missing info Ground units getting stuck at bridges

[flasper]

While playing the custom mission Pretense Caucasus, I've noticed that many of the ground convoys are getting stuck at the bridges. The convoy will drive up to the bridge, then come to a complete stop and stay there until they are destroyed or the mission is restarted. It is happening at multiple bridges with multiple different convoys. I have reached out to the creator of the mission as well as many other users of this mission and many are experiencing the same issue. This mission does use Mission Scripting Tools to spawn the units and give them waypoints to follow.

[wowbagger]

Even more annoying that the tourists can seem to manage it.

Can't understand why this has been unaddressed for so long. It is game-breaking for so many missions and campaigns.  There cannot possibly be a Dynamic Campaign of any kind without this very basic and frustrating aspect of the battlefield fixed. Can we not get this bumped up the list of priorities?

Edited September 6, 2023 by wowbagger

[NineLine]

On 8/25/2023 at 8:13 AM, flasper said:

While playing the custom mission Pretense Caucasus, I've noticed that many of the ground convoys are getting stuck at the bridges. The convoy will drive up to the bridge, then come to a complete stop and stay there until they are destroyed or the mission is restarted. It is happening at multiple bridges with multiple different convoys. I have reached out to the creator of the mission as well as many other users of this mission and many are experiencing the same issue. This mission does use Mission Scripting Tools to spawn the units and give them waypoints to follow.

Can you supply a track or the location of this mission at least so I can take a look? Thanks. 

On 9/5/2023 at 6:23 AM, wowbagger said:

Even more annoying that the tourists can seem to manage it.

Can't understand why this has been unaddressed for so long. It is game-breaking for so many missions and campaigns.  There cannot possibly be a Dynamic Campaign of any kind without this very basic and frustrating aspect of the battlefield fixed. Can we not get this bumped up the list of priorities?

 

Please supply a track. Thanks.

[NineLine]

Looking at the mission in the OP, it seems to be based on script generated pathing, I cannot report in this state. If someone wants to make a simple example of this I might be able to pass it along though again outside scripting isn't really something we can fix.

As for comments about our Dynamic Campaign, we will be taking care of issues like this as they arise. Thanks. 

[Grimes]

2 hours ago, NineLine said:

Looking at the mission in the OP, it seems to be based on script generated pathing, I cannot report in this state. If someone wants to make a simple example of this I might be able to pass it along though again outside scripting isn't really something we can fix.

I take it you meant to say you can't report it because the mission is generating random groups in random locations going to random destinations which is useless for reliable testing and not that you can't report it simply because the route was assigned via scripting right? Because AI should have the same behavior if given a path from point A to point B regardless if it was assigned in the editor, Combined Arms, or via scripting. 

On 9/5/2023 at 7:23 AM, wowbagger said:

Even more annoying that the tourists can seem to manage it.

Civilian traffic isn't AI, they can only follow the line that defines a road and are not effected by threats, need to slow down to turn, or can navigate on their own. The only "logic" civilian traffic possess is to stop if the bridge was destroyed. 

That said bridges have long been an issue of some sort going back to LOMAC. Some of the time it is straight forward that you can create a new mission, place a group with a route, and observe them getting stuck on a specific bridge reliably. Most of the time however it is any number of other factors that seem to cause issues. Factors like group composition, speed they were going, if any threats were near, SP/MP, and total number of units in the mission can play a role. There is one bridge on PG where a group would more than likely get stuck at on Grayflag, but the problem only ever occurred in MP and no matter what I tried they never got stuck in single player. 

If you see AI stuck on a bridge then we need the location of that bridge at minimum. Maybe we can get AI to get stuck there reliably and potentially find a bug with their behavior. 

[mimamema]

Our experience with Pretense is more about every bridge then, but no,  it´s an AI thing that only happens, as far as I could see when the mission loads the persistence file and spawns and gives commands to all of the convoys that were on their way at the saving point. That is where we have found that the convoys get stuck on the bridges, usually, the first unit crosses it and then the 3 rest ( there are usually 4 in each convoy) stop before the bridge and that is it.

