Pathfinding/targetting issue with new version

For some reason the new game patches have resulted in the commander and mobile artillery units exhibiting adverse gameplay.

For example you'll target an artillery piece with the commander that just came into view and the commander will wildly run away.

the exact opposite of the expected behavior.

this is made even crazier by the fact that there are no rocks or anything in between,

it's the same sort of bad pathfinding as you'd get in vanilla FA when you'd create a formation from a bunch of scattered unit and instead of forming the formation at the closest point to the command they'd all move back to your base first and form the formation there and then move forward.

Except here there's no indication that the com would ever stop.

I've been experiencing this bug with a number of units in ladder gameplay.

the attack command for artillery pieces has become functionally useless when targeting any unit (targeting still works on buildings) but when targeting a unit the artillery unit will for some reason start to pathfind erratically instead.

more often then not "running away" from the intended target making the command fail.

This is really ruining gameplay something went amiss and this must not have been picked up on in testing.

in the replay the attack command doesn't show up (I'm holding shift) but I did issue one and as you can see it's empty space between the arty and my com but the com immediately starts running down towards my base rather than towards him. (my com was within view range but not yet shooting range and the movement prevented my com from shooting at it any further)

this behavior is infuriating while playing...

#22252375

I went back into the replay and looked at it from my point of view.

And it's unmistakable. I was moving up and the instant I issue the attack command the commander's legs spin and he heads down whereas the arty is above, in view range and targeted :

you can see a second later i'm already much further down and attempting to head back up using a move command instead since that's the only remaining option to kill that artillery unit with my com as attack command has failed me.

If I get better examples I'll post.

I actually had a similar experience where I tried to target a pd but acu would instead go back...was a rare case where I used UEF. Don't think I had this issue with cybran.

I've also experienced this once, but I have no idea whether it's always been there but left under the radar or it's something that recently appeared.

@jip It can't be ancient, as it would have been noticed years ago.

ACU starts moving in circles when the target you order it to attack is very close to its attack range but still outside

@melanol said in Pathfinding/targetting issue with new version:

@jip It can't be ancient, as it would have been noticed years ago.

You'd be surprised how many silly things to unnoticed

I'm curious about this one. When I play with my friend he often complains about this problem and I never get it so we were writing it off to lag or something.

But the difference is he plays exclusively UEF where as I mainly play Cybran. Everyone here that is mentioning it is also playing UEF.

Here is ACU moving in circles: https://replay.faforever.com/22003007

@Melanol could you see if you can reproduce it on FAF Beta? It hasn't been updated the past months

@jip Tested in beta. No walking in circles.

Same map, UEF ACU vs a line of medusas. Default: circles; beta: no circles.

I found it; it is because of this:

https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/5789/files#r1561281228

@tatsu thank you for reporting, @relentless thank you for the UEF suggestion and @Melanol thank you for taking the time to sand box it. I'll hot fix this tomorrow evening

And Thankyou @Jip... : )

I came on here specifically for this. I notice every time I am in close range with enemy units really counting on the Overcharge my commander starts doing the old circle back retreat instead of shooting the Overcharge. It works half the time. I even rewrote the key from O to Q thinking I was fat fingering the O and hitting the P. I also do play UEF just because I am a moron and it takes me to long to figure out the other races.

I do not have time to do a hotfix this weekend; the fix is available on the FAF Develop game type for those that keep running into this problem. Another solution is to always get the gun upgrade .

I'll try to hotfix next week.

The hotfix is live , should be all good now.

hot diggity dang! thanks for the fix!

I did notice it for t1 arty as well in the past. not sure I'll be able to reproduce it.