LOS / LOF problems

[Bunyip]

These wall abstractions have been giving me grief of a different kind.

The situation is wanting to breach with direct fire weaponry. As the wall is terrain you can't aim at it, only at an 8x8's on "this" side, most of the rounds land short. Can't aim past the wall because sight is blocked...

Eventually stray shots will take out a couple of panels but in spite of gap that sure look wide enough the vehicles try to go around.

Is there a breaching technique?

[SlowMotion]

One more wall case to this thread:

A Bradley was hiding behind building corner. My T62 was on the other side of the corner. Instead of driving forward and then turning turret to shoot, the Syrian tank just rotated its gun through building corner and destroyed the Bradley.

http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z213/r31070021/CMSF/?action=view&current=shoot_through_corner.gif

[ July 30, 2007, 02:59 PM: Message edited by: SlowMotion ]

[Krinks]

LOL that's some skillful tanking! It looks as though he stuck the gun through two windows to get at the Bradley. That commander and gunner deserve medals

[Martin Krejcirik]

Standalone walls definitely don't block LOS and LOF when a unit is positioned right next to it. In the campaign airport scenario I can move my squads to the wall, they can see through it, fire, and be fired on.

If it is limitation of the engine, than there should be a wider unpassable edge around walls.

[MirabelleBenou]

I get this one too.

For each walls I have, I cannot move units with no danger for them.

Well.... It's really like these walls are invisible for the units but not for us.

A friend of mine got a humvee past throught a wall with no dommage for him or the wall.

[panzermartin]

I'm disappointed with these LOS/LOF problems. I can deal with tricky pathfinding but this takes away much of the fun of 1:1 presentation. CMx1 was indeed very precise in LOS presentation.

In CMSF I've seen infantry spotting and firing through walls, tanks exchanging rounds through buildings, grenade launchers firing through terrain elevations. It is frustrating because there is no possible way to be 100% sure whether you are exposed or able to fire or fired upon. Except from putting your squads in buildings there is no safe cover for them and TAC AI doesnt seem to automaticaly take advatage of los blocking obstacles. Men do not follow a formation according to the ground, they are mostly spread out in the middle of the streets hopelessly exposed most of the time.

[Yskonyn]

Just keep on posting weird findings.

As I see it, the walls indeed have a problem stopping fire and/or disrupting LOS.

Sometimes the enemy already knows I am at the other side of a wall whereas in reality he shouldn't have a clue... Unless, of course the game also models 'hearing', but still it makes no sense why a standard rifle can shoot through the wall.

[aka_tom_w]

Steve and BFC are always on the look out of examples of this bug, post screen shots and keep a "save game" handy (when you see this issue, pause the game and save it, with a save game title, like Shoot-thru-walls-patched with v1.01" or something.)

FWIW

Post screen shots in this thread if you have them.

Something like this:

[Steiner14]

Originally posted by panzermartin:

I'm disappointed with these LOS/LOF problems. I can deal with tricky pathfinding but this takes away much of the fun of 1:1 presentation. CMx1 was indeed very precise in LOS presentation.

In CMSF I've seen infantry spotting and firing through walls, tanks exchanging rounds through buildings, grenade launchers firing through terrain elevations. It is frustrating because there is no possible way to be 100% sure whether you are exposed or able to fire or fired upon. Except from putting your squads in buildings there is no safe cover for them and TAC AI doesnt seem to automaticaly take advatage of los blocking obstacles. Men do not follow a formation according to the ground, they are mostly spread out in the middle of the streets hopelessly exposed most of the time.

:eek: Please tell me the famous CM-quality isn't completely gone!

[Darkmath]

Originally posted by Martin Krejcirik:

Standalone walls definitely don't block LOS and LOF when a unit is positioned right next to it. In the campaign airport scenario I can move my squads to the wall, they can see through it, fire, and be fired on.

If it is limitation of the engine, than there should be a wider unpassable edge around walls.

