Artillery gets bugged

[garga3]

Chech campaign first mission. At some point the artillery simply stopped hitting things (0 hits).

Continious bombing on 3 confirmed enemies (hq in forest, 2 leo tanks in village, 2 atgm in open). Bombed for hours. 0 hits. Hexes became muddy grey.

Ai arty had no such problem (as it should be).

Considering that arty is really powerfull and it did work at the start, it seems something went really wrong ..

Also i was able to browse the AI arty orders when i got a CounterBattery report(see all their orders, ammo levels etc). I dont think this should be allowed.

[CapnDarwin]

Do you have a screenshot of the counter-battery report thing?

[Genosse]

I also just finished Czechoslovak mission 1 and I fired an awful lot of DANA rounds for only two kills, so a possible seconding of the OP issue with pact artillery.

Meanwhile also, in scenario 1 I noticed that twice I had entire motor rifle companies wiped out (mostly fallen out) when caught in single turn barrages by West German 155s. I know in a dev diary you had stated a desire to make it less likely to have full unit wipes in one volley or turn, yet I have never seen artillery so effective against one unit in your old games, and here it happened twice in the same scenario.

I was irritated by the disparity, then I saw the OP and wondered if it was a bug. Certainly some of the NATO units may need toning down a bit.

[garga3]

To reproduce the CB thing: open the radio logs (so you can see the CB report that there is an-off map arty around 7km to west).

When you do get the report, pause the game, open the intel window and go to the tab with enemy off map assets.

You should see the enemy arty there and that none of your arty can CB it (i have yet to try to pull my arty to 13 hex from west border to try to be in range).

Anyway you can click on the arty there just like you click on your units and it will open its dashboard.

Note that you need to do that during the resolution, as when your turn comes the CB report vanishes from the intel tab (which is also not ok for me) and you can therefore not reproduce it. I will try the same with normal units as well (from the intel tab).
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For the arty issue itself, the AI arty is absolutely deadly with the FO the AI has. It is much less effective without them. So for the player - do not send your main forces before dealing with the FOs. Use the non core-scouts only (and your arty).

Still what i report is that i knew the exact location of 3 enemy units (direct observation only for small periods of time though), bombed them for hours and nothing, except for completely raising the hexes. And this did not happen from the start (i did had the artillery scoring hits with much lesser volume of fire upto a point where something simply got wrong, also note that unit of the jaguars were in the open fields ..). This was my 3d test and on the previous 2 i didnt have an issue at all (so not always reproducable, but for this one i do not know what triggered the issue).

[CapnDarwin]

The appearance of bias is just that. An appearance. How big is the target unit? What terrain is it in? Is it under observation? Is it moving? How many tubes and of what caliber are shooting at you, and with what munition? All of that and how well-trained and rested the shooter all play into an artillery strike. Also, you can have some good or bad luck with where the rounds land.

[garga3]

I told you 3 units, 2tanks in city cover 67%, 1 tank(hq) in its default forest position cover~30%. 2 leftover at jags in open cover 20%.

The city and forest were bombed so much that the hexes become completely grey. The jags hex only half grey. i guess i can still send an autosave.

There is only 1 type of arty in the first chech mission (6 x 6 152mm m77 dana guns), used ~3h (half of the scenario) with both default x3 and also custom missions. In the city i also used the mortars from one of the mech inf platoons for ~1-2hours.
Only for few minutes the targets were directly observed, as i had to go next to them to spot and they would destroy the spotters immediately. All 3 units were in the hexes bombed all the time. And i was also thinking it might be luck, before i found i couldnt hit a jag in the open . Its good that command didnt give me any tacnukes as i would use them out of pure curiosity if they will do something.

