1.03 BETA Patch Observations

[Gnrl_Grad 1]

First of all, yipee! I was very happy to see the patch available for download.

I've started a strategy game to put it through it's paces. It's early game yet but I'll comment on my initial impressions on the main aspects: walrus ai and enemy carrier.

Only playing about an hour and I'm not sure about walrus ai, they are still getting stuck in places that's for sure and walruses that are on assist still have a more difficult time following the leader. I also had a single walrus returning for dock and it got stuck trying to drive through a rock on a beach on Genetix.

But... The enemy carrier seems much better now!

I have encountered it once so far and it launched it's units and it certainly damaged me a lot more than before. I managed to stall it in the water and take out it's units but after a while it must have got it's engines repaired and whilst my engines were heavily damaged and I awaited a resupply it made a slow but sure getaway. It was a much more satisfying encounter and so my game continues! With the enemy carrier improved it makes me want to play on now so I'll see what else this strategy game session throws at me. :)

On another note I attacked a neutral island Fulcrum and the island defences fired at my units. Are neutral islands supposed to attack? It took me by surprise and I lost a manta to it.

[Suranis 1]

I've seen functioning turrets on neutral islands before. Keeps you on your toes of nothing else :)

[Gnrl_Grad 1]

It certainly does. :)

I'm still playing the same game (approx 3.5hrs now) and I haven't encountered the enemy carrier again yet since my first encounter, no island attacks, not a peep. I am capturing islands at a steady pace. He's out there somewhere but I wonder what he's up to, he can't still be repairing after all this time? It's like he has gone into hiding since the previous battle. :) Anyway on I press, I want to finish this game tonight if I can.

Edit: So the enemy carrier finally attacks one of my islands again, good to see he was still in the game and came back fighting. But this time I didn't let him escape and I got to see the sinking animation for the first time. Game win! :)

I played on normal difficulty and he only captured one of my islands and no neutral islands so he was pretty quiet overall. Next time I'll up the difficulty a couple of notches and see how it goes.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Gnrl_Grad

[BullseyeForAForehead 1]

Not sure if you meant this post to be for everybody's 1.03 BETA observations or not, but I just finished trying out some of the changes, so I'm going to go ahead and contribute my observations anyway.

I decided to put the pathfinding improvements to the test by loading a late-game campaign save, and seeing if I could take over the island of Magma using nothing but AI-controlled units (Walruses and Mantas). Overall, I would have to say it went much better than I would have expected pre-patch, but I did observe a few issues still remaining.

I wanted to try to hit some worst-case scenarios, so I deliberately ignored the tricks I normally use to keep Walruses from having problems when under AI control. So for instance, I started by launching all four Walruses at once, and then instructing them to all go to the same point on the map, about 1/3 of the way inland from the shore. They probably would have been fine, except Walrus 9 was in medium armor while 6 through 8 were in heavy, which meant that Walrus 9 ended up trying to barge its way past the other three, throwing them into confusion to the point that one ended up getting bowled over. However, none of them got permanently stuck or significantly damaged, and ultimately they made it to their destinations without any major delays.

For another worst-case scenario, I decided to try rearming, repairing and refueling three active Walruses at the same time. The refuel station was in one complex, and the rearm and repair stations were in the neighboring complex. They did alright, until I had two Walruses try to get from the refueling station to the repair station at the same time another Walrus was heading from the repair station to the refueling station. They ended up running into each other halfway, and seemed utterly intent on driving through eachother, banging their front ends, backing up, then moving forward to bang front ends again. I finally took one over and steered it aside so the other two could pass, and after that they were fine.

For the most part, the Walruses did a good job of getting from point A to point B without any shenanigans. I only once caught a Walrus executing a 10-point turn at a bend in a road over an embankment -- it ended up doing a complete 180-degree turn that way before finally straightening itself out and continuing on its way. Considering how torturous the roads were, I'd consider only one Walrus getting confused through the course of an entire takeover not bad.

Unrelated to pathfinding, I have noticed that it seems that when I instruct a Walrus to attack a target that is not immediately within view, it does not seem to want to move in order to find a usable firing position. For example, I wanted to see how the Walrus AI handled combat, so I took two Walruses and instructed them to attack the enemy sentry guns on a wall, but they refused to move. I gradually advanced them toward the complex and repeated the attack order, but they still would just stop and stare in the direction of the target. Finally, one got close enough that it started absorbing gatling fire, but it still would not fire back. I finally had to take over manually, and I took the gun out myself with one plasma blast.

