possible bug reg Pritanoi skirmishers in campaign

[Sassem]

Was playing with ranges and stuff yesterday and discovered a more serious issue.
When you use fire at will in javelin armed units only 6-8 men at best will reload and fire once enemy comes into range
On the contrary when using a manual attack order all will reaload and fire.
Can someone confirm? It definitelly happens for me with greek akontistai and celtic skirmishers.

does the stat untrained (below) nothing to do with that 6 or 8 man at best throw??

stat_mental 4, normal, untrained


i was just wondering about that when i compared it with other skirmisher type units

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

Early signs are good, the shooting arc looks natural. The engine delay still makes it difficult to let off a volley into charging infantry before they connect. I'd actually increase the ranges a bit further to compensate.

I think you are right. The problem I'm facing is some skirmisher units fire at 40m without changes in vanilla EB2. Some fire at 60m. I want to keep the values the team thought right by keeping some units more effective than others. I will start fiddling a bit more. I can work out minimum range for them to fire before charged (should be about 60 or 65m) and then give a bit more range to these more effective skirmishers. But in any case I don't want a range of more than 75m for a javelin as it will look really unrealistic.
So maybe:

peasant skirmishers (mean untrained , 16 year old levies destined to flee ) : about 60-65m
normal skirmishers: 65-70m
elite skirmishers: 70-75 m

Will let you know after testing further.

does the stat untrained (below) nothing to do with that 6 or 8 man at best throw??

stat_mental 4, normal, untrained


i was just wondering about that when i compared it with other skirmisher type units

That's actually a good question. I mainly used barbarians as I am hooked to the north european factions for some reasons even If I am from Hellas lol. (maybe because they're something quite different to read about).Maybe only some of them obey the order in time? . Worthy of testing a bit I guess. And easy to fiddle with.

--> time to open the bloody notepad ++ again

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

does the stat untrained (below) nothing to do with that 6 or 8 man at best throw??

stat_mental 4, normal, untrained

i was just wondering about that when i compared it with other skirmisher type units

My firend I can't thank you enough for this question.
No the training affects only the formation.

but the discipline , the low setting is the culprit for the fire only a few javelins in fire at will.
Seems the stupid engine uses a huge delay between the firing of different parts of the formation when something bellow normal is used.

Even better with discipline set to normal the formation fires their javelins earlier. There is a change with discipline to good and even a slight 10m increase in range they will behave like a charm!

SADLY A FALSE POSITIVE. BY PURE CHANCE THEY ONLY FIRED CORRECTLY 2-3 TIMES!. The issue with fire at will seems more serious than a simple stat issue.
I am considering using a prec javelin with different stats as I know this one works with the new animations. I'll let you know.

Sorry for flase hopes

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

Update:
Got the javelinmen to all fire their javelins consistently 12 times so far using the fire at will mode.
What's even better got them to fire 1.5 volley at the range initially intended by EB team (40m for example for Katioi) before they go to hand to hand.
I explain more bellow:

1) When I first looked in descr_projectile I saw the only 1 speed was used and it corresponded to javelinmen not firing because that speed was for way longer range.

2) With the first fix I used exactly the speed for the given max range and also a min speed. Javelins fired now but only some

3) However what I failed to take into account is that the range is not same for all the formation. The formation activates to throw the javelins at the given range.
But the side ranks and the ranks more distant than the enemy formation are not in range. Therefore locked in reloading state.
So now I give 25-30% extra speed to max speed, by the time formation is in range, all javelinmen can match the distance to enemy so they reload and fire!
At the same time I have a low min speed so they keep firing till close.
This did not work with initial high speed @ vanilla EBII because there was no speed window. It had to be x value and nothing else.

I am testing this today. So far so good. If this trick works gents, I'll post a permanent fix that will make all javelinmen usable by tomorrow. It may take writing some more javelin entries to satisfy the different ranges of different units.

