Is 1.21 the end of the patches before NATO?

[Mord]

And how far might they extend after NATO?

The majority of the old problems have finally been whipped into shape by BFC's diligence and untiring willingness to keep at it...which despite the detractors, I think has been admirable. Not many companies would've stayed with it. And I see a lot less weirdness these days than I used to.

So, how do you guys feel about the current state of the engine (CMSF wise)? Are you where you wanted to be back when CMSF first saw the violent light of birth...or I guess better yet, are you comfortable with the work that went in up to this point? How much more do you feel will need to be put in (barring anything that might pop up because of the NATO module) into Shock Force before you will say goodnight?

I've been reading through many of the old threads and man, we've come a long way, so it got me wondering about all this.

Mord.

[Lanzfeld]

Current state is great.

But it needs more tweaks. AT reloads before displace and such....

[Mord]

Current state is great.

But it needs more tweaks.

I agree. Most everything I see now has been making sense.

I've seen units moving through walls though, here and there. Have a couple saves if any of the BETA testers need them.

Mord.

[Thomm]

Gun elevation/depression limits would be great (to facilitate infantry close assaults and top attacks in urban battles).

The new dust puffs kicked up by small arms should be waay larger.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Wengart]

Gun elevation/depression limits would be great (to facilitate infantry close assaults and top attacks in urban battles).

I think the inclusion of AT grenades, for the Syrian's especially, is more important than gun depression when it comes to infantry close assault. That and engineers seem to throw one or two grenades before their willing to toss a demo charge at armor.

[Mord]

What are the gun elevations/depressions you guys are talking about? The angle the barrel on a tank can raise or lower?

Mord.

[Thomm]

What are the gun elevations/depressions you guys are talking about? The angle the barrel on a tank can raise or lower?

Yes. A tank can engage a target on the roof of a 8-floor building right next to it with its main gun.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Mord]

Ah, never noticed that. Then I probably haven't logged as many games as you guys over the last year.

I hope they fix that for Normandy, sounds kinda goofy.

Mord.

[souldierz]

I seen this.I had US troops hiding in the 4th floor of a medium sized building and then a Syrian tank rolled up right beside the building.He turned his turret into the building aimed at my troops and fired away.

How on earth could he see them and better yet how on earth could he hit them?

My squad was wiped out completely and my jaw hit the ground while i was scratching my head.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Ah, never noticed that. Then I probably haven't logged as many games as you guys over the last year.

I hope they fix that for Normandy, sounds kinda goofy.

Mord.

Not going to get fixed. It's because the AI doesn't know how to deal with this. It sit at the bottom of a tall building not knowing what to do next.

Not too big a deal anyway, it's been this way in CMx1 too. As you point out, you hadn't noticed. The times this comes up should be relatively small.

[dischord]

This is an old issue from way back. There are no elevation limits due to AI constraints. If vehicles couldn't shoot straight up the AI would have to learn how to distinguish when to provide cover from what distance to a particular building in a particular situation and hope, of course, there are no obstructions etc.. etc..

It does sound like a daunting task but I prefer they would provide more of these types of fixed than pumping out modules of new vehicles. Then again, modules make money..AI tweaks don't.

[Alan8325]

I think armored vehicle crews spotting infantry units in adjacent buildings is the bigger issue here. I've seen a BMP spot my Marine team in an adjacent building and take a shot, killing/suppressing them before they were even able to get a shot off with AT-4s or LAWs. They weren't firing small arms from their position first, either.

Even after firing off AT weapons, it should still be hard for the vehicle crew to spot exactly where the shot came from, I would think.

[MikeyD]

Be careful what you wish for, spotting issues go both ways. If they 'fix' AI tanks spotting infantry in buildings you'll be complaining about your tanks being blind to (and refusing o fire on) enemy infantry in nearby buildings!

Most 'bugs' that I've seen raised lately have been more of the 'wish list' variety than actual game bugs. I wish gun elevation limits would be incorporated, I wish Bradley TOW box would deploy, I wish bunkers had acquireable munitions (my own pet peeve).

[Battlefront.com]

Elmar,

Not going to get fixed. It's because the AI doesn't know how to deal with this. It sit at the bottom of a tall building not knowing what to do next.

Not too big a deal anyway, it's been this way in CMx1 too. As you point out, you hadn't noticed. The times this comes up should be relatively small.

Yup, that about sums it up Every release of CM, since CMBO, has had certain realism flaws in it simply because it's not practical to fix. That may be because the hardware doesn't allow for an optimal solution or it's because the programming time is too large for the potential payback to the player.

