Matrix Games Forums

Very good review. He highlights the issues well.

LINK

Steve gave some detailed information on some of the issues they noted over on another thread:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/811880/d ... 494491717/

Note though that there is absolutely no arbitrary 200m bubble as asserted.

Cheers

Pip

Note though that there is absolutely no arbitrary 200m bubble as asserted

It's not universal but something akin to a 200m bubble provably exists on the Omaha Beach map (the map best-suited to LOS tests) and has yet to be explained by a dev.

Why can't the US tanks see the German tanks that are firing at them? Why can't an advancing US tank spot a GER infantry unit until it is on top of it? Why do US infantry spot advancing German infantry at precisely 200m? Are these completely nonsensical spotting behaviours unique to the Omaha map and if so, why?

There's definitely something going on with the LOS. I took a video with my lone sherman taking fire from 2 enemy tanks, after a couple of minutes it gets knocked out. It never gets any spotting on the firing units. I used the beach map, german assault. I did another with just german infantry, and started my lone Sherman at the back of the beach map and gave it a hunt command to the other side, there was some sightings at just over 200m, like 215,220, but no identification unless inside 200m. My tank also drove through the tank traps. What about in the video I posted about the enemy seeming to teleport onto the VP, not seen in approach.

It seems to have been released prematurely.

Hopefully with more patches/time most of the the kinks will get worked out. For now I'll stick with the previous releases and their known unfixed bugs/issues....

yup...me too

Here's what happens when intentionally or not you give units in a WW2 skirmish wargame a ridiculously small 'detection bubble'.

A test scenario. The map is Mousetrap - a village in a valley. The Germans deploy on one side of the valley, the Americans on the other side.

I place my Sherman in an elevated position where it can see all possible approaches to the village VLs roughly 250m away. I ensure my two inf units have no LoS into valley.

Scenario starts and within 45 seconds one of the village VLs has flipped. Why hasn't the Sherman seen anything?

When I move a tank hunter team onto peak behind Sherman they immediately spot the Panzer II that somehow(!) approached the village VL unseen.

This situation is quite simply mad. The parked Sherman should have a better chance of spotting the Panzer than the tank hunter team and certainly should be able to see a German AFV moving across open ground 300m away.

(The tank hunters crest the ridge and immediately spot the Panzer)

Here's the scenario file.

I downloaded your scenario file an gave it a go, but took it one step farther. I used a Sherman and 30 cal, placed the 30 cal below the ridge until the VP flipped, then brought it up top. Its as you say, no spotting until the 30 cal is up top. Here's the one step further, i moved the 30 cal back behind the ridge and the Sherman lost the spot. I did this twice, every time the 30 cal crested the ridge, the sherman would aim and fire, when i moved the 30 cal behind the ridge it would stop its action as soon as the 30 cal seemingly lost LOS. The last time i moved the 30 cal below the ridge, the Sherman starting taking fire from a different location, i moved the 30 cal over the ridge and still nothing. i moved the 30 cal around to the Sherman's left to the ridge top and there was another enemy tank, by the time i got the 30 cal around to the left of the sherman it had been knocked out.

I'm going to try other armored units and some AT guns to see if its just tanks that have the spotting issue. Going to also move the VP to the road right in front of the ridge to see if the sherman will spot when closer.

These shots are after i have already traded shots with those units in the bottom shot while the infantry was on the ridge. Top shot I move the infantry below the ridge and LOS is lost, second shot i move the infantry back to top of ridge, LOS regained. i used an M10 to see if the open top made a difference.

ORIGINAL: headcount_slith

Note though that there is absolutely no arbitrary 200m bubble as asserted

It's not universal but something akin to a 200m bubble provably exists on the Omaha Beach map (the map best-suited to LOS tests) and has yet to be explained by a dev.

Why can't the US tanks see the German tanks that are firing at them? Why can't an advancing US tank spot a GER infantry unit until it is on top of it? Why do US infantry spot advancing German infantry at precisely 200m? Are these completely nonsensical spotting behaviours unique to the Omaha map and if so, why?

Hi Tim

While the spotting model is very complex, and we are always on the lookout for situations where it doesn’t perform as designed, there is (as we have said) no arbitrary spotting limitation built in to the model, and certainly not for performance reasons as you suggest in one of your replies to your article. Most of the situations (and specifically the one you constructed in your article) are behaving pretty much both as intended and in a realistic manner.

The armour situation that you constructed here does seem to behave other than might be expected, and we will take a look to see what factors might be affecting it. It is always possible that bugs can occur in specific setups which don't show themselves in general play.

