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bjarmson

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About bjarmson

  • Birthday 10/02/1946

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  • Location
    Wisconsin
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    Many
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    Retired

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  1. It's not just a Windows problem, it's become completely unplayable on my Mac (jerky, time jumping in 15+ second intervals, screens take 5-10 seconds to change-it's a disaster). I've tried every adjustment I can think of, nothing works. Have the hardware requirements been vastly upgraded along with the game? Played fine at 1.1.6 (last version I used). What's to be done?
  2. To be truthful, I'm getting a little tired of always having to suss out how to do something. There are not enough directions available for me to understand how the hell many of the various screens work. If we aren't going to get a paper manual, at least there could be an online manual (in downloadable form), so that those of us that have paid our money for the game, but haven't made it our fulltime vocation, can get some instructions in its ever increasing complexity. Nowhere when I purchased this game did I read anything about being a longterm beta tester. I want some instructions laid out in a manual format, and I want it now, not at some nebulous (semi)finished state in the future.
  3. I purchased DT upon its public release (way back in July). Since then it has undergone numerous changes, additions, etc, etc. But all I have to refer to when I'm trying to understand something is the original 70 page manual (which provides nothing in the way of help about infantry, improved tac screens, scoring, etc, etc). When will we get a really comprehensive manual for DT? Something I can refer to when I'm having problems trying to understand the new tac screens or whatever. It is past time to address this matter.
  4. Played a few games of 1.1.5 and haven't encountered a single mortar bot. What I have encountered is bots going back to utilizing 120mms a lot. I'm beginning to think bot AFV selection is based on whatever AFV gives them the greatest accuracy and explosive capabilities. They again seem to be extremely accurate with them against dropships, one side or other (sometimes both), almost always use up their 15 ship allotment before a game (30 minutes) ends. Might need to increase the dropship allotment or decrease the effectiveness of 120mm as AA. Once the bot side runs out of dropships it becomes an easy shooting-gallery gauntlet, as the bots always seem to take the same route toward their target area. Not much fun, unless you enjoy very easy kills. There is always much talk of combined arms being important to victory, but the bots don't seem to utilize this strategy at all (probably too complicated for them). They just seem to take whatever weapons system gives them the greatest bang for the buck. When mortars gave them this advantage, they went mortar crazy, now that mortars don't have this advantage, it's back to the tried and true 120mms (they go from Thors to Apollos to 76mm, and only then do they begin to use ions and 20mms, with the occasional Shrike tossed into the mix-haven't seen a mortar bot since I started playing 1.1.5). So where does that leave us? The game is a little less chaotic without the incessant artillery barrages. The biggest problem, as I see it, is dropship judgement. They still drop onto impossibly steep areas (with the resulting AFV destruction) and they try to drop too close to enemy units (causing dropship depletion much to quickly). Fix this and the game will be basically sound and ready for more elaborate changes (if that is what is wanted).
  5. Eagerly awaiting this development.
  6. It's great to see everyone attempting to help make a good game even better. I hope my various comments aren't construed as just grinching on my part. I LIKE this game, but I'd also like to see it get even better. The chaos of the battlefield environment is a tricky problem. Too little and the game becomes boring, to much and the game becomes ovewhelmingly frenetic and every battle a Somme-like lunarscape. Also real combat tends to have spurts and lapses (the hours of boredom, and minutes of sheer terror thing). It's nice to be able to get your ducks (bots) in a row at the beginning of a game, and occasionally issue an order or two during the frenetic part. With the artillery barrage crazy bots we have now this is almost impossible, once you're in the visual range of these things, if you don't keep moving and shooting, you're dead. Whereas, I never used to try to target things with a 120mm until I was in the 3000m range, I now have to start shooting at mortar bots from 5000+m, because they can hit and damage (if not kill) you at that range (though I'm not very good at it). Virtually every disputed area is soon littered with huge (100m across, 30-50m deep craters-these things seem to have more explosive power than 16inch battleship guns), and so much dust and smoke and shaking nothing is visible (at least from my side-the bots still seem to be able to target pretty well). Not every battle should be an artillery barrage. If utter destruction is what we want, let's arm everything with tactical nukes. Dropship Deployment I like dopship evasion, for the most part it works well, particularly at distance. It has basically stopped 120mm from destroying dropships at distance. Currently there are two big problems with dropping and they both have to do with lack of bot judgement when deploying. 