Dreadnought808

This is a real eye-opener and a big help, thanks!

Done and done.

I see, and agreed Tontow! I bumped onto a map (Granite) where the pathfinding is still problematic. Specifically the bridge northeast, the whole path northwest and the path southeast. These are generally flat bits without any obvious bumps. Considering it seems to be map-specific- perhaps that nav mesh needs more tweaking, and the other maps I've tried have had a bit more love? Makes me wonder if the devs would find it useful if we start listing the areas on maps where we CONSISTENTLY have bad AI performance. Some dev feedback would be cool here.

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.

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??

I myself really quite enjoyed the start of the campaign- you actually have to set out on foot, to capture your carrier. I though it set the atmosphere of the storyline quite well. Sure, the story won't win any awards. Granted, the actual first person shooter gameplay was basic. However, as it's not part of the core gameplay, I found them quite enjoyable. However, as the gameplay is quite basic, it did get quite old after being forced into it another, what, 6 times or so? Problem was not the fact you had to do them so often, problem was that the missions themselves were quite long. It's a nice gimmick, but being so basic it cannot fill the length of the later missions well. The ultimate use for the first person code would be, to allow one to actually walk around your ship in strategy mode, as you can in the initial campaign mission... perhaps even, battlecruiser2000 style, board one of your mantas/walrusses and go on a little trip on an island. Totally useless, but good fun, a great gimmick, and literally ALL of the programming is there. Thoughts? Comments?

Interesting info Thygrrr! I was not aware of that. I stand corrected!

As some of you might recall, I've been a supporter of CC from the beginning, and although I have put it on the shelf until the pathfinding patch comes out, I cannot understand how some fail to see the quality and potential already there. So I was talking about my disappointment to a friend of mine, who had never heard of the game. I was telling him how great it was but that he shouldn't buy it yet, as the pathfinding was currently broken. He seemed barely interested at first, until I mentioned some of the ridiculous pathfinding stunts the walrusses have pulled off. I believe I mentioned elsewhere on these forums my little experiment with four walrusses out front of an enemy base with two weak targets inside- two of them ending in a lava river, one off a cliff and the other in a different enemy base. After I mentioned a few of those stunts however, he suddenly perked up and decided to buy the game, because that sounded like a "rite laff!" So I'm sure he's now happily running all the walrusses on automatic, having them follow all sorts of parkours like a bunch of Lemmings on acid! Point is this. There's many different kinds of people, and there's just as many different gamers. People who are saying that the pathfinding is fine, are quite ludicrously wrong. More accurate would be- they can enjoy the game as it is. If you drive around in a walrus on your own all day, as if it was a first person shooter, that's perfectly fine. If you don't mind taking a more direct control over your troops, that's perfectly fine too. As my friend proved, games can be liked for different reasons, in his case ludicrous AI. I myself managed to plow through a big chunk of the campaign and finished a few strategy games too. It's definitely playable and good fun. Walrusses not being able to go from A to B without making love to every rock and tree along the way, (and a wreck on the entirely other side of the island) does kiiiiiinda mean that something's not quite right though :D So please, hold back on saying it's all perfectly fine, but also hold back on saying it's a complete disaster and doesn't work. The programmers have done an absolutely excellent job with it, and I'm sure that, after release of the pathfinding patch, this thing will turn into an absolute gem. This is coming from an oldtimer gamer/programmer who's played it all.

Sounds like there's a demand for an invisible, invincible, non-clipping Manta. That's your free floating movie camera right there.

As the original poster has mentioned, the entire Carrier Command release has brought similar questions up in my mind. It being released with broken pathfinding is NOT the programmer's fault, it is down to the publisher's deadlines. While I care little about who's to blame as long as I know for sure this beautiful game will get fixed in a patch, I AM however quite curious what the programmers themselves think about the slightly broken release. When a product like a game gets released with an initial, relatively product-breaking flaw, it affects all the first (and undoubtedly most important) reviews. When they all say "Broken, do not buy" this will dramatically impact the sales figures. Money that, in my opinion, the programmers most certainly deserve. As I gathered, there was not enough time to adress the pathfinding before release. Is there an interview or forum post explaining why or how? If not, could I ask any of the developers their thoughts on the matter? I can assume that telling a publisher to move a deadline back is quite hard, but telling them "It's not finished" should do the trick, no? Are there, like, financial penalties for not making the deadline? If so, are they big enough to compete with the loss of sales? Just curious.