Cheers

Pip

so if the tank with basically a clear LOS on top of a hill cant see another tank drive past it and take a VL and the same tank cant spot the enemy units shooting at it....this is not an issue? WOW.

ORIGINAL: STIENER

so if the tank with basically a clear LOS on top of a hill cant see another tank drive past it and take a VL and the same tank cant spot the enemy units shooting at it....this is not an issue? WOW.

That's not what was said. In fact I quote from the post above:

"The armour situation that you constructed here does seem to behave other than might be expected, and we will take a look to see what factors might be affecting it. It is always possible that bugs can occur in specific setups which don't show themselves in general play."

Cheers

Pip

It's great to hear that the spotting model isn't influenced by performance concerns. My speculation was based on the framerate drop triggered by the LoS tool.

I'm frankly astounded to hear you say that the situation I depict in my review (A large mixed US force at one side of the Omaha Beach map unable to spot a large German infantry force at the other side) is behaving "pretty much both as intended and in a realistic manner".

I cant think of any other serious WW2 wargame where 70 soldiers on a bare beach would be totally invisible to tanks and infantry 350 obstruction-free metres away on the same beach. To me this is a perfect example of an arbitrary spotting limitation.

sorry Pip....I stand corrected. im glad your going to look into that.
headcount slith has a pretty valid concern tho IMO [ see above } lets hope you look into that too and not sluff it off as an opinion.

It doesn't seem like we're going to agree, but to me the ability to instantly spot stationary camouflaged enemy units, prone, hunkered down into soft sand on an undulating beach, trying not be seen (as the AI often set them up at the start of a battle) nearly a quarter mile away seems equally arbitrary. They aren't men standing around in a carpark.

Nonetheless, we will be tweaking and improving the spotting based on feedback, whether from gameplay or these kinds of constructed situations, for the foreseeable future.

Cheers

Pip

LMAO..." they aren't men standing around a car park"...that made me laugh. good analogy [:D] and you make a valid point in this case. thanks for looking into the spotting issues. this isn't the only spotting issue case...Omaha beach...there are others as you know, so looking into it is a great idea.
hopefully your looking at the gun accuracy issue as well.

Two things, although they may start hunkered down presumably they walk to where there spotted, which usually, consistently is around 200 meters when there spotted. What about In my video where the unit just appears on my VP with no prior sighting, that has to be a bug....right.

There has got to be something amiss. The tank in my screen shots would only spot on it's own when an enemy unit was inside 200 meters, I tried several different times. But when I brought infantry unit over the ridge the tank would spot and fire over 200 meters , move the infantry below the ridge tank would lose the sighting, I was bouncing the infantry unit over and then back behind the ridge and every time the tank would spot and lose spotting depending on where the infantry unit was. Sure seems like allied tanks can't spot above 200 meters on thier own.

"It doesn't seem like we're going to agree, but to me the ability to instantly spot stationary camouflaged enemy units, prone, hunkered down into soft sand on an undulating beach, trying not be seen (as the AI often set them up at the start of a battle) nearly a quarter mile away seems equally arbitrary. They aren't men standing around in a carpark."

I've never expressed a desire for "instant" spotting on that beach LOS test. If the game is assuming that the enemy infantry in the test are "camouflaged", "hunkered down into soft sand" and on an "undulating beach" then I think you could argue that CCTBF badly misrepresents Omaha Beach. I thought the new 3D landscapes were WYSIWYG. If there are useful undulations, why aren't they shown? How on earth do 70 German soldiers camouflage themselves to the point of perpetual invisibility on a bare beach (my tests were conducted away from beach obstacles)? Seaweed?

As budd mentions, the tests we've run show attacking German infantry can't be spotted by US tanks until they've closed to within 200m. You can remove "prone", "stationary", "hunkered down" and a "quarter of a mile" from the argument/scenario, and still observe strangeness.

I hope I'm wrong, but everything I've seen of CCTBF's spotting model thus far suggests to me that it's based on the fallacy/simplification - "WW2 tanks were worse at spotting enemy infantry than infantry". In the Mousetrap test detailed above, the stationary Sherman's superior optics (telescope, fieldglasses) plus its height and crew count should make it - in the forward quadrant at least - a more efficient spotting unit than the on-foot, moving tank hunters. In fact, it's awful at spotting - being unable to spot a moving Panzer II 250 metres away.

What made AFVs so vulnerable in Normandy was, of course, the cluttered terrain, and their poor flank and rear awareness especially when buttoned up. It wasn't general myopia.