Red Harvest - Team mates stop responding to my commands

[postman84 10]

In the Red Harvest campaign, I find that the team mates will often stop following my commands after a fire-fight, such as in the Razor Two mission after shooting it out with the Chedaki in Staroye.

Unit 2 (Sykes) will stop obeying commands and just stand there. If I take control of unit 2, the other team mates will follow him and will form on him but not the group leader.

And before anybody asks, I am running version 1.57 (CO).

[OMAC 254]

I sometimes found that when I tell my team to regroup, someone says "follow 2" (Sykes) instead of me, but usually they end up following me as normal. Sykes never just stood there ignoring me, but every time I ask him to get into a vehicle with the team, he has to be asked twice.

Edited February 23, 2011 by OMAC

[postman84 10]

I figured out how to get command back. I tell Unit 2 to "Wait for me", the other units form on me. Then I tell Unit 2 "Return to formation", and he complies.

Edited February 23, 2011 by postman84

[Hanzu 10]

I sometimes found that when I tell my team to regroup, someone says "follow 2" (Sykes) instead of me, but usually they end up following me as normal. Sykes never just stood their ignoring me, but every time I ask him to get into a vehicle with the team, he has to be asked twice.

I think when you order all to board a vehicle they all choose a seat they try to get in. Sometimes 2 or more character try to take same seat. So if character 3 takes same seat character 2 wanted to take, character 2 gets confused or thinks "no can do" or goes to the other side of the vehicle to get to another seat. Sometimes you need to repeat the order for characters who get too confused in the process.

Why it is often character 2 we have to wait is maybe because he is a sniper who watches over us and his normal behaviour is to stay behind a little.

If only they would have done an option which you could turn on or off, where the developers have programmed numbers for all seats in all vehicles (1, 2, 3, 4 and so on). When you order all to board any vehicle seat 1 would be reserved for you, character 2 would board seat 2, character 3 would board seat 3 and if there is only 3 seats which is pretty much minimum character 4 should not even try to board the vehicle because it has no seat numbered 4.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Hanzu

[OMAC 254]

Hanzu, what you wrote sounds absolutely plausible to me. We have discussed this before, and thought that the tardiness of #2 was caused by flawed AI leader-following, but I think what you wrote here is more likely correct.

I also think your idea of the numbered seats is excellent! I often had trouble when I wanted a team mate to take the gunner's seat when it was unoccupied. There is no way to tell someone to take a particular seat. It took me a long time to realize that I had to tell everyone to disembark and then get in again for the guys to switch seats. Then someone always takes the driver's seat and gunner's seat.

For me, the biggest overall problem with vehicles is that in warfare2 high-command "unitized" vehicles, you cannot get into them and take command, unless perhaps the crew has been killed, in which case the vehicle has been severely damaged. A million times I have tried to get into those vehicles after my vehicle has been damaged (the first time in Sandstorm), and cannot, so I have to walk for very long distances to finish the mission. One can often "get in back" of the apcs, but cannot then switch to gunner's or commander's seats. I suppose it is "realistic" not to be able to assume command of there vehicles when their original crews are present, but then, you are the mission commander of the whole shebang, so why couldn't you order the present crew to get out and take a hike?

Edited February 24, 2011 by OMAC

[Hanzu 10]

I remember in patch 1.55 character 2 (Sykes) following 500m behind the rest of the team when we walked multiple kilometers in Bitter Chill. So maybe that has been default formation for him. Ofcourse AI behaviour and formations have been tweaked a lot lately, so things may be different already.

The problem with possible numbered seats would appear for example when you want to fill T-72 with characters 2, 3 and 4 and go inside another vehicle yourself. Number 4 would refuse to enter seat number 1 because it is reserved for you. Maybe new action menu functions or keycombinations for Board as commander, Board as driver, Board as gunner and Board closest empty seat would be better.

Example of vehicle where you can first "Ride in back" and then switch as Commander or whatever:

LAV-25 USMC in Dogs Of War

Example of vehicle where you can first "Ride in back" but cannot switch as Commander or whatever:

M2 Bradley in Good Morning T-stan

You do know you can buy all vehicles with Empty option and fill them up with any combination of Razor Team members and bought AI crew? If you fill vehicles that were bought empty with bought AI crew, you can always choose them with F5-F12 and tell them to Disembark if you need their vehicle.

Something you can test. Point vehicle with multiple seats and order one character in and immediately repeat same order without moving your mouse. You should hear a message telling AI to enter as Driver and then as Gunner, without you moving cursor at all. So in some cases beeing outside and pointing vehicle with immediately repeating order will change what seat they will try to get into.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Hanzu

[postman84 10]

I encountered another problem: I don't know how to get command back when the other units start following Unit 3 (Rodriguez). I would tell Unit 2 and 3 to "Wait for me" and then Unit 4 (O'Hara) would form on me. If I tell the others to "Return to formation", they just stay put and Unit 4 goes back to forming on Unit 3. When I switch to the other team mates, they have instructions to follow 3.

Can't imagine how messed up things will get if they all start following 4.

Edited February 24, 2011 by postman84

[OMAC 254]

I remember in patch 1.55 character 2 (Sykes) following 500m behind the rest of the team when we walked multiple kilometers in Bitter Chill. So maybe that has been default formation for him. Ofcourse AI behaviour and formations have been tweaked a lot lately, so things may be different already.

The problem with possible numbered seats would appear for example when you want to fill T-72 with characters 2, 3 and 4 and go inside another vehicle yourself. Number 4 would refuse to enter seat number 1 because it is reserved for you. Maybe new action menu functions or keycombinations for Board as commander, Board as driver, Board as gunner and Board closest empty seat would be better.

Example of vehicle where you can first "Ride in back" and then switch as Commander or whatever:

LAV-25 USMC in Dogs Of War

Example of vehicle where you can first "Ride in back" but cannot switch as Commander or whatever:

M2 Bradley in Good Morning T-stan

You do know you can buy all vehicles with Empty option and fill them up with any combination of Razor Team members and bought AI crew? If you fill vehicles that were bought empty with bought AI crew, you can always choose them with F5-F12 and tell them to Disembark if you need their vehicle.

Something you can test. Point vehicle with multiple seats and order one character in and immediately repeat same order without moving your mouse. You should hear a message telling AI to enter as Driver and then as Gunner, without you moving cursor at all. So in some cases beeing outside and pointing vehicle with immediately repeating order will change what seat they will try to get into.

You are correct about purchasing empty vehicles, but I was talking about units that are put there automatically by the game, such as the USMC reinforcements in DOW, and all the units in Sandstorm. However, you noticed that the amphibious USMC APC (LAV-25?) in DOW is commandable, so I don't know what is going on with that. The LAV-25 in Village Sweep is NOT commandable.