Mind you, those were the mishaps I observed during the entire takeover of the island, which was otherwise completely handled by the AI. I did not lose a single unit, although the high mountains did give my Mantas some trouble (I did have to manually intervene a few times to get them out of the line of fire faster than the AI normally can); and none of my Walruses became permanently stuck except for the one time that they refused to drive around each other. So I would have to say there is a marked improvement with the Walrus AI in the patch, although it is still a little weak when it comes to dealing with other Walruses on the road, and the refusal to maneuver when asked to attack an out-of-sight enemy was a little odd.

Unrelated to Walruses, I also tried engaging the enemy carrier (it was trying to attack an island that was on the way to Magma for me), and I was also pleased with the difference. To begin with, its Walruses were deployed when I arrived, and they seemed to be going after the defenses on the beach -- that was new, since previously I only ever saw the enemy carrier's Walruses once, and they were alone in a place where they did not belong (the carrier was attacking a different island at the time). The enemy carrier stood its ground instead of immediately running away, and as I approached it actually turned to engage me. I never saw it launch its Mantas, although it was already damaged from our last encounter, so it is possible its lifts were out of order, or they may have been engaged attacking the island and unable to render assistance before I took the carrier out of action with shells and flak rounds. So it was definitely a more harrowing encounter than what I usually have had, which usually involves chasing the enemy carrier halfway across the archipelago until it finally gets cornered and has to fight back. (One minor suggestion: when the enemy carrier turns, it goes from still, to instantly turning at full rotation, to still again. It would look much more realistic if it had much lower angular acceleration, the way a huge, heavy, water-borne behemoth should.)

Edited November 3, 2012 by BullseyeForAForehead
Elaboration on the enemy carrier attack

[jureidinim 10]

There is improvement in the general movement of walruses - but it does still get stuck, and bridges still give Walruses major problems. As BullsEyeForAForehead stated, they do not CLOSE range to attack, which messes up your attack plans as you give the order, switch to somewhere else, come back and find they are sitting there out of range with their guns pointed at the target. You have to manually move them into range for them to engage.

Carrier AI has improved -I engaged him as he was trying to take over one of my islands. He stayed until i started firing on him. He turned and engaged, launching drones and two Mantas. We damaged each other pretty badly - he limped away while i was still repairing engines. I was close to my stockpile island so i went there, rearmed and repaired and went after his nearest island - which is exactly where he ran to. He turned again to face me but had no vehicles deployed this time. Long sequence of firing at him until he sunk.

Mantas need to:

a) Be smarter at getting line of sight on a target - they hover in one spot just looking at the enemy and many times i have to jump in to move around a hill or climb a little higher to see over a wall at the walrus its targeting, or something to get them to engage

b) Rotate and move faster if you tell them to Move or Dock while they are under fire. As there is no direct "GET OUT OF ENEMY RANGE" command, i think the AI should assume any move/dock command given to it while its under fire is a signal to bug out quick or die.

Side Note - trading islands and then having an early two part encounter with the carrier seems to be the way this game plays (he attacks islands in your backline, you move to engage, damage him, follow him and kill him.. game pretty much over). Once you beat the carrier, even if you set the game to end after capturing all islands - its just a chore to move around and mop them up.

If possible I would love to see some other options (as others had mentioned) - like maybe give the enemy 3 carriers per game. Spawn one at a time. When one dies, after some time has passed, spawn the next. Or even spawn indefinately if the end game goal chosen is to capture all islands - at least you will have a constant threat on you while you island hop and capture.

Or give the option to set how many islands are in a game so we can set smaller fights.

Just something different.

Anyways - glad to see progress on the patch. Looking forward to future updates

[Dajunka 10]

- Enemy carrier will not run away when the player arrives to defend his island

I hope it does run away if it's looking at defeat, or they are going to be very short games. :)

Maybe giving the enemy carrier the ability to re-spawn would sort this out.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Dajunka

[Savant1974 1]

I find the walrus pathfinding is dramatically improved - the walruses are more confident on rough ground, and I had only one minor issue where it got caught in a U-shaped bunch of buildings. Still, it's great to watch them plot a course and get there with hardly any problems at all. Great work :D

No crashes thus far!

Enemy mantas on an island are more aggressive, chasing my aircraft back to the carrier itself, whereas before they would stick very close to their bases.

Smoother transition between manual and automatic carrier motion, although it does tend to flip to the new heading instantly from time to time.

