Crossing streams - Bug or Feature?

[fatherof6]

First of all, I must say I love the game. Another home run from Battlefront. Thank you for you high quality work.

I've read the manual and did a search and didn't see this issue covered anywhere. If it is, I apologize in advance.

BUG or FEATURE?

From the Road to Berlin - Demo Tutorial

*** Spoilers ***

Playing through tutorial 2nd time before moving on to other demo scenarios. This time, I decided to go down left side of battlefield instead of down middle/right. So far, it's going even better. Of course it helps even more to know what I'm up against.

Anyway, it was time for me to cross a stream for the first time ever in CMBN. In CMSF, we only had that swampy low ground that even infantry cant enter. I knew water looked different but didn't know how CMBN modeled it. Since I thought that the AT gun covered the bridges and my mortars hadn't knocked it out yet, I really wanted my guys to ford the stream down low rather than cross the bridge up high.

So I put my squad's 1st waypoint in middle of the stream and 2nd behind wall on other side. I found that you can put waypoint on bridge or in the stream. I assumed that if I just had put a waypoint on the other side of stream, the pathfinding would have picked quickest path (foot bridge). Since my cursor didn't change color when I put it in stream below bridge, I assumed everything was kosher. When I ran my turn, my pixeltroopers did the unexpected.

They all ran into the water and some crossed to other side. After everyone had settled on waypoint 1, instead of guys on original side following others across, guys that had already crossed preceded to go back into water and up to original bank so they could go across foot bridge, led by guys that never got into water in first place.

Since I'm not sure what's going on, I wanted to post this writeup and screenshots so Battlefront can take a look at what happened if they're so inclined. I've also saved the game turn movie file if they want to look at that too.

Glenn

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[fatherof6]

Rest of pics

[MrSpkr]

Crossing the streams would be bad . . .

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.

Dr. Peter Venkman: What?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?

Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.

Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

This information brought to you by the letter Q, the number 3, and Gozer, the Sumerian God of Destruction. Have a wondiferous day.

Steve

[MrSpkr]

In all seriousness, I don't think I ever thought of having my guys try to cross in the water. Can you post some regular size (not thumbnails) pictures? I'll try to test this out a little tonight.

Steve

[Scratchy]

I had one of my squads splashing around in the stream by the farm. There were sounds to go along with it (*splish-splash*).

I didn't purposely send them there. They ended up there after beating a hasty retreat. With sounds to go along with it, I would guess it's a feature, but I know not-hing.

I think I'll try that battle again and check it out.

[fatherof6]

Thanks for looking into this.

I can't figure out how to post screen shots and I'm tired and going to bed. The best I can do for now is post links. I do know how to do that.

INTO THE WATER

http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x433/gmgiesey/?action=view&current=Enteringwater.jpg

SOME ON OTHER SIDE

http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x433/gmgiesey/?action=view&current=Someonotherside.png

EVERYONE ON THE WAYPOINT

http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x433/gmgiesey/?action=view&current=Everyoneonwaypoint.png

BACK TO ORIGINAL SIDE

http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x433/gmgiesey/?action=view&current=Backtooriginalside.png

AT GUN MISSES

http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x433/gmgiesey/?action=view&current=ATGunmisses.png

END OF TURN

http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x433/gmgiesey/?action=view&current=Endofturn.png

[womble]

As I understand the intended behaviour, most water is rated 'impassable' to all units. There are ford tiles that are crossable by different units (can't remember whether infantry or vehicles are better at fording...)

I had one of my teams advancing along the river, at the endgame, and because it doesn't run exactly along the grain of the action point grid, some of their waypoints were in the water. Wasn't 'testing', so I didn't have them cross to the 'more exposed' other bank, but I wouldn't be surprised if the water is, in fact, impassable, but a peculiarity of the AP grid meant that pixeltruppen were mistakenly allowed to 'mill around' the waypoint in the water on the unreachable far bank.

[Paper Tiger]

If you have a look in the editor, you'll find that there are three typs of water tiles:

Shallow Ford

Deep Ford

Water

Both the Ford tiles are passable to Infantry and they will happily splash their way through both. Tanks and vehicles can cross Shallow Fords but they can't cross Deep Fords. The water tile is impassable to all units.

[fatherof6]

It looks like I figured out how to post images. A few hours sleep does wonders for my brainpower.

I can't access this scenario's map with the demo editor but I'm assuming all the tiles on the Road to Berlin map are water and not deep or shallow fords.

If that's the case, then I don't think my troops should be able to go into the water:

Let alone get to the other side initially:

If my final waypoint had been in the water, this is what it would have looked like:

If it had been and I split my squad at that point, one could get at least a third of a squad across water when the scenario designer didn't intend it.

But as it was, an instant later, all the guys who crossed over ran back into the water and up the bank:

[fatherof6]

And cross the bridge where the AT gun could shoot at them (but fortunately miss):

As my turn ended, 4 guys were across, 3 were on the bridge, and 4 would cross next minute:

To make a long story short, from this fan's perspective, what I'd like to see is that if I can't cross a water tile, don't let me put a waypoint in it just like I cant put a vehicle waypoint in a building. If that's not achievable for some programming reason, I totally understand. I'm just want to help make a great game a tiny bit more intuitive.

Thanks for listening,

Glenn

[GreenAsJade]

There are two wierd things for me about this:

1) I tried to make my guys cross the stream and could not.

2) Later, I sent them to the trees near the heavy bridge in the background of the last picture. Because of the way that squads are dispersed, some of the guys ended up in the water. The hilarious thing is that when they take cover they duck down into the water, coming up again only to fire

GaJ