Surrender / disband issue

[Txema]

Really looking forward to knowing what is going on with those damned M8's !!

[&:]

[Arjuna]

Hopefully on Monday I'll get a chance to look at these.

[Txema]

Arjuna,

Any news on the problem with those M8's ?


Txema

[Arjuna]

Sorry Txema but I have been caught up with all the marketing and business stuff at the moment. Next in priority is getting the Greek and Med packs finished. Then I'll get to this.

[Txema]

I am sorry to hear that, Arjuna. I think that bug with the M8's is very important and can have a very high impact on the playability of the scenarios that include that unit...

In any case I respect your priorities, of course, but this bug sounds as an easy one to fix and it is a pity not to have it fixed in the upcoming BFTB patch...


Txema

[Emx77]

I also hoped for M8 fix before finally plunge myself into Command Ops. It could be game stopper and it seemed final patch was postponed beacause of this bug.

[Arjuna]

OK you're bleeting got too much so I fired up Daz's "stubborn git" save. Here's the start of the save.

[Arjuna]

And here, just tem minutes later is the end for that so called "stubborn git". Actually the recon unit died about 7 or 8 minutes after start but it took me a second to hit the pause button. I reckon it works fine under the latest build 4.4.261. Before you ask, I ran it twice with the same result.

[Arjuna]

OK I persisted with some more tests using Daz's "LG test2 start.cog" save. This sees three American recon units surrounded by a circle of tiger units. A somewhat contrived occurrence but useful nonetheless. It took over four hours for the tigers to finally eliminate the hales recon. But note it was heavy fog. Even so I still thought that it wasn't right.

[Arjuna]

The first thing I checked was the surrender code and noted that for much of the time the American units were retreat recovering but not routing or rout recovering. As such they missed out on testing for surrender as this was only applying to routing and rout recovering units. I changed this to also include retreating and retreat recovering where the enemy is very close and where they have been engaged within the last 2 minutes. This resulted in more surrenders.

But then I observed one single recon unit holding out after the other two had surrendered. It had just two M8 armoured cars. So I stepped into the AArmFire Event and quickly noticed that the number of AFVs being deemed eligible for targeting was zero. This was occurring because the formation aspect modifier was applied against the quantity of AFVs. This mod is used to limit the number of targets you fire when a unit is say in line and you are firing from its flank. You will be likely to see and engage those elements on the closest flank but not those on the far side. Well this is fine where the range is fairly long but not appropriate where the range to the furthest edge of the target is close.

So I now reduce the effect of this mod when the target is close. I ameliorate that a little if the terrain is covered. I ran the save again and I think it has made a significant difference. The recon were dispatched within 3 hours. Check out this screen shot.

[Phoenix100]

Superb. Many thanks from me too.

[Emx77]

Dave, thank you a lot for your prompt response and effort. I hardly can wait for final patch.

[adek670]

Arjuna,

Thank you for fixing this - So I presume that this is a global fix to the game code and not just limited to the Recce units with M8s.

Hopefully then the heavily depleted units I have been seeing (and surviving heavy contact) should now be a thing of the past - these include single soldiers - see my previous posts.

My thanks also to dazkaz15 for providing the saves that isolated the problem.

Great work - looking forward to the updated patch even more now.

Ade

[Arjuna]

Yes it applies to all units.

[adek670]

Hey Dazkaz,

Just thought I would mention that a while ago I saw a discount code offered to gamers that provided useful data in fixing bugs and the alike - cant remember which PC game it was but it did recognise individuals that support the continuing improvements to the game.

Perhaps for you and others that contribute so considerably a similar scheme could be established here in at Matrix.

Just throwing it in there...

Ade

[Txema]

Hi Arjuna,

First of all, thank you very much for looking into this bug. I really appreciate it !!! [:)]

Posted by Arjuna:

But then I observed one single recon unit holding out after the other two had surrendered. It had just two M8 armoured cars. So I stepped into the AArmFire Event and quickly noticed that the number of AFVs being deemed eligible for targeting was zero. This was occurring because the formation aspect modifier was applied against the quantity of AFVs. This mod is used to limit the number of targets you fire when a unit is say in line and you are firing from its flank. You will be likely to see and engage those elements on the closest flank but not those on the far side. Well this is fine where the range is fairly long but not appropriate where the range to the furthest edge of the target is close.

So I now reduce the effect of this mod when the target is close.

This sounds like a very important fix !! What you noticed about the number of AFVs being deemed elegible for targeting being zero due to the formation aspect modifier could explain those strange cases reported in this forum where a unit with a single vehicle could resist an attack by very strong enemy forces during too much time...

Arjuna, please correct me if I am wrong but if a unit has only one vehicle or even two vehicles (like these recon units), applying a formation aspect modifier that reduces the number of AFVs eligible for targeting does not seem to make sense... It seems that in these cases of only one or two vehicles the formation aspect modifier should not have any effect... What is your opinion on this, Arjuna?

[adek670]

Txema,

I think the same thing applies to small numbers of troops also. I have struggled with small bands of merry men taking a real beating in my battles - it figures that they were in the 4th dimension (in between routing and recovering - where there is a force field!!!)

Am really hopeful that this fix will change the way this game plays out - benefits for all I think - I haven't reinstalled to see if this was in the original release - So I am working on the fact that it has been a 'hidden' long standing issue that has taken to the 11th hour before patch 4 to fix.

The fact that it will ( I hope anyway ) find it's way into the latest release is a splendid achievement of the forum - oh and the guy that wrote the code!!!!

Happy days,

Ade

[Arjuna]

It really depends on range and LOS too but for performance reasons we cannot really afford all the LOS checks to comprehensively test each grid within a units occupied area. If you have a force of 2AFVs but say 60 pers they could easily occupy an area 200 to 300m wide in line. Now if you are on their flank and given the fact that we need to factor in the undulating nature of terrain that is not otherwise reflected due to the fidelity of the 100m terrain grid, then it is possible for the second vehicle to be masked by the first or out of sight altogether. The probability of this increases as the range extends and also with covered terrain or hills.

The new code now says that if the range to the far egde of the target's occupied area is <= 300m for AARm and <= 200m for APer then we ignore the aspect modifier, except where there is covered terrain, in which case we will reduce the effect of the mod but not eliminate it.

[Txema]

Arjuna,

It sounds good !

Thank you very much again for this fix and for including it in the upcoming patch.


Txema

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: Reaper

Hey Dazkaz,

Just thought I would mention that a while ago I saw a discount code offered to gamers that provided useful data in fixing bugs and the alike - cant remember which PC game it was but it did recognise individuals that support the continuing improvements to the game.

Perhaps for you and others that contribute so considerably a similar scheme could be established here in at Matrix.

Just throwing it in there...

Ade

Thanks for that Reaper, but I am willing to pay full price for this product.

The amount of time I have already got out of playing it makes it one of the best bargains I have purchased.
I have a £30 per month sky subscription that I hardly ever use, because I have been playing on this game, and it has saved me a fortune in rounds of drink down the pub, so I have no qualms about paying the going rate for it.

Sticking with the pricing subject though, if Panther wants to up its customer base It probably needs to lower the price to be more inline with other games.
That said I'm sure they have done their research, and if that's the price structure that's needed for this niche kind of game, then we are going to just have to suck it up, or move onto a less in-depth more mass market kind of game.

Great that you have found the problem to this "Rambo" unit issue Dave [:)]

I'm back BTW [;)]