If it is an engine limitation, so why in CMX1 1 metre walls does protect prone soldiers?

I can't see how some engine limitation in CMX2 would stop fixing this issue which hurts a lot the game.

[Kozure]

In the 3rd mission of the campaign (2nd for most if you win the first, apparently), where you're attacking the abandoned airbase, I had a squad wiped out by fire which really appeared to be coming straight through a wall. I had punched a breach in the 8-10' compound wall with a MGS and drove up a Stryker about 20' away from the breach opening along the wall (so as not to take fire through the breach). Suddenly I started taking fire and the tracer lines seemed to be coming from first and second storey windows quite some distance away, which, if the usual laws of geometry and LOS would apply, shouldn't seem to have LOS through the wall.

Then, a few seconds later, I seemed to take a RPG shot from a third storey of a building that had collapsed. I was baffled and looked again, and more fire seemed to be coming from an invisible source floating at around the same height where the collapsed building storey seemed to be. Now, the floors below were still intact, granted, but this seemed to be strange behaviour.

Now, I realize that these are separate issues, and I'm not one of these people that's going to drop the game altogether because of a single bad incident, but I quit that battle in frustration, having lost a Stryker and its squad to what appeared to be very odd LOS behaviour.

I'm soldiering on with this game; but for the sake of people who have less patience than I, take a look at the LOS tracking for the tall compound walls.

[MoNuckah]

Dear Battlefront:

Being able to spot/shoot through walls isn't a little 'oops', its a major, major problem if you are trying to make a realistic game. I understand 'abstraction', but this is just plain broken.

Wasn't there a beta test or something?

[TheVulture]

Originally posted by SlowMotion:

One more wall case to this thread:

A Bradley was hiding behind building corner. My T62 was on the other side of the corner. Instead of driving forward and then turning turret to shoot, the Syrian tank just rotated its gun through building corner and destroyed the Bradley.

http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z213/r31070021/CMSF/?action=view&current=shoot_through_corner.gif

Here's a theory of what happened there: The Syrian tank has LoF to some part of the Bradley, so the target as flagged as 'targetable'. The gun therefore rotates to point at the center of the target unit (rather than at the center of the visible area) which is a) not visible and behind the corner. And the result is what you see.

If you instead make the aim point the center of the visible area, then no problem occurs (assuming LoF is measured from the rotational center of the turret) - the gun will never point at a target beind the wall / corner and won't therefore stick through the wall.

Alternatively it may just be that the calculations show that LoF exists through the breached wall and the window. In which case I'd suggest that for vehicles windows block LoF but not LoS. I don't imagine too many complaints from people about their tanks *not* being able to fire in one window and out of another.

Either way, the problem looks to be one of determining that LoS or LoF exists, and then orienting the gun accordingly despite the fact that it is physically impossible to get the gun in to that position. But that's more or less unavoidable (I mean, you could put in some code to check whether the gun can traverse from its current position to its intended position, but I suspect that would lead to even more bizarre problems and people wondering why their tank rotates the turret *away* from its target, taking an AT round to the back of the turret whilst doing so).

[thewood]

But the point everyone seems to be missing is this ia why CM was originally had some pretty big abstractions. No one of significance really cared because the abstractions fit the scale. Now with 1:1 scaling for ALL units, I think the system may just be too complicated to manage. Most tactical FPS games have some pretty severe limitations on them because of issues like this.

I think BFC really openned up a can of worms with the scale. But I will say that the move from 2D IgoUgo was probably just as big a leap and they managed to pull it off. I am praying to Gods of Wargaming.

[securityguard]

The tall walls are pretty much absolutely broken at the moment. They don't block LOS or LOF at all. I made a mission that pretty much revolved around the use of the walls, but anything that is already spotted will get annihilated no matter how well covered they are.

[pad152]

Two things

1. Walls block LOS/LOF in TOW.

2. If the SF engine can handle this then change walls to fences at don't block LOS/LOF! Maybe not a perfect solution but better than seeing & shooting through two walls, which is just silly.

