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churchill tank dance - 9/8/2015 9:28:47 PM

STIENER

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seriously.....I thought tank pathing was fixed?? I have been playing knights in a GC, he's allied im german. I have been watching his Churchill tanks do crazy ****...and he's not happy about it. from what I can see so far its the Churchill that's the worst, the Sherman and the mk 4 don't dance as much it appears so far, but I may be wrong. knights gives them short move orders to back them up and they TURN AROUND...damn near every time!! its amazing to watch and my A/T gunners love it but that's not the point...whats with this?? I have seen him give a move right off the road order and the Churchill carry on down the road for another 150m before it slowly started to move to the right. lots of crazy stuff. but the big one is the move to back up order doesn't seem to work. the tanks turn around instead.
can we look into this.

Post #: 1

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/8/2015 9:57:01 PM

SteveMcClaire

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Nothing has changed in the pathfinder recently, so if you're seeing some new behavior, I assume it is being caused by some other factor. Have you recently installed a data file mod?

Steve

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 2

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/8/2015 10:04:49 PM

STIENER

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no mods...stock game with the patch.
load it up urself and move a Churchill around the hedge rows. give it a move back order and watch it turn around.

(in reply to SteveMcClaire)

Post #: 3

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/12/2015 9:36:40 PM

crackwise

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The GtC roads are somewhat problematic to move tanks on them. Tanks tend to follow the road at all costs instead of going offroad, even if it means they will be taking the longer route.

I think this behavior I mentioned combined with some unseen road contour (road coding etc.) makes them do awkward stuff while moving.

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 4

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/12/2015 9:43:53 PM

STIENER

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Churchill tank seems to turn around when given the move backwards order, more then the other tanks in GWTC.

(in reply to crackwise)

Post #: 5

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/15/2015 5:54:13 PM

SteveMcClaire

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The path finder will favor the fastest route when you use 'Move Fast' even though this may not be the most direct route. And many GTC maps have soft ground and/or mud, which makes it even more likely for vehicles to stick to the roads. You can use 'Move' instead to get a more direct route, or use waypoints to make sure the vehicle doesn't detour too far out off the path you want.

And there's no special case coding for any given vehicle or type of vehicle, in terms of using reverse. If you use 'Sneak' and the destination is behind the vehicle they will almost always use reverse (unless that would back up towards a known threat.) 'Move' will do so if the overall distance is less than about 50m, and 'Move Fast' if the destination is within 25m.

Steve

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 6

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/19/2015 5:28:24 PM

RD_Knights_X

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Steve.....my experience (which Steiner is trying to convey here) is that if, for instance, a Churchill takes fire when looking over a hedgerow, and is given a Sneak order to (hopefully) backup a very short distance, it instead turns (presenting its vulnerable rear to the enemy AT fire) to drive forward in the reverse direction. That is the issue. To Steiner's credit, he is articulating my extreme frustration for a battle the other night where I lost all 3 of my Churchill tanks to his PAK-75mm because of the movement exhibited, as explained above.

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Post #: 7

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/21/2015 9:13:16 PM

SteveMcClaire

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And you're saying this is unique to the Churchill tank? Or does it also happen if you start a battle, put any tank on the map, and then give it a sneak order behind the tank?

Steve

(in reply to RD_Knights_X)

Post #: 8

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/21/2015 9:51:53 PM

STIENER

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so far it looks like it is just the Churchill tank. knights? you have played the game longer than me. your thoughts,\.

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Post #: 9

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/21/2015 10:57:49 PM

RD_Knights_X

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Well, it has been most notable with the Churchill tanks. I've seen other Allied tanks models (shermans) backup properly....but I hesitate to make an emphatic statement here. I'll pay more attention and report back.

