aka_tom_w
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Posts posted by aka_tom_w
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The fact that the manual is at the printers should be viewed by all as a very positive and very concrete sign that the end is very near. The beta testers come from virtually every time zone in the world and you should rest assured that all hours of the day 24/7 there is almost always someone somewhere trying to find the latest bug or break the game for the glory of reporting the latest bug, and that challenge (finding the latest new bug) is darn near impossible now.
The development cycle virtually never rests, and I too feel very honored to have been part of the beta testing community. Trust me, the beta tester community try VERY VERY hard to break this thing and make it crash, hang or fail every single day, virtually 24 hrs a day, and that's not to mention that from our point of view it seems Steve, Charles, Phil and Martin never actually sleep, I don't know how they do it. We can all feel it, it's very close to perfection. -
Adobe is a BIG company, granted the last time I checked they don't sell games, but without a doubt if you want a Windows copy AND a OS X copy of CS5 Creative Suit you will have to pay the full price for one of EACH license and they won't care how much you bitch and whine about it.
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I play Iron Mode mostly
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Good Work Sonar!
No mystery here, it all looks fine:
Ok, here is the definitive answer on the grenade vs tank situation. No.1 tank, panzerfaust, No.2 Panzerfaust and No.3 handgrenade. From 3:05 to5:45 you see the platoon being placed, pause when they are highlighted and you can see the inventory for each squad. The squad at the treeline, which kills No.2 has a panzerfaust. 26:20 to 26:40, panzerschreck has a go, listen to the sound of it's discharge and impact.26:42 team behind building fire a rifle grenade then a panzerfaust in quick sucession [watch their inventory as they fire, and watch the grenade and faust dissapear as there used]. Once again, listen to the sounds of these different types of weapon, in particular the faust.
27:56 the sqaud in the treeline let fly with their panzerfaust,See it is no longer in their inventoryand kills No.2. See the smoke from it's discharge,hear impact sound.
37:60 to 38:40 we see a miss from the last faust but no one else has a go with handgrenades, till the squad in the treeline whom the tank is literally sitting on top of, throw one.
By chance I paused at 38:40 and in the frame you see the stickgrenade, on it's way, in mid air where it explodes... above the rear engine cowling, listen to the difference between this explosion and the one that gets No.2.
I am completely satisfied with these results and my initial response was instigated by the misleading video commentary.
Now what was that someone said about chinstraps....cheers
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I never left
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The first 4-5 mins is really dark, then POP it brightens up.
Its hard to watch only from the point of view that I WANT to play it while I am watching it.
It REALLY makes you want to play the game, (sitting on the YouTube sidelines watching stinks
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I think maybe "No" is as good a guess as any.
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Yes, keep in mind game is still in the Beta testing stage of software development.
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Fantastic post! I have never seen those graphics before. Just know one thing, you NEED to trust Rexford, and if you don't know what I am talking about don't bother posting, FWIW.
I've read the fine AAR with keen interest. I'm very interested in this sequel of the Combat Mission series.Some questions to Bil_Hardenberger or The_Capt. Is the US-Tanks popping smoke done automatically or does it need a command ? For as it seems to me we are back with the old set gamey situation of tanks popping in and out of smoke and therefore reset the targetting cycle of the opposite side a very bad feature in my eyes.
As I understand it the M4 for instance has a type 60mm Launcher with which smoke grenades or maybe even HE-rounds can be shot. The smoke round contains phosphor which is quite nasty for the eyes and respiratory system when inhaled. The same basic system is also installed in german tanks though they mostly used it to launch small HE-grenades but also augmented the earlier used Nebelkerzen mounted at the turret or on the deck. To my knowledge smoke popping was used very seldom because in real life the benefit was minimal, because the time it needs to develop a full screen if at all... won't save one from the next round.
Another point. I also read the other AAR with the US attacking with a mixed grouping. In both this and the other AAR the M4A3s enjoyed a strange amount of luck of bouncing or absorbing rounds. It would be interesting to hear what damage each round did to M4s, we know it for the PzIVs already.
There was a discussion about the M4A3 (Mids, with the partially welded upper glacis) having something of an advantage at around 500 yards.
Now if we check the vulnerable area of the PzIV H vs. the M3 75 mm
From CMAK for the M3 Gun at 500 m:
ca. 96 mm at Normal, 76mm at 30° and 38mm at 60° (around 50-70 % or rounds will achieve this) we can suppose the PzIV being vulnerable for almost 100% of round to the turret if pointed to the shooter. The upper and lower glacis however is only marginally overmatched and already quite save when at a slight angle (20-30°). It was standard procedure to do this btw. when being in a firing position not intended to advance.
Here is the vulnerable area:
Notice only the turret is largely vulnerable.
For the M4A3 Mid (The one with old type glacis) things look much worse:
KwK40 L48 at 500m (from CMAK: 131mm at Normal, 101mm at 30°, 48mm at 60°). We can deduce that theoretically the M3's glacis should be quite safe at 56°, however the glacis is not a single piece.
