aka_tom_w

from this thread: "Some thoughts about the next generation of this engine...." http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=002404;p=2 the NEW CMII engine possible new features like: * NO more Borg Spotting (Relative Spotting) * LOS & LOF blocked by LIVE AFV's (i.e. infantry have "some" cover behind live and dead vehicles that are not burning) * Same as above, vehicles and other units CANNOT shoot through other live or dead vehicles that are not burning * Full movie replay * Roster (for those would think they need it) * Multi-turreted vehicles like the Allied Grant and Lee * Amphibious units * Dynamic lighting effects (two fold: i. As visual effect and more important ii. Integration into fire- and detection algorithms * change PBEM format to only require two e-mails per turn * Realistic modelling of visibility at night * collision detection for all projectiles, even those that would hit *smaller terrain tiles ( 10 x 10 m or better ) * Programable SOP's for all units: (e.g. "Wouldn't it be great if an order could be given to the commander of company "A" to "take that hill" or "move to that position and set up a defense" and watch as the orders are dissiminated down throught he ranks and the varios platoons begin to try and carry out your orders. Yes, much as it happens with "Airborn Assult".) "with a little help from my friends" -tom w TSword Member Member # 7457 posted October 25, 2002 08:00 AM 1. It is absolutely necessary to give the Scenario-Designer more control over AI behaviour and setup. Example: AI in Operations usually does a very poor setup (If there is wood AI will cramp everything in it), true one can work around, but with open maps this becomes a problem of first order. Solution: The designer can suggest zones of terrain suitable for setup. Also some guidelines for attacking/defending AI would be great, like areas of approach, objective zones, type of general AI behaviour like stubborn defense, counterattack, timings and the like. This is a wide field but in general leave AI as is (No hope of much improvement in this field) but enable more options during scenario design All this together would enable much more challenging AI-battles and more possibilities to generate more historic acurate battles (I mostly play the AI, since PBEMs go forever and need a lot of discipline especially for the loosing side...). Covered arcs set by scenario designer would be great. 2. Atleast direct firing Artillery pieces should be able to fire delayed fuzed shells (when firing a flat trajectory shell bounces off the ground, at first impact fuze is activated). This was done very often on the german side with tanks HE, 88 AT, and all Artillery pieces. If used correctly this results in devastating fire. 3. It is principally wrong not to enable on-board artillery to fire indirect. In the case of german heavy howitzers (150 mm) the guns were very seldom placed farer away from the front then 4 km and often relocated only below 1 km. This of course fits into the dimension of CM. Again this would allow for additional realism and more possibilities in scenarios (Gamey inbalances can be corrected by purchase prizes easily). 4. More terrain types with variyng degree of concealment together with further refined LOS calculations. More possibilities for open terrain battles. More terrain which give Inf concealment when being prone while only partly restricting LOS for AVFs. 5. Active visible camouflage of all sorts of weapons for same reason as point 4. 6. Ability for mounted troops to shoot from vehicles, and proper loads for trucks (much more then 1 Squad infact). 7. Dynamic lighting visible and taken into LOS calculations 8. Turret down for tanks or generally fighting vehicles for observation purposes. 9. "Debug"-Mode to check AI-behaviour for scenario designers. Simply an additional battle parameter where the player can see all the AI units all the time while AI behaves according to set FOW settings. 10. Vehicle crews can remount an abandoned vehicle 11. Horses, bicycles, bikes 12. A small API-set: - To read unit database (all values currently visible during unitselection) - To write to the map generator or map selection (All the values currently editable by the user) - To write to the unit selection Thus allowing 3rd party extensions for campaigns and the like 13. Correct representation of relative plate sizes on AFVs for hit determination. (eg. Large T-34/85 turret, small T-34/76 turret). 14. Option to allow same "casualty"-rules as in night battles also for daylight battles. They are obviously much much more realistic then the daylight rules. 15. More finetune options for Operations in determing new setup zones for next battle. (For instance in the "Assault" mode the possibility to determine the weight of flank and middle and treshold for cutoff units), now it's easely possible to have the whole force being cutoff although not a single enemy unit was behind their line when previous battle ended). 16. New operation type "mixed" where scenario designer can determine the sequence of attacker (thus operations where attacker can actually change from battle to battle) either unknown or known to the player. To simulate counterattacks something completely missing now. Actually the same should also be possible in battles where a certain formation (for instance reinforcments) event triggered would counterattack. 17. Moving vehicles produce dust dependend of region and groundconditions. Heavy weapons like tanks, artillery shells and the like produce a lot of smoke which could change a battlefield dramatically LOS wise..., nice to see in open terrain battles... Greets Daniel [ December 18, 2002, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