The problem is that we cannot provide a track as we give the saved state it will start just after the issue has happened and the convoy will spawn just after the bridge, and without the saved state the mission will be empty of convoys, so the only way to see it happening is by playing the mission for a while, letting it create the persistence file, stopping it and then loading the mission again where you left it before and waiting for it to happen. As far as I have tested, the issue happens quite more often in MP than in SP as it only happened to me twice in the 4 times I tried to save a track to upload here. But I remember perfectly how I had to use Combined arms in our MP server to give a path again to all the convoys as all of them were getting stuck in the bridges every time we restarted the server. So it´s a bug that is not easy to reproduce in a fast way. 

If a video could help to see what is happening I could try to record it and post it here. But I know a track is preferred to see what is actually going on in the background.

[Grimes]

5 hours ago, mimamema said:

Our experience with Pretense is more about every bridge then, but no,  it´s an AI thing that only happens, as far as I could see when the mission loads the persistence file and spawns and gives commands to all of the convoys that were on their way at the saving point. That is where we have found that the convoys get stuck on the bridges, usually, the first unit crosses it and then the 3 rest ( there are usually 4 in each convoy) stop before the bridge and that is it.

Just need the location of the bridge, group composition, and destination. If you know how fast they are going is also helpful because I reported a bug earlier today where the speed of the group changed where they got stuck on a bridge.  I can spawn in the same units easily enough via scripting and give them the appropriate task. 

[NineLine]

7 hours ago, Grimes said:

I take it you meant to say you can't report it because the mission is generating random groups in random locations going to random destinations which is useless for reliable testing and not that you can't report it simply because the route was assigned via scripting right? Because AI should have the same behavior if given a path from point A to point B regardless if it was assigned in the editor, Combined Arms, or via scripting. 

Civilian traffic isn't AI, they can only follow the line that defines a road and are not effected by threats, need to slow down to turn, or can navigate on their own. The only "logic" civilian traffic possess is to stop if the bridge was destroyed. 

That said bridges have long been an issue of some sort going back to LOMAC. Some of the time it is straight forward that you can create a new mission, place a group with a route, and observe them getting stuck on a specific bridge reliably. Most of the time however it is any number of other factors that seem to cause issues. Factors like group composition, speed they were going, if any threats were near, SP/MP, and total number of units in the mission can play a role. There is one bridge on PG where a group would more than likely get stuck at on Grayflag, but the problem only ever occurred in MP and no matter what I tried they never got stuck in single player. 

If you see AI stuck on a bridge then we need the location of that bridge at minimum. Maybe we can get AI to get stuck there reliably and potentially find a bug with their behavior. 

No I meant what I said, we cannot dive into everyone's custom scripts. I am sure you have time for it but my focus is on thing with in DCS, meaning paths within the ME or CA not scripting. It's why it was moved to scripting from AI. 

Give me the issue with paths from the ME or Combined Arms and I will be happy to report. Thanks 

[Grimes]

17 minutes ago, NineLine said:

No I meant what I said, we cannot dive into everyone's custom scripts. I am sure you have time for it but my focus is on thing with in DCS, meaning paths within the ME or CA not scripting. It's why it was moved to scripting from AI. 

Give me the issue with paths from the ME or Combined Arms and I will be happy to report. Thanks 

You do realize that the path assigned via scripting is in the same format as the editor right? Yes it is unreasonable to be given a large mission and having to figure out where and how their code works. However if one provides the group and route table which get passed into 2 scripting functions it is simple enough to report. 

[wowbagger]

On 9/21/2023 at 9:42 PM, NineLine said:

Please supply a track. Thanks.

Here's a track which shows a small convoy moving from A-to-B with a bridge in between. The convoy just stops at the bridge unable to find its way across.

The mission is a multiplayer scripted mission, however the convoy is not scripted. I wanted to recreate the environments in which the AI needs to be able to cross a bridge.