Looking at the actual glacis things look much worse, here is the picture:
Here almost all of the turret and much of the Glacis because of the welding- and even screwed seams together with the vertical observation domes is actually very vulnerable to the KwK40 round leading to fatal high energy penetrations with lots of internal damage.
So in conclusion technically the PzIV would have the upper hand even at 500m. It is correct that once 1000m are reached the advantage becomes substantial because of the quite small 40 x 1.5m area being still very vulnerable and the much better gun (flatter trajectory).
In the M4A3 late with the 47° 2.5" untiled upper glacis things look much better and closely matches the PzIV. However the late was unlikely to have been in Normandy in quantity because the first prototypes were not finished before Feb. 1944.
So in light of this data I think the M4 and P4 should generate very similar results atleast at 500 m. The KwK40 round heavily overmatching the M4s turret as does the M3 Gun to the PzIV Turret. First round hits to the glacis might or might not penetrate for both the M4 and the PzIV but a good gunner might get it right the second time around.
Luck is bad company in a prolonged war....
Regards
Tsword
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Hold on, guys, we're working on another video that shows how the game installer works! Your jaws will drop when you see it! :cool:
ROTFLMAO !
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Catacol Highlander, $80 is about EUR 55, that includes download, the collector box, shipping&handling. It doesn't strike me as steep. I remember collector packs selling in stores in Europe for around that when I was still in Germany.
As for your question: this gets asked surprisingly often. Pre-ordering a download doesn't make much sense (btw, the download will be $55), since you won't be able to download until it's released anyway. In this specific case, however, the pre-order is deliberately targeted at people who want the "full enchilada", i.e. the collector box with all bells and whistles and the 200 page printed manual. Since we only have a limited amount of these printed, pre-ordering is a way for us to allow those fans who want the package to get it.
Right on! That sounds like a fantastic deal to me, I definitely want the whole enchilada.
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Blackhawk Down of course.
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And some don't want the beta tag lest someone read too much into their ramblings.
Yes :cool:
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Davey JJ
Keep your stick on the ice.
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I certainly hope that BF don't regard Real Time as their ideal, WeGo may be PBEM only, but that is still preferred ( IMO ) if you want to have control over all of the battle.
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And who wants to lose a battle to someone who is simply ... faster with a mouse ?
it is just my personal opinion but I don't believe CMx2 is like that, being simply fast with the mouse won't save you or help you if your tactics stink and your feel for the battlespace is not of the highest strategic level IMHO FWIW
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Actually, they probably told him "The Sherman tank is as good as any tank in the German army."
I am pretty sure that is a direct quote from general Patton.
"We have the best tanks and the best soldiers in Europe"
Or something like that
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The "Creator"
(ST-TOS fan speaking here) has pretty much covered all the bases here....OK, finally wading into this one after sitting on the sidelines for now.First of all, our testers are fierce advocates for the average customer. But I'll tell you what... if we had a tester that was unreasonable, single minded, demanding, and generally incapable of seeing anothers' point of view... we'd be looking for a new tester. Which means, our testers bring up things, debate us if we don't agree, and then they let it go if we give a definite answer. Customers don't have to do this, of course, but that's not a type of person that would make a good tester.
People must remember that there are few features in CMx1 that a clear and overwhelming majority of people consider "must haves". Just because one or more people found said feature to be the best thing they have ever seen DOESN'T mean that is the norm. This forum always offers a distorted perspective on this as well, since the most hardcore players (grogs and non-grogs as there is a difference) post. We've probably never seen more than a tiny fraction of our customer base posting here at any one time. Lobbying here, therefore, is taken as an opinion and not as a mandate.
The answer about armor penetration stats has already been given many times already. And yet the answer still is the same as before:
We are not putting in detailed armor stats into CM:BN because we can't just scoop out the data in CMx1 and have it magically displayed in CM:BN. It requires effort on our part and we feel that our effort is better spent on other things at this point. Will we have armor penetration stuff, in game, at some point? Yes, along with some other nice things that CMx1 never had. But not now.
In CM:BN now is pretty much everything that is in CMx1 in terms of information except outgoing weapons penetration data. Armor ratings are given in abstracted form already, which is about all that is really useful to most people most of the time anyway. What a vehicle is armed with is already detailed, as well as it's ability to function. Basic stats like speed and weight are also noted. If a vehicle can accept passengers, a count is shown for that as well.
Steve
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I think the the inherent issue is that CMx2 does not use "penetration tables" to determine projectile vs. armor performance.
In CMx1, "under the hood" armored vehicles were basically point entities attached to a set of numerical values on a matrix -- Armor was abstracted to a limited number of hit areas -- Front Turret, Front Upper Hull, Front Lower Hull, etc. Then certain qualifiers were incorporated into this to abstractly represent other armor attributes (Face Hardened plate, rounded Turret, etc.) So the numbers for a "penetration table" were really already part of the game data, and it probably wasn't very difficult to write a routine that could take the actual game data, simplify it, and spit it out as a table that players could relatively easily comprehend.
Not so in CMx2, where armor vs. gun is more directly related to the actual hit location on the AFV. There is no longer a matrix of numbers with values like "Upper Hull Front Armor = xx, Lower Hull Armor = yy" etc. in the game. The Armor is actually a 3D model with thickness and resistance modeled onto a geometric shape.
