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Short-sighted soldiers: Bug or feature? (Long post.)
Certain units appear to be half-blind.
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The more I play, I can't help shake the impression that some of the unit types has significantly shorter vision range than others, in ways that doesn't really make sense.
For example, I seem to find that most CDF and Chedaki infantry groups needs to be significantly closer to hostile units before detecting them than their USMC and Russian counterparts. (I haven't really checked out NAPA yet.) And just so it's said; this behavior can get extreme.
I recall a situation I cooked up in the Editor, where a BLUFOR squad was to descend on the airstrip in Utes, from the top of a nearby hill overlooking the installation. The airport housed an OPFOR group, scripted to a "Guard" waypoint, standing out in the middle of the strip. On my fist attempt, the BLUFOR group was a USMC Rifle Squad, and OPFOR consisted of a Russian Infantry Squad. The hill the USMC squad was descending from was large, and had a good view of the enemy-held airstrip, so the firing started almost immediately after they had started moving down the slope. Once the Russians had detected where the hostile fire was coming from, they reacted semi-efficiently, returning fire and seeking cover. On my next try, I swapped the USMC squad for a CDF squad, and the Russian squad for a Chedaki group.
That changed the whole dynamic.
As the CDF started their advance down the hillside, I expected them to detect and engage the Chedaki around the same time the USMC had done on the previous playthrough. They didn't. As they reached the spot where the USMC had spotted the enemy, they just kept on walking. And walking. And walking. And, to my horror, I watched the half-blind fuckers stumble on aaaaalll the way down the hill, kept on blindly walking the whole distance from the foot of the hill over to the actual airstrip, and then suddenly detect the presence of the Chedaki group within spitting distance of each other, and, confusedly, started spazzing out, sending some units flanking all over the place, opening fire at point-blank range and generally speaking doing just about everything a serious MilSim should at no point whatsoever have them do.
And when I say "point-blank", I mean that quite literally. As in, they could easily have hit the enemy with thrown rocks. It was insane.
As for the Chedaki, they were no better. Standing around in their own thoughts while a CDF squad was marching at them almost in plain sight, and becoming equally confused once the firing broke out.
I tired again, in several situations in differing terrain. The results were always the same - the CDF and Chedaki didn't detect one another until they were so close, a human being with regular eyesight would have detected them ages ago. Why is this? Is this a some kind of stats-thing, perhaps? You coding and modding pros here on the forum have no doubt cracked open the game files containing the information on the different unit types and their vision range(s) at this point. Does some units simply see shorter than others? Is this an attempt at some weird idea of "realism", to simulate that the CDF and Chedaki are less trained soldiers than Russian and American troops? Or is it simply a bug? What are your experiences on the matter?
Please respond with whatever you've got. I'm confused and frustrated.
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Additional information: In all cases, I used the default infantry groups from the "Groups" -section of the Editor menu. There was no editing of the classes and skill settings. The attacker(s) waypoint(s) were set to:
*TYPE: "Seek and destroy"
*COMBAT MODE: "Open fire, engage at will"
*FORMATION: "Line"
*SPEED: "Normal"
*BEHAVIOR: "Combat".
In all cases, it was clear daytime.
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Originally Posted by St!gar
