Madmatt

Hey now, I never actually worked AT a strip club... at least not yet. I just worked security for and "dated" a lot of strippers... Madmatt

And if its done on April 25, you would be correct. Madmatt

Yup, we know exactly when it will be released. The game will be released when it's done. Madmatt

Ahem.... Combat Mission: Shock Force Website Madmatt [ February 09, 2007, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

Yes, vehicles can run over troops (although they try and run out of the way) as well as AT guns and other obstacles. I believe there are some screenshots floating around that show the effects on a PaK after a tank ran over it. Madmatt

As requested before we wanted to give you another update on what's being going on lately. Since we first announced the game last fall, we (Battlefront.com) have been working hard with the developer (1c) to enhance the overall realism of the game as well as add new game features and options. Below is just a short list of the dozens of improvements that have been made so far. * Visibility and engagement ranges have been substantially increased to realistic levels. * Hand to hand combat for infantry has been added (abstracted visually). * Restrictions to the use of captured vehicles and equipment has been added. Now only soldiers with suitable skills can use captured equipment. * Heavy artillery and light mortars were added as off-map support. * The infantry to armor ratio in all missions has been substantially increased. * Relative spotting indicators for each individual unit have been added. * The campaign has been changed to now allow advancement to the next mission despite defeat in a previous mission. * Fire on the move for vehicles with good enough crews has been implemented. * Delayed detonation and real-world physics for hand and anti-tank grenades have been added. * Enhanced physics modeling for all large caliber shells have been added. * Better burst duration modeling for automatic weapons added. * Infantry movement rates on various ground surfaces have been improved. * Realistic physics for vehicle movement (usage of gears, throttling etc) have been added. * Targeting for all units has been improved, it now depends more on target visibility, target movement status and firing mode. * Various tweaks to vehicles and equipment: model sizes, damage calculations etc. * Improved morale calculations. * New missions have been added. * Heavy air-bombers were removed from close air support role. * The delay for air and artillery support has been increased to realistic levels. * Unit path finding has been improved. * Recon airplanes added into the game. * Weather conditions and their effects on spotting, movement and combat have been improved. * Realistic Uniforms, Ranks, Names and numbering conventions for all nation’s soldiers and vehicles have been implemented. To help showcase many of the recent changes (realistic engagement ranges, Weapon Range indicator, rebalanced scenarios etc...) we have prepared a new Screenshot Gallery with 70 in game pics taken from the most recent game build. Theatre of War Screenshot Gallery Final play testing is being done on the current beta and is proceeding very well. We expect to announce a final firm release date later this month. Madmatt [ February 08, 2007, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

Is anyone else having connection issues? Late Friday night (early Saturday) I noticed some server slow down and rebooted the system. Are people still encountering problems now? Madmatt

The plan (well, MY plan) for the demo would be to include one Infantry heavy battle (US vs. German) and one which has some cool armor units to play (either Germany vs. Russian or vice versa). Putting together a good demo is a lengthy task in of itself though and right now we are more focused with polishing up the full game. The plan though is to release a demo about the same time as the game goes on sale (or pre-sale). Thats just the PLAN though, it might not pan out that way. Madmatt

Please continue this discussion in this thread: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=63;t=000450

I would if I could. Might be better to just close this one down. Madmatt

Starting locations, just like they were in CM, are fixed, however a given scenario can have a great many "triggers" which can force different events to occur. For example, the loss of a specific unit could trigger one type of reinforcement while getting to a certain spot on the map might trigger something totally different. The internal scenario scripting is something I have really wanted to spend more time with learning, but havent been able to. While I have pretty much interpreted the main mission file (the one that dictates, the map, playable area, environmental conditions, troops and equipment load out and placement) the files that handle deeper stuff like objectives and reinformcement triggers etc.. is a little greek to me still. Hopefully, much of this will become more clear with the editor. Madmatt

theBrit, I have not seen it confirmed yet though that the problem that unsobil encountered is occuring to all 8800 cards. In fact, this post was the first report I saw of any graphics issue like this (I guess he has the Russian game version and is playing on it). I know that 1C in addition to adding in all the stuff we have asked, are as well addressing issues raised by Russian players that have been playing the game since it was released in Russia earlier. It's entirely possible that this issue may not manifest itself at all in our release, so we will have to just wait and see and in the meantime I will be sure and see if we can get some testing done on our end with one of these cards. Madmatt