So now, in order to create a "penetration table" or something like that, an actual human would have to go through and subjectively evaluate the armor protection of each vehicle individually, assigning each a color value or something like that, and then do the same for guns.
Definitely NOT an impossible task. And since the real world source data is probably 99% the same, they could certainly use the CMx1 penetration table values & colors to give themselves a head start. However, some things would have to change, and this means more work hours for BFC's team. Take, for example, this issues with how CMx1 modeled a "rounded" turret in CMx1. A lot of players felt that CMx1's abstract hit location modeling undermodeled the armor protection of such turrets (such as what's on the Tiger 1). Now, with more exact modeling, the projectile's chances of penetrating a rounded surface are directly related the exact location of the hit, and the armor slope & thickness at that point. So this has to be factored in when you present an "Armor Protection" value for the Tiger 1's frontal turret, whether you decide to ultimately present the data to the player as a color, a number, a type of flightless waterfowl, or whatever other system you prefer.
And take a look at the composition StugIII frontal armor; it's composed of a hodgepodge of plates at various angles and thicknesses. CMx1 abstracted all this this into a couple of numerical values, which worked fairly well but may have over or undermodeled the StugIII's frontal protection in some situations. Now, the model is much more complex and this will hopefully result in better realism. But I'm not sure CMx1's values for a StugIIIg "upper hull front" and "lower hull front" are necessarily an accurate representation of what's going on here anymore.
Anyway, to summarize, I don't want to give the impression that I think "armor rating" and "gun penetration" displays aren't possible in the game; it's obviously possible to add these features, given a little work. But I think it's naive to assume that such a feature could just be "dropped in" with a minimum of effort. It's clear to me that adding such a feature would force either (a) the delay or elimination of other game features or (
further delay in the release of the game.Again, my personal opinion is that I didn't really need the penetration tables in CMx1; I didn't use them much even when I first started playing CMBO and had very little knowledge of WWII AT guns and armor. So I certainly can do without them in CMx2. I do understand that others feel differently. But I also think a lot of people here are making some pretty grand, unsupported generalizations about what "gamers" or "new players" might think of this feature (or lack thereof), when they're actually talking about what THEY want to see in the game. I don't find this to be a very convincing argument.
Regards,
YD
this is probably worth repeating at this point in case you missed it
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I would like to suggest that for those folks here new to the game or who have forgotten the opening words of the CM:BO manual, as a look back to capture the original CMBO feel and intent of the manual, (which has not changed ) I thought I would quote this passage from the CM:BO manual about stats and calculations.
Get used to it because this philosophy has not changed in the past 10 yrs
Quote:
This manual is also different from many other game manuals. Combat Mission is an extremely dynamic game that uses fuzzy logic and real-world physics models where ever possible instead of static combat result, terrain modifier or line of sight calculation tables often found in other wargames. So the manual cannot explain all the game mechanics with absolute precision (short of reprinting the computer code!). Instead, it talks more about the chances and probabilities than the offensive or defensive values, hexes and dice rolls.
So there you have it, the details of the calculations and armor penetration will remain hidden from view and are intended to be discovered by playing the game (and yes trial and error IS a valid method of learning how to play the game.)
The reference to "extremely dynamic" here should be understood to mean each and every instance of a round fired would or will receive its very own, very special, one-off calculation (result) that will account for different variables for many disparate factors, including but not limited to (off the top of my head) available daylight, crew quality, distance to the target, motion or velocity of the target or the shooter, velocity of the round fired, a detailed assessment of the angle of the target (for armor plates), armor thickness of the target plate, and possibly wind speed (that one I am not sure about) and there may be other factors at play like stress of combat, fatigue or suppression of the shooter to be accounted for as well.
Out of that list most grogs and stats geeks want to look only at about 3 or 4 of them
i) target distance
ii) thickness of armor plate
iii) known penetration values of different shooters as a factor of velocity
iv) percentage factor of chance to hit (usually memorized
) at a specified range laid out in a groggy chart somewhere on the internet.Its just not that simple, the game code will and does factor in a myriad of other variables to determine the individual outcome of every round.
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Are Jeff Heidman's files still available somewhere ???
thank you
Roberto
that's a good question, does any one have a link?
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While were at it, can BFC please code a CMBN artillery interface for the iPad, I'd just love to plot my barrages and air support in a more tactile, hands-on way.
um sure...
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testing
testing
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WOW!! So this game is pretty much going to make our heads explode, huh?
Great stuff Battleront. A+
oldie but a goodie
The development cycle virtually never rests, and I too feel very honored to have been part of the beta testing community. Trust me, the beta tester community try VERY VERY hard to break this thing and make it crash, hang or fail every single day, virtually 24 hrs a day, and that's not to mention that from our point of view it seems Steve, Charles, Phil and Martin never actually sleep, I don't know how they do it. We can all feel it, it's very close to perfection.
further delay in the release of the game.
Quick update on release status
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
You would be better off reading and re-reading the free online manual.
Trust me on the one.