I was attacking the closest island to my network, about 20 minutes in where I was launching my walruses to go and take the command centre, when the enemy carrier shows up! It moved in cautiously towards my carrier, and I positioned my units nearby as I turned to face it. It was trailing a bunch of defensive drones far behind it, and when I had it disabled right before my carrier, they caught up and blew away most of my units. So, an improvement there, although the drones simply can't keep up with the carrier itself - it attacked on its own and all its units fell way behind. I also noticed my one remaining walrus firing at the drones with its plasma gun, hitting them pretty easily. I think they need to be far quicker to be effective. Still, a big step forward!

I took my carrier further out to where the enemy had appeared, and sure enough, I saw two walruses sitting in the water. I guess they didn't get the order to follow and attack. It does seem that the enemy carrier is dropping its units far too soon and leaving them behind. Also, this was the first encounter I had with it, and it only had two walruses. It should have had a full compliment, since it hadn't attacked any islands. Not sure if it just didn't have any aircraft, or it wasn't launching them.

[tortuosit 486]

First of all, yipee! I was very happy to see the patch available for download.

http://www.carriercommand.com/updates/ (refresh - refresh - refresh) -> No. 1.02

[Mail] (refresh - refresh - refresh) -> Hmmm. No Mail by BI.

Where am I supposed to find 1.03? TIA.

[Scepticer 1]

I can't find no 1.03 update anywhere either.

Where did you guys find it?

[Tontow 1]

I can't find no 1.03 update anywhere either.

Where did you guys find it?

Its 'News' to me lol

---------- Post added at 03:08 ---------- Previous post was at 03:05 ----------

http://www.carriercommandaholic.com/index.php?e=page&c=news_pc_general&al=carrier-command-gaea-mission-beta-patch-version-103

[Scepticer 1]

Its 'News' to me lol

Thanks!

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?142203-Carrier-Command-Gaea-Mission-1-03-BETA-Patch

[Raptor 10]

http://www.carriercommand.com/updates/ (refresh - refresh - refresh) -> No. 1.02

[Mail] (refresh - refresh - refresh) -> Hmmm. No Mail by BI.

Where am I supposed to find 1.03? TIA.

With the friendly assistance of Foxhound:

http://www.carriercommandaholic.com/index.php?e=page&c=news_pc_general&al=carrier-command-gaea-mission-beta-patch-version-103

[Gnrl_Grad 1]

I did have one game freeze when playing. I was on the carrier main deck gun and was zooming in to fire at a target when the game froze. It didn't crash to desktop but I waited ages and then had to close it via task manager and restart. Not sure what caused it and it might just have been a freak incident.

It seems the biggest problem now with walruses seems to be navigating with/around each other? They do tend to get caught up in each other, for example if you have 3 of them assisting a leader walrus the three followers tend to get caught up every now and then.

Another thing I noticed and not sure if it's new or not: when my carrier was under attack all guns were firing and I was controlling the main carrier gun, but the shaky screen effect from the AA deck guns firing was shaking my view in the main carrier gun view, I found it very annoying and hard to aim. I'm not sure if it's intentional or a bug but I don't think I like it.

[Savant1974 1]

I've encountered a fixed-point crash - after fending off a carrier attack, I pursued it towards another island nearby. I was right on its tail when the game went to save as I approached the new island, and I get an exception fault. The trouble is, this happens wherever I go after encountering the carrier, on the next save.

[Neptun 1]

Hello everybody...

today i´ve installed the 1.03 Beta Patch but when i try to start the game, it crashes about one second after doubleclick on the Icon.

So the patch doesn´t work for me actually. With 1.02 it worked fine.

Win7 64 bit

ASUS ENGTX 460

[species1571 65]

Same major problem for me, game will no longer launch after updating to 1.03. When I open the program, I get the usual white rectangle in the top left side, then it switches to black fullscreen, then exits back to desktop without any dialog box. I am on Vista ultimate x64.

Also, the patch is being detected as a virus by AVG, I had to disable AVG to get it to run, but even disabling AVG is not letting the game launch.

[Dreadnought808 1]

Firstly, I feel it is my duty to say.... Yay for patch!!

I've done two hours of field testing, so far only on neutral islands, and I dare say the pathfinding is just about fixed. Good job! If this had been the final, finished product, everyone would have been perfectly happy from the start.

Some points of interest:

-Walrusses still slow down significantly, if very briefly, on many short-range calculated waypoints, even when going straight. This is definitely not gamebreaking, but it's still noticeable and might still need some looking into.

-After seeing broken pathfinding at work, it's pretty amazing seeing them do a good job at it.

-Short-range calculated waypoints no longer appear behind the walrus in motion, thus solving a lot of problems.

