Opinions of 1.05?

[PeterLorre86]

Well? While mine downloads what do those who have it think?

[thewood]

It has dynamic lighting!

[SlapHappy]

Targets being fired upon in "HUNT" mode respond much quicker and deploy more safely.

Infantry seem to hit those doors much quicker and with less confusion.

In "HOUSE CLEANING" I blasted through two adjacent walls from inside a building and cleared out a room with no casualties.... HOORAH!

[Guest Guest]

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[Paper Tiger]

Slaphappy: hey, that's good to hear. Sounds like I'll be giving MOUT a go again when the Paradox patch arrives.

[hammelman]

I've already found 2 issues. When i blast a wall, the guys go through - except for the M249 guys - what gives? The squad moves all around the building , but the 249 guys stay outside at the blast area. The only way to get the 249 guys to move is exit the building.

Second issue is I had a squad come under fire when they were entering a building, so i told them to stop, half the squad was in the building in various stages of the building, and half the squad was entering with 2 guys outside. I issued a stop order and they laid down. I had to split the squad to get them to move again, because they wouldnt go anywhere until i told them to split.

I like that the blast part is semi fixed, and some of the other gimmicks, but i havent seen what i was looking for yet - but alas this is only after 15 mins of play on one map. I will spend the better part of this weekend playing different maps and testing it out.

[MikeyD]

If you ignore that low walls LOS problem for the moment (which really did pop up out of nowhere) the game's a dream to play. I suspect that low walls bug is going to have a very short game life.

[thewood]

I am still not getting Strykers to react at all to being slaughtered by tanks. I have six Strykers sitting behind some woods. A T-72 comes up on them 400 meters away and proceeds to plug each one over a two turns (two minutes) with only one Stryker crew going to nervous when its the last Stryker alive. No smoke, no evasion, no retreat, no anything. 5 of the Strykers were dead before the first turn ended.

I wasn't really holding out a lot of hope since Steve never said anything about fixing it, but its one of those things that makes playing WEGO pretty frustrating. The Strykers were veteran, with +1 leadership.

['Card]

I just had a couple of squads get stuck on a rooftop, which pretty much ruined a scenario for me. Tried splitting the squads, tried everything to get them to move - nothing worked. I have to admit, I'm kind of disappointed with that.

[MarkEzra]

Ran up a QB map Large city with many tall buildings. Got a stryker plat w/MGS support.

Pathing: Did my normal (relatively careful) pathing...works like always. Tried a start position in the desert out side of the city and ordered one straight line to the middle of town. Got there just fine.

Acquire: Inf acquire the Javelin and the right guy got it!

Dismounts: Didn't look like the circus just rolled into town...sent them into a building and it worked fine

LOS/LOF: This is a large city map with tallest buildings down to single story. I had no LOS issue at all. Anytime I couldn't see something was because I shouldn't see something. I will send save on request.

General first impression is: Looking good but way too early to tell. A few days of playing will be required to sort it all out...It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

[Battlefront]

Card - are you sure the squad isn't pinned or shaken or panicked? Those conditions will (intentionally) make a squad unresponsive to your movement orders.

[SlapHappy]

One thing...for those who haven't already figured this out.....

When using BLAST move, your troops must be fairly close to the wall/building they intend to enter through. You can tell if you are not because the BLAST move will turn into a QUICK order with the troops finding the nearest path to achieve entry into the area you designated.

Perhaps it would be better if when the BLAST order cannot execute properly, the AI would simply CANCEL it instead of executing the QUICK move.

Steve: What is the minimum range to a wall or building to make BLAST execute properly?

[Battlefront.com]

Thewood,

I am still not getting Strykers to react at all to being slaughtered by tanks. I have six Strykers sitting behind some woods. A T-72 comes up on them 400 meters away and proceeds to plug each one over a two turns (two minutes) with only one Stryker crew going to nervous when its the last Stryker alive. No smoke, no evasion, no retreat, no anything. 5 of the Strykers were dead before the first turn ended.

Sounds like the other Strykers didn't spot the T-72 before they were killed, therefore they didn't react. This is working as intended. Let me explain what I mean by that before anybody thinks the wrong thing

There is a big difference between a unit sensing danger to itself directly and indirectly. Directly covers a range of things such as getting plinked, seeing a threat before it does something, etc. Indirectly is perceiving a threat based on a threat to someone else. They are two entirely different things.

CMx1 and CMx2 only have "direct" threat assessment, neither have "indirect" threat assessment. This is because indirect is a HUGE ball of wax with tons of potential problems that would have to be coded around. For example, one Stryker sees a Stryker killed by an RPG hit. Should it bugger off or stand its ground? Should it even know that what sort of enemy may be responsible, or should it just presume the worst and take off? Or maybe it knows it is in a safe spot and doesn't have to worry about the threat at the moment as long as it stays still? And if it does move, where should it move? I mean, if it doesn't see the thing that shot at the Stryker, how can it intelligently avoid getting shot at? It just keeps going on and on and on like that. Even worse, what if the vehicle indirectly sensing danger is an Abrams and the vehicle shot up is a Stryker? Now danger has to be relative to what possible damage may result from acting/not acting.

