The AI Gunner Problem

[Danno]

Hullo again all. Sorry to bring this up again, but thought it best to keep adding any info that I can on the topic. I've been doing some more fiddling on trying to cure the AI gunner lack-of-response thing, but without success I'm afraid. Some recent experiments:

. Uninstall game, clean registry with CCleaner, go into regedit and remove every last reference to BoB/Battle of Britain (some of which CCleaner seemed to have missed for one reason or another). Download fresh version of BoB from the A2A store (was originally starting from a disc copy of 2.4) and install, then top up with 2.12 and multiskin - making sure that all AV/Firewalls were off while installing. No joy.

. Uninstall Norton Internet Security - which I know has caused problems in the past - and try running the game in its absence after registry clean. No joy. By the by, didn't notice any performance difference with Norton gone, as I usually turn off all options in the Norton user interface before starting the game anyway, and have (I think) done everything to ensure that Norton doesn't interfere.

. Played about with dispersion settings including turning them off altogether, as one previous poster on one of the relevant theads here noticed that doing this helped him. No joy as yet.

I haven't repeated all the settings experiments that I tried with 2.11 yet, and must admit that I don't see how it would help to do so. If the problem is the same in 2.12, surely the fix will be too? Has anyone out there got any advice as to how and where I should direct my experiments if, as has been suggested, this is some kind of pc environment issue rather than a bug? For example, I can see how an anti-virus program might interfere with the correct running of the game and so have experimented with changing that. But my limited knowledge means that I don't have any idea of other likely causes. Any tips?

Regardless of this problem, although it does detract from the immersion somewhat, would just like to say thanks again for 2.12 and the improvements contained therein. Have only been SPCing as yet, but appreciate the more dynamic behaviour of the A.I R.A.F Commander in moving squadrons, the better behaviour of the LW escorts, and the better reporting and skill/morale systems. And the scenery! Although I'm using fairly low ground scenery settings, what I've seen as I've been hedge-hopping away from pursuing hordes of 109s has been brilliant. Best of all, no CTDs to date!

One small glitch for the attention of the coders: when drafted to Tangmere in SPC, I've been finding that when several squadrons are being scrambled and/or readying for patrols if I frag in at the start of the mission my aircraft is destroyed as soon as 3D starts. Could this be because the extra squadron now accomodated at Tangmere shares a take-off point with another squadron? Just wondering.

[creepycrawl]

Hello Danno,

The unresponsive bomber gunners is a known issue. It's hard to determine the reason for it, since it's not consistent and apparently only affects some players. There are some ideas among the BDG why it could be.

Same thing with the squadrons placed on top of one another. It's a known issue, but the source of the problem isn't solved yet. You can get the same phenomena both RAF an LW side, even when fragging into a mission while the squadron is already in the air. A simple fix is to turn off friendly collisions, which will prevent your plane from exploding. It is pretty rare though. On my last 2 SPC campaign I didn't see it once.

[Danno]

Hi Creepycrawl, thanks for the reply. I've read everything I can find about the gunner thingy on this forum and understand that it's a very grey area. Was just wondering where to turn next in terms of experimentation; what type of things are most likely to have an effect on 'game logic.' Perhaps someone who doesn't have the problem could put up a copy of their BDG text and GUI settings, so I could replicate them - just to make sure I'm not missing anything obvious and maybe eliminate a few lines of enquiry. As for the two squadrons on top of each other, I agree that it's pretty rare and doesn't have much impact. I've found that jumping into the cockpit when the squadron is forming usually works fine. But being one of those inflexible types looking for maximum realism I couldn't possibly turn off friendly collisions! Speaking of which, and bearing in mind that I also always have ground collisions enabled, I've also often seen friendly aircraft run into each other without taking any damage; mostly at the end of their landing run as they turn to taxi back to 'dispersal.' And some instances of friendly a/c taxiing into and through airfield ground objects (which must have hit boxes, surely?). Only mention this in case all these problems are in some way connected and caused by my settings or system. They're not major drawbacks in the way that the gunner issue is.

