reported earlier How to get units to move across desert without getting stuck / stopping?

[Hawkeye_UK]

Group pathfinding on Combined Arms has been broken for some time now, with single units always reaching the destination far quicker than the same units if in groups of 3 or more.  Pay close attention to the first small scale test around Kobuleti where by the singe tanks are able to reach the target airfield alot faster.

 

Units often freeze or look like they are stuck, this is especially true if the area to traverse has trees, with units that can go around in circles for hours and just stop completey never reaching their assigned staging area.  This is prevalent in the first example however looking at track version 2 review the antics of both Ground unit 13 and 14 south of Gori (MM14 and MM24).  Note that even this example is small scale with the distances involved being circa 20 miles.

 

Also to note the track also contains an example of units stopping on bridges (at Tuapse) ground unit 17.  This is a major problem and has a separate bug report where by units also get stuck inside bridges.

 

The all combines to a very poor experience and if trying to stage a ground war its fair to say that by the time a convoy reaches an attack area your forces can be spread out over 50 miles and completly combat inneffective.  Whilst many would say what does it matter its on the ground, i hold ED to their mission statement of wanting to "offer the most authentic and realistic simulation of military aircraft, tanks and ground vehicles".

 

At present we can't even get the convoy to a staging area reliably.  That's before we even move onto the simulation.  

 

Ok so i have just gone to post the Track files, one is 9MB the other is 20MB and it will not allow me - @BIGNEWY  

How can we report issues with such small file tracks for ME, just not possible - can we send via ED discord, if not will ahve to send direct.

 

 

 

Edit - Ive been in VR and had a tab open appreciate there are other tabs reporting on pathfinding - these may want merging, apologies

Edited April 19, 2021 by Hawkeye_UK

[NineLine]

I know what you mean, I can recreate, but next time you can always use any sort of file sharing site and post the link here.

 

Thanks.

[NineLine]

Let me know if these very simple examples are what you are describing.

 

 

M1 Race.trk M1 Race2.trk

[NineLine]

@Hawkeye_UK

[Hawkeye_UK]

Sorry Nineline - i totally missed the reply so apologies.  I will review and come back to you after review tomorrow (late here now).  Will look into setting up some type of file sharing also.

 

Greatly appreciated.

[NineLine]

Excellent, thanks!

[Dangerzone]

Hi,

 

I'm wanting to have some units move across the desert. I've created a group, and have set waypoints but when they start moving they get to waypoint 1 and then stop. I've tried cone, diamond and V formation. The cone and diamond only had a handful of vehicles start to move, and then stop. Same with diamond. V formation is the one I've had the most success with at the moment as I managed to get it to waypoint 1 (which is only about a mile away), and then it gets stuck too.  (I want to avoid them being in a straight line, but have them spread out a bit - but I'm wondering if I'm asking too much).

 

Are there issues at the moment with AI vehicles moving along the ground?  (I'm running Stable Release). 

 

Thanks

[Hawkeye_UK]

Pathfinding is severely broke and has been for some time and alas its fair to say ED have done nothing about it.  

 

Its been nearly a year now of frustration and quite frankly how they can continue to sell Combined Arms at full price without a caveat is beyond me.  It is completely unusable.

 

There are numerous bug reports on this - all from experienced people within the multiplayer population and also some part of the closed beta testing team.

 

Sounds harsh but when you can't even get a group of units to move along a chosen path, be it on road or off, its a poor state of affairs.  What you will find is also that the formation of trail is the worst one it seems to confuse them completely, often if units are stuck changing formation will get them moving again or reducing the speed to 0 then back to 20mph.

 

There is also an issue if the speed is set beyond the vehicle capable speeds, the unit will stop as a set period of time which is way before the destination.

 

Try getting a group of units to follow a road, especially on caucasus is impossible.  All maps suffer however with units suddenly off roading, if this is near a town or trees then they get totally lost and non usable, just clogging up CPU and server time.  Believe it or not its that bad a poor or accidental waypoint set by a tac commander in Multiplayer can bring the whole server to its knees.  Rediculous is being polite.

 

This is before we even mention bridges that units get stuck on and actually in with units half inside the concrete (again all reported even with pictures).

 

ED have zero interest in Combined Arms or resolving this major issue, if they had they would have done something by now.  To note the problem got 3 x worse when the patch notes contained "units now able to move off road" - bizarre as they always were capable of this.

 

Frankly its got to the stage where i dont think issues are being passed on to the russian devs with many issues on these forums not even receiving an acknowlegement.  

 

@BIGNEWY @NineLine How many more complaints / bug reports do we have to have on pathfinding for something to happen?  What do we have to do to get some support or actual information on the status of this other than its being looked at, we are way beyond that now a year later.  Do we need to start writing to Kate / Matt / Nick for this to get some escalation? 

 

Not good enough, not by a long way.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Hawkeye_UK

[Dangerzone]

Thanks Hawkeye. I'll have to look at redesigning my missions and storylines to take into account static ground units only I guess - it doesn't sound like moving units will be reliable, nor reliable for some time. Not the answer I was looking for -but better to know now than to waste even more time. 

 

It seems like everytime I put in significant hours into a mission I find something that ends up breaking it. Trains that won't show on multiplayer. Aircraft that will only circle around a base when they're low on fuel and refuse to land. And now this. Just to be told in each instance later that - known problem for a significant time without any resolution in the future. It makes me appreciate the effort even more that the campaign designers have gone to - to realise how much time they must spend to not only design the missions, but then redesign them until they find something that does work - definitely worth the money they charge.

 

Is there a list by any chance of all the known issues for mission builders in one spot I can review? It would be real handy to be able to read through the things that wont work so I waste less time on things that are unachievable? 

