SB 4.023 TGIF feedback

[Gibsonm]

I suspect Rotar, etc. will flesh these out, but:

 

1. Vehicles were applying maximum elevation when scanning as if searching for air targets (Rotar and CavGunner).

 

2. CR2s not firing (Colebrook and Sean).

 

3. Very difficult to label Reference Points (i.e. type in the text) (Gibson).

 

Edited December 23, 2017 by Gibsonm

[Sir_Sharpe]

Witnessed No.1 myself.  No hint of No.3 for me though.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Sir_Sharpe

[Volcano]

You have to set "INFO" switch to "all" if you want to edit everything like before. With it set to "on" you can only move them around (this setting is mainly for viewing the map info only, minus the minefield/battle position text).  Also, you can create a reference point and just type immediately (you no longer have to create, select the text field, then type). That should have been explained better.

 

As for the other stuff, thanks, we have to keep an eye out for it for more information. I hope you all didn't forget that you have to go to NFOV (high mag) in the GPS on the CR2 to fire though.

[aurens]

No. 2 - I saw Colebrook get blasted by the T-72 that he couldn't shoot with his Chally, I think he said it may be related to his joystick. Would handing the tank off to somebody else be a quick solution in multiplayer?

[Colebrook]

Im pretty sure i was in high mag at shooting, maybe was my joystick, i changed some configuration before tgif. Also the AI was overriding me to something i never spotted, when i have the t-72 20 meters in front of me.

[Gibsonm]

But unfortunately has nothing to do with the issues experienced by the people at TGIF.

[Bond_Villian]

4 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

But unfortunately has nothing to do with the issues experienced by the people at TGIF.

I shifted it

[Crusty]

CR2 works fine on the firing range, could it be a multiplayer specific bug?

 

[Splash]

Re: Mark's point No. 1, I wonder if it's related to this "bug" fix from the Release Notes?

 

"Enabled a proper thousand-yard stare for computer-controlled crew (to scan the horizon correctly)"

 

I just played through a familiar mission, and the tendency of my gunner to focus on the treetops was a bit irritating.

[Gibsonm]

Well I had thought that the guys on Green (I was on Blue) who noticed it were going to add their own posts, but perhaps they are enjoying some time away from the keyboard.

 

Basically the comments over Teamspeak were that the vehicles had their guns fully elevated (similar to trying to shoot at a helo or UAV) when halted and not necessarily looking directly to their front.

 

Perhaps the units in question had hills in front of them and the vehicles were scanning there first?

[Splash]

I watched the gunner for awhile. He was clearly following the horizon -- sometimes the tree line -- in scanning. Occasionally it was pretty severe elevation.

I tried this, but it didn't seem to have any effect:

 

 

[Ssnake]

Hmmmm....

[Rotareneg]

I didn't notice any issues with the Challenger gun not firing, but then again I only had one tank for a short time right at the end of the scenario. I did have the same confusion about the reference points acting different.

 

Attached are two scenarios to demonstrate how the AI gunner horizon scanning fails with certain terrain.

 

For the night version the blue tank will drive right up to the red tank before they notice each other, which is bad for a couple reasons: The first being that both gunners are scanning so high they can't see another vehicle a short distance down the road; The second reason being that neither commander sees the other even though they both have NVGs and sensors for spotting targets in the dark.

 

For the day version, jump into the commanders position of the blue tank and watch (the red tank is blind in this version.) Also notice another issue where the driver slows to a crawl as it drives up to even mild turns in the road.

Horizon_scan_day.sce

Horizon_scan_night.sce

Edited December 25, 2017 by Rotareneg

[TSe419E]

The main issue I had with the Challenger was mostly evident when the vehicle was in the steeper hills on the east side of the map.  When I would hop into the gunner's seat I noticed the the AI was scanning over the trees (and the crest of the hills where there were no trees), whether they were close or far, putting the gun tube at a high elevation which was at times rather extreme.  It also may explain why the TC was always telling me to cease-fire when I was engaging targets that were right in front of the vehicle.  At one time while riding in the observer's position I saw an enemy tank to my left and told the gunner to traverse left to acquire it but it seemed as if the AI gunner and TC couldn't see it because they were scanning above the actual horizon which the target was slightly below.

[Volcano]

Thanks for the info. We will look into the gunner-scanning-high issue. It sounds like it might only be an issue in hilly areas.

 

As for the Challenger-not-firing issue, I suspect this is not a bug. We have to keep in mind that we don't play with the CR2 that much, and it does have the quirk/feature where you cannot fire unless you are at NFOV (high mag), and this is a frequent frustration. In the session we played, I was about 5 meters away from a human gunned CR2 that wasn't firing, just staring at me (but eventually they did fire after I shot them first). I suspect the issue there was the user was frantically trying to shoot in low magnification in order to aim at me at that close range (otherwise at NFOV at that range he wouldn't be able to get onto the target), then after I shot them they either jumped to F8 and the AI gunner handled the situation, or they remembered and toggled to high mag.