Since same arty in previous 3 hours was effective and used to destroy the other 2 jags in forest, and 5 tanks in city terrain (again with no direct observation) it is quite obvious the problem is that the game simply didnt allow any more hits to happen. (and also i said i played the same mission before and the issue was not there)

I seriously urge you to take a look at it, its not ok. I dont even complain when the ai arty hits on the first barrage (6 guns M109A3G) 6 apcs and the mech inf (12 kills - which is 6 direct hits 100% accuracy), while the mech inf is on the move. I guess nato really didnt need any smart ammunitions if the 89ones are so accurate. But i took that as luck. Thats why the other person complained his units got erased, my 31 size unit got erased within 4 volleys in my case - thats 24 shots for 31 kills (bad luck i know i know . I give you data, you can take a look or not. After all since the hit chance mechanics are hidden i can only refer to common sense, not give you a mathematical proof.

I have a save game, i can replay it again and again and again, the bad luck is there . I replayed it enough to reproduce the CB issue, it is only for the off map arty (i cant see the on map unit dashboards). But the bad luck i can permanently reproduce!

[CapnDarwin]

I will pass the issue along to the team to take a look.

[WildCatNL]

I have a save game, i can replay it again and again and again, the bad luck is there . I replayed it enough to reproduce the CB issue, it is only for the off map arty (i cant see the on map unit dashboards). But the bad luck i can permanently reproduce!

Can you share the save game? Happy to look into the artillery results.

William

[garga3]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w5ZOHv ... sp=sharing

hopefully that will do ( i am more used to sending files via emails, not make them public)

[CapnDarwin]

garga3, you can PM them to William or myself if you want to keep them private.

[WildCatNL]

Thanks for the files. Feel free to remove the dropbox link from year earlier post.

My analysis:
Hex 1421 has two Leo1 tanks, unspotted, dug-in, and spread out in a approx 500m x 500m area (25 soccer / football fields).

The Dana M77 has a load-out of smoke and plain HE, needs to drop an HE shell within roughly 25m of the dug-in Leo1 to damage it (which happened to me, debugging this).
The probability of a volley hitting the unspotted Leo1 is roughly 1% (the sheaf needs to hit the right 50m x50m area containing the Leo from a 500m x 500m box).
So you'd need to fire 100 volleys to kill a Leo1 on average, assuming these are spread out through the hex. You already took two out in 200+ volleys (1294 rounds M77 expended), not all of which were aimed at these Leo1s.

Hex 1215 contains a HQ Leo1 tank, dug-in, not being spotted other than a SIGINT fix of its rough location. Similar story. Well protected, hard to hit without being observed by a spotter.

(I didn't do the math for the 82mm vz.52, but it packs a lot smaller punch than the M77. Only 120 rounds were fired).

William

[garga3]

This is what i took from the data game provides:
2/SPA Onmap
Time Rounds Hex
6:47 30 1215 1T
7:17 30 1215
7:43 30 1215
8:43 30 1215
9:30 30 1215

8:10 30 1421 2T
8:26 30 1421

9:44 30 1413 2SP (20% cover open hex)

1/SPA
8:10 30 1421
8:27 30 1215
8:41 30 1215
8:57 30 1215
9:23 30 1215

3/SPA
07:47 30 1215
08:09 30 1421
08:30 30 1421
08:44 30 1421
08:58 30 1421
09:30 30 1215

off
2/SPA
6:53 30 1215
9:10 30 1413
9:30 30 1421

1/SPA
6:49 30 1215
7:09 30 1215
8:17 30 1215
8:43 30 1215
9:10 30 1413
9:30 30 1421


3/SPA
06:06 30 1421
09:10 30 1413
09:20 30 1421
09:30 30 1421

Thats 16x30 rounds on the 1 tank (480 rounds)
12x30 rounds on the 2 tanks (360 rounds)
3x30 rounds on the 2 jags in open (90 rounds)

For a total of 930 152mm rounds for 0 hits. (Indeed mostly unspotted, but all fire was on the right hexes).

On the other hand when i now did all the 6x6 batteries(180shots) on the same hex(1421) at same time i did score 2 hits from the 1st attempt. When i change nothing i cant score a hit with the saved missions in 20 replays ...

