Pictures of a few potential bugs

[Guest]

I've been playing my slum battle again -- another couple hours tonight on 1.03. I'm a bit obsessive about this battle, possibly, but it's perfect for a) recreating issues and finding new ones, at least as far as MOUT and infantry go.

Anyhow, some interesting things I spotted tonight. Sorry if the pics are small -- I just finished a long day and I'm too lazy to mess about with them.

In this shot you can see a mostly-dead team of Syrian irregulars. There's a Bradley on the other side of the building from them -- and as soon as I realized it (when the building started to take fire) I cancelled their Quick move order. Only one man was actually inside the building at that point. He died. However, the two men following him followed the now-cancelled order into the building, took up positions at the windows (!) and were killed several seconds later.

An example of issues with the Hunt command. I gave a wide variety of hunt commands in this game with similarly varying results. This was one of the worst. Told to hunt to a certain point, this guy chose instead to *walk*... and either a) failed to spot or failed to notice the TWO Bradleys sitting in the open 8-10 feet from him, right before they blew him away.

In this shot I've ordered a team of US troops to clear the second floor of the building they're in. Obviously, my first choice for a path to get there would take them 10 meters *outside* the building in the exact wrong direction before circling back and going upstairs. *Very* odd pathfinding decision indeed.

This one is just for fun. At the end of my second game (playing as Red) I decided to use Hunt to launch several large Syrian counterattacks. Most of these guys were cut down by a single American squad which they failed to fire on or react to.

All in all, I've gotta say these two games -- one as Blue, one as Red -- were pretty darned solid issue-wise -- as in, wall-to-wall. LOS and pathing are better than before but still need work. The games were MUCH more fun than pre-1.03. I'm looking forward to fixes to some of the stuff I saw tonight in 1.04 and beyond.

The worst thing for me, though (I am *very* sympathetic to pathing and path overrun issues, believe me), is that troops still aren't reacting to the enemy unless the enemy jumps up and down in front of them for ten seconds and the reacting troops are all standing still and haven't moved in thirty seconds or so. Luckily, this is the MO for a fair portion of both sides so everyone has a decent chance of being reacted to. I think this is probably *not* the desired behavior, though.

[ September 08, 2007, 07:33 AM: Message edited by: Phillip Culliton ]

[molotov_billy]

Deserves a bump.

[Guest]

Thanks, molotov. If anybody is passing the thread over because the pics are too small to see, let me know and I'll make them bigger.

[Mord]

Hopefully these issues are being addressed in this patch. The waypoint/commands feature is looking promising in the WEGO'ers Rise and Shine Thread.

I haven't played many heavy urban settings yet, so I see a lot less of this than you guys. I've mostly done my testing/playing in country type settings with few buildings.

Mord.

[John Catsack]

Not exactly the same bug, but I had these three guys stand in the same building for a full five minutes. neither opened fire, and I know for sure the Americans could see the syrian.

[Mord]

That's just plain fraternization! You should court martial those dudes!

Mord.

[rogue187]

Was the Syrian an undercover American operative?

[Mud]

I don't see any shadows, so maybe it's just a really dark room, or they've all learned how to cloud mens' minds.

[Guest]

That's a great extreme example. Bizarre.

These might all be related to one (or a few) central issue(s). Did you get that fantastic screenshot under 1.03, John?

Cheers.

[Hawkmek]

Mud said:

or they've all learned how to cloud mens' minds.

"I am not the Syrian Terrorist you're looking for."

[Dennis50]

they don't model walls, I don't think ..so the syrian was in a closet ..

Regards,

Gunz

[Guest]

Last quarter's MHQ had a great article in which it mentions that a British para at Arnhem after the battle hid in a standing cupboard in a German-occupied building for... a week? Escaped, too.

Seriously, that's what I was thinking too. Maybe it's an abstraction. Lots of stories of similar things happening in combat. John -- did either unit fire at anyone else while they were in that position?

[Mord]

I thought Steve mentioned interiors were modeled, just under the hood.

The one thing I have seen is that the grenades sure come out in extreme close up fighting. I had a guy chuck one about 3m from himself during a breaching test I made.