 

Of course what you need to do in this situation is to aim with low mag, then quickly switch to high mag and fire immediately (this is the part that people tend to forget in the panic of the moment).

 

While it is not impossible that there is a Network Session specific bug here, the user error theory is a bit more plausible given how the CR2 works (how the WFOV firing inhibitor causes false bug reports) and the fact that the CR2 hasn't been changed in any serious way in this update.

[Volcano]

OK, regarding AI gunner scanning:

 

The AI is actually attempting to "scan the actual horizon" now, adjusting its scan elevation depending on the terrain around it, rather than constantly scanning at 0 degrees EL.  Scanning the horizon is good behavior in hilly environments, since 0 EL often means looking at the dirt, and it often meant that when you drive up on hill tops then your gun was aiming at the sky, however it seems like the elevation in which the AI elevates to the terrain is a bit too high.  We will look into improving this behavior in an update.

 

In the mean time, less hilly maps shouldn't cause a problem.

 

[Volcano]

The AI gunner scanning issues should be fixed, or at least greatly improved, for the next update (which might be a patch after we see what else shakes out).

 

Thanks for the info.

[Colebrook]

I have been testing the challenger and everything is working, so yes ,must be i was shooting at low magnification.

The problem with the AI not shooting infantry at long range is still here, im ok with tanks not wasting HE/HEAT on infantry but for ATGMS its a big problem, making AI uselss in some missions.

[Volcano]

Hmm, you are going to have to be more specific about the "AI not shooting infantry at long range", ideally with a small test scenario. 

 

Nothing in the notes mentioned a change there, and I don't recall this being some new bug so "making AI useless in some missions" seems like an over exaggeration to me, unless the mission has no artillery available, or something else non-typical like that.

[Colebrook]

One spike team and one enemy tank platoon, at 4km, advancing towards the atgm. The tanks and spike spot each other inmediately. Spike starts firing at the start but tanks only fire coax at 1000 or 1200m, usualley all 3-4 tanks are destroyed.

This problem was in the old version too.

If the enemy is equiped with lots of atgms you need to jump into the tanks and make the shot yourself, because AI is going to shoot only at coax range, and thats usually to close to survive.

test-1.sce

[Volcano]

OK thanks for the SCE file.

 

Ah yes, this is nothing new - AFAICR it has been like that since SB1. The AI cannot shoot coax at 4000m because this is well past the maximum range, so it will attempt to call artillery if it is available, and the AI has never used HEAT on troops because it is far more useful against vehicles and we don't want the AI to waste it or that would be another complaint.

 

That said, the AI gunners will however use HE on troops, *if the target is within the max range of the HE round* as specified in the ammunition data - you can see this range in the ammo dialog. A user can fire beyond this max range, but that has to be by choice.

 

Anyway the HEAT vs. troops is a tricky situation that has always existed.

 

We may be able to allow the AI to use up to a certain amount of ready HEAT ammo on troops, but who knows what that number would be (perhaps anything above 5 rounds).

[Colebrook]

The problem is also for HE, and also for autocannons like bradley 25mm or cv 90 30mm(they have a lot of ammunition and should be less conservative, especially fighing atgms). So doesnt matter if is HE,HEAT,HESH or smoke, AI only will fire at infantry(including atgms) at 1200 m.

 

Test mission:

 

test-HE.sce

[Ssnake]

The plan is to work on the new HE model first. Once that the spatial distribution of fragmentation effect is better defined we can think of ways how to teach computer-controlled units to maximize that effect.

[Volcano]

8 hours ago, Colebrook said:

The problem is also for HE, and also for autocannons like bradley 25mm or cv 90 30mm(they have a lot of ammunition and should be less conservative, especially fighing atgms). So doesnt matter if is HE,HEAT,HESH or smoke, AI only will fire at infantry(including atgms) at 1200 m.

 

Test mission:

 

test-HE.sce

 

OK, fair enough, we will take a look. Not sure when anything would be done about it though, considering that this is something that has always been this way. 

 

Also, from here on, we would appreciate if individual "bugs" were reported in the support forum in its own post. The act of tacking on additional "drive by" observations in this TGIF feedback thread is only going to cause them to be overlooked later.

[Grenny]

20 hours ago, Colebrook said:

One spike team and one enemy tank platoon, at 4km, advancing towards the atgm. The tanks and spike spot each other inmediately. Spike starts firing at the start but tanks only fire coax at 1000 or 1200m, usualley all 3-4 tanks are destroyed.

This problem was in the old version too.

If the enemy is equiped with lots of atgms you need to jump into the tanks and make the shot yourself, because AI is going to shoot only at coax range, and thats usually to close to survive.

test-1.sce

The bigger problem is, that the tank is able to spot an inf from 4000m away. He should not...