[James Bailey]

Originally posted by Major_Jerkov:

I had no spotters, all infantry were in strykers. or at setup area. Wanted to clarify that.

MAJ-

I don't own CMSF so I can't comment on what is modeled in game. I can tell you that the Stryker has a VERY good thermal imager - most of its capabilities are classified - making it realistic for a Stryker commander to see that target before enemy engaged. Also, a .50 round has no problem penetrating the concrete blocks used in construction of most mid east buildings. As such, I think the firefight in your videa was realistic.

[B00M$LANG]

James - you HAVE to get the CM:SF demo! Especially if you like the ATF series...

[imported_Major_Jerkov]

Originally posted by James Bailey:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Major_Jerkov:

I had no spotters, all infantry were in strykers. or at setup area. Wanted to clarify that.

MAJ-

I don't own CMSF so I can't comment on what is modeled in game. I can tell you that the Stryker has a VERY good thermal imager - most of its capabilities are classified - making it realistic for a Stryker commander to see that target before enemy engaged. Also, a .50 round has no problem penetrating the concrete blocks used in construction of most mid east buildings. As such, I think the firefight in your videa was realistic. </font>

[Pandur]

i buy it too, but i currently have problems to hide guys in higher ground between 200 and 600 meters away in desert/rocky terrain(edit: in trenches!).

i mean its not like they should stand and look, they hide and when there is earth/stones between the thermal sensor and the heatwell there is no signature...

its not like a brick wall or so, we talk about at least some meters material.

it would be ok if a guy wich keeps poping his head up maybe gives a way a "?" counter at that position. but right now you have a full spot, in elite mode, and can engage the guys without problems. thats a bit off i think.

[ August 01, 2007, 02:00 PM: Message edited by: Pandur ]

[James Bailey]

Originally posted by Pandur:

i buy it too, but i currently have problems to hide guys in higher ground between 200 and 600 meters away in desert/rocky terrain.

i mean its not like they should stand and look, they hide and when there is earth/stones between the thermal sensor and the heatwell there is no signature...

its not like a brick wall or so, we talk about at least some meters material.

it would be ok if a guy wich keeps poping his head up maybe gives a way a "?" counter at that position. but right now you have a full spot, in elite mode, and can engage the guys without problems. thats a bit off i think.

I was only commenting on the situation presented in that video clip from the good MAJ. That was, in my opinion, a realistic firefight.

Pandur-

I would tend to agree with your assessment of the situations you suggest, where enemy is hidden behind several meters of earth - although the 200 to 600 meters you cite is not a long ways for the optics on the Stryker. 1km is as close as 100 meters with its electro-optic site/screen. As such, identification of stationary enemy infantry is be possible out to ranges 1km, with detection (the in-game "question mark") out to maybe 2.5km.

As far as 40mm Mk19 HEDPs, yes, they should tear apart walls, and pretty quickly. As I mentioned, I don't own CMSF and can't comment on its modeling of that ammunition.

Curt-

I have been swamped at work and therefore had ZERO time for wargaming. Hopefully I will get back into it once the weather turns cooler.

[Pandur]

i understand the use of magnification, and its compleatly valid that you can see someone from far away with it.

unfortunately i forgott to add that i try to hide this guys in trenches(i corrected that in the edit above).

and even if you are 50m in front of a trech you dont see down there whats on the ground of it.

let alone from some hundret meters...

[Huntarr]

Not only problems with the walls but also with the ground not providing LOF coverage.

[Truppenfuhrung]

That "fire through wall" thing seem to be, as far as I'm concern, the biggest problem.

An .50 cal or a 25mm bushmaster firing through it's ok, but small arm...

I mean, I can accept a certain degree of abstraction about the graphic representation but if wall cant be trusted as cover, simply remove them from the game.

[molotov_billy]

M203's and M124's pass through entire buildings on a regular basis. Direct target the side of a building with an infantry squad to repro this.