In short, indirect threat assessment is not an easy thing to code successfully. Which is why in 10 years we've never even tried to do anything about it Will we do something in the future? I wouldn't rule it out, but it isn't on the front burner.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

SlapHappy,

Steve: What is the minimum range to a wall or building to make BLAST execute properly?

Good question! I don't know, but I'll find out

Steve

[PeterLorre86]

Well i just played a couple of quick battles and for me the results where on the good side of mixed. It is still early though, as i said only played a couple quick battle.

Still noticed some of the old bugs that bothered me in previous versions, for example LOS/wall confusion.

Also this has happened a few times not sure if its noted, during set up phase in buildings on the edge of deployment zones sometimes my men slip into the non-deploy zone from which i cannot retrieve them until after the game begins. Sometimes this is not a big deal, sometimes it gets the guys killed.

But on a positive note i did notice improvements. My BMPs used their AT-5s vs armour without the delay and suspense of previous versions, the Bradleys i faced seemed to use thier TOWs more too. Dismounting seemed alot cleaner as well, my men didn't really try to do anything too stupid, at least while i was watching them.

In open terrain i didnt really notice any LOS issues, it was only in city environments or involving walls that i had problems.

So far it looks like 1.05 is another step in the right direction.

To voice some honest criticism, i would say at this point the clunky interface is what i find most discouraging, as the bugs seem to be fading with every patch.

Thanks for 1.05

['Card]

Originally posted by Battlefront:

Card - are you sure the squad isn't pinned or shaken or panicked?

No, to be honest, these guys weren't even under fire, Steve. Both squads were rested and happy at the time. Let me give you the details...

Playing Following the Euphrates as Blue, Veteran, WEGO. There's a set of three buildings on the right side of the highway that are pretty close to the Blue start area. First time I'd played that scenario and I was being cautious, so I thought I'd get some Javelins up on the roof of the three-story building in the middle to provide some cover for my armor as they advanced towards the intersection. I loaded two squads with Javelins and launchers and sent them to the roof to have a look around.

I first noticed something was wrong when both squads made it to the roof, and no one seemed to be left inside the building, but they were still showing blue lines underneath them, as if the 'move' movement order hadn't been completed for some reason. They'd started chucking M203 rounds at some bad guys in the trenches over on the right, so I figured I would let them do that for awhile, and hit the 'cancel' button to erase the blue lines underneath them and prevent them from doing anything goofy while I wasn't paying attention.

Unfortunately, when I went to get them down a few turns later, they simply refused to move. I tried making them go directly to the ground with the 'move', 'quick', and 'fast' orders, but that didn't work. Then I tried the same thing by placing a movement waypoint on each floor all the way to the ground, and that didn't work either. Then I split the squads and tried all the previous steps again, and that also didn't work. The orders seemed to input correctly, but when I started the action they just kind of stood around with their hands in their pockets. They were never fired upon, and never took any casualties.

I guess maybe they wanted to keep it that way. :cool:

[Battlefront.com]

SlapHappy,

Basically if your guys are "next to" the wall, it will work, and there is a little bit of extra wiggle room allowed, but not too much. There is no specific number of meters because there are some variables which are hard for the player to account for. 10m and under is probably a good rule of thumb.

PeterLorre86,

Yeah, we didn't do hardly anything with the QBs so the problems you saw there don't surprise me. We have to so a bunch of work on them and that's going to come later.

We're looking into the wall thing. We know what is causing it. Figures it was something introduced a few days ago after nearly 2 months of working fine That's the curse of patches. To truly test everything you need to test for a few weeks without making ANY code changes. That's just not practical.

Steve

[Guest Guest]

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[SlapHappy]

While I'm sure there are some annoying LOS glitches that will pop up that need to be fixed, I'd like to go on the record in saying this:

This game has one of the most impressive infantry squad models I've ever seen in a game of this type. Nothing else really comes very close at all. I am enjoying the game even playing just the "all-infantry" scenarios. And I honestly didn't think I could do that in any game. It really makes you appreciate how under-developed "the grunts" are in most wargaming titles......

[pad152]

Shouldn't Strykers pop smoke & reverse if they come under fire, yet don't see they enemy, they seem to just sit there taking hits?

[PeterLorre86]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

PeterLorre86,

Yeah, we didn't do hardly anything with the QBs so the problems you saw there don't surprise me. We have to so a bunch of work on them and that's going to come later.

Steve

Just to clarify, i was using the QBG map packs.

And the problem could be avoided simply by extending the zones away from buildings.

However i was just able to get the same result by unloading an AFV too close to the edge of the deployment zone.

Its good to know walls are being worked on.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by SlapHappy:

While I'm sure there are some annoying LOS glitches that will pop up that need to be fixed, I'd like to go on the record in saying this:

This game has one of the most impressive infantry squad models I've ever seen in a game of this type. Nothing else really comes very close at all. I am enjoying the game even playing just the "all-infantry" scenarios. And I honestly didn't think I could do that in any game. It really makes you appreciate how under-developed "the grunts" are in most wargaming titles......