[creepycrawl]

I like your thinking Danno. I never turned off friendly collisions either. And! You have a testers mentality, and BDG always needs good testers (except for right now when we don't have 2.13 beta yet )

BTW when reporting your testing, it's good to be specific about what is it that you were testing, what was the situation, what was your position in the formation etc. You might be interested in reading this: http://bob2wov.com/documentation-tutorials/how-to-test/

I tested three rounds of RAF SPC for 2.12, but otherwise I always fly Luftwaffe, so I'm not an expert on this. I did have a discussion about this subject with Buddye and others, and I believe we determined at least that:

1) The bomber gunners are not out of ammo
2) The skill level of the unit or its leader is not a factor

If you want to test this issue, atleast the following comes to mind.

Can you get the unresponsive bomber gunner behavior in all/only some game modes, in other words Instant Action, Commander Campaign or SPC. Is this a single player campaign issue only? The SPC was never released for the original game, I guess they started developing it but never finished. Buddye found it in the code and brought it alive, and it has become very popular since. I suspect it could mean though, that some issues are SPC specific.

Another thing that came to mind: you are assigned to intercept a certain enemy unit. Often in bigger LW raids, there are many bomber formations across the sky though. What if you attack the wrong target? Could this have anything to do with it? (Probably not, but wouldn't hurt to find out)

[stickman]

Danno,

One small glitch for the attention of the coders: when drafted to Tangmere in SPC, I've been finding that when several squadrons are being scrambled and/or readying for patrols if I frag in at the start of the mission my aircraft is destroyed as soon as 3D starts. Could this be because the extra squadron now accomodated at Tangmere shares a take-off point with another squadron? Just wondering.

Yes, exactly. It is possible at Tangmere to have two Squadrons stacked on each other at takeoff and landing reform. It should only have a three Squadron capacity.
We mistakenly put it at a four Squadron capacity at one point, and forgot to put it back only three.

After Ben made all the airfields I had to edit the BFIELDS \ MAINWLD file that determines take & landing positions and behavior.
This to keep them away from the new buildings and pesky trucks on the field mostly.
So in MAINWLD each airfield has only 3 slots or starting positions available for 3 Squadrons. Hence the need to limit any airfield to a three Squadron capacity.
So.. at Tangmere, if there are four Squadrons there, the fourth must share one of the other "slots" which may have a Squadron already using it.

We are aware of this Tangmere problem and have been discussing it this last week. It will be soon reduced back to a capacity of only three Squadrons.

----

One thing that I noticed while changing the takeoff and landing coordinates is that Novice and Poor Skill Squadrons land like idiots!
Regulars and Veterans land good, and just where I told them to.
The Poor Skill boys do an odd "right hook" landing approach to the field, and usually land a hundred yards off of the field,
then taxi through a lot of objects and trees to reform.
I tried minimize this bad behavior best that I could by changing coordinates. However, I cannot fix every field so that Poor idiots look good when they land.
It was very frustrating, I'll tell you.

I've also often seen friendly aircraft run into each other without taking any damage; mostly at the end of their landing run as they turn to taxi back to 'dispersal.' And some instances of friendly a/c taxiing into and through airfield ground objects (which must have hit boxes, surely?)

This has not changed from v2.11.
While I was watching countless Squadrons landings, often I saw that AI aircraft never crash and blow up while taxiing on an airfield.
Even with both Collisions turned ON. They even can run through "real" BFIELDS objects that actually are the only objects with hit boxes.
ObjectAdds type objects are "ghosts" and have no hit boxes.
Only the player's aircraft will blow up if he runs into a "real" BFIELDS object.

I am not a coder, but Rowan must have allowed this because of the aforementioned Novice & Poor Skill pilots really piss poor landing habits.
Why cannot the Novice & Poor Skill boys at least land decently like Regulars, for chrissake? Fine with me if they fight like idiots,
but cannot they at least be able to land an aircraft decently, before being sent into the air for slaughter?
What is this, Japan 1945 and kamikazes? " You are not expected to return, so you will need very little landing practice."
A question I was asking the coders, and will ask again.

------

Thanks for your observations.
Sorry, but I cannot answer about the Stuka and ME110 rear gunners in Campaign, or fix it. This complaint has been around for several years, is all that I know.
In fact.. it is our #1 complaint, as I read it so often.

