List of Known Issues

[Childress]

Small item: I noticed that in a platoon the Allied HQ tank doesn't show an entry for Track damage only Wpn Control. The other tanks do show track status.

[gunnergoz]

Your exactly right about Narses.

I was reading a book called "Hammer of the Goths" when I needed a log on name so I chose Narses and btw I'm about the same age as Narses when he made his mark as a great general replacing the even more famous Belasarius.

Winner of the "Reaching for the Most Obscure Login Reference Award"

[Rex J.]

Is that what we are asking BFC to code now, following the firing mechanism for each gun to insure who has it?

Well they do follow tank crews to make sure they have the right set of keys.

Seriously though, if they're able to have tank crews leave and return to their vehicles, and make the 2 mutually exclusive, then there's no reason why they can't have gun crews do the same... at least in theory.

I'm more than prepared to accept the "we're a small company and have too many other things to program before that" explanation because it's very true and the game is already infinitely better than we wargamers could have even dreamt of way back in our cardboard counter surrounded youth.

But if it can be done, I think the reasons why it should be done are better than the reasons why it should not be done.

[futon river crossing]

Submarine Jeeps - I had a jeep drive along the river bed! It was completely submerged.

[Marc Anton]

Stupid? That it was shown to be historically accurate and it is effective at reducing observation from Tanks (I have both used it and had the AI use it against me effectively) is "realism gymnastics"? There are definitely some nuances in behavior I would like to see modified (like getting an armor covered arc), but eliminating small arms fire against armor isn't one of them.

Yes maybe it keeps him buttoned (the tank) but it doesn't matter anyway. He will spot the infantry and send them a "laser guided uber granate" (even when on the move) and the half squad is dead ....

If only the sniper would fire (american squad) and if he not gets spotted after the first shot i would accept this but the actual Tac-AI behavior is not good.

[LemuelG]

I would assume that in this instance if the original crew didn't come back the gun would continue to be inoperable as the firing mechanism would now be missing? Is that what we are asking BFC to code now, following the firing mechanism for each gun to insure who has it? Will we then ask that firing mechanisms be scrounged? And then make sure the scrounged firing mechanism be for the appropriate gun type? And then perhaps we can scrounge a damaged gun for a firing mechanism for an abandoned gun?

Pandora is laughing her britches off.

Correct, the gun was inoperable until the crew (in this case only two of it's youngest members) returned with it's mechanism; in-game it is already impossible for someone other than the gun's crew to use the gun (something I fully accept, but don't really believe is entirely appropriate), I'm not sure where the problem is here.

I would rather crews use discretion, and avoid destroying their critical equipment at the drop of a hat, especially when it is possible and realistic for them to temporarily disable it (satisfying the goal of depriving it to the enemy if they do not return) and return later to re-crew it. Tank crews get to re-mount, why not gunners?

[Chris Ferrous]

Are flavour objects indestructible?

I've had a farm complex reduced to rubble by artillery with everyone in it vaporised and yet a haycart stood serenly in theyard through it all!

Tanks can drive straight through telgraph poles without damaging themselves or the pole. Likewise telegraph poles seem to withstand artillery/mortars.

Haystacks can visually hide infantry in that they can be engulfed by them, as can tanks, but of course the icon, if switched on still shows for both friendly and enemy.

Haven't yet noticed if things like barrels, crates and rubbish etc are also indestructible.

[sburke]

Yes maybe it keeps him buttoned (the tank) but it doesn't matter anyway. He will spot the infantry and send them a "laser guided uber granate" (even when on the move) and the half squad is dead ....

If only the sniper would fire (american squad) and if he not gets spotted after the first shot i would accept this but the actual Tac-AI behavior is not good.

That hasn't been quite my experience and granted I would need to try this under a variety of conditions and multiple times to get some truly valid data, however I am playing Courage and Fortitude on the second attempt to take the bridge etc. My Shermans have advanced up the road to the wire obstacles and just beyond. Enemy MG fire has forced all to button up and the result is they can actually "see" very few of the enemy units to bring them under fire. My pixel truppen are getting quite upset with my pixeltankertruppen and have started abusing them in what I can only assume is foul mouthed hexadecimal code.

[Peter Panzer]

Another small visual item - passengers feet "clip" the bottom of the US jeep model.

[Vanir Ausf B]

yabba dabba doo!

[Rokko]

Cool, so we can nag about graphical details now?

I've seen that the turret skirt hatches of the Pz IV are not animated!!

So when the crew bails the turret hatches open, but not the skirt hatches.

[GriffinCheng+]

I recall a great number of indoor struggles in previous BF sims, but in CMBN haven't had a single one so far. When my side enters in a contested building the defenders seem to be all dead. Or already flown the coop. Anecdotal, to be sure, but rest assured it's not my brilliant play.

One also misses the asterisks from CM1x that alerts the player the structure is about to come down about his ears. Or are there visual clues?

And, are there different grades of buildings? It's not clear. BFC seems to assume that, being in Normandy, all are massively built. Maybe they are...

I played the demo tutorial 4 times now and find none of the observed behavior -- In the village, I notice a few jerries hiding in that 1-floor barn, the troops, with the support from a tank, fire at the barn and I notice the men inside rout after 2 or 3 minutes. (For the tank, that is pretty much another story)

Then I send down 3 platoons down the other 2-story building where the last remaining squad is in, 2 of my platoons get hit pretty badly before the building is secured with 2 surrenders.