worth repeating Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 15, 2002 04:57 PM Hi guys, Just a bit of info to clear things up... We have made no official statements about what we are going to do next, beyond saying that we are rewriting the engine from the ground up. We haven't even come up with a good name for this project yet One thing is for sure... the Pacific Theater is not in the cards. As has been mentioned by a few posters here, it is not going to happen. The main reasons are that CM is what it is because Charles and I (and to a large extent others as well) have a lot of personal knowledge and interest in the ETO. We do not have either the knowledge nor the interest to do the Pacific Theater. Therefore, we do not feel that we could do that theater very well both from a technical and from a motivational standpoint. And since it is a much less popular theater than the ETO (in terms of ground warfare at leeast), it also doesn't make much sense to move to the Pacific. This has all been said before, but obviously it needs to be said again The new engine will *not* be a "wargame developer's kit", so do not expect to be able to plop in your own 3D models, game data, units, terrain, etc. Even if we wanted to hand out this much game to people, it is a very difficult design goal to obtain (you have no idea how difficult!). If we were going to sell an open system we would probably charge $100+ for it since we would be pissing away sales opportunities. Unlike Halflife and other whiz bang games, an open CM engine would be a viable form of competition for us for at least 3-4 years. This is not true for whizbang games because every 6-12 months some new hardware/software technology comes out that outdates previous versions. Not so for wargames, which CMBO proves. So a combo of very difficult engineering tasks and a near suicidal marketing startegy rules this out completely. What the new engine WILL be is far more flexible for us. That means we can perhaps do a new game in less than a year with perhaps even more improvements when compared to CMBO->CMBB. It will also allow us the flexibility to move the game engine to other time periods or game types if we should decide to. Currently CM is hardwired for certain types of WWII ETO combat only and can not be easily adapted to anything else (it took 2 years to model a different front!). How we are going to utilize this new engine? As I said above, we are not quite sure yet. But when we are, you guys will be the first to know Steve

That is not entirely true.... "sorry guys, but don't you think that once the hard, set-in-stone data is done (ballistics, penetration alogrithms and so on) the only thing that CAN be improved is the graphics" What about improvements to the user interface in the editor? What about improvements to the AI? What about improvements to the game interface? What about suggestions like SOP's for units? What about some additional "hints" for the AI so that scenario designs can hint the AI so it can adquately defend its self or mount a complicated mulitpoint co-ordinated attack or counter attack. AND of course the game graphics could look a little more current or sophisticated. Those screen shots WWII RTS sure do look impressive. -tom w [ December 18, 2002, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

CMBB and CMBO were released for the MAC and The PC at the SAME TIME!!! Thats it is a big factor for me. These are the VERY BEST combat simulations I have evered played!! (That is because they are historically accurate) -tom w

"I love it when a plan comes together!" -tom w

FYI internet talk for Laughing Out Loud LOL And my personal favourite..... ROTFLMAO Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off -tom w

The theory is the armour is not the same thickness all over. In the game there is about a %1 to %2 chance of the round striking the vision slot or the weakened area around the bow MG port and penetrating an otherwise impenetrable armoured surface. Ok? -tom w [ December 16, 2002, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

OK OK ROTFL Thats FUNNY! -tom w

where can I read about that? is there a HoI forum or "review" of the patch? This game HoI makes be think twice about being "stuck" on a Mac I love my Macs but HoI sounds like fun AND so Does OFP but its only on PC as well bummer. Thank Goodness for Combat Mission the two of them are the ONLY games I play (ok I admit it I dabble in AoE II for fun ) -tom w [ December 15, 2002, 11:18 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

I'm a mac guy so please forgive me Is there a Multiplayer option in HOI Can a German Player play against a human British/American/Russian player? Just curious sorry to hear the AI in HoI is so lousy is it really THAT bad? People say the CMBB AI is bad but I don't think it is all that bad?? :confused: -tom w

I think you mean *Advance* works in both directions; Assault makes no sense in reverse, right? Like you, I remember Steve saying that, but I have no clue where that is now. Cheer up! Yes, it can be a frustrating game, and it can be a frustrating forum. But come on now- it beats the heck out of anything else- why not take the good with the bad, look on the bright side, yadda yadda QB-before-bedtime yadda Eden</font>

Nice work a little dusty a little dirty a nice addition to the game Thanks! -tom w

interesting thread this whole "How to Disengage" thing has got ALOT of press/airtime lately -tom w

"I think it was in the Manual and also in a good article on this Forum that attacking cannot be done with parity with the enemy. Add to that passage " withdrawing cannot be achieved with the units that just did the attack" [ and got pinned for thier trouble}." this is also a good point and worth repeating Attacking cannot be done with parity with the enemy... AND " withdrawing cannot be achieved with the units that just did the attack" [ and got pinned for thier trouble}." -tom w

