Other Means

Yep, just turn it off in Tools->add ons if you don't like it.

You need adblock+, it'll change the web for you. Mouse gestures is great as well and you need to download a dictionary for the spell checker to work. At least, I needed a British one.

Google removes copyright clause from EULA. So, not completely evil then.

Umm. I just downloaded a theme I like and it looks great. Get Whitehart, it's nice, minimal & easy on the eye. Tools->add ons->Get add ons. Browse, install. Easy.

It's walking to the Albert dock tomorrow, so I'm going to go down in my lunch hour and have a looksee. Love it.

Actually, this article in your friendly neighbourhood Register is more disturbing: All your copyright are belong to us.

So have the BBC.

FRENCH scientist Joseph Browning revealed today that a team of experts would arrive in the city to take samples from the spider. They will get close to the creature by abseiling 50m down the side of the Concourse Tower. He said the spider would be lit up because it is hibernating, and said scientists were concerned that the creature could start laying eggs which is why they want to keep it under constant surveillance. He told the ECHO: "Imagine 200 eggs, 1,000 times bigger than normal and you can just imagine the catastrophe" Dr Browning said they were looking at three options in how to deal with the creature. The first was to create a 150-metre cordon around the animal but that would mean evacuating around 30,000 people. The second solution would involve shrinking the head of the creature like the headshrinkers of South America. The third solution, which currently seems the most likely, is that they will use a crane to remove the spider and take it to their research base near the River Mersey. More in The Times.

Anyone had a go of this yet? I'm missing mouse gestures & adblock from FF but everything else I need is there and it's blisteringly fast. Get it here: http://www.google.com/chrome It's good. Could be VERY good. It's all explained in this comic (seriously): http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

You could throw charged particles at it, hold it with magnetic fields and use it as a garbage disposal. It would only be the mass of a couple of sub-atomic particles. It doesn't immediately go to star mass and start drawing everything in.

Press "delete" and it cancels any targeting command. Assign a cover arc to have units restrict their fire to within the arc (mostly).

"What does eee whaaant?" "Eee wants de 'iggs bosun, I told eim we already gat hwan."

I think we've got the wrinkles (mostly) ironed out. Still got a few DNS caching errors, the glossary and other minor snags. Seems like you guys have your uses after all. Seriously - thanks for the effort from everybody.

I don't dub it the Doomsday test, I dub it test Fluffy. There, not so bad now is it?

Cheers mate, looks like they slipped in.

Glossary is a known error but is low down the list. Privacy and Accessibility work for me - could you make sure you're still in www.jpmorganinvest.com and not jpmi-admin.evalueproduction (which is the dev server but it looks like some links were hard coded). Cheers mate.

Hopefully we've addressed the load balancing. Thanks guys and keep em coming. Very helpful.

Loop? 10 secs for each page? Could be the load balancing I guess. Hmm. Cheers.

Interesting. In a WTF kinda way. The Wicky's error is fixed and needs to flush through the server cache.

Thanks Wicky, you shouldn't be seeing https://jpmi-admin.evalueproduction at all.

Could you go to www.jpmorganinvest.com and tell me if you get any errors, like it asking for a digital certificate or anything?

Actually, what I was getting at previously is it might be good if we could discuss exactly how the icons might look under various conditions. Get some discussion of what people like and don't like, possibly get some ideas together for BFC.

Mate, I don't have any more influence than anyone else Steve has already said he appreciates the problem. Lets see what happens - but keep in mind Charles is one guy, you know?

Not quite. I'm a big fan of 1 to 1 - I think when you can see the soldiers in action it looks brilliant, so it's only the units that are too small to see properly that would have been abstracted to a 3D soldier icon. I thought about all the different pieces of information you need to make a tactical decision and how get that over. Flashing icons for casualties, directions arrows on top of them for facing, filling up with colour for morale, changing shape - all that. But then I realised BFC had actually already done it in the best manner possible in CM1 - large icons representing platoons (or teams if split) that can get over everything needed instantly (see post #8 in this thread for details). So it's a hybrid, not a replacement. While you're close enought to see the individual soldiers we get the full CM2 goodness; troops actually in a firefight. When a unit is too far away to see the individual men then you get the type of icon that gets over the most information - a large generic soldier. I'll state what Steve said when he considered this idea last year; it's too visually jarring. I think because we've got 2 different sized soldiers running round a basically 2D world you would get confused as to where a soldier actually was in the depth of field (but...but...we could make them look different - translucent - whatever/you'd get used to it - it's just a convention/it's better than flashing tiddlywinks...). So my idea has been considered - several times, very politely - and found wanting. Anyone else have a good one? Actually I always have movement lines on - those guys were hunting before they hit the ambush. Best have them show as much self-defence nous as possible I find. It helps a little but how engaging is it? As above, I prefer the current way - I just want to not have to hunt for tactical information. Sound cues - of course I use them. Let me re-state: I don't want to have to listen to sound cues. I want to be able to see the game happening

I want to be able to see the status of all my infantry at one go, without having to look at each individual unit. To illustrate (sorry this is so dark) have a look at this screen-shot from CMAK: You'll have to squint, sorry, but in that screenshot I can see who's running, who's taking cover, who's firing - all at once. If your man is moving, you can see where he's going - not because you see a line coming from him (which in CMSF disappear during the movie phase anyway) but because he's big enough to actually see. If you man is firing, it's not because I can hear a lot of firing and see tracer, it's because he brings the rifle to his shoulder and fires. If a man is face down he's taking cover. If he's running and shooting he's assaulting.So I can see the tactical situation at a glance - and not in a way I have to interpret but in an emotionally engaging way that I get the information from straight away. I can be over the other side of the map and if I see all my men hit the deck I know they've run into an ambush and I'm over there, looking where it's coming from. In RT I would be ordering covering fire, popping smoke and pulling back. In WEGO I'm grinding my teeth and hoping not too much damage is done. Currently I might hear an increase in fire so I look round to see if I can see any tracer flying about. Then I've got to find it and what do I see? This: Which is what I've been calling the sterile battlefield. If I get real close to a unit I can see this: and that's brilliant. I can see each guy and see how they're exposed or firing or whatever. But while I'm doing that I have no idea what the rest of the company are doing. So I constantly scan the battlefield and gather all the tactical information I need to make my decisions. And that is a lot of work and loses me my sense of what's going on. The underlying mechanic of the game (in RT & WEGO) is plan->implement->observe->back to plan. You're making plans to bring your best element into a position to use it in concert with the rest of your tactical elements, moving them or firing them to make it happen then seeing how your plans have worked out. Then planning again. Currently the plan and implement are as good as ever but the observe is a lot of work. What we're talking about here is how to make that observe phase a bit easier to do, that's all. CMSF has so much going for it. There's really nothing else like it out there. Steve, Charles and the rest of the very small gang have done a fantastic job of bringing a battlefield to life ON HOME PC'S. Amazing really. But I think a lot of the greatness of the game is un-noticed because it's vey difficult to see the effects of what's happening. If you play very small battles with 3/4 units it's fantasic because you can see what's happening at an individual level. But when you leave that level things get a lot harder to follow; and so less engaging. Frustrating really because all the good stuff is there but to play a decent sized battle you're too spread out to see it all. It's like being a conductor. You want to listen to the whole orchestra and make the whole thing perform but you can only listen to one violin at a time and attempt to bring them all into line but you don't know what line because everything is constantly changing...and by the time you've them playing how you want the tuba is on fire. I don't want to have to listen to sound cues. I want to be able to see the game happening.