2.538 feedback

[Retro]

I'm seeing the same behaviour with your scenario. If I swap that car for a Challenger2 the avoidance "bubble" seems even bigger..

[Quagmire]

I'm seeing the same behaviour with your scenario. If I swap that car for a Challenger2 the avoidance "bubble" seems even bigger..

Thanks for checking, glad it's not just me.

The 'bubble' has always existed between military vehicles I believe, but if civilian cars are there to add interest to maps etc., it's going to be hard just driving down a road in a tank or jeep when the parked cars prevent it.

It's certainly very odd. Also, when you have a few cars (in this case about 5) trying to drive past each other at junctions they all start bumping into each other! Again, very strange...

I was adding vehicles to a map I'm working on to give it some 'life' and all I got was traffic jams everywhere!

[Tacbat]

Don't "park" them so close to the road?

(I know, not very helpful)

[Nasder]

This is not really a bug but rather just a quite annoying thing.

Tanks, PC's... well all vehicles actually tend to get stuck way too often on maps where the Realism Winter (snow) theme is applied.

I can understand that they get stuck in the snow at the places where they get stuck, but I have no idea why they get to those places when they do (some times it's because I placed a bad waypoint or route). This usually happens on sharp corners with forest close by.

I am attaching a small scenario I made for laughs and showing some friends.

4 Challengers follow a route first on a thin road leading up to a 2 lane road. I lose 1 Challenger (sometimes 2) en route. I think they try to catch up and take a shortcut through the woods where they get stuck.

I got 4 CV9040B's on a route, two of these usually gets stuck, 1 because reason unknown. The second because the route I made them is hazardous at a certain point and it slides sideways into trees. I'll take the blame for that.

My point is, shouldn't vehicles follow the road just like the leader of the column, rather than cutting corners where they might get stuck? I reckon changing the scheme to give them better grip (if this is implemented yet) might do the trick. But I don't mind them getting stuck for reasons better then cutting corners when in a column.

winterfun2.rar

[Ssnake]

Well, these vehicles don't make a conscious decision to "just cut a corner". For whatever reason, they leave the road to avoid a collision with a perceived obstacle (maybe because they were driving too fast when approaching that corner). Once that they are off-road, they try to get back on it, but then there's the problem that there's always a tree blocking the direct route to the road, so they try to go in the direction most closely to the next route node which may already be hundreds of meters down the road. Often they then drift off even deeper into the forest until they come close to the route node, at which point they are forced to drive towards the road in near-perpendicular direction. Which then usually brings them out of the forest and back to the road, so the algorithm works ... as long as there is sufficient traction, of course.

[Nasder]

Then the following question is, why do they need to avoid collision when there are only the 4 tanks in the column on the road (except a column 1-3km in front). This is with normal distance and default speed on the route.

However, I just noticed that this is more apparent when time acceleration is in play. But it still happens some times on normal speed.

[Ssnake]

It's impossible to say without looking at the exact place where it happens. Time acceleration obviously increases the risks because it increases the time steps of the simulation in order to run faster, so the pathfinding solutions inevitably involve a bigger margin of error.

I'm not saying that improvement is impossible, but it isn't trivial to make it better so don't expect wonders, quickly.

[Nasder]

I am currently uploading a video of the issue to youtube (gonna take a while 1.5Gig) where the following happens.

I spectate the third challenger. In front you can see a challenger completely overshooting a sharp left turn and ending up in the forest. "My" challenger cuts the corner almost ramming a house. The last challenger passes me. I switch to the challenger in the forest and later see another challenger navigating through the thick wood after playing bumpercar with a challenger (trying to pass but can't)

Here is where it all plays out, the 90 degree turn somewhere on scania SE, grid might help out. But this happen on a lot of sharp turns and it's quite random too. Sometimes it's perfect sometimes hell breaks loose (like video I will link once uploaded)

[Retro]

I just played (watched, rather) that scenario - a nice drive in the countryside

Interestingly enough all the challengers made it without one getting stuck (though there was one turn were I was worrying about them). The CV90s on the other hand had a really hard time at it. The combination of steep slopes, trees+rocks along the road, the slippery snow terrain makes it quite hard.. only the lead vehicle got through without manual intervention.

I'm wondering if in "winter" scenarios vehicles really really should stick to roads (at least with march orders), and try not to cut corners..

The funny thing is that under these scenarios I'd be sure you'd find a couple of human drivers getting stuck much in the same way as the AI - but at least they could try to dig themselves out, or use towing cables..

[Nasder]

I just played (watched, rather) that scenario - a nice drive in the countryside

If you wait 25 Mins, you get to engage some BMP's!

