Matias

I was running CMBB - presumably CMBO would do the same... It's like the RAVE code *almost* works, there's just some re-paint or region invalidate command that doesnt get called enough!

Ok, glancing at the threads here its clear that CM in any incarnation is not happy under OSX - however I ran it under the new release of OSX it on my new 17" G4 PowerBook. No problem up to the loading 3D graphics, but unlike other posts I am seeing some graphics. They quickly get blanked out (the same way that would happen if I let my old OS9 machine goto sleep while running CM) however I do see something. The game is clearly running, just the display is wonky. Anybody else have any luck with any configurations or new drivers as suggested? I'd have no problem running all software - anyhints for getting Rave-less Classic to run in a higher res? So close and yet so far... With CM:AK around the corner I have extra motivation!

Thanks guys, My problem was not that I wanted to cross that crest, but that I *had* to because the battle was an "Attack" - he was sitting on the three flags from turn 1 - and that single crest ran the width of the map! From your comments it makes me think that I had little hope with the tanks I had... Next time a mix of some lighter expendible tanks might be better...

Small help, but it is possible to have all 4 of your MGs in command if you put you HQ outside and behind one of the houses. I also got a TV by moving up the left, using smoke then suppressing mortar fire to get a couple of platoons into the left most trenches and the woods. I advanced cautiously along the trenches concentrating fire manually and keeping my guys out of LOS of the enemy that they weren't concentrating on. Oh, and thoose 50mm mortars were invaluable for taking out the machine guns and the enmy mortar on the top of the hill, totally worth it to get one up near there with an HQ to spot.

Quick battles I'm still not sure how to guarantee a fun balanced game. I ran up a medium sized map, that ended up with LOS practically across half of it and all the way across the width. I had a platoon of IS-2s and some assualt guns, I was attacking against six PzIVHs... Well I did my best to try and shoot and scoot over the slight crest in the middle of the map simultaneously with all my forces. Total failure. They weren't quite closely coordinated enough and 2-4 tanks ended up firing on each of mine in turn. Closer coordination would have been hard cause I had no infantry to recon for me and figure out where the enemy was... My question here is what should I have done differently to get better results? Did I even stand a chance? Thanks!

Thomas, Yeah, exactly like that! Talk about service - these guys don't even wait for a feature release to give me features! =-O (Actually I've been playing this thing for six months and had totally forgotten that a portion was already coded.) What I'd love to see for #7 though would be an option to use the same effect on the hotkeys so I don't have to move my mouse down and target that button. Well anyhow it's clear to me I've spent more than enough time thinking about this game, calling myself an interface and what not, better get back to playing! :-D

What, you didn't know about the Maus easter egg?

Maddmatt, Gald you liked some! I only hope they'll be of some use - I sure know all too well how something that seems like a good idea can turn into to much work, or worse have a really nasty unforeseen side effect. Regarding #3 - I totally understand you. The extra 'leg work' the player must to to verify prexsiting LOS is part of the simulation and balance against the God's eye view of the battle. It's just like the Order of Battle issue isn't it? At first I was going to chime in on that one, thinking that is the information was avalible in the game why not summarize it for the player? After all it's not like there is a fog of war simulated between the player-as-commander and the micro-management of individual units. That's when I realized that the very absance of an Order of Battle served the role of simulating that particular effect. It keeps the player from having an unrealistically effecient level of control over his troop! Here's two more small ones for the grist mill: 7) Animated camera movements between the zoom levels. That is when you press one of the number keys to change camera level, instead of instantly snapping to the new view, quickly animating the camera movement so that the view flies smoothly up or down. (there's a subtle wrinkle in implementing this - you want to make the transition time constant regardless of the distance the camera has to travel or elese more drastic level changes take annoyingly long) Insanely cool in a gimmicky way? Yes (as anyone who has ever used pro-engineer will tell you). A time waster? Not really. In Pro-E users keep this feature on because the eye and the mind can maintain an aweareness of the model and their relation to it whenever the view changes. In other words, while the view change takes more time, there is no pause in the user's mind as he reorients himself to the new view. The same principle would apply here - the animated view change would eat up half a second, but you'd gain in back in not having to reorient yourself in regards to your troops and the terrain. And did I mention it would be insanely cool? 8) Just a nit really - have a Cancel button during each step of the battle setup process - I think you can Abort out if you go past the briefing stage (say to check out the force composition for one side in a scenario) but this just makes it obvious for newbies and provides a level of comfort in being able to reverse their actions and recover from accidental clicks that most users are used to in other programs. Hope some of this of use... I still feel vaugely guilty each time I think about how much I've gotten out of this game!

