Webwing

I think you can find all the space you need in the "I'm Seven Years Old" group at facebook. </font>

-- If it is the general perception that the game has potential and that will be a great game only after patches and expansions then I think it would have been better for the Devs and BF to have waited and released it later. I don't think people will review the game again after the patch comes out. And even if they do the first impression is very powerful. The idea that the game is buggy will stay in peoples minds because this is the strongest idea connected to TOW since its release. From a marketing point of view this is not good at all IMO. I hope I'm wrong though, because I really do like this game and enjoy it the way it is. Not that it can't get better....

- One of the best ideas I've seen in this board. Doesn't seem to be difficult to implement and would make a lot of people happy. --

Hey Wolfseven, sorry to hear that! Hope it's nothing serious and I wish you a fast recover. On the other hand you can use the time and design some missions!!!!

You mean you didn't blow up the jeep? Actually that's good because every time I test it I forget and blow the jeep! So I don't really know if there might be a bug if you don't get him. I'll check this out when I get a chance. But like you said it could be a conflict with previous versions. It is a bit more difficult now to spot the jeep since it can came from one of 3 routes. -

Good the hear that!! I have trouble myself with the is2! I increased the skills of the panzershrek soldiers to help. I was worried also if it would require too much micromanaging with so many troops. But I guess this is part of the fun. -

the best way is probably to have separate triggers for each action. Have Regroup Trigger that after executed will run the Storm Trigger. Set a Rect in the area you want the units to regroup. In the Int set you army to hold fire. In the Storm Trigger create a loop using Label and if statements to check when all your troops are in the rect. When this condition is met he runs the Storm Trigger which will have your original storm command.

First, congratulations! Coding missions can be really tricky and frustrating sometimes. But it is also very gratifying once you manage to make things work. Most stuff is documented and the bits that aren't you can figure out (part of the fun!) looking at the official missions. Go to the Campaign Editor Tab. Choose your mission. You'll see a list of things you need to set up. Along them the briefing text. The layer option refers to the map. First copy from anyother mission(That uses the same map eg. St Mare Eglise) the briefing.tga and the briefing.mat and put it in your mission's folder. Now chose the layer in the Campaign editor and point it the briefing.tga. The map now will show in the game, but with the original arrows. You'll need to correct this in a image editing software like Photoshop, Photopaint or IrFanView. In the Mission Tree/Deployment/ and the soldier from the group you want to change the name. 02. HUMAN - First item is Person. You can change first and second names here. Group names will always be Group_something. But they don't show in game. The Unit name on the other hand can be changed, no problem, to whatever you like. 01. Unit - first item is the name! Great! I'd love to do it myself but haven't got the knowledge for that!

I uploaded a firing range mission to cmmods.com. 15 different tanks to be used as targets for an assortment of AT weapons from the US, Germany and Russia. Quite easy to do in the mission editor. Almost no coding required. Still, since some people don't like to mess with the editor I decided to make it available. Have fun.

Maybe I should give a bit more info about this mission. This is not a strait “got to the village and take it” kind of mission. Also this is not a historically accurate battle. It's neither a tank battle with uber tanks or with loads of artillery. Now that I told you what this is not, I’ll tell you what it is.  As you start you have 9 infantry squads, 1 staff squad, 1 tank, and 2 halftracks. There is a Russian reccon jeep patrolling the area. You must spot it and destroy it. If you fail to do so he will get back to the village and call an air strike. That’s why you start the mission with all of your troops with hold fire orders. As you hit the jeep you give away your presence. The Russians will then send a “probe” to check your strength and to delay your advance, while they prepare the defences of the village. The Russians on the outpost on top of the hill will also star targeting your troops. Your commanding officer is a major with high skills. Does that affect the morale of all your soldiers in TOW? If it does then you better be careful. The Russians have assigned a sniper to hunt him down. So, while your main objective is to take the village, there is lot going on to give some atmosphere and specially some good fighting even before you set your troops to take the village. SPOILER ---- SPOILER If you haven’t played the mission I advise you not to read the following paragraphs. The Russian jeep: as soon as it sees you it will turn around and head for the village. It can show up in 3 different routes. It’s a random event. So if you replay this mission don’t expect him coming from the same direction. It shouldn’t be difficult to destroy it. The “probe”, is a is2 tank and an inf squad and also can arrive from 3 different paths. And will not react in the same way every time. There is an ambush prepared by the Russians for you. Now either they can really ambush you and start shooting as you get in range or they might retreat to a spot closer to the village. Again, a random event. If you take heavy losses, have less than 50 men, you’ll get reinforcements: two inf squads in some Opels so that the troops don’t have to walk to the front line. This is the good news. The bad news is that if you have more than 50 men attacking the village the Russians will call for reinforcements and they will get another 2 squads that will try to attack your flank. The idea in this mission was to have a good challenge with a lot a variety and some elements that would add realism and immersion. I also wanted to avoid tanks since almost all missions in TOW involve many tanks. I guess that is about it. Hope you enjoy it.