There are two tracks: one with waypoints set as onroad, and the same with waypoints set as offroad. The result is the same.

 

 

EDIT: onroad track re-uploaded - original wasn't working at all ... for whatever reason.

 

server-20230922-102706(offroad).trk

onroad.trk

Edited September 22, 2023 by wowbagger

[NineLine]

46 minutes ago, Grimes said:

You do realize that the path assigned via scripting is in the same format as the editor right? Yes it is unreasonable to be given a large mission and having to figure out where and how their code works. However if one provides the group and route table which get passed into 2 scripting functions it is simple enough to report. 

Feel free to report it if you find something wrong.

[wowbagger]

This isn't a scripting issue.

[NineLine]

11 hours ago, wowbagger said:

Here's a track which shows a small convoy moving from A-to-B with a bridge in between. The convoy just stops at the bridge unable to find its way across.

The mission is a multiplayer scripted mission, however the convoy is not scripted. I wanted to recreate the environments in which the AI needs to be able to cross a bridge.

There are two tracks: one with waypoints set as onroad, and the same with waypoints set as offroad. The result is the same.

 

 

EDIT: onroad track re-uploaded - original wasn't working at all ... for whatever reason.

 

server-20230922-102706(offroad).trk 2.45 MB · 1 download

onroad.trk 2.45 MB · 0 downloads

 

Doesnt seem like an AI issue, but perhaps something is wrong with the roads on the map even before the bridge the drive way off the road, I will ask our Terrain guys, thanks. 

1 hour ago, wowbagger said:

This isn't a scripting issue.

Your issue might not be, but the OP was a scripted mission. Your track gives me something to show the devs. Thanks. 

[NineLine]

I just did two quick tests on that bridge with a clean mission and a single vehicle and a group of vehicles and they ran along the road fine and crossed the bridge fine as well. 

 

[wowbagger]

10 hours ago, NineLine said:

I just did two quick tests..

 

If they have waypoints on both sides of the bridge there is (almost) no problem. But if they are north of the bridge and you tell them to go to a point south of the bridge, they get stuck.

Here are two tracks which have nothing else in the mission besides the three-vehicle convoy.

Path 1 - they get stuck:

 

Path 2: they drive across the bridge (but the lead vehicle falls through half-way across).

 

path1.trk path2.trk

Edited September 23, 2023 by wowbagger

[Floyd1212]

Now I think we are getting somewhere.

I think the distinction that @wowbagger pointed out in his screenshot is the failure happens when a Task is assigned to Go To Waypoint, which is the way you would tell a group to go somewhere through scripting.  With a heavily scripted mission, you would spawn a group, find a point on the map, then task the group to go to that point.

Here is my test, performed at a different location with different units, on a different map, without scripting, but using the Perform Task method of routing the vehicles.

The Bradley group coming from the north moves to WP1 on their own, then when they reach WP1 they are tasked with going to WP2.  At this point they depart the road and cut the corner toward the bridge, then the first unit stops before crossing the bridge.

The truck group coming from the south follows the road properly, and if the bridge weren't blocked, would arrive at their destination.  (You will note, however that the trucks in the truck group initially spawn facing their WP1 instead of aligned with the road, as the heading would indicate when viewing the group details.)

@NineLine Track and mission files attached.

Bridge Test.trk Bridge Test.miz

[NineLine]

Thanks we have already reported some issues we have found and have asked the devs about some others, feel free to keep the examples coming, on other maps even if you see them.