Mord.

[Guest]

Grenades are heavily used, definitely. I was very impressed.

Also, I was impressed by my troops' throwing arms. Damn, throwing a grenade out a window to the top of a two story building across the street? Multiple times? Nice. Is that normal?

On topic, I'm guessing the answer on the five minutes thing is "abstraction", though if they did anything noisy during those five minutes it might be "bug".

[SlowMotion]

Here's one similar spotting example. This happened in forest made of tree type D, 3 trees per tile. That should be the thickest forest in the game. If you use target command visibility is blocked after 25-35 meters. I took the screen shots after hiding trees so you can see the units.

The US unit is trying to find Syrian ATGM team from the forest. Here's how close they are when no units selected - neither side has spotted anything.

And here is how things look when the US soldier has been selected:

[Dirtweasle]

Was it a regular or a terrorist / irregular fighter?

[Mord]

Damn. He's close enough to count the gerbils!

Mord.

[Guest]

I think I feel another bout of ASCII art coming on.

Edit: Nope, I was wrong. Too much work to do here.

On-topic again (!)... that's pretty horrific. Could it be just a representation issue?

[ September 07, 2007, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Phillip Culliton ]

[wunwinglow]

"Hey, Ahmed, you've changed your aftershave, haven't you?!"

Tim

[John Catsack]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

That's a great extreme example. Bizarre.

These might all be related to one (or a few) central issue(s). Did you get that fantastic screenshot under 1.03, John?

Cheers.

1.03, the second mission in the campaign. I tried giving a fire order, but they still just stood there.

[C'Rogers]

Also, I was impressed by my troops' throwing arms. Damn, throwing a grenade out a window to the top of a two story building across the street? Multiple times? Nice. Is that normal?

I can't speak for how it might actually go in combat but I did participate in a grenade throwing contest once with members of the military (ah, the wonders of college). I was pretty amazed with their accuracy from the craziest of angles.

So to answer the questions, yeah I would say that is normal from my experiences.

[Guest]

Thanks, C'Rogers.

I'm changing the thread title to "Pictures of some potential bugs" because I'd really like this info to get looked at.

Cheers, guys.

[SlowMotion]

Here's my last remaining 1.03 screen shot. It's from a red vs red scenario. The two soldiers are from different sides. The technical is selected and it seems he has spotted the other soldier since they both are visible - but neither uses their weapons. Can't remember whether the other man had also spotted the technical.

They just looked out of this same window for maybe one minute. Then the normal infantry fellow started crawling towards the door in the opposite corner of the building. When he was maybe half way there, the technical woke up and started using his assault rifle. After some bad aimed shooting he finally hit the escaping man just as he was about to exit the building.

[Thomm]

I played around with the amazing editor today and confirmed to me, what is surely known to most of you already: even if you remove both walls between adjacent buildings, the soldiers go outside and around the buildings before they reach their destination. Seems to be a major bug to me!

I also took a nice 'shooting through terrain' screenshot today, which, of course, pushes the envelope of the engine a little bit, but should not happen nevertheless, IMHO:

Best regards,

Thomm

[Guest]

Another slum shot. There'll likely be more over the course of the weekend.

In this shot, these troops have been taking fire from this position for several minutes. There are no other US troops with LOS to the spotted position. The fire is heavy enough that the men occasionally cower. The men have *not* returned fire.

It is only when I order them to fire back with a Target command that they do so -- but their *squad* (arrayed to the left of the trio) is reported as not having LOS. I think these two facts are related.

Before anyone gets on my tactics, I left these guys in a bad position to demonstrate the bug, not because I would normally do so. (That's the case going forward in this thread.) These guys should at least try to suppress their assailants (which they do within seconds of receiving a Target command).

1.03 Blast move shot. Blew holes through two adjoining walls using Blast. The second Blast order blew the correct wall and then they all started scrambling upstairs. Is there a workaround to this? I'd love to actually *use* Blast.

[ September 08, 2007, 09:22 AM: Message edited by: Phillip Culliton ]