Aha. So if you're right, what they need to do is redo the pre-calculated waypoints for every map... and possibly either increase waypoint trigger size or tinker with the backing up code. Sounds like that'll take a while... Tox, why would I skip to 1:30? The whole thing is funky.

Agreeing with most of the above, I'd like to add this: Have the enemy carrier rebuild if you destroy it early and there's still plenty of enemy islands left. So you'll gain an advantage if you sucessfully destroy the carrier early on, but it's not a sure win. This seems like a better idea than to give the enemy two carriers.

Toumal, awesome post. Very informative. How did you figure out #1? Is it in fact as simple as a grid over the terrain, masking certain areas as inaccessible? What's your thought on the short-distance waypoint calculation showing up BEHIND the moving unit?

2) In the campaign, you unlock new items by capturing islands- some of them have a research facility on it. If there's something interesting there, your collegues will mention that you might want to go have a look. 3) Blowing up the control center means you have to rebuild it. The modules you need are more costly and take more time to build than the hacking module. In strategy mode, when you're trying to build up your army, that can be valuable time best spent on something else. Also, it takes a considerable amount of time for the control center to be rebuilt, during this time it's very easy for the enemy to just pop in and take things over. However, it's very relative. If your enemy isn't too smart (as the AI currently is) there's nothing wrong with just blowing stuff up. 4) -No, the TI-85 is much more reliable. And yes- wait for the patch, or babysit your units. In strategy mode, you unlock tier 2 armor for your manta's giving them a decent chance of survival against some enemy fire. 5) Yes! Very clever actually. You hold control, then press the desired number. This will co-select your unit and the one you want to command. Then, use the radial menu to give the dock command. Now, your unit, and the one you wanted, get the dock command. Considering you're piloting yours, only the one you wanted heads back. Same works with "move" commands- useful for walrus babysitting.

It's quite fantastic how short the loading times are!

I must admit I haven't tried it the other way around yet- I'll give it a try today.

Ashar, I agree with you actually. I've got the impression you don't actually unlock EVERYTHING at the end of the campaign, like Thygrrr said. I also have most, but not all tech.

Lots of excellent comments here! Thygrrr, also a very astute observation- very few have so far pointed out the difference in peaceful and combat pathing. I think we can all come to these agreements though: -Increasing the size of the waypoints to be triggered will be a quick fix for now (though it might introduce other problems) -Allowing the vehicle to turn on the spot when being controlled by the AI would also be a quick fix. (Plus, it'd be more realistic, there's a lot of robots out there that turn on the spot) -One of the causes is the fact that the short-distance recalculated waypoints are sometimes placed BEHIND the unit. Coupled with the inability to turn on the spot causes most of the malfunctions. Does that sound accurate? I'd like to know how the walrus detects inaccessible terrain. I've got a feeling it might have to do with measuring the angles of the surrounding surfaces. So if the waypoint navigation grid is coarse, it would fail to pick up building wreckage, wrecks and small boulders and such, as they can easily fall through the holes in the grid mesh. Increasing the resolution of the grid mesh would cause the requirements on the RAM to go up steeply though. If I'm right with my assumptions, I'd look more in the direction of "smoothing out" wreckage. So when a walrus fails to detect it, he would actually be able to pass over/through it. This would also mean one can no longer use it as cover though- a wreck/boulder would look like it's there but one would be able to drive/shoot through it on manual.

Woo! Thanks for the feedback Dram, this is excellent news.

It's even simpler. Zoom out your map, select the island you wish to convert, (call up the information window) and you should see a little tab on the right hand side of said window. If you click that you should get the option to change around your island's function. your carrier doesn't even need to be there.

Dram, Nice flying.

In my humble opinion, the campaign is only there to prepare you for the strategy mode. See it as a big tutorial. Once you've finished it, rather than lingering around in the aftermath of the campaign, I'd recommend starting an easy strategy game, where you have all toys to play with from the start.

Indeed. So blowing up the dock is definitely not pointless- imagine passing by a "deadly" island chokepoint, that cuts the enemy territorry in half. To capture the island you'll be losing a lot of time. blowing up the dock cuts his construction in half and took you about ten seconds while passing by. It is, however, a bad idea to do so when you'll be capturing the island anyway.

I'm assuming you're in strategy mode. You should be able to construct "Shell" in the production menu, more specifically under the "carrier-weapons" tabs. Once that's finished, you still need to ship it over to your carrier, though.

I must admit, I'm greatly looking forward to playing this when they manage to sort out the pathfinding... considering how much fun I'm already having, despite the suicidal walrusses.