1) Dropping where it causes the units destruction. Every standalone Dead Gulch objective game I've played recently has had somewhere around 1/4 of the dropships dropping their units into the gulch. The dropships also often drop on steep inclines, with the resulting flipping and destroying of the unit. This should be a relatively easy fix. Just make certain areas off-limits for drops (into the gulch for one) or make them not drop onto inclines above a certain steepness. 2) Dropping where it causes dropship destruction. In every standalone objective game I've played recently red drops virtually on top of the objective area until all their dropships are exhausted (somewhere about 2/3 of the way through a 30 minute game). Most of the dropships are being killed by 120mm and not AA, because they are trying to drop directly on top of us. When the bots have to run units down the road from the ground deployment area, it just leads to a shooting gallery game. This may be more difficult to fix. Once the aggressor side has control of the objective, maybe red could drop no closer than 1000m. Or, that final stationary hover by dropships (really makes them big fat targets for 120mm at close range) could be eliminated. As for AA defenses. The Cobra with its huge range should have a hit or miss ratio of about 50-75%, depending partly on range to target (would reflect the pilot seeing the missile coming and taking extreme evasive maneuvers). Right now these things seem 100% effective (I've been killed more than once at beyond its shown range because it was fired when my dropship nipped the edge of its range-marker on the way down). Bot Wrangling It would be nice to be able to at least restrain bots from doing utterly ridiculous things. Defensive Tools Yes
  7. I disagree about the fun part. It's now ridiculous to put down sensors or turrets (AA or 76mm) since the mortar bots easily take them out from 7000+m away. With several bot mortars firing (and they always seem to have several in the game) the ground shakes so hard or you're climbing out of or swerving to avoid the huge craters that aiming often becomes difficult at best. And perhaps worse, they seem able to lead you with uncanny accuracy. Even moving full speed in a Thor the rounds rarely fall behind very far away, often landing uncomfortably close (I've twice been killed in Thors while moving at full speed-message says "Thor killed by plasma mortar." This kind of accuracy is not possible in the real world, where high-arching shots must deal with air currents, etc. Only computer bots can figure your position based on speed and distance and lob high-arching shots close to you when you're moving. They will even lob them straight up if you're nearby. I've seen mortar bots disappear into craters from rounds they have fired, only to crawl out and fire again. I can't begin to count the occasions I've seen various AFVs disappear into mortar craters when the shots hit the ground close enough. I've even seen them destroy dropships during that final hover (don't think they actually hit them, but with the explosive power of a heavy mortar round they don't have to hit them, just be in the vicinity). The balance seems to have shifted towards an artillery dominated game, with only the bots having the ability to use them with this kind of precision. Is this really what you want?
  8. I'm glad to see my original post has evoked some interesting comments about the direction of the game. Please try to direct your comments toward that and not whether the Thor is a real MBT (start a thread about that if you want). Also about becoming in essence beta testers, I suppose that us who have played the game from its public release (or even before like many who post) don't mind, but think how some poor soul who came in at 1.1.3 or 1.1.4 must feel like. He likely isn't going to be telling all his friends what a great game it is if he can't get it to play satisfactorily or repeatedly gets killed by bot mortars before he can even orient himself on the battlefield. The game has to be fun, and to be fun it must be playable to more than just long time users. Think of games like Starcraft, etc, (which I grant are not quite the same as DT), you don't just have the mindless clash of opposing forces for no little apparent reason. You must struggle to gain an objective for some particular gain and using correct tactics plays an vital role. About my comments for a defensive vs. an aggressor, they were sort of off the top of my head. Alexander ... obviously brings out some of the shortcomings of my suggestion. It was made because, to my mind, objective games have become too chaotic. Multiple dropships from both sides landing helter skelter everywhere and AFVs from both sides coming from all directions without any purpose other than to reach that objective dot don't really make for a satisfying game, in my opinion (the game really becomes nothing but a tank-based, run and gun shooter at that point). Objective games need to be more complex in their goals. Defensive positions should be constructed and utilized and several areas should have value (sometimes sequentially, sometimes altogether). And I have no problem with when the aggressor takes an objective, the defense has to muster reinforcements from 2 minutes away. After a certain time frame or when they have lost the objective, the defense could be given a counterattacking force twice the size of the dropship's aggressor force. Would make for an interesting later stage of the game (having to hold against greater numbers till you extract what you came for, etc).