The one in 1215 is invincible to even 180 shell barrages.

So i now do agree its not completely broken, but 930 rounds is still too much for just luck.

Is it possible that if you do not get enough rounds in certain period you cant score a hit at all due to some rounding?

I assume initial chances to hit are higher due to more equipment in same spot and possibly a first strike bonus, more in the gap of 5-20% so smaller volume of fire is still effective in the beginning.

[WildCatNL]

The one in 1215 is invincible to even 180 shell barrages.

It's not invincible. But your forces don't have an accurate fix on its location. And are not able to adjust fire to make the shells fall in the 'box' since they don't observe the shells coming in.

The game models each volley (sheaf) and individual shells (yes, even individual ICM submunitions, but that's not relevant here).
What I'm seeing when I plot the the volleys fired at 1215 is that the majority of volleys is wide, not even approximating the hex center. See illustration.

A5E7C288-CF40-402B-A582-E1AF78234D63__095157__00560.png (15.23 KiB) Viewed 1673 times

[WildCatNL]

Is it possible that if you do not get enough rounds in certain period you cant score a hit at all due to some rounding?

I assume initial chances to hit are higher due to more equipment in same spot and possibly a first strike bonus, more in the gap of 5-20% so smaller volume of fire is still effective in the beginning.

Rounding does not play a role. There is no minimum number of shells before something happens.
We model volleys with individual shells against individual vehicles / squads. For pure HE (this case), the shell needs to fall close enough to (mobility) kill the vehicle. That distance depends on the HE load of the shell, the amount of armor of the vehicle, and factors such as cover in the hex, vehicle being dug-in. Also shells of the first volley is more likely to damage (as the target won't have responded by moving into improved cover).

Here's an illustration of a volley fired at hex 1421, this time landing close to one of the two spotted Leo1's, and placing a shell (almost two shells) close enough to take out the Leo1.

DCB1BA1B-5353-4EB4-A050-E5C728FA15ED__095840__01563.png (21.84 KiB) Viewed 1670 times

[garga3]

First of all thank you for looking at this. The game is great(i really like the new features).

I still think there is an issue, and the reason to do so is that i now fired like 4000+ shells in 1215 (and no i dint hit it).

I suggested the rounding as i didnt know your model. Your model is better that simple chance table.

I also have an idea what could be wrong based on the 2 pictures. It can be misinterpretation though (so its just a suggestion). This is what i see:

As far as i know hexes are 500m height and width. On your picture (both), if i assume that 0,0 is the center of the hex, all the positions of the leos are actually outside of the hexes. On the second they are 400m apart, but on the top, where the hex should be 250wide on the very top or ~300 where they are depicted.

What i see ingame, which might be wrong shows that the random generator forms a circle (when a lot of shells are fired and if what i see is what it inside of the game). Which means that it looks to me that shells land in a circle with an approx radius of 250m from the center of the hex. If it is 250m, than some corners of the hex are not in(the circle will be inside the hex). The second picture kinda makes me sick as it suggests that we are not looking at the center of the hex or the arty can shoot really inaccurately. As i said i think i understand the model, it is very good, but i am not sure what is what in the picture (what to the x/y represent, where are the centre of the hexes etc).

Anyway 2 suggestions: 1. Please check that the position of the units is correctly inside the hex(sorry i simpy cannot do that based on the picture). 2. Please check that the possible landing area of the artillery actually covers the entire hex(inlcuding the position of the actual leo) (easy fix here would simply to increase the dispersion (so the radius) - which will lower the overall accuracy but allow full coverage - the hex should be inside the circle). It just seems to me that units are actually positioned on the edge or closely outside of the edge of the arty coverage, in which case the hit chance is either 0 (if more than 25m outside and if 25m is the killzone), or very close to 0 (the shell should land very close to the outer range of the circle of coverage, which is indeed difficult).