[Grimes]

Go to Waypoint is a bit different than following a route. The AI will try to directly drive to that point and ignore any waypoints you have setup. If you ditched the go to waypoint task and told AI to use off road to their destination you should see the exact same behavior as with the go to waypoint. Since they need to cross a river the AI will find the nearest point to cross that is valid for the group contents. The Bradley could "wade" through the river, but the bridge is the closest so it chooses that instead. I moved them just a tiny bit north and you can see the change that had.

https://i.imgur.com/EEvdb4x.mp4

If the river is more substantial then it will need to be crossed via bridge unless the unit is amphibious. This is closer to what you are seeing in your mission where the AI choose to use a bridge, but less than ideal behavior occurs. In your case they get stuck. In this case it looks bad. Either way it appears the AI drive to the start of the bridge without caring how to actually drive across it. I would need to double check to see if there are any existing reports on this. 

https://i.imgur.com/YQQYjF7.mp4

 

On 9/23/2023 at 11:42 AM, Floyd1212 said:

The truck group coming from the south follows the road properly, and if the bridge weren't blocked, would arrive at their destination.  (You will note, however that the trucks in the truck group initially spawn facing their WP1 instead of aligned with the road, as the heading would indicate when viewing the group details.)

Thats normal, the group always faces their next waypoint. Suppose its a weird quirk, but it is relatively minor. 

 

 

edit; need better embed support on the forum. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Grimes

[Floyd1212]

1 hour ago, Grimes said:

Go to Waypoint is a bit different than following a route.

Ah, good to know.  I'm definitely in over my head here, but this is my understanding of the problem:

The mission that was originally mentioned in this post uses a route assignment to get convoys from one zone to another on the map.  The convoy starts on the side of the road, and 3 points are determined; a point on a road closest to the starting point, a point on a road closest to the final destination within the destination zone, and the final destination point off the side of the road in the destination zone.

The convoy is then assigned a mission with a route using the three points.

WP1 is type = AI.Task.WaypointType.TURNING_POINT with action = AI.Task.VehicleFormation.ON_ROAD

WP2 is type= AI.Task.WaypointType.TURNING_POINT with action = AI.Task.VehicleFormation.ON_ROAD

WP3 is type= AI.Task.WaypointType.TURNING_POINT with action = AI.Task.VehicleFormation.OFF_ROAD

The convoys seem to stay on the road for the main leg of the journey between WP1 and WP2, but will sometimes come to a stop before or on a bridge.

We were attempting to demonstrate the problem without using scripting, but I don't see any way around it.

[Floyd1212]

Actually, I take that back.  They aren't following the road properly at all.  They are all over the place, loosely following the road, but cutting corners and going off road quite a lot.

So maybe the real question is how to you task a group to go from Point A to Point B while staying on the road using scripting?

[Pikey]

This isn't down to the 0 to 1 waypoint not following the On Road is it?

[Blackfyre]

Almost all bridges on Persian Gulf are broken, especially when using CA.

Track includes some bridges off the top of my head.

 

BridgesOnPG.trk

[mimamema]

Regarding this topic, some of us notice that the issue is even worse now. So I started to test it again and realized that the problem happens when the convoy is spawned after the mission has started. 

Here is a track and a mission with a convoy that spawns with the mission start, and another that spawns 10 seconds after the mission starts. Even the late activation one has waypoints in front and after the bridge but fails to go over it. At some point, the LA convoy gets stuck anywhere in its path to the final waypoint (even tries to go over the rail bridge many times in my tests). 

I think this shows better what is the issue, and is not actually the "bridges" itself, it´s more that the AI ground units are not able to stick to the "on road" command when they are late activated or spawned through scripts so they start to mess up with the statics around like bridges, trees and building till they got stuck, notice that they try to do shortcuts all the time. So maybe this should be moved back to Ground AI bugs? Hope this can help @BIGNEWY.

 

Edit:

 

After some more testing, it´s the command/perform task "go to waypoint" the problem here. If you just leave the waypoints without this command, the convoy goes straight away on the road. But when using the command is when the convoy just gets crazy and kind of forgets about the "On Road" condition. But actually, if you add it to the "command" conditions --> land.SurfaceType = 4 ( 4 is on road) it actually works as it should.

bridge bug 6.trk test ground units-bridges.miz

Edited October 27, 2023 by mimamema

[MarvK]

Has anybody noticed if this has been addressed in the latest updates?

 

[Buzz313th]

19 hours ago, MarvK said:

Has anybody noticed if this has been addressed in the latest updates?

 

It has not.