-Short-range corrections seem to be working quite well, so the earlier suggestion to allow tank-style turning is no longer relevant. (Though it'd still be realistic- most ROVs and robots with that wheel setup can turn on the spot)

I'm very curious what the devs actually did to sort it out. I know an answer would be much to ask, but still... What was it??

Edited November 3, 2012 by Dreadnought808

[harbinger 1]

Quite impressed with the improvements in 1.03 :)

Enemy carrier, even with improvements, still too easy to sink though - just get behind him, take out the enemy mantas, job done.

[Savant1974 1]

Quite impressed with the improvements in 1.03 :)

Enemy carrier, even with improvements, still too easy to sink though - just get behind him, take out the enemy mantas, job done.

Yeah part of the problem is having the main gun on the bow; the carrier is very vulnerable from the stern (original game had a 360 degree turret on the conning tower). The enemy carrier needs to deploy its drones and units only when within 500m, because at the moment it tends to leave them behind when it first appears on the radar and comes for you. Finally, the weapon systems on the carriers need to be more resilient, as they're far too easy to disable at the moment.

Walruses still have trouble getting around wrecks on the battlefield. I was wondering if it would be better to either have walruses just bounce them out of the way, or give the wrecks only 1 hitpoint so that when a walrus runs into one, it explodes instantly, clearing the way. This would aid pathfinding a great deal in battle situations.

[harbinger 1]

give the wrecks only 1 hitpoint so that when a walrus runs into one, it explodes instantly, clearing the way. This would aid pathfinding a great deal in battle situations.

That's an interesting idea - although with the parameters as they are at the moment, I can see that being very bad.

Walrus crashes into dead enemy Walrus, which then promptly blows up - doing 50% damage in the process. Walrus then proceeds into next dead enemy Walrus 4 metres ahead :

P.S I don't know if it's 50% or not - but it certainly seems like it )

[Scepticer 1]

, and I dare say the pathfinding is just about fixed.

OH, wow. I was thinking the opposite. Honestly I have played 1.03 for a few hours now and I hardly see an improvement(?).

I'll look closer...

[Savant1974 1]

Put in a few hours over the weekend, and I can safely say that the AI is definitely improved in some places, but still experiencing issues from time to time.

Hitting the 'dock' command while a pair of walruses were on Beacon, near the CC, produced different results. One went south directly to the carrier (and navigated just fine), the other insisted on going off to the east coast and swimming around. Not liking this, I manually drove it south a bit then hit 'dock' again, producing the same result. While it was on the island, it would constantly try to send it east, but only for that walrus. Sometimes it would even try to go the long way around even when right in front of the carrier, it's a bit bizarre. Screenshot here

The walruses still get tangled on each other if they're close, and they're start-stopping a lot, being overly polite to the other tanks.

Mantas fighting of their own accord will still sometimes point towards a target and not fire, forcing me to take over and press the fire button.

After encountering the enemy carrier (and letting it get away), it went inactive in the campaign while I went and took 9 islands from it. When I got to beacon (the last island it took), I found it anchored off the coast. It had given up trying to conquer the map until I left it a smoking ruin once more :P

[disorder 1]

Those 3 bugs - Stupid carrier, bad walrus pathfinding and manta being slow to respond are already in 1.2 version and so haven't been fixed.

[Tontow 1]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Pathfinding AI itself has not been touched in this patch from what I can see after unpacking it.

What has been touched is the navspace files for each island (IE the nav mesh).

While this will improve pathfinding, it most likely will not fix some of the major problems (IE: takeing the long way around for no reason).

[Dreadnought808 1]

I've put in some more hours and have a bit of a clearer picture. Note, I'm on the STEAM version of the patch.

-If you can't see any improvement in pathfinding, check if your patch is installed properly. While it still isn't perfect, it's DEFINITELY noticeable. If you did it all correctly, fill in a bug report.

-Giving your walrus an attack order gives funny results and has it simply freeze in place while pointing the turret at the target. Is this intentional? Maybe to do with offensive/defensive stance.

-pathfinding: definitely improved to acceptable levels. Still the odd tangle with a wall or a wreck, but they're rare and far inbetween now. They do still slow down quite often, briefly but noticeably, when passing a short-range calculated waypoint. This means that, when on assist, you'll want to take it slow to make sure they keep up.

Tontow- this is very interesting. Considering the result I'm seeing here, most of the major problems were just because of a bad nav mesh? I've not seen many long-way-around problems (yet), and the times I did, the walrus did manage to get there and didn't take much longer than he would have if he had taken the short route.