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 10

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/22/2015 7:21:46 AM

STIENER

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just played some more tonite with knights. I moved my mk 4's and tigers around a lot on purpose to see what they would do.
my conclusion is that the german tanks do the dance as much as the Churchill.
I tried your suggestions steve....50m or less move order to back up, and 50m or less in sneak. 8 out of 10 times the tank...mk 4 or tiger will try to turn around.
in one instance my mk 4 was on a road trying to back into an open area that hand some wood debris. not much but that's what the area said...wood debris....and I could not get the mk 4 to back up...no matter what I tried.
another mk 4 in another instance would not back up in an open area. no reason in should not have backed up.
similar stuff going on with the tigers on roads with hedges.
will keep watching for this pathing issue in up coming games...... :-(

(in reply to RD_Knights_X)

Post #: 11

RE: churchill tank dance - 9/22/2015 11:00:27 AM

Housies

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quote:

ORIGINAL: STIENER

just played some more tonite with knights. I moved my mk 4's and tigers around a lot on purpose to see what they would do.
my conclusion is that the german tanks do the dance as much as the Churchill.
I tried your suggestions steve....50m or less move order to back up, and 50m or less in sneak. 8 out of 10 times the tank...mk 4 or tiger will try to turn around.
in one instance my mk 4 was on a road trying to back into an open area that hand some wood debris. not much but that's what the area said...wood debris....and I could not get the mk 4 to back up...no matter what I tried.
another mk 4 in another instance would not back up in an open area. no reason in should not have backed up.
similar stuff going on with the tigers on roads with hedges.
will keep watching for this pathing issue in up coming games...... :-(

Steiner,

Please try backing up by giving the "move" order (blue) only at 2 meter away, or as short to the tank as possible. This usually gives good results for me.

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 12

RE: churchill tank dance - 11/5/2015 6:52:45 AM

STIENER

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ok...been playing a lot of GWTC with two diff opponents. all three of us are appalled at the tank dance. seriously, this is just not acceptable guys.
were seeing all the tanks, german and allied, doing stupid ****. they turn around in open fields when you want them to move forward. the spin when they come up to the hedge edges. they turn around when asked to move backwards 20 m. its just nuts. and theres no damn ryme or reason. they act just fine 50% of the time but you never know when there going to do something stupid under the guns of the enemy.
this isn't tank pathing worthy of this game after ALL this TIME.

seriously...look at this.

(in reply to Housies)

Post #: 13

RE: churchill tank dance - 11/5/2015 10:05:12 PM

CGGrognard

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As Housies says, give. The Move command at a short distance a try. The move command works fairly well for me though occasionally I do get the dancing tank. And that usually happens around hedge rows or narrow roads.

_____________________________

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 14

RE: churchill tank dance - 11/5/2015 11:04:12 PM

STIENER

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this not being my 1st rodeo, have tried all this stuff before. sometimes the SHORT move order works sometimes is does not. the point is that tank pathing should NOT be an issue with CC after all this time.
IMO it could possible be WORSE than it ever was and this is supposed to be a state of the art game.

nothing like being in the thick of a big tank battle with multiple tanks and you have to micro manage each tank or they turn there backs on the enemy guns.....

(in reply to CGGrognard)

Post #: 15

RE: churchill tank dance - 11/6/2015 10:09:23 PM

CGGrognard

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I understand the frustration of micro managing tanks. You issue an order for your tank to back up 10 meters, check on another unit only to discover that the tank is now turning around to travel that 10 meters. To add insult to injury, that said tank is destroyed by an enemy tank that just pulled into view.

_____________________________

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 16

RE: churchill tank dance - 11/25/2015 8:40:04 AM

STIENER

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had a tiger tank tonite move backwards thru some rubble when given a move fast order. it would NOT turn around!! I tried all the usual stuff....sneak,move,move fast...stopping it, trying to get it to turn around and NOT back up. it was painfull.

the tank pathing is a mess. u usually cant get them to back up with out turning around and then this happens.it was stupid. u cant tell me the tank pathing is refined in this game...its the worst ive seen in the CC series.