The game comes with over 40 different maps already and most of the maps are actually about twice the size that the battle occurs on (by editing the main mission file you can select how much of a given map is "playable"), so you could certainly reuse them in different ways. I am going from memory here but I think the maps are all about 3km by 3km in size, with an additional 1km by 1km that extends beyond that where the terrain is rendered in lower res (ex. billboard style trees instead of 3d ones). In the map I took my recent blog pics from, I think the playable area in that scenarios was about 1500 meters by about 1000 or so, even though the map extended a great deal more in all directions. Because of the rain and overcast though, spotting was shorter than that. Had I wanted, I could have edited the mission file (by hand at this point, we are still trying hard to get the mission editor included) and allowed much more of the map to be playable, although due to the design and intent of the battle depicted, its pretty good as is. Madmatt

unsobill, Unfortuantely, we don't have any 8800GTX or GTS cards to test with yet (would love to have one though!) so if 1C says its a driver issue, then thats probably what it is. The 8800 is an awesome card, unfortunately nVidia is not winning any awards with their driver stability and feature list. This type of situation often occurs with ATI or nVidia and as a game publisher (and developer of our own games like Combat Mission Shock Force) sometimes all we can do is wait for a new video driver to come out that fixes the problem as its totally out of our hands. Madmatt

The infantry to armor ratio has also been changed across the board. In fact, in the first Allied campaign mission (and likely one that will be included in the demo) you ONLY have infantry. In the past, this was a massive armor heavy affair with infantry merely being used in a supportive role. Proper play balancing the new restructured missions is also a major focus for us. Madmatt

I have played the demo a few times over the last couple of weeks. Overall the game doesnt feel like much of an improvement over Operation Flashpoint with its rather odd control scheme and design. Of course, thats not neccesarily a bad thing. I hosted the game and a few people connected but lag was so bad that it was very hard to do much. I can see a lot of potential in this game, which tries once more to bridge the gap between First Person Shooter, Squad Based Tactical Shooter and Simulation but it still has a lot of room for improvement and a long way to go before I would consider it ready for prime time. Just like Operation Flashpoint before, this game is an aquired taste to be sure. Madmatt

Redwolf, True, you could still area fire with HE, but in both CM and in ToW, area fire is never as accurate as aimed-direct fire. In both games we are faced with a dilema though. How do we allow the player the freedom to recon by fire, but not give him the ability to fire on unspotted targets with direct fire weaponry? This forced "area fire" solution seems to be the most useful and workable. There is one thing else to consider though, usually (although not always) the reason the enemy unit is NOT spotted is because of blocking terrain. In that case, even though I can order a area fire at say 700 meters (the position of the enemy unit) that fire is not going to magically pass through all the intervening terrain, but rather is going to impact into whatever is in the way. In some cases the AI will actually notify the player that such fire is simply impossible as the LOS-LOF is blocked too much even for area fire. Madmatt

Hey guys, I know many of you have been wondering just what the heck we have been doing with Theatre of War since we announced last year that we were going to publish it. Well, we have been doing a TON, and today I posted a blog entry all about some of the most recent changes that have been added. You can find my blog entry by clicking on this link: http://www.battlefront-newsletter.com/Blogfront/tabid/55/EntryID/70/Default.aspx Madmatt

Hey guys, I just finished my rather disjointed and somewhat rambling Blog update. Hope you enjoy it. http://www.battlefront-newsletter.com/Blogfront/tabid/55/EntryID/70/Default.aspx

Yup, a mission editor was always in the works, its just now we are actively trying to get it ready so we can include it right from the start instead of post release. By the way, I am right now working on a blog post update that will cover a couple of the newest enhancements to the game that we are seeing and testing. stand by, should be ready in a couple of hours, if not sooner! Madmatt

Also, the plan at this point is to be able to ship with some type of battle editor. Wheter that occurs or not is not yet determined but its pretty high up on a list already full of of high up stuff we want. Madmatt

Yes, by manually editing files, you can do this. This was one of the first things I discovered when I first started playing with various beta builds. Madmatt

Umm, I have been already for the last 7 years! What did you guys THINK I do all day??? Madmatt

Mostly just mine though! Madmatt

I am hoping to post a more comprehensive "update" type post by the end of this week. Thse things actually take more time to make then you might think, but it's on my "To Do" list as we want you guys to know whats been going on behind the scenes the last few months...Well we want you to know SOME of the stuff... The issue with the sheep was a mistake by all accounts... Madmatt