Some pre-Origins issues...

[PaulWRoberts]

Just before the developers got busy with Origins, there were a few discussions going about issues that might be bugs. I remember talk about some odd behavior around the AI re-plotting during battle, and also the "friendlies in the way" issue.

Now that the crew is getting back to work (sorry!), can we look forward a wee patch for these things?

Thanks!

[PaulWRoberts]

Hi all,

Just to ease my mind, would someone confirm that there is another (however minor) update in the works for HTTR?

Thanks.

[Arjuna]

Paul,

We have yet to look into this issue in detail. I suspect that when we do we'll find that the particular case you are referring to results from the 300m grid scale we use to determine friendlies. I suspect that in some perculiar cases where a unit's occuppied area extends just into the next grid it will set it's flag to friendly occuppied and thereby prevent arty from firing, even though the actual distance from the forward edge of the friendly unit to the target is far enough away to allow it. Essentially it is rounding or fidelity issue.

The solution to this problem of fidelity is to conduct distance tests on every friendly unit within a certain range. This can be an expensive calc and so we avoid this. It would slow the game down. Another solution is to remap the occupied area grid to 100m. This is updated every minute and this too would then slow the game down. But more importantly at the moment it would take some time to rework and test.

In any event we have yet to determine if this is in fact the problem. So please a little patience.

[PaulWRoberts]

Thanks for the reply! I'll be patient.

[Arjuna]

Thanks Paul.

An issue I have checked today is the Delay task and the tendency of delaying forces to bolt and run when no obvious enemy forces nearby. Part of the problem stems from the fact that we were calculating the threat range based on the size of the force and searching out this distance from the route. For large forces it tends to be too far and hence picks up too many enemy forces. I'm trialling a fixed 2km threat range to see if this improves it. Another problem was that the potential modifier for Commander Judgement was too great and the force ratio modifier too excessive. I've tweaked these and will test it over the next few days as time permits to see if this improves things. What we have to be wary of is that delaying forces don't stay put for too long before they withdraw to their next blocking position. Stay tuned.

[PaulWRoberts]

That's the kind of thing I love to hear, and I don't think I'm the only one. Thanks for the update.

'Tis a great game!