Author Topic: Op. Cobra  (Read 1034 times)

Offline cannonfodder

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Op. Cobra
« on: 04-05-2010, 15:05:33 »
Only played one round (on US) so far, but the main problems seem to be:

 - As Drawde noted, bots hanging around (defending?) the southern US main.

 - After taking the Farmhouse and the Watermill, the bots always seem to head for the Trainstation via the southern end of the busted rail bridge. Between the 88's and the Panthers heading north from the Axis main, very few tanks actually make it. Bots from the Watermill should approach that flag from the north, not the south. Just need to set some new waypoints to fix this one.

 - I noticed a couple of bots getting stuck on fences at the Watermill. I'll get some screenshots of it tomorrow.


Asides from that, it's all good so far. I only managed to take the Trainstation a few times, every time I did I'd get pushed back out a couple of minutes later... :P

And I lost track of how many times the FW strafed me in my tank, the best part of which was swinging around in time to see him getting hounded by a P-51, almost every single time... ;D

Offline djinn

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #1 on: 04-05-2010, 18:05:37 »
Ya, there is a serious double-cap at the far house and tanks piling at the second base...

What does affect this map most though is AI bugs such as tanks idling and the P51 not being able to as yet fire rockets. I'm sure reference to Vanilla Ai regarding rockets should solve that since bots use rockets fine... though I'm not sure if that is for ground targets or air targets exclusively

It is a sweet map though, with alot of tanks and open space and pathmaps make most, if not all stationary positions accessible to bots, so no gun remains unmanned in some cases.

Its actually lovely to see a plane that can out-maneuver the butcherbird and the Mustang does that beautifully with long lasting, almost cinematic dogfights going on overhead.

Beware of the hedgerows and flakvierlings though... them things are deadl-e!

Tanks also seem a bit 'shy' which hints at thin lines of paths on which the tanks can thread... sometimes in open corridors amongst the hedgerows so the tank battles are more sporadic than epic.... also, perhaps because of the aforementioned tank issue of stop-and-go and the fact that I can only play on 32 bots

Offline Remick04

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #2 on: 05-05-2010, 01:05:04 »
-The Idle bots is an issue that has me perplexed. One thing I've noticed is that the idle infantry bots all seem to be using AT kits. It's possible there is something up with AI code for the AT kits, by why it only seems affects my maps I don't know. I tend to set up a local co-op sever to play singleplayer, both because I like having a rotation of maps so I don't have to quit out to play a different map, and also because of the squad sizes. I believe I stated this in my thread about too many AT kits, but I suspect the reason has to do with the position of the AT kit on the kit selection screen. It’s in the same position as the medic in vanilla, and every squad is coded to have a medic on it. Playing singleplayer through co-op results in more bots per squad, and thus fewer squads meaning fewer AT bots. So try playing Operation Cobra in Co-op to test if there are fewer idle bots. And I'll see what I can do about getting the idle bots to move...

-I do have a waypoint at the intersection of the road heading north from the transition with the road heading west from the watermill, or at least I had put one there. It's possible I accidently deleted it. But your right they should be attracting from the north when coming from the watermill. It's possible that another waypoint I placed to the south for the approach from the farm house is confusing them, but it shouldn't.

-I'm aware of the fence issue (particularly around the watermill) but I'm going to address this in another thread. Please do post those screenshots, they will help.

- The stop 'n go has me confused also (though it may be related to something else), Because I’ve seen it occur in wide open areas with nothing around to cause them to hesitate. And no amount of widening the paths seems to fix it. Actually the opposite occurs, with the wider paths they end up getting stuck on things like trees and poles because they think they have more room to manuver. It may require better defining how the AI drives, but I’ll keep working at it.
 

Offline cannonfodder

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #3 on: 05-05-2010, 14:05:47 »
I tried Co-op and I think you might be right about the AT kits...only had a couple of idlers (at the southern US main) at any one time.

You did put a waypoint at the intersection, just not in the SP mode it appears...the first tank to head for the Trainstation went north (I had to laugh), but when he got to the road (about halfway between the flag and the intersection) he kept heading north and got shot in the ass by a tank camping at the station. I'd suggest moving that waypoint further south along that road, so it's just north of the flag or maybe put it in one of those fields.

No screenshots yet, only held the Watermill for about a quarter of the round, and I didn't see any get stuck on the fence. Probably because most of the bots were camping at/heading for the Farmhouse because of the double-cap. The Yanks couldn't cap it and there were so many camping there, I switched sides to try and get rid of them, but it took most of the round to get rid them long enough to cap it back... ::)

Nevermind, I'll try again tomorrow.


