Boneheaded Friendly AI?

[erichswafford]

I find that my units often do suicidally stupid things like choosing to retreat from good terrain into the clear, at which point they promptly get eliminated. I'm not sure, but it seems pretty odd for dug-in infantry to hop in their APC'S and go on a joy-ride in clear terrain in full view of multiple enemy tank forces.

I'm a little perplexed also by tank units abandoning a covered position - even in Screen - and high-tailing it via a clear road hex. This also frequently leads to their instant annihilation.

Any opinions on this? Am I doing something wrong? I'll try to post some screenshots later to illustrate the behavior. It seemed fairly egregious in the "Pied Pier" scenario. Maybe my guys just panicked, but boy it sure got them dead real quick.

[pzgndr]

The new v2.04 feature allowing players to designate an end movement posture should help. I got frustrated trying to get units into a position to hold and fight, only to watch them get there and retreat. The screening logic is also being addressed for when units retreat, so hopefully that should help too. I've been deliberately holding off until these quirks are resolved. I don't want to ruin my initial good impression of the game, cuz it IS good, but some little things like this were just too damn annoying.

[CapnDarwin]

This is the AI behavior holding up the update. We are working to get a good balance of when to scoot versus situation based on unit type, standoff and enemy threat. We want 2.04 to fix what you are seeing now. It is getting better and we do have work to do on it this week to whip it into shape.

[Mad Russian]

Think Wolves Kondor!

They are coming and they rarely retreat!!! [X(]

All will be well then!!

Good Hunting.

MR

[erichswafford]

Sounds like you guys are all over this. Mad Russki, just make sure you follow that up with a Spetznaz campaign too!

If this AI issue could be fixed, then the game would be pretty much perfect. OK, super-smooth map scrolling would be cool too, but that I can live without!

[zakblood]

super-smooth map scrolling is pc dependant, ie card and memory, plus cpu and ram related + screen size and res and settings used, not game only, as it works flawlessly for me i'm sorry to say...

not knocking your pc either or bragging, just a comment, so please don't take offense [&o]

[CapnDarwin]

Some of the issue is the game supporting such a low end spec like dx7 and low resolutions like 1024x768. At some doing down the road we will need to raise the bar and integrate new programming tools that jump performance up a notch or two.

[erichswafford]

ORIGINAL: zakblood

super-smooth map scrolling is pc dependant, ie card and memory, plus cpu and ram related + screen size and res and settings used, not game only, as it works flawlessly for me i'm sorry to say...

not knocking your pc either or bragging, just a comment, so please don't take offense [&o]

Well that's pretty impressive! I've got a i7-2600k running at 5.0ghz and a GTX780. The map lurches pretty badly when scrolling and certainly isn't what I'd call smooth. Same thing on my rather dissimilar laptop with an i7 and a GTX765m. Everything else runs just fine.

Just to be clear, this is a minor thing but sort of annoying as it detracts from the sense of polish in the game.

[CapnDarwin]

Kondor, as weird as it sounds and assuming you have an optical mouse, try using a different surface for the mouse and see if that impacts the scroll. There are also some settings in the scroll options on polling you can adjust.

[MikeAP]

ORIGINAL: kondor999

The map lurches pretty badly when scrolling and certainly isn't what I'd call smooth. Same thing on my rather dissimilar laptop with an i7 and a GTX765m. Everything else runs just fine.

100% agree. Overall, the map feels sluggish. Zooming and moving, alike.

Kondor, as weird as it sounds and assuming you have an optical mouse, try using a different surface for the mouse and see if that impacts the scroll. There are also some settings in the scroll options on polling you can adjust.

Err... yeah, that's not it.

[Mad Russian]

MikeAP, what are your machine specs?

Thanks.

Good Hunting.

MR

[MikeAP]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

MikeAP, what are your machine specs?

Thanks.

Good Hunting.