Also please check only 1215. for the city one i did manage to confirm it is possible to hit (though difficult and also i dont understand why the arty on your picture shoots there and not near 0,0).
4000k + rounds practically suggest that the hit chance is very close to 0. (which it shouldn't be).

[CapnDarwin]

Question, how did you shoot 4000 rounds during a game at the target hex?

[garga3]

Not during 1 game, i used the save i sent you and set the 6 batteries to shoot at the same hex.

Since its 15 mins to end they shoot 180 rounds (5mins 30roundsx6).

Then i repeat this 30+ times so its n x 180. I did repeat it a lot and it did take a lot of time as i cant automate it. (So please dont ask me to do it a lot more). This is on top of the 400 rounds already fired in the hex in a span of ~3hours.

But as i see the model, i really think the problem is that the game positions the units too close to the edge of hex(actually the problem is that it puts them at the edge of where arty can hit). In this case the probability of hit decreases a lot (and can also become impossible if its outside). You dont see that with larger units as then some are on the edge (hard to hit), some near the centre(hits are normal), but with 1 size unit it can be really irritating if the game hides it in the corner. Or in other words, if the arty is covering a circle with 250m radius, it seems to me the unit is more than 275m away from the centre of the barrage. (> 275m 0% hit, 275>range>225 very low chance to hit). The test i do shows 0% hit chance, but it can be also the second case and i simply didnt shoot enough.

What i think can solve this - either the game should not position the units so close to hex edge; or the arty should have larger radius of coverage(possibly bombing part of the adjacent hexes), or give player the ability to choose not only the centre of the hex as base arty coordinates or the ability to also shoot at adjacent hexes (like the rockets, but not with all ammo, just that the ammo can also land on the adjacent hexes - this is the same as allowing double radius of arty coverage). This is of course if i guessed right about the rootcause.

[CapnDarwin]

Let me help you out here. Your value is 180, not 4000. The game uses a locked random seed, meaning the same event will occur every time you run a saved game. To run the test, you would have to start a new game each time and then have it shoot. William can elaborate on the placement of both shells and units, but those will also "lock" to the same random locations each time the saved action is repeated. Same as X-com 2 if you have played that game. Also, to clarify from William's comments above, a near miss can cause a fallout of a unit, and it takes a direct hit to possibly kill a subunit based on shell strength/type and target top armor.

[garga3]

Yes Captain.

New game started, battery 1 ordered to fire from min 1 (all ammo in 60 minutes, and it did succeed to put ~1k rounds in 1 hour! nice). Promoted!
On map battery came 1 hour later and managed to put 1k+ more rounds, while battery one was preparing to strike the Leo again. It took it 27 mins to resupply so they both shooted for some time too.

Short strory, after 6h i managed to land approximately 6k rounds in that hex. Of course i focked some orders resupplies so probably even more rounds can be wasted! The hex looked really beautiful, the moon looked at it with awe. Somewhere burried in the craters there the hq of the leo still commanded nato forces happily (and 95% readiness, pure alpha hero, you can bomb him he dont care).

My commander, forever doomed to not be able to hurt the leo with arty if it stayed there, because of the locked random seed, had now to report to WP that he just spent 6k 152mm ammo rounds to kill a single tank and failed. Siberia looked like a heaven to what awaited him.

PS: Even in the original test the number of rounds is 610 if you actually read carefully. But well if you want a 6k sample, there you go. I cant do much more anyway unless i get more arty, oh mighty locked random seed of bad luck!

And no, its not a joke, i have a save file, but also its pretty simple to repeat. Just open czech campaign, and bomb 1215 to hell and do nothing else. Its a 1size tank hq that will never relocate as it will hmmm never take a hit. I wish you luck with the random seed, you are gonna need it

[CapnDarwin]

I am sure William will figure out what is going on with this case. I will check it out this weekend to see if there is a bug with data in the campaign. The model works well everywhere else I have seen. Thanks for the information and your patience as we drill down on this issue.