< Message edited by STIENER -- 11/25/2015 9:43:39 AM >

(in reply to CGGrognard)

Post #: 17

RE: churchill tank dance - 12/9/2015 8:28:14 AM

STIENER

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steve
im playing allied in a GC. the Churchill tank is just terrible. they absolutely turn right around and show the back of the tank when asked to cross a hedge!in one case tonite.... I had 1 churchill that was half thru the hedge shooting. I gave it a move forward order about 100 m and then went to my next Churchill and gave it a 50m move forward to a hedge to cross it and the 1st tank TURNED AROUND! BOOM....DESTROYED FROM ENEMY A/T. the second one had ALSO TURNED AROUND ...BOOM!

seriously this cant possibly be what you want in tank pathing. we SEE THIS TIME AND TIME AGAIN. IM NOT THE ONLY ONE. I KNOW 3 OTHER PLAYERS IM PLAYING RIGHT NOW THAT SEE THE SAME BEHAVIOR. I can not believe other players post here...as above and are ok with the tank behavior???? wow.

all the tanks want to move to the road to move in allot of cases, when given a move fast or move order if its more than 100m. this is just not acceptable. when you give a move order in a straight line...why would I want it to turn 90* and move to a road?????

the tank pathing is just plain BAD and I cant understand why at this point in the series its just SO BAD. it destroys the playability of the game. it really does. my attack was utterly destroyed by BAD tank pathing !!! my moral dropped and the battle stopped. just ******

I cant put into words how mad and disapointed this is making me in this game that I paid really good money for.
you guys should do something about it.

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 18

RE: churchill tank dance - 12/11/2015 7:03:07 AM

STIENER

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wow...it took me literally 10 minutes to get a Churchill tank to cross a hedge tonite. I had 2 churchills trying to cross the same hedge. the 1st one got immobilized right away the second one took 10 MINUTES to micro manage it, [ couldn't play any other part of the game doing this ] to get it to go over the hedge. it was truly amazing...and im not saying that in a good way. the tank went back and forth...backed up....did nothing for awhile....moved itself sideways to the hedge...lots of cool stuff...NOT. I was using sneak and move...10m moves to try to get it to cross.
TOTAL BS.

any comments matrix?

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Post #: 19

RE: churchill tank dance - 12/12/2015 6:17:28 AM

SteveMcClaire

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Steiner,

I will look at this when I have time, but I am 99% sure there is nothing special about the Churchill. The only thing that could possibly be different is the data in vehicles.txt.

It would help a lot if you could give me an example to reproduce this -- i.e. play battle X, place Churchill here and order it to move here (with screenshot of tank location and order dot.)

The only thing I can think of that could influence this and that is unique to GtC is the mud. And if you're using a move fast order the tank is going to choose the fastest route. If that means driving to a road instead of straight across a muddy field, it may end up doing this. But this should not be unique to the Churchill, and if you place any vehicle at the same spot and give it the same order, it should do the same.

Waypoints will let you control the exact path if you don't want to leave the AI to take the path that is the shortest in terms of movement time.

Steve

< Message edited by Steve McClaire -- 12/12/2015 7:18:36 AM >

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 20

RE: churchill tank dance - 12/16/2015 8:55:35 AM

STIENER

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play the MEU map, with the allied 8 RS BG. from the deploy VL, move along the very top of the map going right, to the 1st hedge. us 2 churchills and try and go over the hedge. I got 1 churchill tracked right away in the middle of the hedge and it took 10 mins to get the other to go over.

all the tanks...allied or german do weird stuff....ALL THE TIME. I just had a firefly in the orchard in the la Guale orchard map, fire 1 shot and miss a mk 4. the mk 4 popped smoke and disappeared from LOS. the FF then turned side ways for no reason. the mk 4 re appeared and blew him up. on that map the german mk 4's knocked out 3 shermans with 1 shot kills. the shermans all missed there 1st shots and some there second and were destroyed.
seeing this anomaly ALLOT in the all my latest battles. the allied tanks cant hit ****.

at cheux my Sherman turned around and backed over a wall when given the MOVE order of 25 M. WTH?? its painfull. the german tanks are no better.

