Where do they find these drivers?!

[sages]

Just finished playing 'are they attacking here'. Fun scenario, but 3 of the 3 casualties I took where from my own troops driving into the water. In all cases, the units had way points very close / on a bridge, but still managed to 'fall in'.

I'd like to see some smarter driving on the part of the computer! Maybe just a nice simple 'suicide' check before they drive into the water?

[Bluewings]

I agree wholeheartly .
We ~the Beta Team~ had enormous problem with rivers during beta testing and the outcome is not satisfying at all .

Cheers . :3starSK:

[Martyr]

Would wider bridges help?

[Sean]

You need to make sure your crossing is organized and use a breech route to cross the actual bridge. Otherwise they will drown.

[PS-SCUD]

Yes, unfortunately SBPPE drivers have what is termed "hydro-fetisation" or HF for short.

Apparently they were meant to be in Silent Hunter 3, but through some bizzaire series of events ended up in SBPPE. They however, are still trying their hardest to pretend that it is really a submarine simulation. :roll:

Denial is a sad thing... :?

[Sean]

There was a time that they were so afraid of the water that they wouldnt get near it, even if theres a bridge there.

[Bluewings]

Apparently they were meant to be in Silent Hunter 3
:lol: :mrgreen:

Cheers . :3starSK:

[sages]

You need to make sure your crossing is organized and use a breech route to cross the actual bridge. Otherwise they will drown.

Then why aren't the scenarios designed that way?

My recommendation would be to add a fudge factor for an AI-driven vehicle that is in / close to water (and can't ford).

There are a number of temporary solutions I can think of that are easier that trying to fix the AI (which is obviously ideal...):
-- Have the vehicle 'pop / warp' back out of the water.
-- Treat the river like an impassible obstacle, i.e. a building, for vehicle classes without fording.
-- Have 'free' period before damage occurs to the vehicle, to allow the ai driver to reverse out.

None are optimum, but they're all better, IMO, then watching my AI units self-murder.

[YdnarB]

I am thrilled just to see them submerge. I sunk an M1 today so that the only thing you could see was the antennae and the barrel as the gunner tried to keep it out. hehe.

Crossing bridges in platoon formation, especially changing the formation to close is a killer.

[Sean]

Because I did not write the scenarios.
I'll probably modify some SB1 scenarios for pro pe....

You need to make sure your crossing is organized and use a breech route to cross the actual bridge. Otherwise they will drown.

Then why aren't the scenarios designed that way?

My recommendation would be to add a fudge factor for an AI-driven vehicle that is in / close to water (and can't ford).

There are a number of temporary solutions I can think of that are easier that trying to fix the AI (which is obviously ideal...):
-- Have the vehicle 'pop / warp' back out of the water.
-- Treat the river like an impassible obstacle, i.e. a building, for vehicle classes without fording.
-- Have 'free' period before damage occurs to the vehicle, to allow the ai driver to reverse out.

None are optimum, but they're all better, IMO, then watching my AI units self-murder.

[sages]

Understand... it's a rhetorical question.

My real point is that there are some possible ways to mitigate this programatically, and while they're all a little silly, IMO, they're better than the frustration that comes wtih drowning tanks.

[YdnarB]

Not 5 minutes after reading the above post, I was testing a scenario by backing a tank back to the edge of a gravel bank along a river. Got a bit too close, bit too fast and the damn behemoth slid back into the river completely drowning it. And I was driving. :)

[Zipuli]

In the flank attack scenario AI easily looses a company of tanks in the little ditch near the wide river in north... I actually drove to the same puddle ;). I thought it was OK to do so as so many AI tanks were there too, but I thought also that they were destroyed by heroic american infantry, not by the ditch!

Zip

[RecceDG]

If you block the bridge in the Instant Action scenario, the AI will happily plunge and drown in the water instead.

DG

[mapman]

Besides setting the route to colomn formation....the AI should treat water like that as a known minefield, I would think.

[Bluewings]

I made over 30 scenarios for ProPE and I am still waiting to see one of my AI Tank drowning .
As Sean said , a good scripting is the key .

That being said , if left on their own , Units behave like happy lemmings . It is unacceptable and has been dicussed for hours in the Beta forums .

Al did not find a solution yet ...

Cheers . :3starSK:

[sages]

I made over 30 scenarios for ProPE and I am still waiting to see one of my AI Tank drowning .
As Sean said , a good scripting is the key .



That's not really a good answer. What if I want to *gasp* change my sides orders? Or, what if an artillery barage drops down and mucks up the timing of the scripts slightly?

I have seen both happen and drown my vehicles. I've played the "Are They Attacking Here" scenario, and lost vehicles every single time.

The most recent time I played, I tried using the 'breach' command as Sean recommended. Didn't work. I watched as an M1 drove with the breach command drove full speed into the river, because he got a little behind his unit.

Best yet was the M2 that while 'escaping' the artillery barage, drove into river. Probably just a super-realistic morale modeling of an 18 year old driver under fire for the first time, but still p***ed me off. :=)

The only semi reliable way I've found, it to manually back the unit up about 500m from the bride, change to column and manually drive across the bridge.

Not very time efficient.