, even if it is (for the human player, of course) obvious that the target will be back in LOS in a few seconds again. A small delay (maybe even preset by the player) could help here.

The 'target a house' problem - You try to target a house, and a few meters before the house you loose LOS. Especially problematic if you could see only the upper level of a large building. I think the cause is that the engine has a problem with the height of a building. In theory, you can draw just a straight line from your muzzel to somewhere else, and if a building is in your way, you hit the building.

c) The 'focus target line on unit' issue. Situation - a gun, right out of LOS of your own gun/mortar/tank. It is a common practice (and IMO realistic) to fire direct as close as possible on the gun position. But if you draw your targetline to close to the target, the target 'steals' the focus, so you can't fire as close as it would be possible. Could be avoided with a key command or a key that must be hold while targeting.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

a) A gun (or tank) targets a moving vehicel. It is natural that they sometimes loose LOS to the target. Why do they try to aim something else immediatly, even if it is (for the human player, of course) obvious that the target will be back in LOS in a few seconds again. A small delay (maybe even preset by the player) could help here.

Tanks do keep the turret facing that direction for a short while unless another target presents itself. This was added in one of the patches. Ultimately, there will always be some problem with it since the AI has no memory of past events (and probably wont in the foreseeable future).

The 'target a house' problem - You try to target a house, and a few meters before the house you loose LOS.

Not sure what you mean here. If you don't have LOS to the house you shouldn't be able to target it.

c) The 'focus target line on unit' issue. Situation - a gun, right out of LOS of your own gun/mortar/tank. It is a common practice (and IMO realistic) to fire direct as close as possible on the gun position. But if you draw your targetline to close to the target, the target 'steals' the focus, so you can't fire as close as it would be possible.

Yeah, I've noticed that. A small annoyance.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Houses: I target the upper level of a large building - the LOS line is red - I draw it closer to me, and then it 'falls' to the lower level. The problem seems to be that I can't move the target line free in three dimensions. It is similar for small buildings.

Imagine that : I 'target' a virtual point in the air - this sound unrealistic, but it isn't - all I need is the vertical and horizontal angles. Of course, the shells continue their flight when they pass the point. And if a building is in the way... In CM I can only target a point on the ground (or the second level of a large building).

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

a) A gun (or tank) targets a moving vehicel. It is natural that they sometimes loose LOS to the target. Why do they try to aim something else immediatly, even if it is (for the human player, of course) obvious that the target will be back in LOS in a few seconds again. A small delay (maybe even preset by the player) could help here.

I did some testing (for an upcoming http://thforums.com/CMBO/ article) and I found that the CMBO engine is rather more sophisticated than people seem to assume.

What you see of pretty common for players running around in the apparently more attractive German turetless vehicles, especially the StuG III, the Panzer IV/70 and the like.

Whatever test you based your opinion on, please re-run it with a Panzer IVH. You will find that the retargetting is very much based on the turn rate of the guns, the Pz IVH simply rocks in this situation. The penality you see is for slow-turning gun mounts.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Redwolf Well, it was my error to include tanks. I agree that tanks - especially with turrets - don't suffer thereunder so much. The problem is more related to guns, especially the bigger, slow turning ones.