Smoke grenades were not used for this purpose historically, SL, ASL, and CC notwithstanding, so don't expect BTS to add them to CM. Michael</font>

Well they only gave it 6.5 out of 10 but they were very FAIR about this part: "This historical accuracy has its good points and bad points however; the enthusiast will no doubt love this level of detail, and prattle on for hours about the differences between a German tank and a Soviet tank, but for the casual gamer it will be a major turn-off. For most of us, there's a limit to how many numbers and statistics we can swallow comfortably - and Combat Mission 2 goes beyond this by several leagues. This game really is for the enthusiast of the era, and also of the genre. " PERFECT!!! Gameplay: 7 Enjoyable if you like history and real strategy games. Graphics: 4 It looks like it's 1998 all over again! Sounds: 6 Great intro music, but pretty basic the rest of the time. Longevity: 8 It goes on... and on... and on... and then there's the map editor... Verdict: 6.5 Combat Mission 2 has a great concept, but it's not really a game that's open to the gaming masses. However, if this is your sort of thing, this game will have an obscenely long lifespan. © 2000-2001 Madgamers.net. All Rights Reserved. Madgamers.net is not affiliated with any video game companies. Logos, trademarks, names, images, etc. are property of their respective companies. -tom w [ December 14, 2002, 10:08 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

Does the new Strategy Guide cover this in any way? Retreat/Withdraw while firing at the attacker seems like it still has some "issues"? :confused: I have to admit I have never needed to use withdraw. (Mostly because I am cold hearted and I let them stay and die, you know.. "Hold to the last man" usually while the rest of the inf that can, stay, they either just plain break or I order them to 'Run AWAY!' ). But it would be nice to know how it works so you can get your inf to walk backwards and fire forwards? :confused: .Perhaps tht is just not possible in CMBB? oh well I can't wait to get my strategy guide!! -tom w [ December 14, 2002, 09:10 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

that would be "My apologies to all our British and Canadian (Australian? New Zealand?) friends for leaving the "u" out of armor. posted in the best of spirit -tom w

No no Its not $15 its $15 + $8 shipping = $23 plus about 1.5 exhchange THEN it might it nailed at the border for GST thats %8 on the $15 US Seriously.. BUT I'm not complaining I am REALLY looking forward to the book and I think it is not too much to pay, the post is just a comment on the state of the US economy and the worthlessness of the CND dollar. If you are a American a vacation in Canada can be a REALLY inexpensive proposition -tom w [ December 14, 2002, 08:27 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

is this not something they should look into in v1.02??? :confused: -tom w

"Some particular gameplay mechanics were left out on purpose, also, to keep them "fuzzy" - for two main reasons: a) because the game mechanics themselves are fuzzy, meaning that a chart or table is not going to capture what really is going on under the hood. because CM was designed to reward intuitive play rather than analyzing minuscle details." OK then! That was sorta what I meant when I said they make it that way so players have to figure it out for themselves playing and actually gaining experience with the game and the "system". This concept is VERY interesting for me because I fully support the fact that NO units in the game EVER carry over and gain more experience as there is no campaign layer HOWEVER the player can and WILL advance from a conscript level of in-game performance to a veteran, crack or Elite level of game play in short order if you play the game enough and learn your lessons from experience. (OK reading this forum helps alot too!) I think they should give the game away free and just charge a monthly fee for access to this forum, it might prove EVEN more profitable. (I know they won't do this, that's why I mentioned it, because if they did I would not be able to afford to play CMBB or CMBO I think that goes DOUBLE for some others here (e.g. Redwolf, Andreas etc..) -tom w

WTF... So can someone give me a good reason as to why information like that was left out of the users manual that comes with the game?</font>

I live in Boston, MA. But people have mentioned the cost of the book in Canada (it's $40 canadian) and the slow customs orders (up to 3 weeks), so I was referencing that.</font>

I did the google search the key words "Brazilian Hackers" got me the best hits Those guys have been VERY BUSY there is a culture in that country of kids new to computer technology that LOVE to deface web sites AND there are lots of them. It would seem that there are not just a few hackers in Brazil but an entire sub culture of users trying to hack/crack and deface web sites so they can gain enough experience recognition and presitige to be become network security analsysts and make ALOT of money. One kid they quoted was 23 yrs old and claimed to be living on top of the world now because he used to be a GOOD hacker/cracker but now gets paid to consult on how to prevent web sites from being compromised. So now plenty of young folks in Brazil figure this is a good career option. Any comments from anyone in Brazil???? -tom w

Labels = Shift+G Bases = Shift+B what more do you need? -tom w