I don't no...maybe you guys at matrix should sit down and PLAY A GC for an afternoon and see how the game actually plays? I think u will be surprised at how bad the mechanics are. the tank to tank fighting is scary. the allied 17 pdr is useless against the Cats. it never hits and hardly ever kills in a dual. the 6 pdr appears to be the gun of choice...but not always... but only in the a/t gun not in the Churchill tank. same gun but the performance is different. tank = useless.

real disappointed in this game.
if you play line vs line with 2 players of equal ability. the germans will stop the allied advance at cheux and hill 100 EVERY TIME. its the bottle neck. the german tiger Bg and the II/12/12SS mk 4 bg are enough to stop the allies cold. not very historical id say..........

< Message edited by STIENER -- 12/16/2015 10:02:29 AM >

(in reply to SteveMcClaire)

Post #: 21

RE: churchill tank dance - 12/19/2015 1:26:11 AM

SteveMcClaire

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MEU? Do you mean St. Mauvieu? I played on it using the first battle in the battle list, with a variety of Churchills. Moving along the top of the map gave me the results in the screenshot below -- both using MOVE and MOVE FAST, the tanks took a fairly direct route and crashed over the hedgerows. Some did get stuck but the path taken was consistent and there was no 'dancing' involved.

Is this the correct map / location?

Steve

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Steve McClaire -- 12/19/2015 2:27:23 AM >

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 22

RE: churchill tank dance - 12/19/2015 6:42:27 AM

STIENER

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no...wrong map...Meu....beside cassino. look at the GC strat map.

try putting one Churchill up to the middle of the hedge row as if giving covering fire and then move the other tank across.

but use the Mue map. using a " battle" map instead of the opening GC, Mue map, maybe theres no mud and its sunny? instead of raining heavily and mud.

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RE: churchill tank dance - 12/19/2015 8:30:08 AM

SteveMcClaire

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Ah - I don't know why I didn't see Meu in the map list the first time. I tried running two churchills across the northern-most field and through the first hedgerow, with expected results. There was a little bit of zig-zagging across the field, which is caused by the terrain coding -- it is a mix of crops, grass field, light muddy field, and muddy high grass. The vehicles are turning slightly to avoid the higher movement cost terrain types. Both of them crossed the field and the hedgerow beyond, however.

Are you moving the vehicles in column, or side by side? If they're close together and side by side, they may be obstructing each other, which will cause them to detour and try and get back on path.

Steve

Attachment (1)

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RE: churchill tank dance - 12/20/2015 7:51:20 PM

SchnelleMeyer

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Comparing vehicle data from different CC-games the two factors that have been notably changed from WAR/TLD/CCMT and older versions to LSA/PITF/GtC are Acceleration and Max speed.

Playing around with the values I found that with a higher acceleration and speed than stock-GtC will give more straight line approach of tanks - and they are less problematic when bocage hedgerows are encountered.

I had good results going from standard: Acc/Speed: 5/75 to Acc/Speed: 35/200.

(in reply to SteveMcClaire)

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RE: churchill tank dance - 12/21/2015 6:33:31 AM

STIENER

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interesting schnellemeyer.... steve?

in the above scenario / map steve, my tanks were side by side. the 1st tank as I said got tracked on the hedge....in the middle of the said hedge. often one will use 1 tank as covering fire while the other goes over the hedge...thus they would be side by side per say. if the hedge is only a few 100 m wide...as above...then they will be close.

as I said...perhaps spend the afternoon playing the multiplayer GC and see how the game plays for you.

(in reply to SchnelleMeyer)

Post #: 26

RE: churchill tank dance - 12/21/2015 5:44:31 PM

SteveMcClaire

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If you have two vehicles, moving together and close side by side, they will probably bump into each other and start doing avoidance as soon as they encounter any sort of major terrain feature, as both vehicles may try to use the same path through/over it. One will eventually go through first and the second will follow, but this can be avoided by keeping the vehicles separated by 50m or so, or by moving them one at a time. Giving one vehicle a movement order a few seconds before the other. I assume this is what you're seeing.