Anyways, here's the video of the issue. (quality is crap as it just completed uploading at this time)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaayj7G_if0

[Ssnake]

What may help is this method of mine to let vehicles drive safely on roads.

1. Make sure to use the Shift+Click method when placing routes that are supposed to stick to roads. The Route nodes will then snap to the road so you don't have to rely on a certain margin of error that the computer-controlled crews will accept for waypoints
2. When a route approaches a sharp bend, end the route 50m before the corner. Create a new route with "slow" speed setting.
3. Otherwise I tend to place nodes close to corner points, but slightly "behind" the corner (in travel direction).
   Computer-controlled vehicles will attempt to stay on roads for as long as the direction to the next node isn't more than 30° off to the direction of the road itself. So as the unit approaches the corner it will turn into the corner a few moments before it actually is at the corner itself, which usually avoids situations where they otherwise might overshoot.

With these simple rules to place your route waypoints you should be able to defuse most situations.

[Ssnake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaayj7G_if0

Well, yes --- you see, at 0:17 the Challenger turns into the forest because the route node was placed in front of the corner (at least that's how I'm interpreting this, I haven't seen the map view, but I bet this is how the route will look like).

As the vehicle approaches the corner and comes close to the node, it is considered as "reached" and gets deleted from the nav queue. The next waypoint is way down the road to the left, at nearly 90° - well above the 30° threshold. Now the challenger veers off the road to approximate better the route direction, and hence wanders off into the trees which are all obstacles, and therefore make navigation even worse.

[Nasder]

What may help is this method of mine to let vehicles drive safely on roads.

1. Make sure to use the Shift+Click method when placing routes that are supposed to stick to roads. The Route nodes will then snap to the road so you don't have to rely on a certain margin of error that the computer-controlled crews will accept for waypoints
2. When a route approaches a sharp bend, end the route 50m before the corner. Create a new route with "slow" speed setting.
3. Otherwise I tend to place nodes close to corner points, but slightly "behind" the corner (in travel direction).
   Computer-controlled vehicles will attempt to stay on roads for as long as the direction to the next node isn't more than 30° off to the direction of the road itself. So as the unit approaches the corner it will turn into the corner a few moments before it actually is at the corner itself, which usually avoids situations where they otherwise might overshoot.

With these simple rules to place your route waypoints you should be able to defuse most situations.

I always shift-click when doing routes on roads. And I try to put the node in the center of the corner without zooming in too much, to kind of tell them to "reach this point before turning". Never tried to slow them down before the corner in Steel beasts as this have never been an issue or shown itself to me until now.

There are points in the video where you can see the tank (to the right) is just in the forest edge and turning left would send him on the road again (there's maybe 8m without a tree between him and the road) but he keeps going right digging himself deeper and deeper into it. Maybe because the leader has cleared all the nodes in the corner ahead so he tries to catch up using the shortest route?

Either way slowing them down could fix it and I'll give that a try and keep it in mind.

[Ssnake]

In any case, having one or two route nodes behind the corner and not at its apex will at the very least help them to extricate themselves from the forest faster.

Remember, the node gets deleted from the queue as the unit approaches the waypoint, and not just when it is more or less exactly on top of it. With very close and sharp turns this means that the node gets deleted even before the vehicle has started to turn, and if the next waypoint is a long way down the next road the vehicle must obey the order to go in that direction. This inevitably results in going off-road.

[Nasder]

In any case, having one or two route nodes behind the corner and not at its apex will at the very least help them to extricate themselves from the forest faster.

Remember, the node gets deleted from the queue as the unit approaches the waypoint, and not just when it is more or less exactly on top of it. With very close and sharp turns this means that the node gets deleted even before the vehicle has started to turn, and if the next waypoint is a long way down the next road the vehicle must obey the order to go in that direction. This inevitably results in going off-road.

But the leading unit never fails at completing the corner, always the followers. If the nodes were the problem, wouldn't the leading unit go off course first? It's only following units that behaves like this.

[Ssnake]

Well, the lead vehicle is seeding "bread crumbs" which the trailing vehicles try to follow. If the first vehicle veers off the road and then manages to recover, the training vehicles in their attempt to follow the bread crumbs instead of the original waypoints might sense an obstacle enroute to the next breadcrumb that the leading vehicle didn't experience because it was in a slightly different position to begin with and by definition wasn't attempting follow a trail.

They will then try to avoid the obstacle, and hilarity ensues.

So, if the lead vehicle manages to stay on the road better, then more bread crumbs will remain on the road, with less chances for aberrant maneuver.

