To Malevolence, I don't feel like quoting all of that but there is alot of stuff in your post that has no contribution to this thread. Some small comments about how other games are worse and such. This is about making the game/AI better, not comparing it to other games.
"Better" is relative, therefore I illustrated relative points using other similar games. My post is a response to another post, not to the thread, however, so some of it is bound to go off-topic.
So basically, this is a pointless thread unless the devs for EiR did something about this, but they won't because they don't mess with the core stuff. This would be a discussion for RelicNews Forums.
Admittedly this is true, this thread really has no point here - there's no real way to add the features requested in regards to the core AI because there's no way to really modify that code available to independent developers at this time.
would like to point out this is fucking shit, and anybody who extensively circles Axis tanks knows it. Many ally tanks (such as a Tetrach) will fire at nearby infantry instead of the tank you're circling, and there is NOT A SINGLE FUCKING THING you can do about it. If you give it an attack order, you stop moving (thus the tank's turret catches up with you) and you still have to wait for your goddamn tank to turn it's turret back to the other tank because it was aiming at the infantry. If you keep moving it, you will never accomplish anything against the other tank.
Almost all tanks have a set reload time that is only modified by moving on certain tanks. You can count this time in your head, issue the attack order at the relevant time, fire, and be on your merry way - I do it all the time, admittedly sometimes not very well.
Even if you aren't circling a tank, it's a HUGE fucking pain in the ass. If you don't want to sit still like a fucking duck, then you'd better be prepared to fire at the wrong targets.
It happens occasionally due to you moving the tank to the wrong location such that certain targets are in the wrong spot, and the tank acquires them based on its AI when you would prefer it did not. Also, a lot of "firing at the wrong target" that, for instance, an M10 does is when a halftrack or something zips by some infantry and your tank misses, and it looks like it was firing at infantry.
Maybe you want to kite some riflemen w/ stickies and continue firing at the enemy Sherman, or maybe some artillery? Too fucking bad. That calliope only one shot away from death? Too fuckn bad, here comes the rifles with stickies, you either move or die, and when you move you won't get in the one fucking shot needed to kill the Calliope.
Yes it is too fuckin' bad that your tank automatically fires at the enemy tank before it fires at enemy infantry. Oh wait that's what you wanted it to do.
I'd rather have my MP40s stay at long(their max) range and in heavy cover than charge through negative, personaly, and just target the unit I ordered them to. If I want them to charge, I give them a move order, if I want them to stop and shoot(AKA Focus Fire), I give them an attack order. Simple, intuitive and codeable, wouldn't you agree? Improves gameplay and joy of playing while not making it a movie.
Actually I'm fairly certain I was wrong about that earlier point, it's only tanks that attempt to fight before stopping, infantry will attack from the position you tell them to, but I think it's either that they advance over time (has existed since forever) or that now they suffer from the same problems as the tank (will continue to move to location while the attack order only gives them a target priority, thus they keep running).
MOST of my infantry has behaved fine, but it has been a bit buggier recently.
Not exactly 100 percent, but 85 - absolutely.
Again, I never really noticed this problem with exception of the firefly and I think it happened to a schrek squad once, but that's just bad pathing around a house for the latter and the former you've always had to just sit it at a place and not tell it to attack or it pretends it's an M10.
Too bad on some maps the fir trees are crushable, on some they aren't, on some a part of them are crushable, and the other part not. Having a trank drive around trying to ram down a stone wall just because "it's there" isn't really user fault - you're not going to only use tanks in absolutely open fields(ATGs ftw), are you?
Well, just don't assume obstacles are always crushable. That is part of map knowledge and a decision of the map maker, not that of Relic's pathing code. Relic's path code says "this object is not crushable, in order to not become blocked and in order to go to my destination, I will take X path instead of Y path due to Y path going through a solid, uncrushable object. Frankly that's a lot better than "HUR DEE DUHR I'M GONNA RUN INTO A TREE!" even if it does involve turning around because at least it attempts to reach your destination.
Thankfully that is incorrect, or we'd have snipers charging across the map just because your recon run spotted an HMG, tanks not shooting at an enemy ATG crew because there's a "better target" just outside your max range, and other stupid and pointless crap. Search radius is exactly the same as weapon range radius - fiddle around in making your own mod with custom weapon ranges, and you will notice that you can't even alter the search range - it's automaticaly set to the weapon's "max range".
You're right, I meant equal to weapon range. I thought "not smaller than weapon's range" and typed "bigger than weapon range" rather than "equal to weapon range", early morning = tired.
It's a game, we should expect the units to behave like in a game where you're "god", not like in a real combat situation where the units may make their own decisions(to have a happy tank dance, however much they feel like partying).
Well, some people prefer units to do exactly as they say. The Relic squad mechanic is, by essence of not being precise single units, buggy in what it decides to do. It is taking an order issued to 1 unit and applying it to five or six - it means that not every unit is going to be the one guy who goes exactly where you want him to, it's simply a flaw in the squad based system inherently. In order to not become frustrated with the lack of precise control by design I just pretend that it's my men being uncooperative and yell at them
(Case in point: there's no way to get precise control with a squad based system like there is in an individual system - it's either deal with it or don't. With tanks it's a bit less excusable, but with their pathing mechanics there are bound to be bugs as well because there's no way for it to telepathically interpret our intent when we click behind the unit X distance away - it's just doing what it's programmed to do, which suffices under most circumstances).
Albeit written in a ragey manner, this is true. It could all be fixed if we set the targetting priorities for all tank guns against all enemy units to an equal 50, meaning they would not switch targets each time you gave them a move order, but would still continue trying to shoot at the enemy they were ordered to. This has the drawback of taking a shitload of time to put into the code, and would require re-writing each time there's a relic patch(lol, once every 2 years ftw). I've already offered this to be implemented, and I think I could actualy do it myself, if need be.
It would also mean that they would fire at the first unit to come into their radius and then not switch until you tell them to, which would also be problematic because now you can distract tanks like you do with machineguns using infantry and flanking, except you distract for your own tank rather than a squad with a nade or flamer. It might be a bit better, but it would also cause problems of its own...