Just pray things keep on working gents will you?

coffee and off to more testing therefore

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

Ok final fix I hope

Installation: 1) unzip, 2) drop files in mods\eb2\data replacing old ones (backup first)

Fixes and Enchacements
* Skirmishers should actually work nicely now, with a very few limitations, see below
* Projectiles of even the same type with different range should have better trajectories. To do that a couple entries were made with different stats at reasonably different ranges, eg. arrow150 for 150m or arrow180 for 180m. If you want to use them for coding new units, check projectiles file for the naming. They should cover a wide spectrum of ranges (being 10m off is no big deal anyway)

Special Notices:
*Skirmishers were tested with 12 different units and at least 6 times each unit, so far no problems.
*If a unit CTDs or does not fire after this fix, contact me I may have mispelled an entry
*Ranges are vanilla EB2. In most cases one voley will be fired before charged upon. If you like a bit longer ranges like 10m more plz wait till evening when I'll make a file for you as well. In any case check this one out, you might find it ok.

Limitations:
*Extreme line abreast and line astern formations (e.g only 2 ranks, formations that have very few men in minor direction) may not function well with javelinmen,
Reason is that some of these men will be out of range. In that case for them animation will play but they won't launch spear. In any case those within range will launch them and you only have to blame yourself for using such crazy formations that are not even sensible!
Use a nice formation with 4-5 ranks and everything will be good.
*Loose formations might cause the above in parts of the formation. Consider it natural. If the 1st man is 40m away and the rank 3 is 58 m away that is big difference. move closer with loose formations if you need al spears to fire.
*The above are also valid for cavalry

https://www.sendspace.com/file/rqzkqy

https://www.sendspace.com/file/05sfv0 -version with longer range for low ranged skirmishers , does not fix anything more, only for preference

[Sassem]

i love your dedication to fix a certain problem thank you for trying so many different stats for 1 important/annoying problem

i will try these stats this weekend

[joshmahurin]

Yes seriously thank you so much :) @Ibrahim will be thrilled with your progress I'm sure

[Kull]

Ok final fix I hope

In all seriousness, this is exactly the kind of thing we were hoping to get from knowledgeable fans such as yourself. The team can't be everywhere, working on everything, and in many cases even if we were, the solutions might take a long time to achieve. So THANK YOU for your efforts on this!

[Ibrahim]

Ok final fix I hope

Installation: 1) unzip, 2) drop files in mods\eb2\data replacing old ones (backup first)

Fixes and Enchacements
* Skirmishers should actually work nicely now, with a very few limitations, see below
* Projectiles of even the same type with different range should have better trajectories. To do that a couple entries were made with different stats at reasonably different ranges, eg. arrow150 for 150m or arrow180 for 180m. If you want to use them for coding new units, check projectiles file for the naming. They should cover a wide spectrum of ranges (being 10m off is no big deal anyway)

Special Notices:
*Skirmishers were tested with 12 different units and at least 6 times each unit, so far no problems.
*If a unit CTDs or does not fire after this fix, contact me I may have mispelled an entry
*Ranges are vanilla EB2. In most cases one voley will be fired before charged upon. If you like a bit longer ranges like 10m more plz wait till evening when I'll make a file for you as well. In any case check this one out, you might find it ok.

Limitations:
*Extreme line abreast and line astern formations (e.g only 2 ranks, formations that have very few men in minor direction) may not function well with javelinmen,
Reason is that some of these men will be out of range. In that case for them animation will play but they won't launch spear. In any case those within range will launch them and you only have to blame yourself for using such crazy formations that are not even sensible!
Use a nice formation with 4-5 ranks and everything will be good.
*Loose formations might cause the above in parts of the formation. Consider it natural. If the 1st man is 40m away and the rank 3 is 58 m away that is big difference. move closer with loose formations if you need al spears to fire.
*The above are also valid for cavalry

https://www.sendspace.com/file/rqzkqy

downloading and testing now. Thanks for the help!

[Tux]

Great job there to get these fixed!

Have you also looked at the prec bug and a way to fix it?