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Indecisive tank gunner


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I try to be philosophical about such weird behavior (tank turns flank to enemy tank firing at him from 100 metres to attack panicked single enemy armed with a .45) by telling myself I have never been in a tank under fire, so I don't know how irrational I would be. On the other hand, it would seem that the choice should be obvious.

Having said that; I have a glimmer of just how hard programming a good AI response is, so I don't know if a decision tree that realistically covers all situations is ever going to satisfy us all.

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The situation isn't as easy to duplicate as I expected. But I remember settering the target arc for the confused Panther. Even that didn't help. It concentrated for a moment on the Sherman in the target arc, missed and began to swing it's gun around again.

Aragorn2002, just to clarify: did the Panther wiggle its hull back and forth the entire duration of the engagement? (No savegames?)

Ken

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  • 10 years later...

I've also seen this behaviour several times. Actually just lost a scenario because of it - my Jagdpanzer IV had a spot on enemy armour in front of it, but kept turning back and forth between the spotted contact and an unspotted contact marker somewhat to the left, meaning it never fired and the ambush failed.

Also I just realised I replied to a 10 year old thread... well, the issue is still there.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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It's a well documented LOS phenomenon.  IIRC as the vehicle loses LOS to the new target it regains LOS to the previous target and so rotates back to the previous target and the same thing happens again... and again...  Fortunately, it's rare and hard to duplicate.

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46 minutes ago, Erwin said:

It's a well documented LOS phenomenon.  IIRC as the vehicle loses LOS to the new target it regains LOS to the previous target and so rotates back to the previous target and the same thing happens again... and again...  Fortunately, it's rare and hard to duplicate.

I don't think this is the issue, as in my latest game, my tank kept turning back and forth between a target in full view and an unspotted contact marker. It seems the rank can't decide which is the greater threat. I think the actively spotted target should take priority.

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4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

kept turning back and forth between a target in full view and an unspotted contact marker

The thing is that units seem to have a "telepathic" sense of where enemy units are - even when there is no enemy contact.  It's not uncommon to see tanks rotating in an undesired direction to face an enemy for which there seems to be no contact marker.   I think that the Tactical AI has some advantages that enable a unit to detect an enemy - even without a marker.  If that is so, it explains the phenomenon you described.  If your unit has info on the unseen enemy, the AI may decide that it is the more serious target.  Alternatively, we go back to the rotation itself causing the unit to lose its detection of enemy 1, and at the same time it reacquires enemy 2.  When it starts to turn to face enemy 2, it loses contact and reacquires enemy 1...  and so on...

It's similar to a tank's "telepathic" ability to spot enemy infantry even when LOS is badly degraded by smoke, night, blizzard etc.  

Edited by Erwin
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12 hours ago, Erwin said:

Alternatively, we go back to the rotation itself causing the unit to lose its detection of enemy 1, and at the same time it reacquires enemy 2.  When it starts to turn to face enemy 2, it loses contact and reacquires enemy 1...  and so on...

It could be. But if I had to guess, I'd say probably each unit evaluates all enemy units and assigns them a threat rating. If the rating is a whole number, say from 1-10, there will be cases where two threats are given the same rating, and the unit will not be able to figure out which to engage. I sometimes see tanks unable to decide between firing on close-by infantry (high threat) or a distant enemy tank (also high threat). Or two equally distant tanks.

Only the programmer knows how it really works.

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1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

I sometimes see tanks unable to decide between firing on close-by infantry (high threat) or a distant enemy tank (also high threat).

it is gamey but I noticed it some time ago. With infantry I noticed at times the AI doesn't return fire when you attack with your split squad at the same time. But there is no way we can prove it.

 

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