Think of it this way, if we spend 3 months programming decent AI to handle gun elevation/depression, that's 3 months of other stuff you won't get. To give you an idea of what that means, we've released 12 patches since CM:SF was released. That's a little more than 1 every 3 months. Take a look at the release notes for a decent sized patch and then picture every single item on that list not being in the game. Or halve it if it only takes 1.5 months to develop that sort of AI. Oh, and if you do that you should take off most of the bigger features and all of the little features or all of the big features. Picking and choosing based on desirability isn't how things work from a development standpoint

Which gets me back to the point about something like gun elevation/depression. It is a major break with reality. True. But it is also true that it doesn't come up very often for a variety of unrelated reasons. Therefore, despite being a darned big hole in reality it doesn't effectively negatively impact most games most of the time in any sort of significant way. So as unrealistic as it is this is absolutely not the sort of thing we should invest lots of time into fixing. Which is why we have no plans, at all, of fixing gun elevation/depression. I'll not say never on this, but our thinking is that it will never be addressed.

Now, *if* this issue came up a lot then we'd have to do something about it. That's because the more a reality problem actually affects the game, the more important it is to address. When the issue is a real bugger to address directly we try to shortcut the solution so it doesn't chew up valuable development time yet does knock the problem down to something manageable. Gun elevation/depression is absolutely manageable as it has been in the game since 1997 and you've all managed to stick around despite that fact

As for v1.22... no plans on putting out another patch until NATO. Patches are a major distraction for us and we've got too many bigger things going on than to be distracted by a patch which, for all intents and purposes, offers gamers diminishing returns. Not to say there aren't 1000 good ideas for tweaks/fixes, because there are, it's just that I think almost everybody would rather us make new games instead. Be that NATO, Afghanistan, Normandy, or CM:SF 2.

Steve

[Thomm]

So as unrealistic as it is this is absolutely not the sort of thing we should invest lots of time into fixing.

Please allow me to write that I disagree.

I do not believe that it is not possible to take off, at least, the rough edges, such as shooting almost straight up in the air or MGing soldiers crouching next to a tank.

Best regards,

Thomm

[TheVulture]

Please allow me to write that I disagree.

I do not believe that it is not possible to take off, at least, the rough edges, such as shooting almost straight up in the air or MGing soldiers crouching next to a tank.

Best regards,

Thomm

It is easy to take off - it also is cripples the AI by creating huge holes in the capability of its IFVs that it is unaware of. It is making the AI cope with the limits that takes time, and something like this really does take a lot of time. (You have to make the tacAI for the players vehicles aware of it to0, and respond appropriately, so it affects multiplayer too).

And as mentioned last time this came around, you also need to design and implement decent feedback for the player. You can guarantee that if they just whacked in gun limits, you'd have hundreds of bug reports of people complaining that their tank couldn't target something, and it turns out it is 2 or 3 degrees beyond the elevation limit. Throw in sloping ground as well, and you can end up in the situation where it really isn't obvious where you can put a tank so that it can fire on a given spot. So there needs to be some feedback to give the user an idea of what they can hit from any given point.

All of this is doable mind you - I'm not saying its impossible (or even necessarily all that hard). But it is a lot of work to do it right, and if you don't do all of it, you are probably making things worse overall, not better. A half-assed implementation will lead to an awful lot more frustration that the occasional surprise whacking of guys above a tank.

Sure it would be nice. But personally it's a very long way down the list of improvements I'd like to see, even before the large time investment is considered.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Having given it some more thought, I actually wouldn't be opposed to some (generalized) elevation restriction. In the end it's probably better to have the tank at the base of a tall go "whatever" then for it to be free to plaster the enterprising infantry upstairs. It'd be a better balance of risk/reward for the player. Parking a vehicle next to tall building that wasn't recce'd should be a bad idea.

It shouldn't cripple the AI too much because, as pointed out, it shouldn't come up too often.

[Sergei]

Having given it some more thought, I actually wouldn't be opposed to some (generalized) elevation restriction. In the end it's probably better to have the tank at the base of a tall go "whatever" then for it to be free to plaster the enterprising infantry upstairs. It'd be a better balance of risk/reward for the player. Parking a vehicle next to tall building that wasn't recce'd should be a bad idea.

It shouldn't cripple the AI too much because, as pointed out, it shouldn't come up too often.

It's not something limited to tall buildings, nor is that the main issue here (against top stores there's always AAMG's, anyhow). Suppose there's a valley, with opposing tanks on opposing slopes. Neither can elevate their barrels sufficiently to fire at the other. The human player, however, can back up/advance to a level spot where his tank can bring the enemy into sights.

