Waypointing Tank Routes

[jollyjack]

I tried several ways of waypoint settings for routing a column of tanks through city streets, and watch the goingz with the player tank set to autopilot.

Even with as many as 30 waypoints, almost at each street-corner, and on-off road set via Formation commands.

Either set medium or low with speed usually 20km,  they keep bumping into buildings, trees, and if properly set to cross a bridge, they move on beside the route and drown in to the canal.

Is that normal behavior with tanks?

[IckyATLAS]

Unfortunately yes it is normal behavior. I worked a lot on these problems. I even moved or deleted and replaced some buildings on the map to avoid collisions. The problem is that when the vehicles do 90° turns they do not turn on the spot but the make a curve that can have some radius that depends on speed.

The Formation Off Road Column may help in some cases even if you are on the road.

Do not forget that in case of attack they may start to move off road and again crash on buildings.

 

Having tanks columns go through narrow city streets with many 90° angles is a nightmare. It depends also on the cities. Even removing the buildings they still seem to get blocked by invisible stuff. 

It is really a pain to have tank and truck columns go through cities.

 

 

[Thad]

On 1/23/2021 at 1:54 PM, jollyjack said:

I tried several ways of waypoint settings for routing a column of tanks through city streets, and watch the goingz with the player tank set to autopilot.

Even with as many as 30 waypoints, almost at each street-corner, and on-off road set via Formation commands.

Either set medium or low with speed usually 20km,  they keep bumping into buildings, trees, and if properly set to cross a bridge, they move on beside the route and drown in to the canal.

Is that normal behavior with tanks?

 

Salutations,

 

In my 'Tiger At The Gates' mission, it took a lot work to get the tanks to properly cross the bridge. It was like herding cats. 

I was finally successful but even so... some of them would occasionally drive across the river on top of the water beside the bridge. Why? I have no idea. 

[Jaegermeister]

 

On 1/23/2021 at 1:54 PM, jollyjack said:

I tried several ways of waypoint settings for routing a column of tanks through city streets, and watch the goingz with the player tank set to autopilot.

Even with as many as 30 waypoints, almost at each street-corner, and on-off road set via Formation commands.

Either set medium or low with speed usually 20km,  they keep bumping into buildings, trees, and if properly set to cross a bridge, they move on beside the route and drown in to the canal.

Is that normal behavior with tanks?

 

Watching with F2 on autopilot is the right way to test tanks.

 

How could you hope to get through a city without a waypoint at every corner?

 

20 kph is fairly fast in a city. 10 kph around a corner would be better.

 

To cross a bridge, you have to set a waypoint at the start of the bridge and a high priority waypoint on the other side of it. I have no issues with that. 

 

Are you guys using the complex (playable) tanks or the simple tanks? They are predictable if you adjust the speed and formations, but you do have to be very specific with your commands. It takes an extensive amount of testing and adjustment.

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Jaegermeister

[jollyjack]

12 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

Having tanks columns go through narrow city streets with many 90° angles is a nightmare. It depends also on the cities. Even removing the buildings they still seem to get blocked by invisible stuff. It is really a pain to have tank and truck columns go through cities.

 

Also at some points after you get stuck, and switch off temporarily autopilot, it seems it can't be activated again

 

6 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

20 kph is fairly fast in a city. 10 kph around a corner would be better.

 

To cross a bridge, you have to set a waypoint at the start of the bridge and a high priority waypoint on the other side of it. I have no issues with that. 

 

Are you guys using the complex (playable) tanks or the simple tanks? They are predictable if you adjust the speed and formations, but you do have to be very specific with your commands. It takes an extensive amount of testing and adjustment.

 

!0 kph, will try that. will try thy high for that bridge waypoint.

 

Thad, it seems tanks like fishes, and for Normandy there might be a fix if the devs at least get it right for the Shermans:

 

 

 

[Jaegermeister]

As was discussed in another thread here;

 

 

Its very hard to get tanks to behave correctly on most of the maps. The objects just aren’t designed to interact with them.

 

[jollyjack]

I must say the first time i routed waypoints for tanks it was with the new Vluki map. It went quite well, one time i had a fault reported to Rapidus,

and he proved the map was fine. I reprogrammed the waypoints then in sequential order new, and the tanks then followed the route.

 

But i got stuck when setting up a attack area at the railway yard. Planes would obey orders following the route after a counter filled with kills, but the tanks wouldn't.

I am still experimenting with that mission, figuring that out, among other stuff like streetlights in the dark. Could use some help with the (player) tank maybe.

That armored train can be killed BTW. Hopefully it will be added to the Ai train set some day.