  9. I hear what you're saying Dark_au, but we have to work with what we have. I've made my dissatisfaction with many on the AFVs known in other threads. I think the multiple dropship format should be changed, at least some of the time. One side should be the defensive and only able to use Deployment Zones as reinforcement areas. The other should be the protagonist (aggressor) and have dropships at his disposal. It makes sense because a lot of these resources are from planets who should make up the defensive force (where do they get dropships from). This would end the multiple dropships from both sides chaos that the battlefield area too often becomes. The aggressor side will have the edge in mobility and deployment capability. I think this would remove a lot of the anarchic chaos that too often happens now and allow for more tactics and planning. I'm hoping the game becomes more than just a shooter with tanks. I'd also like to eventually see both sides with different equipment (plantary forces could have larger amounts of inferior equipment). But that is for the future. What needs to be done now is return the game to stability and playability. And that is what Clay seems to be shooting for in next upgrade.
  10. It's appreciated that you guys are updating like crazy, but the last couple of updates (1.1.3 & 1.1.4) have made the game less playable (at least in standalone) and the scoring weird. My main complaint used to be the vulnerability of dropships while making their landings. Gee, for the good old days. Dropship evasion seems to have opened all sorts of problems (the living-dead dropships of 1.1.3) and despite your claims of having fixed it, I've still seen turtled dropships. They also seem to have lost all ability to determine where they should make a drop. In two games of Dead Gulch I've watched as dozens of vehicles got dropped into the gulch. Sometimes dropships come down virtually ontop of several enemy units or drop on impossibly steep slopes or inaccessable areas. And the Cobra AA missle seems to have no range limits, if the intial firing takes place when the dropship is within its already vast range (I've had several dropships killed well outside the max-range indicated, when this happened). Now 1.1.4 gives us mortar barrages like WWI offensive artillery preparations, only with uncanny accuracy by the bots (who seem to be able to target unseen flag carrying units and nonmoving emplacements with godlike precision). Some games end with hundreds of huge craters. I'd appreciate knowing why a single mortar round can make a crater about 100m across and 50m deep, yet it takes 9 hits with them to take out an AAD tower. There are so many huge explosions taking place all the time that virtually the only way to survive is to keep going at max speed all the time. Of course, this makes oversight of your bots impossible and removes tactics from the game. Who has time for tactics when you're rushing around madly trying to keep from getting killed by the uncannily accurate artillery barrages. And what's with the scoring in CTF games? I used to have relatively close scores like 32-24. Now the bot side seems to be able to ring up 99 points on about 23 kills. I have not a clue. In a game recently the bots rang up well over 100 points without a flag score, I had about 24 points. Please explain the new scoring system. My humble suggestion. Stop with the tweaking upgrades and work to return this game to stability and playability. No more additions or gimmicks until things become relatively stable. When I started playing 1.0, things worked well. Sure we all had suggestions "to make the game better," but it was very playable like it was. Each update since seems designed to make the game more complicated, but also adds more gliches, which manifest themselves in all sorts of weirdness (I used to play all games to their end, now I stop a lot of them because some gliche has rendered the game unplayable-like having all my bots useless in turtled dropships in 1.1.3). I'd like to see the game evolve more slowly. You've made 5 updates in about 2 months and they are causing the game to spin out of control. Updating is not a virtue when it results in a less playable game (and in my opinion that's what has happened with 1.1.3 & 1.1.4). You've got the foundation of a great game here, don't ruin it by over tweaking. Oh, and please, please, get us an updated game manual. I'm tired of trying to suss out all the changes on the job. The original manual is outdated, obsolete, and really wasn't up to snuff in the first place. A new one is long overdue. [ August 30, 2006, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: bjarmson ]
  11. I've already mentioned this in threads at "1.1.4 Release." The game seems to have become DropTeam: High Explosive Artillery Combat in the Far Future. The bots have uncanny accuracy and perception with these things. I've had two occasions where a bot mortar was able to drop a round on my Thor 120mm while I was moving cross country at full speed. In a recent standalone game of Low Dunes when I checked the spacebar map near the end of the game there must have been at least 100 mortar craters (maybe more). Nothing but a Thor chassis stands a chance of lasting more than a short time with artillery barrages like the start of a Russian offensive in 1944. The tactics of the game seem to be almost gone. You can't stop to check your bots or anything. You just have to keep moving at full speed all the time, trying to shoot everything that's red. Gee, is a full speed ahead, artillery shooter what we have now? [ August 30, 2006, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: bjarmson ]
