ORIGINAL: Arjuna
phoenix,
Finally got a moment to look into this issue. Interesting. I can confirm that it is not a formation lockup. From here on it gets complicated though.
You ordered the 2Bn to use the quickest route to the bridge and you authorised it to bypass if necessary. The problem is that the vanguard, B Coy, gets to a point or starts at a point where the route will cause him to head towards a visible enemy threat in the woods NNW of its position. wAt this point the respective unit radius are very close to each other. They are within the 250m standOff range. This is new code I introduced into BFTB to prevent units from crashing into each other. So it halts. Unfortunately I had failed to include a line of code that I use in similar reaction code to force a reassessment by the unit. In other words, if you are stopped then try and do something else.
So I added this line of code. Sure enough B Coy decides to reassess. But he fails to bypass on his own initiative and calls some code to bring his boss's reassessment forward. All good. However, two subsequent issues arose. First one was that you had issued a Quickest route task parameter and this was overriding the bypass option. I don't believe that it should do so. So I have changed that now for human players.
The second issue is more profound and I am going to have to spend more time assessing how best to address it. Basically it's due to the way we manage the end time of human player tasks. This code goes back to the dark ages as far as the code base for this engine is concerned and it has a history of sorts. Originally we set the end time of a task to be whatever the start was plus the likely duration. However, we found that if this was unduly short then we ended up with a lot of processing to continually slip the end. So we decided to instead set the end of player tasks to be that of the scenario. After all there can never be more than one player task per unit. This situation will have to change when we introduce sequential tasking for the player anyway. I probably need to bite the bullet now and do so because it is having a profound effect on the bypass code for player tasks.
The reason this happens is that we use a test to see if the force is making progress and if it's not then we test to see if we should bypass. Alas the code to determine if we are making progress relies on a comparison between the "remainingDuration" and the "estimatedCompletedDuration". If the remainingDuration is greater then we're ahead of schedule. If less then we're behind. With player tasks using the scenario end they invariable end up ahead of schedule and hence don't bother to tyest for the bypass.
This will have to change. But I need to think about this some more. I hope to do so and work up a fix next week.
Just curious as to how this might be panning out...............
Thanks!
Rob.[:)]
But if it means that in the end they'll stop all that senseless halting (or the sense of it will be explained) then I'll be happy. I had an interesting experience playing through the huge 15 day Spearhead v Reich scenario yesterday - I wonder if it's connected to this issue. This is what happened. I pulled back everything I had to a defensive line running roughly from the Erezee exit, through Grandmenil, Manhay, Vaux-Chavanne and then up the road to Chene-al-Pierre. I concentrated all reinforecments up to Day 7 ish on holoding this line and gathered all the arty into a big block I could control. The AI attacked in 2 places. Up the big red road from Baraque Fraiture to Manhay, and from Oster to Grandmenil. By day 5 there were massive concentrations of axis forces in Oster (looking to attack Grandmenil) and stuck on the road leading up to Manhay. I bombarded these concentrations mercilessly. What happened? The AI seemed to get stuck. By day 7 the attacks all stopped. I was sittting there in my defensive line waiting for reinforcements so I could come round the roads on the eastern flank and re-take Baraque Fraiture. but I wasn't getting attacked at all!!! I surrendered and had a look. The AI was very far from finished. There wwere still massive concentrations of Axis forces on the map, they had retreated and gathered near Lamormenil and Malampre. And when I continued play this didn't change much. 8 days of the scenario left and the AI just seemed to have siezed up. There were a few attacks, but mostly it just seemed shattered, stuck in disorganised ocncentrations, unable to come up with further attacking plans, but with ample material to do so. I started attacking and the shot below is from Day 11, showing theat the AI has now retreated into the area I've ringed. There have been no attacks since day 7, I think. So I had the feeling the AI might be 'halting, halting, halting' if only I could see his stats properly?