[Quagmire]

Following on from this I've attached a tiny SCE file showing the behaviour. This time I have a single M1A1 driving along a stretch of road. 'Parked' on the left - off the road - is a hatchback with Stay command so I can align the vehicle correctly.

Oncoming traffic consists of 3 other civilian vehicles. When in motion all vehicles (tank and cars) pass by each other no problem, but look at the avoidance behaviour of the tank and the 3 moving cars when they drive past the parked car. It's like there's a huge invisible exclusion zone around it. Does anyone know how to prevent this odd behaviour?

Cheers!

Quagmire

Ssnake, can the civilian cars (hatchback and saloon etc.), be added as neutral objects in the map editor. That way we can place them as stationary vehicles the same way we do with other objects. This will solve the bizarre avoidance driving we see when trying to pass a 'parked' car at present.

We can continue using the civilian cars in the map editor only when we want to see moving ones.

Q

[Ssnake]

Ssnake, can the civilian cars (hatchback and saloon etc.), be added as neutral objects in the map editor.

Interesting idea, but it isn't possible, I'm sorry.

[Quagmire]

Interesting idea, but it isn't possible, I'm sorry.

I don't mean straight away but perhaps in a future patch/update? They could just be static objects like the shipping container for example. For those of us playing in the map editor, it will be much easier and quicker to populate streets with parked vehicles etc.

Q

[Ssnake]

I'd rather have multiple sides and better pathfinding. Parked vehicles should have the capability to start moving at any time.

[Nasder]

Well, the lead vehicle is seeding "bread crumbs" which the trailing vehicles try to follow. If the first vehicle veers off the road and then manages to recover, the training vehicles in their attempt to follow the bread crumbs instead of the original waypoints might sense an obstacle enroute to the next breadcrumb that the leading vehicle didn't experience because it was in a slightly different position to begin with and by definition wasn't attempting follow a trail.

They will then try to avoid the obstacle, and hilarity ensues.

So, if the lead vehicle manages to stay on the road better, then more bread crumbs will remain on the road, with less chances for aberrant maneuver.

But the leader does not veer off, he's almost perfectly glued to the road. I just had 2 CV90's get stuck in a long 2 lane corner which the leader I was following held his lane.

I will look into this more tomorrow and try different things, right now I feel that using snow theme and having routes close to any forest is a very bad thing. The slippery surface slows the units down a lot and there's a big chance they'll some how get stuck in there.

[Quagmire]

I'd rather have multiple sides and better pathfinding. Parked vehicles should have the capability to start moving at any time.

That makes sense but one thing is that's bothering me is adding them to the map. Am I right in thinking that I need to add them as Blue vehicles (if I'm Blue) and give them Stay Command so I can them align them correctly with the BP 'handle'?

Also, I just set up a small scenario with several Red cars travelling along a highway about 900m from 2 x Blue M1A1's. How do I instruct them to open fire? The usual Target and Fire commands from the Commander did nothing...

Additionally, I recall reading about them being ready to carry IED's (?), or to be a threat somehow - is that true? And can they carry troops or other ammo?

EDIT: I just machine-gunned one to bring it to a stop and two soldiers were lying next to it, so I assume they have troops by default? If that's the case I'm surprised the tanks didn't shoot them themselves?

Cheers,

Q

[Ssnake]

Civilian vehicles - no matter which side - are being ignored from either side's computer-controlled units. That's the very point of them, that they are not distinguishable as combatants ... UNLESS they are dismounting fighters which, however, you can see only the moment when they actually unload them. Until then it could just be a group of people sharing a car.

By default they are all filled with troops - "insurgents", if you will, although they actually are all in uniform - UNLESS the mission designer adds a "Damage ... Troops". The challenge would then be to figure out which of the cars is carrying those invisible troops. Do you indiscriminately spray all vehicles to find out which of them has fighters in them? Or do you wait until you can observe hostile activity? What if a red and a blue car dismount troops simultaneously at the same spot and they start shooting each other, will you put a 120mm HE in the middle to silence them all, or try to sort friend from foe and apply lethal force more selectively.

Welcome to the sucktitude of modern, asymmetrical conflicts.

[Quagmire]

Welcome to the sucktitude of modern, asymmetrical conflicts.

Nicely put! :bigsmile: :thumbup:

[Retro]

It would be good if the TC of a vehicle featuring a Lemur RWS could give a little more info than "Truck" (etc) when calling out targets.. of course this needs new logic and (more serious I guess) more samples and I'm sure this is already on the list but I thought I'd just post anyway