After note: one guy seems to revert from his earlier rout and tries to re-enter the village through a hole in the bocage, all he gets is a shot in close range...

[GriffinCheng+]

Problem: tank is directed to shoot a building, but instead shoots at trees nearby (known) -- when the tree is taken out, it shoots the bridge nearby instead! (and bridge blows up as a result)

Issue: when I direct the infantry platoon to move cross the river which I am pretty sure they can cross without a bridge or boat, they choose a longer way, through the bridge and exposed to fire.

Issue: MG or mortar team cannot deploy weapon in the middle of a bridge (deliberate?)

[dieseltaylor]

I am fairly sure there are are different strengths of buildings however it may be that it is under HE fire this is accentauted. In a town QB 33 rounds of HE were unable to flatten a block of flats.

However rifle and HMG fire on the troops can seem excessive in some buildings for quick casualties. I have done some investigation on penetrations in RL but not within the game.

Deploying on a bridge ... well there are bridges and bridges as you will appreciate. For small bridges I imagine it would be lunacy, not even accounting for troops getting frisky if someone blocks an important escape/advance route.

[Animal_Mother]

Stupid? That it was shown to be historically accurate and it is effective at reducing observation from Tanks (I have both used it and had the AI use it against me effectively) is "realism gymnastics"? There are definitely some nuances in behavior I would like to see modified (like getting an armor covered arc), but eliminating small arms fire against armor isn't one of them.

I agree, but I would really prefer my infantry to fire on enemy armor with small arms only if directly ordered to--in other words you have your own armor or whatever ready to attack the tank as soon as it buttons up. The AI automatically doing so only results in the infantry giving away their position and consequently having large amounts of HE death lobbed at them the majority of the time. Anyway, I really hope this is fixed in the patch.

[Peter Panzer]

Has anyone else noticed an issue where the "Junk 1" and "Junk 3" Flavor Objects do not get saved within the scenario editor? The first image below shows the flavor objects as I originally placed them.

I then exited (Esc) the 3-D Preview Mode to continue working on the map and when I re-entered Preview Mode several of the objects were missing. I have only seen this happen with "Junk 1" and "Junk 3" thus far and saving the map within the editor does not seem to make a difference. You can reproduce this in the editor very easily - I noticed it seems to happen the most when the objects touch each other.

Flavor Objects present:

Flavor Objects missing:

I have also seen, on occasion, the bug introduced into the engine somewhere around CMSF v1.30 where multiple flavor objects are set on the map even though a single mouse click was issued. This seems to happen primarily with the "rock" and "junk" objects. The six objects below were generated as the result of two clicks.

[Magpie_Oz]

Ah I see the problem, Occupational Health and Safety regulations prohibit BFC from allowing a pile of junk to be left outside of a doorway , so the "Tidy Bot" cleaned them away.

[Peter Panzer]

Magpie Oz:

That's actually a very good theory, unfortunately I have made/seen this happen in open ground away from any structures as well.

[Peter Panzer]

Any chance a Beta Tester could sneak a peak at these two flavor object hiccups? I know folks are hard at work on v1.01 - perhaps these are issues that could be pinned down relatively easily.

To recreate them, open the editor, lay down the objects in question, exit and re-enter the 3-D Preview Mode. It may take a few enter/exit repetitions, but you will likely see what I describe sooner than later.

[WineCape]

Any chance a Beta Tester could sneak a peak at these two flavor object hiccups? I know folks are hard at work on v1.01 - perhaps these are issues that could be pinned down relatively easily.

To recreate them, open the editor, lay down the objects in question, exit and re-enter the 3-D Preview Mode. It may take a few enter/exit repetitions, but you will likely see what I describe sooner than later.

Will have a look at it and bump it up if I can reproduce the same issue.

Regards.

[Peter Panzer]

Thanks WineCape - let me know if there is anything I can clarify.

A few other items I noticed last night while working on the same scenario:

Many of the Specialist Teams for US Airborne are listed twice in the force selection window. Perhaps they are meant to represent "Parachute" and "Glider Infantry," but are not labeled?

I could not assign a "Leadership" value to a US Airborne light mortar team. Regardless of what I selected (+2, +1, -1, etc.) the unit would display "-2" within the 3-D Preview mode. I also could not assign a "Name" to the unit. I even tried deleting and "reviving" the unit to see if that would "unstick" the default values to no avail.

I hope this helps.

[Collingwood]

I don't know if this is a known issue - but last night I had the game consistently crash to desktop after a HE round from a Sherman accidentally destroyed a wooden footbridge. (The tank was not meant to be taking out the bridge but instead aiming at a building on the other side).

It took me a while to work out that's what was causing the crash during the action review phase. CTD occurred a few seconds after collapse of the bridge: changed orders to cease-firing with the tank, bridge remained intact, no more crash to desktop. Strangely enough a couple minutes later an enemy artillery round took out the same bridge (and nearly an entire squad) but this didn't crash the game.

I have saved the file in case it is helpful to the devs or testers. It was the OSX demo game, I have only just bought the full version so haven't had a chance to see if it still happens in the paid game.

Hardware if it helps any - MacBook Pro 2.2GHz Intel Core i7, OSX 10.6.8, 8GB RAM.