RuhrRiver Posted April 22, 2007 Share Posted April 22, 2007 I was playing "last chance" with French troops/vehicles going down road, when I realized something. I was trying to keep my troops on either side of the road where they had a little cover. However they kept scattering and leaving cover (even with "hold" command) when a vehicle seemingly got within 15 or 20 feet of them. I decided to do a test--here are the results. In this first pic, I have a soldier on either side of the road on the shoulder. The car will pass right between them: I carefully drove an armored car (I think it was) as close to equidistant between the two troops as possible. See the progression below, where I took five screen shots. I cut and pasted an image to show exactly where each unit was at most of the progression points. I may have altered scales very slightly in assembling it, but it is a very accurate representation of what happened: As you can see, the two troops, no closer (visually--which is all we have) than 6 or 7 feet from the passing vehicle, under fire, and with a "hold" order, crawled about 45 feet away, completely leaving their cover. Doing this cancelled their hold order, so afterwards they would have gone wherever the AI (which I find whimsical) led them. This isn't a bug, but at the very least it is a significant game play issue. Trying to move a few vehicles and infantry through the same limited cover that would have wide margins for everyone to share in "real life" (and according to the visual feedback of the game) , even with careful plotting, resulted in repeated "crawl for your lives!" reactions from troops up to 15 apparent feet away (haven't actually figured out exact max. distances). This suggests a French armored car about 4o feet wide--bigger than even the Germans and their Elefants would likely use--or troops so shell-shocked that it's a wonder France didn't fall quicker. Seriously, it makes an already busy game much too much work even for this relatively small scenario. I really hope this is a high priority for the first fix/revision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnersman Posted April 22, 2007 Share Posted April 22, 2007 If your two troopers didn't move they would have been run over...yes even though they were not that close. Vehicles only have to be what appears to be 1 or 2 feet away in order to run over infantry. But it never happens to friendlies. Solution: don't get too close to your own infantry and they wont move. It only seems to happen when your vehicle is on a course towards your soldier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazylegsmurphy Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 See, this post might seem strange because they are scattering...and while that is true, it is very odd, I think it's more crazy how your vehicles actually were able to avoid the temptation to mow down those trees!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuhrRiver Posted April 23, 2007 Author Share Posted April 23, 2007 Good point, Crazylegs, about the treemowing, which is truely impressive in this game. Gunnersman, thanks for the suggestion, but I think you missed some of what I and the pictures said. The troops weren't an apparent 1 or 2 feet away, they were an apparent 6 to ten feet away. Use the length of a prone soldier as a ruler. The vehicle was clearly not about to run over either soldier: they were on the grassy shoulder and the vehicle stayed in the middle of the dirt road, never getting closer than an apparent six feet, and coming no closer than an apparent ten feet from the soldier on the right. If your point is that this is a reasonable way to code the proximity of troops and vehicles, I don't see it, and your solution seems unreasonable and unrealistic: that soldiers should flee their cover (by crawling 45 feet into enemy fire?? come on) because a vehicle goes by ten feet (or more--haven't plumbed the depths yet) away, so even in cramped spaces (say, a tree line) I should have to micromanage collisions since the program can't do it. If other games handled proximity this badly I could see accepting it, but they don't and I don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnersman Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 You may have something there. I imagine its the infantry AI reacting the same way they might react if they were trying escape enemy vehicles which are trying to run over them. Its not easy to run over enemy infantry. I've tried. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwncake Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 @ruhriver, be glad your armored car didnt jump that tree because they have an habbit of doing so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FinnN Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 On a related note I spotted a tree falling over when the tank was just clipping the edge of the canopy, which makes me wonder just where the limits are for collision detection - not to mention where you need to be to get benefits from cover. I'd be interested if anyone who has got some definitive answers to, for example, where troops need to be to gain cover from bushes and trees, could chip in. Have fun Finn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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