Concerning sabre's BUG tech alpha 5.1

[Killer AK]

When telling sabres to attack a unit they are trying to form a very large circle around that unit
in order to attack it, this is something that other units are not trying to do like lancers scouts or sentries......
This is creating a problem is strategy matches because the sabres are all too busy trying to get into position instead of firing.
I don't believe this was an issue with any pubic beta earlier than 4.
You may see this effect by ordering a group of sabres to attack an extractor if there is enough room for the sabres to form thier circle than you may see it..... if there is not enough room it appears the sabres are just spinning around and missing thier target which causes alot of player frusteration.

I am wondering if this was suppose to be the fix for the assault tanks trying to hump the tower instead of shooting it out of range but mistakenly it was directed at the sabres or not.....

[bigbadbogie]

This bug has already been reported a few times.

[TheJamsh]

Yep, its an AI 'bug' if you want to call it that that exists in 'TankClass' and isn't going to be fixed anytime soo because AI coding is fricking hard.

I would say that with a recycler variant you could make 'smart tanks' VERY easily, but after you're recent post slaughtering recycler variants you probably wouldn't care for that.

[Killer AK]

I just read all the posts in the other forum, i see you guys were talking about that....
You can fix the problem with the sabres easily enough if you look at earlier versions of the public beta's where this wasn't a problem.
It is something that should be addressed and i don't think the fix would be hard.

[bigbadbogie]

It is likely an AI pathing issue and will not be easy to fix.

[Killer AK]

Well it was meddled with between the public beta's i doubt it's that hard to fix for an informed mind.

[bb1]

There's a saying that "every time somebody says _certain coding whatnot_ is an easy job, a programmer's head explodes."

[ScarleTomato]

it's not that they specifically meddled with the tank's AI Killer, is was probably a side effect of fixing some other bug in the code and just happened to have unforeseen circumstances with the tank. The AI coding specific to the tank may or may not have changed since pb1.

[Killer AK]

I understand, actually it's alright it's the only major bug i've seen in 5.1 so far which is pretty damn good news. I just wanted to bring it to light to the people that could fix it which is why i tried to mention it.

[Nielk1]

I really do wonder what could have done this though...

[bigbadbogie]

A misplaced comma or something... knowing how bloody complex C++ is.

[TheJamsh]

As far as im aware, GSH hasn't ventured into AI behaviour very much, just exposed a lot of constants. He has however resolved a lot of pathing issues, which in turn have probably made the AI more 'aware' of each other or something, causing this retarded behaviour.

I'll say what i said before, a recycler variant using 'morphtankfriend/enemy' will make them attack much more efficiently. Even better, morph tank supports ALL weapon types, including locking missiles. Its a VERY good ai if you ask me.

I HAVE submitted an ivtank.odf file to the 13 mantis, but it will take a LOT of testing for this to make it into a public beta because changing the sabre (one of the most widely used units) is a very controversial thing to do.

[AHadley]

Does fix a bug though

[GSH]

There's a *large* difference between reporting a bug multiple times, and actually submitting a useful bug report.

As I said before, this is one case where a savegame would be really useful, not some "oh this happens to me occasionally" report. And, as I've also said previously, tweaking ODF tunnel settings on GTs caused a bug like this to appear in the private builds. I thought that was completely reverted, but it's hard to prove that without a good bug report. Not every pathing malfunction is a "OMG! Get a programmer!" situation.

But, as people would rather whine than be useful, nothing's happened to this bug.

-- GSH

[Killer AK]

Okay GSH I won't bother you about it anymore.
I respect your work and you and maybe i should have made a youtube video about it but it's not hard to repeat if you just order sabres to attack a deployed extrator.
1000 appologies.


~Killer AK