MR

i7-4770K (3.5ghz)
16gig RAM
GeForce GTX 770 (2ghz)

[CapnDarwin]

I have to wonder if the faster machine and video cards are part of the issue. Both you guys are outpacing my CPU and video card by a decent margin and I have no issues clicking and dragging the map in real time. The edge scroll and zoom are both stepped in either distance or zoom level respectively so they appear "sluggish". Rob and I can chat about audio and video related issues next week at Origins. We may need to look at dropping certain tools and moving to some new ones to improve performance of faster machines with larger screens but cutting out certain machines and resolutions on the low end. There is only so much you can do when you are supporting 1024x768 dx7 low end CPU versus 2550x1950 dx11 multicore CPUs. The gap is just getting too great.

Either way it will be on our list of talking points of future improvments. [8D]

[MikeAP]

ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin

There is only so much you can do when you are supporting 1024x768 dx7 low end CPU versus 2550x1950 dx11 multicore CPUs. The gap is just getting too great.

I guess the big question is: Why are you guys even catering to this crowd?

Tablets have more processing power than those 1990's machines.

[zakblood]

as it's a big part of the market, same as vista, and xp with lot of pc's still running them, even though both have been shelved, seling only to a limited market is one sure way of losing a company, no matter what size.

same as porting to mac or even android etc, if enough users would make the effort worthwhile, more games would get ported, but it doesn't atm make much business sense....

not knocking any of these systems as at one time or another i've either had them or still do with some of these mentioned...

[X(]


Source Net Market Share[42] Global Stats[43] W3Counter[44]
Date March 2014 March 2014 March 2014
All versions 90.78% 89.29% 62.71%
Windows 7 48.77% 54.68% 39.04%
Windows XP 27.69% 18.61% 12.7%
Windows 8 6.41% 7.85% 8.34%
Windows 8.1 4.89% 4.48% —
Windows Vista 2.99% 3.67% 2.63%
Windows 2000 0.03%

[MikeGER]

ORIGINAL: MikeAP
I guess the big question is: Why are you guys even catering to this crowd?

well, the typical customer of Matrix Games and especially down here in our FCRS cosy grognard-ish niche [:)], is just 'old' (30ies 40ies 50ies)
so 'he' has an older PC, and because he dosen't play (so often anymore) the latest RTS-clickfest or FPS-bunnyhopping-ordeal
he probably only get new hardware componennts (or a new travel-laptop) when the old one finally failed him ... and then also will not buy the very
latest 2-month-released video-card or CPU, more in the prize-midrange with 'most performance for the buck'.
Ok this argument will not be valid for customers, who also enjoy study-simulation (flight, tank) those will probably
upgrade much earlier... but surly not as often as the young bucks ( <20 ) where the fastes rig is a 'kind of a status-symbol' in their peer-group

[CapnDarwin]

I think you two hit it on the head. [;)]

[zakblood]

well i may not fit the mold, as i'm 47 this year, have the i7 4960X with more ram than sense and a 4gb video card, 2x256gb sdd's and a few more nice bits and bobs around, have kept my older gaming rigs as well so have a few pc's.

i play anything, love everything, but don't spend money on cars well not great ones, have a new alto, small and eco, unlike my pc's

[Jenska]

As a side note to the platforms supported and the performance that can be attained, I've noticed a strange behavior on my top end system: Intel i7-3820 with 16Gb of memory and a GTX 660ti(2Gb). When I call up the TOC, the program crashes with a memory exception about 70% of the time.[&:] My guess is that there is a threading bug in the display of the TOC, because if I force the game into a single cpu mode it runs successfully.[:)] This doesn't happen on my old AMD Athlon 620x4/GT440 system even in multi-cpu mode. That said, the game is great, and I look forward to 2.04 and 2.1 updates. Keep up the good work. PS as a professional software engineer, it done when it done, not when its almost ready. I'll wait. [&o]
thanks

[CapnDarwin]

Jenska, can you post a screen shot or any other info of this crash in the tech support sub forum? That is the first time we have heard of a crash issue related to using the TOC. Welcome to the forums too.