Why can't units follow a straight line in the open?

[Cpl Steiner]

I have mentioned this before but I have never been given an adequate answer and I think it is crucial to our understanding of how the game works.

To see what I mean, boot up the game and start the training campaign. In the first mission you have 4 Strykers and have to pass a number of phase lines.

If you give a Stryker an order to move from A to B, just 2 waypoints, nothing complicated, it seems to be incapable of following this simple order. What I would like to see it do is orient itself towards the final waypoint and then just set off in a straight line. Instead, it takes a kind of dog leg or banana shaped route, to eventually end up facing the same way it did before it started.

Why is this happening? Here are two possible answers, and I have no idea which is right.

1. Its a bug. The underlying code sees the map as a grid, and that you want to move so many spaces right and so many up, like pieces on a chess board. It then moves the unit in the horizontal and vertical planes but completes the horizontal position change before the vertical, because it has less distance to cover in that direction.

2. Its the AI. The AI decides that what you "really" wanted was for the unit to end up at the new location facing in the same direction it was before the move was given. It therefore adjusts your orders to give it time to approach the final waypoint using the correct facing.

If 1 is correct, then I think this needs fixing as soon as possible. If 2 is correct, then the AI is doing too much overriding of the player's orders and needs to be toned down a bit.

Edit: Sorry if I gave the impression above that I don't like the game - because I do. I play it every day, and I urge others to buy it too if they are remotely interested in modern warfare. My intension was purely to highlight a very narrow aspect of the game that may have a bearing on some of the issues people have complained about.

[ August 08, 2007, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: Cpl Steiner ]

[metalbrew]

The line connecting the waypoints doesn't matter at all and represents nothing. The only thing the units know about are the waypoints. Your units are pathfinding their way between the 2 waypoints and as many folks have learned and pointed out pathfinding isn't so great at the moment.

If you wish for a straighter path, include more waypoints in the straight line. I'm not saying it's an ideal solution but for now this is how things are.

[Pandur]

if there woldnt be the "stop" every waypoint, with infantry like in tow, i wouldnt resist to use that, also to go around buildings instead of into it, to the roof to the next roof, down again and than out of the house to the next waypoint.

it greatly complicate movement through enemy LOS since you should just plot 1 line throught enemy los, then your guy dont stand there waiting to bunch up and present a target but are also likely to get lost somewhere or exhausted in house runing.

so, spoken, i dont have any problem with ploting many waypoints if the transistion is ok and if the pathfinding works out a straight line between the points. i plot the rest as it was in CM.

i dont need the super pathfinding where i pick a spot of the map and the vehicle look for its way...that degree of pathfinding does its own thing sometimes instead of just using the straight line, so i rather dont have them(the vehicles) "thinking" but just "following" in therms of pathfinding.

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by Pandur:

if there woldnt be the "stop" every waypoint, with infantry like in tow, i wouldnt resist to use that

Yes, moving vehicles is different than moving infantry.

When controlling infantry in the game, you have to decide between accepting that pathfinding is going to screw up or using lots of waypoints and accepting that your units are going to pause in the open for 10 seconds before moving on to the next point.

It's not a great choice but I'm just trying to win the game.