US MMG teams leave gun behind, v1.05

[c3k]

Gents,

This has been reported by others, as well as me. I'm making it a new thread to ensure it gets attention.

MMG teams leave their M240 behind if it sets up deployed.

It then fires from its unmanned location if the team moves.

However, I HAVE been able to get the left-behind weapon to disappear from its erroneous location and reappear with the team. I need to do more testing to reliably replicate what action causes the MMG to snap-to the correct location.

1.06,

Ken

[Alan G.]

Yes, that happens to my MMGs too. I test to see if it's fixed by running the second mission in the Tutorial Campaign. As soon the they deploy the MMGs disappear to and off map location usually below the playing surface.

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, we saw one example of this very late in v1.05 testing (like last week I think) but couldn't replicate it. We have seen things like this in the past. It's similar to the various "stuck soldier" problems that have cropped up. The problem is that a save game of the gun already separated doesn't help Charles find the code problem. The reason is whatever caused the problem has already come and gone, just leaving the end result to examine.

We'll try to nail this for v1.06.

Steve

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Yeah, we saw one example of this very late in v1.05 testing (like last week I think) but couldn't replicate it. We have seen things like this in the past. It's similar to the various "stuck soldier" problems that have cropped up. The problem is that a save game of the gun already separated doesn't help Charles find the code problem. The reason is whatever caused the problem has already come and gone, just leaving the end result to examine.

We'll try to nail this for v1.06.

Steve

Is this related to the troopers getting trapped underground or the trooper that disappears and reappears that I've experienced and reported quite a while back? Do you know what I am referring to?

[Pandur]

a fast one, i expirienced this verry often too in 1.04 with US and Syrian weapon teams. i didnt saw it in 1.05 so far but in 1.04 i could fix it 90% of the time when i "undeployed" the weapon wich was set up in the wrong place and deployed it again. than the weapon is mostly transported to the team in question.

rarely that doesnt work, but mostly i had sucess with this method. only drawback, it takes 2 turns more than needed.

[c3k]

Steve,

If I can replicate it in a scenario setup, 100% of the time, would you be interested?

Regards,

Ken

[MarkEzra]

That it happens is for sure (Red ATGM, too). To make it happen the player must give a move order of some kind. That, I think, would be the most important info for a save file comment. What was the movement order. Was it multi path? Was it multi path/multi order. Was Face involved. Did the team carry the weapon to the way point end only to have it disappear and show up from their original setup position. Was it the original setup position or the last setup position used by the team prior to the bug strike. This one won't be easy. I may be able to demonstrate SOME of this by using WEGO and save each minute...assuming I get a lucky break and catch the bug...

Oh...and by the way...The weapon CAN be be re-acquired and used!...Generally need to send the unit CO along to baby sit the re-acquire process

[MarkEzra]

Developed a test scen...caught bug in action and sent saves to Beta team

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks Mark!

There are a number of issues we see crop up from time to time. Unfortunately, the nature of the game engine makes these things happen for different reasons at different times, so they aren't always easy to replicate. The three behaviors we see that aren't right boil down to:

1. Stuck Team - this happens when one entire Team of a Squad, and specifically a Squad, stops responding to Commands.

2. Stuck Soldier - an individual Soldier stays put for no good reason, sometimes with strange animation side effects.

3. Rogue Soldier - a single Soldier from within a Team takes off in his own direction.

Usually the player can get the unit to function correctly by canceling Commands and starting over. However, this isn't always the case because the circumstances for triggering one of these behaviors is pretty diverse, which means all bets are off.

Steve

[SlowMotion]

Does #3 include cases where a MG team is on roof, team facing is changed and then after a moment one member is at ground level?

[track]

Unfortunately, the nature of the game engine makes these things happen for different reasons at different times, so they aren't always easy to replicate

Sounds like real a mess...

Wasn't the engine supposed to be easy to upgrade, adapt and maintain in the first place?

[Battlefront.com]

Slow Motion,

Does #3 include cases where a MG team is on roof, team facing is changed and then after a moment one member is at ground level?

Nope, that's something that has to do with the team members having predesigned spots relative to the weapon. I've not seen something like this happen for months prior to release. I'll make sure it's looked into. Should be easy to replicate and fix.

Track,

Sounds like real a mess...

Not really. It's a side effect of the complexity. The more complex the environment, the more that can go wrong in unexpected ways. CMx2's environment is extremely involved and detailed, which means greater chance of outliers and unexpected results of changes. I can't say that we're happy about the reality of this, but the alternative is to dumb everything down to keep the relationships between things more simplistic. Long term this is a very bad strategy because it's very difficult to shoehorn in more complicated stuff into more simplistic basic structures. Which leads into your next question...

Wasn't the engine supposed to be easy to upgrade, adapt and maintain in the first place?

Yup! It's just that all this power and flexibility doesn't come for free, so to speak. That's the problem we had with CMx1. The code was very stable and easy to maintain after CMBO was fully patched, but adding new stuff to it... a horrid nightmare. A 4th game on that code was completely ruled out before we had even finished CMBB. We weren't even sure we wanted to make a 3rd. Total opposite feeling with the new code. It's still got some teething problems to work out, but we're actually looking forward to working with it again and again and again.

It's really hard to convey this to customers sometimes. But think about it from our point of view. Would you have liked working for 2 years (7 days a week for the most part) on an Eastern Front addition that probably should have taken 6-10 months to do, yet get compensated exactly the same? Well, I can say for sure we found the experience less than pleasant

Steve

[SlowMotion]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

has to do with the team members having predesigned spots relative to the weapon.

Here is one picture of AI MG team team changing positions around the weapon:

Basically the team killed the Humvee gunner when the vehicle approached from the direction most of the soldiers are looking at. After that they didn't seem very eager to shoot at the vehicle. I kept the vehicle there for a long time and nothing happened. Note that the team is not even looking towards the enemy. One of the three is looking to exactly opposite direction than the rest, maybe he's checking if some enemy is there? That "MG crew checks for enemy in two directions" seems to be a new feature of 1.05, which normally seems to be working alright, but maybe not so well here since the third man has no weapon. And also, it seems strange to check for some *possible* enemy behind them when there IS one just right next to them and they seem to ignore it. Maybe because the gunner is dead?

To see if the team has totally lost interest, I drove the vehicle slowly around the team and then stopped it to the same place. The MG team didn't change their facing towards the vehicle, so it looked like they considered quite harmless. I then told the driver to jump out and he made it alive, nobody shot at him. Then he was able to kill the MG team one by one from a distance of about 30m. In the picture the rightmost MG team member looks as if he was using an assault rifle, but the weapon is not shown. Once he died, then the weapon was there.

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, that's not good I've not heard of this before, but I have a suspicion about what changes in v1.05 might have caused this. I'll get it replicated and submitted to Charles. Should be a fairly easy one.

Steve

[Meach]

Is the 1.06 patch scheduled for after Christmas?

[Splinty]

I've also seen the gun firing from off- map while the crew stayed in the position I put them in at the beginning of the game.

[SlowMotion]

Another pic about those MG crew positions: here one soldier reveals MG position because half of his body is shown through building wall.