As long as there is even slightly uneven terrain, there would be a chance that an AFV would be positioned on a slope in such way that it has very limited fire sectors. The AI would have to deal with that or it would be very fundamentally broken by it.

[stoex]

People tend to forget, I think, that the kind of situational awareness regarding orientation in 3-dimensional space, terrain, cover, concealment etc., which comes pretty naturally to members of Homo Sapiens (like the vast majority of CM players are ), is a REALLY difficult thing to teach an AI. Such a mechanism has no concept whatsoever of what a ridge or forest or depression in terrain is really good for. It doesn't even really know what 'up' is! Even what it CAN do at this point, and that's a lot IMHO, is a kind of workaround that is NOT based on intrinsic, instinctive understanding of basic geometry and physical laws like gravity etc.

This means that every human in his right mind and with basic experience in 'virtual warfare' can compute tactically useful spots within a CMSF map (like where to put my unit so it doesn't get shot up instantly) faster and more accurately than probably even the NSA mainframe can - without even noticing he is doing so...

I for my part agree wholeheartedly with Steve on this issue - give me NATO or CM:N before gun elevation limits anyday. That content would be worth a million times more to me than any possible 'bugfix' or AI tweak they could come up with for CMSF at this point!

[zwobot]

So, how do you guys feel about the current state of the engine (CMSF wise)? Are you where you wanted to be back when CMSF first saw the violent light of birth...or I guess better yet, are you comfortable with the work that went in up to this point? How much more do you feel will need to be put in (barring anything that might pop up because of the NATO module) into Shock Force before you will say goodnight?

I really want to have Target Reference Points for artillery fire missions. Apart from that I'm satisfied (I think ).

[Elmar Bijlsma]

It's not something limited to tall buildings, nor is that the main issue here (against top stores there's always AAMG's, anyhow). Suppose there's a valley, with opposing tanks on opposing slopes. Neither can elevate their barrels sufficiently to fire at the other. The human player, however, can back up/advance to a level spot where his tank can bring the enemy into sights.

As long as there is even slightly uneven terrain, there would be a chance that an AFV would be positioned on a slope in such way that it has very limited fire sectors. The AI would have to deal with that or it would be very fundamentally broken by it.

I've seen the situation you describe in CMx1 exactly once, and only because I created the scenario for it to happen on purpose. It requires pretty extreme terrain.

As long as there is no maximum depression to hinder shooting from behind a ridge, I wouldn't expect restrictions in elevation to be all that problematic during typical play.

[Battlefront.com]

Elmar,

I've seen the situation you describe in CMx1 exactly once, and only because I created the scenario for it to happen on purpose. It requires pretty extreme terrain.

As long as there is no maximum depression to hinder shooting from behind a ridge, I wouldn't expect restrictions in elevation to be all that problematic during typical play.

Ironically, you just reinforced why this is such an non-issue If it isn't problematic enough to code the TacAI to handle it, then it's not actually happening in the game. Therefore, if it isn't happening in the game then there's no reason to waste months of resources trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist.

Put another way... if you don't notice it then the problem doesn't exist. If you do notice it, then a problem exists. Whether the problem is significant enough to fix, or not, is a different question to ask.

We agree that the problem exists in theory. But in reality it shows up so infrequently that it really isn't much of an actual problem. Given the massive development effort that it would take to fix this problem, and the frustration it would cause the player, this is definitely something we're not going to tackle. Probably ever.

Steve

[Wiggum]

I still hope to get the NATO Module before Christmas...

[Yair Iny]

For sure you will, but the 2010 chrissie

[John Kettler]

Steve,

I'm confused. Why? I know you're familiar with the Cold War era FM 100-5 depiction of the effect of Russian tank gun depression limits on exposure compared to a U.S. tank. Call it marked, especially as the slope angle steepens! Please see diagram below cresting Panther in this Wiki on Hull-down for a telling sectional diagram of the very real tactical difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull-down

Likewise, I know you've seen the Russia vs. U.S. elevation angle comparison in MOUT that appeared in ARMOR/INFANTRY magazine. The conclusion there was that Ivan had a major advantage in MOUT because the T-72/T-80 and BMP-2 could easily hit upper stories that identically positioned M1s and Bradleys couldn't. As I recall, the only good news was that the M109, were we willing to risk it, had the oomph to smash things with direct fire and could elevate high enough to engage close units on upper floors.

Given the above, I find it very difficult to wrap my head around the notion that depression and elevation limit modeling don't matter and seldom come up.

Regards,

John Kettler