This is because of the way CC handles pathing and vehicle movement, and this hasn't changed in any version, as far as I know. The high level path finder will find the route a vehicle intends to take, but the driver AI avoids obstacles that come up along the way (like other vehicles.) The driver AI is very simple -- it will stop if the obstacle it encounters is a moving vehicle, and then it will try to detour around the obstacle to the left or right.

Faster speed and acceleration shouldn't effect this directly, but it can reduce the amount of times vehicles moving over slow terrain will bump into each other, as the lead vehicle will get clear more quickly.

Steve

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 27

RE: churchill tank dance - 1/19/2016 1:07:17 AM

STIENER

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STEVE
go to u tube and watch Agrippa maxentius's vid's of his battles.
I believe Agrippa is one of the matrix sanctioned people here??
watch the battle called multiplayer battle - steel graveyard and Bocages of death....and any others you might like.

THERE CHALK FULL OF THE ISSUES ME AND OTHERS HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING ABOUT!!! its all there on Agrippa's vids. why he doesn't really go...OMG whats going on with these tanks is beyond me!! ????

theres also the issue of the 17 pdr VS panthers in these vid's. the 17 pdr if it survives the 1st shot of a cat...which is damn rare...consistantly bounces off the cat armour!!!! seriously??? that's the whole reason the allies HAVE the 17 pdr! at this stage in the war the 17 pdr had the ability to penetrate the cats armour at range.
the allied tanks are highly inaccurate compared to the german cats.

watch the vids and see what were talking about.

(in reply to SteveMcClaire)

Post #: 28

RE: churchill tank dance - 1/28/2016 5:49:01 PM

SteveMcClaire

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Hi Stiener,

Just watched the whole video, and I did not see anything that we haven't discussed already.

Early on he has a Sherman and an M-10 run into each other while he's trying to set up a shot on the first Tiger. This causes some pivoting.

Later he is trying to flank an M-10 to the west and uses Move Fast to tell it to move away from the approaching Tiger. Move Fast will not use reverse unless it is a very short distance, so the M-10 ends up turning around and facing the wrong way when the Tiger catches up. Sneak would have been the correct movement order to use here.

There's a point where the Sherman doesn't go down the road past a wreck and instead turns around and starts moving back the way it came -- this is because the wreck is blocking the road and there isn't room for the tank to get through.

There were several times where using Defend and giving a tank a facing arc could have helped a lot -- this will keep the tank's gun pointing in the direction of the arc, which is important for getting the first shot when you can see an enemy tank coming from that direction, but your tank team cannot.

Can you point out specific times in the video where you see something you wanted me to comment on?

Steve

(in reply to STIENER)

Post #: 29

RE: churchill tank dance - 1/29/2016 12:10:49 AM

STIENER

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well u only watched the 1 video. the other vid has a bunch of panthers milling around.
well u have answers for some of the stuff I have to say...but we can point out that the allied tanks are always going back to the roads when given broad move orders. if we want them to take the long way on the roads, we would direct them there.its a pain in the butt to micro manage every tank.

the m10 and firefly duel with the panther is something we see a lot. the cat is trapped on the road between 2 buildings and has an m10 shooting at the front armour and a firefly shooting at it from the back. the m10 hits the cat FOUR times and the fire fly who has a green circle on the back of the cat for 4 secs? doesnt even get a shot off as the cat rotates it turret to its back and takes 1 shot after no aiming time and destroys the FF. unbelievable but ive seen this behavior in many tank duels. the germans get more 1 shot kills by far. the allies usually miss 1 to 2 shots before they hit.

but whats with the m10 vs the panther??? 4 hits plus 1 more to get the kill??? ive also seen this many many times. WHY???

(in reply to SteveMcClaire)

Post #: 30