Hrm... I just read about this in Antony Beevor's Stalingrad so here's one source. Page 114 (Source given as the War Archives in Vienna) describes point units of the 24th Panzer Division advancing near Stalingrad in 1942 being missidentified as a concentration of enemy tanks by Stukas. In that instance friendly fire was averted but... Lets ponder for a momment how German tanks on the advance with their recognition flags were completely mistaken for Soviet tanks lying in wait. Now ponder how much harder it must be to differentiate the little ant like people...

Well I'm gratified people *do* care about the interface (Its my job in RL so its always nice to feel like one's marginally useful ). Here's a clarification to my two 'unpopular' ideas: 1) I agree more clutter is bad and often prefer using the hot keys. However I bet most people never use the camera control buttons (they just don't give you as much control as the direct manipulation of the view) which would easilly give enough space for a button or two. Also you could have two sets of hotkeys, one for cycling tree density and a different one of hiding / transparency / showing (keeping it just as unix-y as possible!) in addition to the buttons. I do love the idea of hiding the controls entirely too! In Photoshop for example all the tools can be hidden while working and then toggled on quickly by pressing TAB. One could imagine the unit display being a small two line bar at the bottom of the screen (maybe only appears when the unit is selected) and the rest of the controls could slide up (like the windows task bar) when the space bar or tab key is pressed) 3) I totally miss-comunicated here! I didn't mean "show what LOS would be like if/when the tank reaches the point at the end of a SHD order", but rather "when plotting SHD, let me know if I already have LOS to that point". The latter is interesting because if you CAN already see that point (although the graphical terrain might make you think its behind a hill) your tank will drive all the way to it. With prevous LOS the only time it won't treat that order like Move is if there's a gully in between. In summary the my propsal is exactly the same as slectinf the LOS tool, choosing a point, hitting the SHD tool without moving the mouse and clicking. No new functions, just saves prudent users a click and makes the SHD act more intelligeble to newbies. Thanks for paying attention to the obbessions of a UI grog!

Bummer, What tools are currently used to make the models if I may ask? I could imagine you guys releasing the exporter and then people lucky enuff to have that software could at least contribute (assuming the models were broken out as individual files). I'm sure there's issues with this as well, but I imagine having the process be exporter based (no importer) could at least keep the models that ship with the game from being 'stolen' (though what you'd do with a set of realtime tank models is beyond me!)

Were my suggestions really that blindingly obvious? Or did nobody care? Or do you all like the UI, just like it is thank you very much!? I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing...

<double post> [ March 10, 2003, 11:02 PM: Message edited by: Matias Duarte ]

For what its worth, very possibly already disscussed, and certainly the thoughts of one non-groggy newbie. Please read, respond, flame, and BTS if they're of any use consider as a small contribution to flat out the best value for entertainment I've ever come across in my entire life! (It'd still be totally worth it at twice the price actually.) 1) More visualization toggles avalible in the main botom panel interface rather than as hot keys. Given the increasing trend towards larger monitors I think its possible to add a section to the main controls which allows the user to more quickly toggle some of the display parameters which affect gameplay (as opposed to the visual/performance or preference parameters). For example I'm fine leaving tree density, weather, sound on/off, detailed armor hits, etc. as keyboard settings, but it would add a lot of convinience if I could have buttons to toggle trees at all, bases, firing lines, movement orders, arcs, etc. right on the screen instead of as hot keys. 2) An option to make vehicles and trees when toggles 'off' display transparent instead of fully gone. Again nice to have and possibly feasible now that video cards are better. 3) Display LOS status at the point at which a Seek Hull Down order point may be placed. In other words as you scan over the terrain with your SHD order, display the LOS indicator just as normal. This allows you to know that if the point is in LOS then the vehicle will only stop short of that final point if there is a depression in the ground. A minor thing since an experienced player will LOS first then use the key to swithc to SHD and click, but it saves a few actions and allows newbies to have a little more visibility into the working of that command. 4) Display a vehicle's actual path as orders are plotted. This would work by drawing a curve interpolated from the points laid down in the order - again, more CPU load but hopefully possible given the creeping rise in quality of a standard machine. This would in many ways eliminate some of the recent concerns people have been expressing over their units turning instead of shooting by letting them see before when they are asking their vehicles to make turns so tight that they have to scootch back and forth in place. It would also make visible to newbies the turn radii that the vehicles require with out having to open up the detail panel. 5) Display a turn vs scroll indicator on the screen and make it variable depending on the camera position. Basically I'm talking about how when your mouse hits the edge of the screen the view moves - the point on the side of the screen at which the behavior changes from 'side step' to rotate is invisible - having even a small HUD like hash mark would help with fine control. Additonally changing the position of that point based on the camera angle would have the benefit of biasing 'high views' - that is the top down map-like ones - to be more tracking based, and the 'low' - first person-like ones - would be more rotation biased. That's it. Let the carnage begin!

*SIGH* Anybody with a couple of tanks in the S.F. Bay area wanna get together one of these weekends? Any one? No takers at all? Just my luck. So what's the going rate for an MG-42 these days? (starting small)