I agree completely.

I think this comment deserves its own thread.

It could also make you appreciate how extensively the infantry model has be designed to simulate reality as closely as technically possible in a consumer level military simulator.

[H.W. Guderian]

Thanks to the BFC crew for the work on 1.05.

I:

-Downloaded 1.05

-Updated my install (on XP running on bootcamped 10.5 MacBook Pro)

-I noted that new scenario's appear to be "recommended" for WEGO? A message to some, perhaps?

-Tried a QB: playing Syrian RG Armor vs Strykers on a Village map (at night of course to check out the new fireworks)

-First try I got the T-72's I asked for and 3 batteries of 130mm! Never seen that before trying this in QB! Usually I get a pile of jeeps when I ask for Armor and I've never had this much Syrian off-board arty before?!

-Nice village map I'd never seen before with 3 clear "attacker" setup zones and clear "green zones" in the village.

-BUT Hit annoying problem #1 straight off the bat. For some reason the Yanks had some boots setup in my zone (??!!) . . . behind my troops . . . and they promptly hosed some of my precious observers! Sorted them out later after turning some tanks around. Also the icon for the wayward yanks was also missing?

-The new fireworks are an awesome touch that make playing night games much more immersive IMHO.

-Possible problem #2 - I thought the changelog said that "Fixed various problems with 3D objects not reverting to their original states when replaying a turn-based turn's resolution." - BUT craters and the like DON'T appear to revert in playback, but maybe that is not what this is referenced to?

-Possible problem #3 - ammo count in playback was doing VERY whacky things as far as I could tell - some tanks seemed to "properly count" ammo in playback- yet some didn't? I was trying to check why the T-72's seemed to be preferentially firing what I understand are their canon launched ATGM's at single infantrymen and I just couldn't make sense of the ammo numbers as they changed (or didn't change) in playback

-Problem #4 - there was a "very low wall" (looks like brick or stones, not concrete to me). I moved one of my Obs across a rise and up to this wall - but the men couldn't see over it from 5-7m away? When I tried to move them right up to the wall they wouldn't go near it? Just stood there? I tried for many turns (cancel - re-order) but gave up and tried to move them back down slope and around the other end of the wall - with 3 defined waypoints ending in a trench for cover. BUT, (1) they stood there for an entire turn "planning" THEN (2) They didn't go all the way down slope and around the wall, instead they ignored the waypoints and went half way along the wall and jumped over it in view of the Yanks AND then stood in open ground, in plain view, for the rest of the turn, again "planning" according to their "action list" - with a perfectly good trench just metres away? IT GETS WORSE (3) next turn they did a 180degree about face, jumped BACK over the low wall again (to the "wrong" side) but then turned around and AGAIN jumped over it in the same way? All the time their waypoints would have lead them along the wall across clear terrain, around the end, and then into a perfectly good trench? This was basically open ground with a low wall and a few trees - NOT MOUT complexity. The unit was Ready and had never been engaged by the enemy. Very strange. I gave up on trying to enjoy the game at that point. With half my observers killed by "lost" Yanks on setup and unable to get the others into LOS of the target, my ARTY way late and had to keep my tanks waiting around.

-Possible problem #5 - that low wall again, a T-72 pulled right up to it (graphically all of the Turret is above this wall - the one the boots just jumped over) but the T-72 couldn't get LOS /LOF over it?

-Problem #6 - Strykers still appear to have no idea how to deal with Armor. They just charge forward like lambs to the slaughter - one after the other - and the infantry never pull out their Javs. One very brave (stupid) Stryker - after watching 3 T-72's shred 6 of his mates - pulled OUT OF COVER to engage the T-72's with a 40mm grenade launcher at maximum range? Seems that it is still impossible to play Syrian Armor against Blue AI Strykers?

Sincere thanks to BF.C for all your efforts on 1.05 - I'm sure it is getting better.

I'll likely wait to see if 1.06 sorts things out before I put what little time I have for gaming into something other than CMAK.

When is the next patch out again . . . . . .?

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks SlapHappy. It is easy to forget that we're doing stuff that nobody else is even trying to do, not to mention do realistically. Sometimes I really do wonder why we don't set the bar lower for ourselves. Our wives/SOs would certainly appreciate it!

pad152,

Shouldn't Strykers pop smoke & reverse if they come under fire, yet don't see they enemy, they seem to just sit there taking hits?

Depends on the situation, but yes in general they know they are getting shot at they should react. But as I said above, only if they come under direct fire themselves.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Ack! I just saw your post H.W. Guderian and I'm trying to log off for the night Couple of very quick comments:

QB problems are not surprising to me since we didn't change things and most of what you mentioned was happening in v1.04.

Resetting graphics for WeGo is what you think it means, but I'm sure there are still things that aren't being reset properly. Unfortunately, to make file size as small as possible Charles only tracks certain data when he is sure he needs to. He's obviously missed a few things he needs to track

Yes, we are aware of a low wall problem. That was introduced a couple of days ago right before we readied the patch for release. Figures, eh? We'll let you guys know what we plan to do about it in a couple of days.

Thanks,

Steve