Note to self: Don't fly so low. Getting shot down by a Stug is bloody shameful.

Offline djinn

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #4 on: 07-05-2010, 11:05:55 »
So I upped the count of bots as far as my pc would permit without it blowing up i.e. 63.

Game was laggy as hell and I did more of observation than fighting, firing in anger only when i got to the town. But it was an interesting learning experience.

US bots are actually able to make it all the way to the final base and win. However, a few nav-meshes might need revision. For starters, the panther at the uncap base gets stuck in a ditch not far off from its spawn area... The panther has this issue in CQ also, but the bots don't know this and ride right into the ditch. It takes a particular size of ditch to cause this, and this one does.

Then I noted that bots that cap the base at the far right of the map i.e US don't realize the tanks that spawn there exist, and this causes the traffic often seen in that region.

Bots are definitely shy, especially tanks in crossing the map to make it to their destination and they seem only slghtly interested in the commander's opinion about stuff. The double-cap at the farmhouse makes the slow down all the more worse.

However, when the US does cap that base and those spawned tanks across no-man's land are occupied, tanks can harrass the later bases with some difficulty. They don't for instance seem fond of rail tracks and this base may be skipped or a blase attack launched on it. The Panther does do a good job camping that area, moving behind buildings to take a few shots at attacking US tanks.
I had to cap that and the church base by myself, but I got some amount of counter-attack so that was nice.. But again, these were done without enthusiasm. The real defender of the town is the Stug, the 88 and the flakvierling. I had to call in commander arty to clear these and give our men (usually about 2 tanks and some infantry in tow, per wave) a chance, and take that base, they did. Holding it and defending it savagely against anything coming of the German main with the captured 88, vierling and a 76mm Sherman :-)

Offline cannonfodder

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #5 on: 07-05-2010, 13:05:24 »
...Then I noted that bots that cap the base at the far right of the map i.e US don't realize the tanks that spawn there exist, and this causes the traffic often seen in that region.

Bots are definitely shy, especially tanks in crossing the map to make it to their destination and they seem only slghtly interested in the commander's opinion about stuff. The double-cap at the farmhouse makes the slow down all the more worse...
Yeah, I always end up with halftracks getting stuck at the Watermill. Rather than turning around (and there's plenty of room), they try to drive through the fence.

They seem to like hanging around the Farmhouse, don't they? Generally, they head down the road toward the Axis main and get distracted. Most of the bots that make it to the Trainstation come from the Watermill.


Speaking of which...I held the Trainstation for over half a round and I didn't see one bot spawn there. Are there any spawnpoints there? I also held the Church for about ten minutes and only noticed one bot near there. BTW, that was in Co-op, not SP.


Gotta love those ditches...I was riding shotgun with this nut when he went at it wrong and tipped the thing on it's side. I jumped out and waited for him to as well, but he drove off (the M10 still on it's side) towards the road! He stopped near the fence, then reversed back to where I was, turned and went southwards...into another ditch, where he tipped back onto his tracks, but rolled right over onto his lid on the way out... ;D
« Last Edit: 07-05-2010, 15:05:19 by cannonfodder »

Offline TigerAce

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #6 on: 07-05-2010, 14:05:50 »
how do i get this map on singleplayer? Ive downloaded patch 2.25 and everything but it doesnt appear in either coop local or singleplayer. And its not only this map, i can't find totalize or any maps like that
"The roar of my 88 is only matched by the boom of a Sherman exploding"

Offline djinn

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #7 on: 07-05-2010, 14:05:16 »
And you wouldn't. Its not a stock FH2 SP/COOP map. It is a beta, along with Totalize and Mt Olympus. Check out my thread that suggests the release of the mappack as well as Drawde's patch 1.2 thread to DL Drawde's AI improvement mod in addition.

SP in 2.25 is...well.. broken. Drawde's patch fixes these issues. There should be other maps floating around that aren't stock FH2 maps. look around this section to find links to them

Offline djinn

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Re: Op. Cobra
« Reply #8 on: 14-06-2010, 16:06:00 »
Noted issues with this map are the weak attempt to take the millwand seldom use of shermans that spawn there, with too much focus on the farm, and bots getting stuck in the building at the railyard, the sandbags behind the mg tripod @ the church, bots not able to properly use the bridge near the axis airfield, bots falling into the water near the axis airfield and getting stuck and a fence at the allied airfield near the tanks