[Danno]

Gentlemen, your comments and guidance are much appreciated. I've read the 'How To Test' article and promise to be more rigorous in the future! I have to ask you though, are random reports (however well put together) from every Tom, Dick and Danno about their personal bugbears really wanted? If feedback is actively sought from all quarters and not just proper, designated team-members then I would be most happy to oblige with anything that I come across. On the other hand, I'd hate to seem to be carping about minor things all the time, especially after all the effort that has been put in to the game on a completely voluntary basis. If I'd slaved my guts out on something for years and improved it no end, I can see how I might become peeved with people casually picking holes in it! I'm guessing that no game ever attains perfection anyway, so it's a question of where useful feedback ends and where pointless nit-picking begins. The taxiing-through-buildings thing for example. Not a big deal really in the grand scheme of things! Perhaps a dedicated 'Feedback' section in the forum would be useful, with a list of known issues, where people are asked to leave properly detailed reports on things and politely informed not to expect a specific reply but assured that their info will be taken into consideration. This as seperate to the Technical Assistance bit, I mean. Might help to give a clearer overview of what players most want to see addressed, without putting pressure on the BDG to answer the same questions all the time. Just a thought.

[creepycrawl]

Danno,

BDG is actually always looking for testers: http://bob2wov.com/join-the-bdg/

The way it works is, if you have the interest in becoming one, you "apply", which means either fill out the form on that site or, since you're already here, preferably just PM Buddye about your interest. That way you will get access to the beta testing forum where you can read up on which issues are already known and reported.

I believe it is appreciated that the players report bugs/problems they encounter that HAVEN'T already been reported/discussed here. When they do, it's always good to be very specific about what the situation was. I was just thinking I'd comment since you've been trying to solve this issue for yourself and been reporting about it anyway. On the other hand, if you treat the sim like a tester, then it's surely better to officially become one and PM Buddye.

As I said before, there isn't a 2.13 beta to test yet. However, if you're testing the sim thoroughly, it would be useful to have access to the reports posted by beta testers before (so you would know which issues are known). If that is the case, I'd suggest you PM Buddye directly instead of the form on the website, although I would also suggest reading the page.

[stickman]

Danno

Perhaps a dedicated 'Feedback' section in the forum would be useful, with a list of known issues,

A list of Known Old Issues That We Cannot Fix may be a good idea.

Then again, every time many players report these problems, it reminds us of the flaws, and a need to try to fix them, if possible.
Often we do find a way to fix problems that we thought were unable to be fixed.

Case in point.. The crap 19,000 flat planar cloud layer between the lower cumulus clouds, and the high cirrus clouds.
Players complained for years over and over and over again, that:
1. It looks like crap.
2 There are grid lines in it.
3. When it reflects off of the sea, players see it's cloud reflection jump to a new spot about every 5 seconds.

After years of these complaints, I finally stumbled on a way to kill it in the bdg text file.
Well, It is killed 100% of the time in Campaign, but it still appears on the very first Instant Action mission that you fly. Then after, killed. Until you Quit BoBII.
Was quite pleased with myself for slaying this dragon.
After ~ the 100th complaint about this, I went looking and experimenting for possible causes in the bdg text file. Aha! I found the dragon's lair!

Now it is fixed and stock issue for v2.12.

---------------

Moral to the story is "You can never be reminded too often by many people of your flaws. Might be that you, or with someone else's help, you can fix them."

Aloha!

[Danno]

Thanks for the replies gents. Will give some serious consideration to signing up as a tester for the next installment. Must admit that I've found that too much testing spoils the fun somewhat - kills the immersion after a while. So I've been giving myself some barely earned time off to enjoy just playing the game again. Also started using FaceTracknoIR for those that might be interested, which seems to work pretty well and adds to the fun immensely when it does (at no ((compulsory)) cost, I might add). It does require an awful lot of tuning though and can be a bit patchy in some ways at times, such as briefly losing track of the player's head movement, developing a small time lag at high CPU load, occasionally getting out of sync etc etc. None of these problems down to the game itself though. Stickman, you may be justly proud of eliminating that cloud layer. Here's to your further troubleshooting success!

[stickman]

Stickman, you may be justly proud of eliminating that cloud layer. Here's to your further troubleshooting success!

Thanks.
One of the best things that I have ever done for BoBII.
Was getting tired of all the complaints, so went experimenting. Stumbled on to how to kill it. Was a happy day.