Pathfinding, March formation, CONFUSION?

[dpabrams]

I am struggling mightily with just a simple company sized March down the autobahn. The formation for the company is March (-spacing), F-fast advance with a way point on the autobahn. I believe I do not touch SOP for the company so as not conflict with the March order. The trouble is the path finding for the vehicles in the company is horrid. Vehicles travel off the autobahn and into woods or other squares that are not on the road. I assume this is a "stacking" issue and maybe this will improve when "stacking" is increased? I do not understand why a company in March formation simply cannot haul ass down the autobahn in a nice orderly convoy, without vehicles going off the road and rearranging the convoy during a March. This is the simplest of formation moves, yet the path finding AI struggles mightily with it, or I have been doing it wrong?

[actrade]

I have had the same issue. The DEV mentioned using the march command, but I believe the stacking issue is making organized movement very difficult. Try sending a formation across a bride if you want to see how bad this can get.

[EchoOne]

Strange, I don't have any problem ordering all formation(s) in march formation (for example, midnight surprise). Even I was able to order one of my formations to cross the bridge in march formation with no problem. (change SOP to "quick", rather than using "cover")

In Midnight surprise, I had to use all march command a lot in order to reach the objective much quickly. Rolling through the wooded area via road et cetera

[EchoOne]

to change SOP to "Cover" if you need an infantry to go through the wooded or from house to house. I seldom use "Cover" for MBT if necessary to screening, for example, my Leopard 2A1s from their line of sight...like hugging the edge of the wooded area or hilly area et cetera. Once reach the "battle position", I can change the formation such as the line or wedge formation.

[actrade]

Try and get your units across the two bridges in "who'll stop the rain" and let me know how that goes.

[EchoOne]

Actrade, I will try that "Who'll stop the rain" scenario and see if my march command working well. I will right back with you

[EchoOne]

Actrade, I was able to order three Fuch to cross the bridge with march command with no problem

[EchoOne]

until next waypoint, as the leading Fuch was able to cross the third bridge but other two Fuch got confused and smashing against the second bridge's guardrail in order to manage to stay in the formation as ordered. Hmm, maybe we found a bug?

[EchoOne]

I guess that we may have to order each Fuch to cross the bridge, individually. Once cross all bridge(s) I can order all three Fuch to regroup in the march formation?

[noooooo]

It's because the bridge only allows one unit on it at a time which means when one of your vehicles is on the bridge, all others vehicles get confused and think that bridge is obstructed. As the developer said he will increase the maximum unit count per cell which means pathfinding won't get as confused.

[dpabrams]

On the left I have selected each tank in a company to line up nicely along a road for a pending March order. Next I select the command tank and reattach it, thus forming up the company again and give the company a Fast move just down the way and BINGO the formation scrambles across the creek and into the woods. This is a problem.

[dpabrams]

Now, here we have are company in March, with a fast command to and along a road. Just one simple way point and we have tanks off into fields and woods. T

[Missouri_Rebel]

I am also having some problems with formations and movements.

First, and this may be my fault, is that when I place a tank company in the deployment phase in line on a road and reattach them as soon as I set a waypoint they all get rearranged. Not sure why it does that. They also get rearranged by choosing the formation and hitting the march order. As soon as I do that poof, rearranged.

I'm having trouble doing this now but it worked just last night. Is there a correct way to perform this action? I was setting up a battle to do some tests because my formations have some real pathfinding issues from going way off the roads, picking random routes with some tanks, others saying it is unable to find a path etc, all within a simple march to a waypoint.

Also, the tanks that moved through the heavy woods moved as fast as those down the road with an occasional immobilize. IMO, it should be a very slow trek. Seems unrealistic.

Lastly, 2 tanks were moving down the road and the one went right through the other and they traveled together almost exactly on top of each other.

[Missouri_Rebel]

after setting waypoint

[Missouri_Rebel]

so a reload. The only time my units were not rearranged is if I start the battle first. Here I set a waypoint with Quick modifier and march.

[Missouri_Rebel]

and a mere few seconds later.

Is there any way to increase the upload size of pics on this forum? 200 kb is inadequate.

[Missouri_Rebel]

They are engaging from the get go in this example so maybe they are using evasive measures but that doesn't explain the new paths for any of the units. I'll test some more.

As a quick note, last night 3 tanks in march down a road to a close waypoint did 3 seperate things. 1 moved good down the road through turns etc. The second chose to immediately go off the road, through the forest, around several houses before moving to the waypoint and the last just sat there with info given that it had no path.

At this point they don't seem like anomalies.

[dpabrams]

Yeah, I think the path finding is flawed. I just had a company of tanks in March with F-fast orders going down the two lanes of the autobahn and one tank goes off into the woods and is immobile? This is not right and it is a disappointment. This was never brought up in play testing?

[dpabrams]

UPDATE......... I seem to be having better luck if I maximize (+) spacing while in March, when a company is on the road with F-Fast orders. So far it's working as I would expect. Perhaps the (-) Spacing was the issue. I suspect with the units so close together that they were walking all over each other, while trying to avoid the same square and chose terrain that was not road.

[noooooo]

ORIGINAL: dpabrams

UPDATE......... I seem to be having better luck if I maximize (+) spacing while in March, when a company is on the road with F-Fast orders. So far it's working as I would expect. Perhaps the (-) Spacing was the issue. I suspect with the units so close together that they were walking all over each other, while trying to avoid the same square and chose terrain that was not road.

I'm guessing this is the case because it seems there is some kind of randomness in the speed of individual units (you notice this when you get a line of units to move forward some units move faster than others even on identical terrain) and different speeds cause units to try to bump into each other's cells then get confused because another unit is blocking that cell.