I think if they just stood there like robots wouldn't be very realistic either. It appears to me that the commander moves forward since he is the one with higher scouting skills so he checks the enemy positions. Maybe if there is a soldier with high scouting skills and the commander had less that would be better. Then you would have the soldier/scout moving forward which would be ok in my opinion.

I guess that was not such a stupid question after all!!! The range in the info window, 2000m, is the distance the bullet can reach but not that the sniper would be able to see and shoot at that distance.... I'll make some tests to see how close the target needs to be in game for the sniper to star shooting. It will definetly have to do with the skills too.

-- First of all thanks to War_Raven and also to Wolfseven and FinnN for helping me out with testing and specially with suggestions that improved this mission a lot. Fictional battle. Mostly infantry. If you like tank battles you'll be frustrated with this one. My intention was to have a massive number of troops at the same time on the map. Unfortunately anything more than 300 and the game freezes on me! My first TOW finished mission done from scratch. Experimenting and trying all stuff I could! A learning project so to speak. I’d love to have feedback from people that play this mission. Hope you enjoy it. That’s about it. http://www.cmmods.com/

- Does anyone know the range of the sniper rifles in TOW? Specially the Russian ones. How does the Mosin compares to the SVT 40? EDIT: Stupid question, sorry! rus_sniper.jpg [ May 13, 2007, 08:06 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

I understand what you mean. On the other hand I wouldn't like to see them behave like robots too much doing exactly as told. In this specific instance you can tell the soldier/tank which way to turn himself using a point or another unit as reference. What I found out is that if the soldier is prone in the high grass he can't see well so he goes to a knee posture to better see things and then back down. Also it depends on the skills of the soldiers, specially scouting. But there are some pretty strange behaviour of soldiers sometimes. I find it specially annoying when they are close to the enemy and just turn on their axis like some sort of eletronic toy. They might have an enemy just beside them but cant see or hear him!

It all depends on the map. Some maps are well suited for that. You can have reinforcements coming from hidden areas, behind hills etc. But if you are too close to the border of the map then it is a bit tricky. I like the idea of reinforcements arriving firing and doing their own thing and then switching control over to you. This is already used in some missions.

Only if it was programed by the designer! The skill level is random if left at -1. As far as I know. - Everything mentioned here is possible. I'm also not sure about the performance hit. Most triggers that use loops will run until the condition is met. But how many of those can you have running at the same time? Also, the game engine itself is the big CPU sucker with it's huge sets of calculations. No mater how many triggers you put in your mission you will never compete with that!! - I have just finished my first complete mission and it was a lot of fun to do. It takes time and patience. I should start adding more of those random events that increase the replayability of it by now. But I need a break! That's the thing with mission design, it's never really finished!!!! --

-- Almost there... just some final touches! --

I'd say programing the missions in TOW as compared to OFP or ARMA is somehow similar. TOW is more flexible in some respects and superior in my opinion. In ARMA doing missions can be extremely frustrating since for instance you put a soldier in one waypoint but he would look the other way! Since CM is a lot more abstract you cant really compare. Still in CM there is this strategic AI to take care of things for you. This is not necessarily a good thing though. I think mission making in TOW puts all the responsablity and burden on the designer. At the same time if you want to invest the time, you can make same pretty neat stuff that will make the player feel that he is going against an intelligent opponent. You don't really need much more than that to create good missions. Well, of course the static objects that will come with the patch. One thing that I noticed is that infantry don't behave very intelligently when they get too close to each other. In all games that I did mission scripting for actually. Tanks look a lot more realistic and intelligent in their behaviour than the soldiers do. [ May 12, 2007, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

- K9crump and Directive#21, Thanks for the interest. I'd love to see a lot of people playing this mission and I hope people will enjoy it. I'm still tweaking this mission based on the feedback from Wolfseven, War RaVen and FinnN. Since we still can't add objects I will do my best with what we've got for version 1 of the mission. When the more powerful editor is released I'll add some spice to it. Next week I'll put it on www.cmmods.com for download. I have around six missions already coded. They all need still a lot of work but I plan to wrap them up in a 6 battle campaign. -- [ May 11, 2007, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

-- There IS a tutorial. In the editor, help menu. It requires quite a bit of coding if you want anything interesting going on in your missions though. The first user made missions are starting to be available. Check the Strategy and Tactics forum. -

- I got crazy trying to control the camera at first. Felt like it would never feel natural. The camera in CM seems more intuitive IMO. Now i zip around the map super fast in TOW. Find the camera great! --

- Incredible!!!!! I'm speechles! I give up. Not even gonna bother to try and do a video myself anymore!!! --

Wolfseven and War RaVeN , I updated the mission based on your feedback. Check your mail!!

- Sure the game is not perfect and has its shortcomings. The demo battle though does not represent well what is in the game IMO. I have done a mod that can be used in the demo. Same mission, slightly different - more units, better skills. I still don't like it though... Other people have changed the demo battle too. Maybe you should try it. http://www.bestsharing.com/files/fKivn273518/mission.zip.html I really think they should have used some other battle or tweak it a bit more. Most battles in the game are quite hard but that one is tricky and the AI behaves specially weird. - [ May 10, 2007, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]