  12. Another game, another bot Thor mortar hits my Thor 120mm directly on top of my turret while I'm moving at full speed. This is the second game in a row where this has happened. If this nonsense happens again, I'll just quit playing till the next upgrade when mortars lose their godlike targeting ability and are unable to make direct-hits on moving targets. We go from one unplayable situation, the living-dead dropships, to mortars that have the ability to tell where their target will be a second or two in future. Hey Clay, mortars are only accurate against non-moving targets. They fire high arching shots, the chances of hitting the turret of a MBT at full speed is astronomically small. Yet your mortar units manage to do it every game with their temporal gunsights. I like that the bots seem to use them, it adds a new dimension to the game, but please, mortars do not have the accuracy to hit moving MBTs. As a defensive unit they make sense. However, bots use them as front line offensive units because they have the ability to hit moving vehicles with them. And poesel71 have you actually tried that tactic against bots yet? It might work if you're playing all humans against bots, given the speed of the Paladins, don't think I'd bet on it though. Try it with six Thor 120mm and see if that works. Out of about 4-5 battles against a bot Thor mortar, in a Thor 120mm, I've lost two of them, by mortar turret hits on moving vehicles. This is no longer in the realm of luck. I was about to give up playing 1.1.3 because the living-dead dropship thing was often leaving me several units short for long periods of the game, or destroying unit after unit during drops. Then 1.1.4 came out with these problems mostly remedied (although in a Dead Gulch game, I watched dropship after dropship drop its unit into the gulch, ouch that hurts). But, in addition to this, now the bots have the ability to hit, and kill, heavily armored moving vehicles with mortar rounds (and I'm only playing with bot accurracy set at about 3.25 out of 4, would they hit me every shot if I set it at 4?). Let's return some realism to this game. Time to take a breath here and decide if it is more important to make this game more playable or only something to tweak once every week or two without checking to see if it works well. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm paying for the priviledge of being a beta tester. Also it's time to put out an upgraded manual, the old one, such as it is, is badly obsolete (downloadable is fine). Since 1.1 introduced infantry, things seem to be getting weirder and wackier with every update. Please return this game to a realistic playable state, then back off for a while to find out how things are working.
  13. What's with all the bot usage of mortars? They never seemed to use them, then BAM, literally. And how are they so ungodly accurate with them? I've had them hit me precisely on top several times, and even when I'm moving cross country at a good clip they seem to be able to place them with a fair amount of accuracy. Hey these are mortars! They're supposed to be fairly accurate versus nonmoving targets, but highly inaccurate versus moving ones. I don't mind the bots using them, but when I'm bested in a one on one between my Thor 120mm versus a bot Thor mortar and he wins (after I've scored 2, maybe 3 hits). That hardly seems realistic. I appreciate all the upgrades, but since 1.1, every upgrade seems to be skewed toward something or other. 1.1.3 had the dropship problems that rendered it virtually unplayable at times and the introduction of Cobra AA missles that can kill dropships outside their shown range. Now mortars (!?!?) are becoming king of the battlefield. At times, I'd like to go back to the simplicity of 1.0. No infantry to muck about and act idiotic, no goofball dropships going turtle or dropping you from 100m up, no ungodly accurate mortars lobbing their shells precisely onto your turrets top. Perhaps the 1.2 upgrade should take all the changes and try to make them as playable as possible. The way it is now, every incremental upgrade seems to introduce some weird new twists that sacrifice playability in order to add more gadgets. Let's get this game really playable first, then begin to tinker with its microlevel. Just my opinion, of course.
  14. Oh gee, I think I'm having problems with my video card not being up to snuff. What will I do? Just kidding.
  15. Since it was capable of moving (the driver, motor, and battery were still operable) and firing (the gunner, ammunition, and gunnery computer were still operable), just what internal systems would you suggest were destroyed by the some 100+ rounds that hit it in the bottomplate. My 20mm bot spent about 1 to 2 minutes firing at it (3 20mm AP rounds every couple of seconds, most likely aimed at the same area) and I had fired several AP and several HEAT rounds at both the bottomplate and treads. All of this was at a distance of no more than 200m, but the stuck Thor never even started to smoke. The HEAT rounds hitting squarely in the bottom after several AP rounds should have cooked everything inside, but didn't seem to penetrate at all. I can only conclude that the bottomplate is incorrectly modeled, since there is no logical reason for it to be that impenetrable.
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