Imperial Guards HMG problems.

[bibotot]

There are numerous problems with this unit that I will just list them here:

- Dudes not manning the gun keep running forward. This allows them to be tied up more easily. The same happens to Guardian Weapon Team but apparently not any other race.

- Clicking "retreat" when set up means sometimes the unit will uproot before retreat and sometimes they will retreat before uprooting. In the case of the former, I keep getting knocked down by ASM jump. Can't we be consistent in this?

- Getting up takes way too long. This unit gets up way longer than any other HMG unit of other races.

- Not targeting the closest unit. I have no idea what is their target priority anymore, but in Company of Heroes 2, the HMG will automatically fire at the closest enemy unit, even if that means they have to rotate their guns to fire at another one.

When will these issues be addressed?

[Oddnerd]

Most of the problems may not be a simple matter of re-writing some code. A lot of bugs like that are inherent to the engine and not within the mod teams means to fix.

[Forestradio]

- Dudes not manning the gun keep running forward. This allows them to be tied up more easily. The same happens to Guardian Weapon Team but apparently not any other race.

happens to everything from brightlances to plasma devastators to blastmaster noise marines, but it's probably an issue in the code

- Getting up takes way too long. This unit gets up way longer than any other HMG unit of other races.

not all setup teams have the same setup/teardown time, it's intentional in order to differentiate the squads, for example the havoc heavy bolter also has a pretty long teardown time

- Not targeting the closest unit. I have no idea what is their target priority anymore, but in Company of Heroes 2, the HMG will automatically fire at the closest enemy unit, even if that means they have to rotate their guns to fire at another one.

again happens across all setup team units, manually click at the unit you want it to shoot

[Black Relic]

I am pretty sure the models running up to others is a squad plan issue. But the weird thing is i am pretty sure Elite added in a modifier that is supposed to keep model from moving when the HWT is set up. It weird that it's not working.

[Nerdhero]

I have similar issues with eldar. I've noticed the main reason they run up is when you order it to attack a specific unit, other members run up to attack with their short range weapons, I suspect it's the same for imperial guards. If possible, It would be nice to fix this but it would be hard to tamper with units's AI behavior coding. Another change that would be nice is to have a separate un-setup button instead of right click on ground, as this makes targeting small units very hard.

[Atlas]

I guess you could always just make all the crewmen for a HWT have the same weapon range as the main supression weapon. Iirc, the side weapons do a pretty small amount of damage so it would be a very minor buff.

[Aetherion]

I guess you could always just make all the crewmen for a HWT have the same weapon range as the main supression weapon. Iirc, the side weapons do a pretty small amount of damage so it would be a very minor buff.

This would be an awesome solution, except that some of the weapons aren't that light. The 2 SM bolters on devs are worth one Tac model and the 3 on the shuriken are the same as the DA squad, so you'd have a 3/5 DA squad's worth of firepower. For HWT, well...yes those lasguns are worthless.

[Asmon]

We've already suggested that (the damage isn't an issue, you can lower it if needed) but the models don't only move when you order to attack. For instance they can try and move to get LoS if the target goes into hiding.

[Black Relic]

You try to make a modifier when the HWT is sewt up the other models movement speed is 0. The only trouble would be pathing. But you can remove those crewman from the path to fix that problem.

Another solution is increase the crewmembers range when the setup team is set up, or give them the range indefinitely. However fleeing vehicle would never be safe from lascannons or bright lances other than the use shot blockers.

[KanKrusha]

There are two possible problems with the IG HWT running into combat, both of these issues are in the sbps squad_combat_beahviour_ext

1. the combat plans, IG HWT has its set up plan empty and one could copy the SM_devastator set up plan

2. the idle leash and melee leash distances are too long. they are very long for the IG HWT for some reason. I expect whowever new what to do with these values had left relic by the time IG introduced. In comparison SM dev squad has distances of 0. in retail eldar shuirken cannon has idle leash 0, idle melee leash 2 and melee leash 1

To figure out whether to play with the leash distances would be best to start with a clear list of which units are having this problem and which are not and then copy the good ones! One does need to be careful with these, I played with them previously trying to get the AI to be more aggressive and it wasn't good. Vehicles tended to wander off. That was increasing rather than decreasing the distances though. I have to be honest, I am not quite sure what these values do. For instance I am not quite sure if it is the idle leash or melee idle leash distance that is the problem.

I havent played much lately but i have notice that SM tacs and ork sluggas may have a problem too. A full list may help if people can think of which units have individual models (entities) wandering off vaguely quite of their own accord

Edit -thinking about it I am not sure whether the leash distances apply to entities within a squad of to the whole squad

[Black Relic]

^^ squad as a whole. I changed how summoned bloodletters, and rippers work in my mod by just constantly chasing a unit. their attack distance is 100 to help with the immense micro management that will happen in my mod.

I didn't know the HWT did have a setup plan. That probably will fix the problem. When they are set up the squad isn't allowed to move and isn't requiring a separate modifier.