Catapults fire infinitely

[Langbart]

this issue has several reporters:

• borg via ​Catapults fire infinitely (18/Jan/23)
• andy5995 ​Alpha 26 Pre-release/Release Candidate Build Testing (29/Jul/22)

to reproduce

• build a siege catapult, attack a large building (fortress, city center).
• the siege units do not see the progress of their destruction and therefore fire continuously.

reproducible

• there is no such issue in A23
  • in A23 the difference between Range and MaxRange was 40
  • average CC has a footprint of 32x32 (diagonal 45)

bisect

• the initial change was [24658]
  • reducing the Range from 120 to 100
• then came [25341] making the issue worse
  • MaxRange gets increased from 80 to 100
• [26703] adds a bit of range back
  • Range goes from 100 to 115

expected behavior

• Catapults need to know when a buildings is down, they can't just fire for ever

possible solutions

• (A) decrease attack range again
• (B) increase vision range even more
• in the ​forum is a mentioning of a patch to making attackers temporary visible

[Freagarach]

Replying to Langbart:

there is no such issue in A23

Unless the catapults are at an elevation.

The "bug" that they keep firing is intended (idea of FOW), but that it happens by default isn't.

I'd go for option (B), but this is a balancing consideration.

[Langbart]

Replying to Freagarach:

Replying to Langbart:

there is no such issue in A23

I'd go for option (B), but this is a balancing consideration.

quick and dirty (maybe for A27)

• testing suggests, that the difference between vision range and max attack range needs to be at least 30 on a typical flat map for any CC or fortress
  • it could be a mix of increase/decrease values
• wonders, such as the Han or Mace would need a difference of at least 35-40

advanced solution (maybe for A28)

• mentioned in the forum, give the attacker a bit of visible range, this could go both ways
• that sounds like C++ (CCmpRangeManager.cpp)

---

EDIT: see [19175] for an already included feature with VisionSharing.

[phosit]

Checking every unit that the vision range is N0 bigger than the attack range is only a "temporary" fix.

• If mod adds a new huge building the modder would have to go over every unit and ensure that the difference is bigger than N1.
• All technologies that increases the attack range (i don't know if there is one) would also have to increase the vision range.

Because of that i'm more in favor of "temporary visible targets"

[marder]

It is annoying when this happens.

Not sure what the best preliminary solutions tho. I opted for decreasing the range to not make their vision range unproportionally large compared to other units.

[marder]

In 27585:

[Gameplay] - Balance changes to catapult/ heavy warship stats and fix them firing infinitly at targets outside their vision range

Fixes: #6708

Reported by @borg- @andy5995, ticket creation & suggested solutions by @Langbart
Previous version of the batch accepted by @real_tabasco_sauce, positive comments from @chrstgtr

Differential Revision: ​https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4962

[marder]

This could be reopened and pushed to A28 if we still want the more general solution (or maybe a new ticket), but the catapult specifically should be fixed now.

[phosit]

Yep we want the more general solution. For me it would also be ok if we desaturate the health bar to inform the player it's out of date.

[Langbart]

@phosit

• a new ticket is better, because the description fits the solution and a rewording would change it too much
  • I will create one