[sirrah]

1 hour ago, Dangerzone said:

Is there a list by any chance of all the known issues for mission builders in one spot I can review? It would be real handy to be able to read through the things that wont work so I waste less time on things that are unachievable? 

 

Unfortunately there's no such thing. This would also be very handy for EA modules, but I guess it's next to impossible to properly manage such lists, due to all constant changes. Sometimes things that worked before get broken after an update and (obviously) vice versa.

 

 

When something doesn't work like you expect it to, don't doubt yourself too much and just check/ask here before you start troubleshooting 

[BIGNEWY]

@Hawkeye_UK Appreciate you are frustrated but please dont hijack a users bug report. 

 

With any report we need a track replay example, we report issues to the team and they do their best to fix them. AI is constantly being worked on by the team, but we need example showing a problem. 

 

Thanks

[pepin1234]

try the follow: make 6 groups with a single unit, instead make a group with 6 units. if you want to simulated a moving group just make some groups with only one unit inside. first make a groups with the single unit and make the whole path and triggers, after that copy paste to the rest of the groups making so the same path for every group and simulate a formation. Doing so you can simulate better tactics and ambushes modifying the wpt.

Edited July 30, 2021 by pepin1234

[Hawkeye_UK]

7 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

@Hawkeye_UK Appreciate you are frustrated but please dont hijack a users bug report. 

 

With any report we need a track replay example, we report issues to the team and they do their best to fix them. AI is constantly being worked on by the team, but we need example showing a problem. 

 

Thanks

 

Its not a hijack its all part of the same problem.  There are numerous bug reports with tracks on these very issue's and zero progress or communication.  Nothing against yourself @BIGNEWY but honestly a year later yes frustration is mounting within sections of the community with this issue especially as no apparent escalation or communication back. 

[BIGNEWY]

Again appreciate you are frustrated, you know for a fact we spend a lot of time reproducing and reporting issues, we let you know when they are reported, we often give progress updates when asked, if something is fixed we put it in the change log so saying there is zero progress and no communication is wrong. 

 

I dont want to turn this thread into a back and forth session, what I need in this bug report thread is a track replay showing the OP's issue, thats it.

 

thanks

[StevanJ]

2 minutes ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

 

Its not a hijack its all part of the same problem.  There are numerous bug reports with tracks on these very issue's and zero progress or communication.  Nothing against yourself @BIGNEWY but honestly a year later yes frustration is mounting within sections of the community with this issue especially as no apparent escalation or communication back. 

100% support this.
This didnt seem like a HiJack to me, @Hawkeye_UK is well in his rights to say what he has.
He's a customer, a fan, a supporter of the game like we all are, and despite coming here everyday to talk about the game he loves and spends his time and money on, alot of us feel like we are pushed aside to the back of the room, when in most cases, all we really need is a 'Look its been reported, it might be a few months away though from the sounds of things'.

In most cases, stuff gets reported, all we get is a 'reported' sticker on the thread.

Multiple tracks have been put forward in different topics and yet like Hawkeye, alot of the threads end up going ignored months (sometimes years) before they are reported again with another message that says 'ill remind them'.

We get a roadmap, why not a 'Bug' map?

We understand that logging a bug requires a track, but its becoming a little frustrating, because it feels like were disconnected from the Devs'..
We report the bug, add a track- Recieve 'Reported', then nothing.. For sometimes years..
It honestly feels like the mods cant do anything other than stamp 'reported' on threads.

Surely, we can at least recieve updates from the Devs, that give us some indication that its been recieved, but the likely hood is it wont get worked on?
While we would still be frustrated, at least we know not to keep bringing it up over and over as we'll know that the Dev's have given us a proper response instead of just a 'yup reported'?

Imagine going to a restaurant, ordering food- complaining that its cold, then waiting while they tell us they'll 'report it'.
How long would you wait until you became frustrated?

[Hawkeye_UK]

Also some additional files here for pathfinding issues

 

https://ufile.io/f/spr4f

 

Had to use file share as another problem is the 5MB upload limit on the forums is way to low nowadays for showing issues in the Mission Editor - something else that needs to be looked at if you want quality bug reporting.

 

Pay close attention to the first small scale test around Kobuleti where by the singe tanks are able to reach the target airfield alot faster.

 

Units often freeze or look like they are stuck, this is especially true if the area to traverse has trees, with units that can go around in circles for hours and just stop completely never reaching their assigned staging area.  This is prevalent in the first example however looking at track version 2 review the antics of both Ground unit 13 and 14 south of Gori (MM14 and MM24).  Note that even this example is small scale with the distances involved being circa 20 miles.  Try moving them 100 miles!

 

Also to note the track also contains an example of units stopping on bridges (at Tuapse) ground unit 17.  This is a major problem and has a separate bug report where by units also get stuck inside bridges. Link;

 

The all combines to a very poor experience and if trying to stage a ground war its fair to say that by the time a convoy reaches an attack area your forces can be spread out over 50 miles and completly combat inneffective.  Whilst many would say what does it matter its on the ground, i hold ED to their mission statement of wanting to "offer the most authentic and realistic simulation of military aircraft, tanks and ground vehicles".

 

At present we can't even get the convoy to a staging area reliably.  That's before we even move onto the simulation.  

 

Note the fileshare link is only valid for 30 days from today. @BIGNEWY

Edited July 30, 2021 by Hawkeye_UK

[BIGNEWY]

thanks for the report, and the track replays. 

 

This is reported and being worked, please in the future do not use bug reports to vent frustrations it just gets in the way of the actual report. 

 

 

[Hawkeye_UK]

Sorry nineline i meant to say this was dealt with as other people have sent in files and bug reports but also ive update this one again with the original track files i reference in this bug report.

 

Utterly game breaking still.

[BIGNEWY]

Thanks Hawkeye, merged and reported already