Ben Galanti

Scipio, it's spelled out in the thread I linked above. It's basically just a short cut. Instead of having the 2 MP40's not fire, they just subtract out the MP40's firepower from the MG42's, but then have the MP40's fire. So, you get the exact same effective firepower, it's just added up differently. The reason there is such a large drop is becasue the firepower of two MP40's subtracted from the MG42's at 40m is MUCH larger then the firepower of 2 Kar98's at 40m. If you add back those extra weapons, you'll see that the MG42's firepower is exactly the same. Again, this is spelled out well in the thread I mentioned in my other post. Ben

Actually, there are Belt feeders, but in the Heavy SMG squad, they are using SMGs, so the firepower hit is greater. For details see this thread. Ben

Well, i finally got an AFV to shoot straight in my fight with Kettler (and actually knock out what they hit) so I at least somewhat avenged my Greyhound. The rockets (plus other arty) keep falling. Man those things are a pain.... I suspect the meat of the fight will be joined here soon. I did manage to light up some brush with my arty, and watch Kettlers troops scurry away... My fight with Shandorf is winding down, and the only question now is whether I can flee my guys off the board before he butchers them all... I'm not looking forward to seeing the score in this one, even after it started off fairly promising... CDIC and I are still stumbling around in the dark looking for contact. Ben

*sigh* I make a good guess as to where John is going to bring his 20mm armed HT, sit my Greyhound there to knock him out. The HT drives up, my Greyhound puts a 37mm round through the front of the thing from about 30 meters.... immobolized. ARGH! His 20mm return shot has no problem knocking out my Greyhound however (actually, it's not even knocked out, just abandoned....grr) Then the obligatory Kettler rocket barrage begins Ben

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>My battle is Ben is about over. I have him surrounded and penned in. I control all the flags except for the one at his deployment area. this one should be a 70-30 battle in my favor. Muahahah! Actually near the begining if Ben would have pushed in the center a little harder after his inital contact with my troops I would have been in trouble but after he backed off I was able to gain the momentum and I haven't looked back since. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, this one is winding down, and not in my favor. I've got to see what I can pull out from it, but it's not pretty. Your hamster-truppen did a pretty good number on my guys on that first push (well, plus some nasty tree-burst arty shorts that butchered a platoon pretty good ) I think it's the Shandorf "Green Hordes" which really got me. I'm going to have to start doing that I think, those extra manuever units would have made a difference there at the beginning... As for the news from Kettler's fight, I didn't get a chance to check e-mail yesterday, doesn't sound good though... Ah well, the fight is still young, and I have some tricks up my sleave.... Ben

The classic rave extension will need to be disabled for CM to work in OS 9 (if you've put an OS X install over it). This extension is what Apple needs to fix for CM to work in classic under OS X. So, make sure to complain to Apple at the OS X feedback page. As for switching rendering engines, The CM rendering engine had already started in RAVE when OpenGL was announced as the new standard. I remember seeing CM screenshots in late sumemr 98, and the OpenGL thing wasn't announced until early '99. At the time, BTS was still shooting for a '99 release at that time (I think), so the one programmer (Charles) spending a lot of time reworking the platform specific Mac renderer wouldn't have been the best use of time. This, obviously was made worse when the CM wasn't actually released until mid-year 2000. With CM2 primarly being added units, with some game play changes (which is the platform independent code) it, again wouldn't make a lot of sense to spend time reworking the engine (when, a large majority of their Mac costumers probably do _not_ use OS X anyway). Ben

Well, smoke grenades aren't abstracted, there aren't any. BTS's research showed that infantry smoke grenades weren't really used for cover, but for signaling. The reason charging MG42's works a bit better then it perhaps ought to is do to other issues (which should be improved on for CM2) As for the comment of German soldiers feeding the MG42's, the drop in fire power due to that is factored into the MG42's firepower. So, the riflemans fire power is subtracted from the MG42's firepower, but then the rifleman fire's also. So, in the end it is a wash, but the effect is as if someone was helping feed the MG instead of firing. Ben

I should get to your turn tonight John (as well as shandorf's and my force purchases for CDIC). Just hit a couple of evenings in a row where I didn't have much time for gaming.... As for why I'm not on the list, all of my opponents so far have either dropped out or the games have stalled.... I think I might actually finish one here soon though Ben [ 10-04-2001: Message edited by: Ben Galanti ]

I don't think it plays at all, it crashes when starting a battle. As to whether this has changed in 10.1, I don't know, but I doubt it... Ben

What exact problems are you having? A PC using friend of mine was using Communicator for a long time, and we never really had any problems, we didn't have to zip it or anything... Ben

The hold up was my fault. Didn't get my purchases in until this morning.... Purchases and first turn setups all ways take me for ever for some reason... Ben

PFs can be fired at a 'non-targeted' unit. So the squad can be taregtting some other infantry unit, and it may still fire it's PFs. Now, I'll fully admit that this is pretty rare, I can only remember it happening two or three times in all of the games I've played (at least that I've noticed). Now, I'm not a PF expert my any means, honestly i've never had much luck with PFs. But I have gotton some kills on occasion. My problem seems to me more due to the 'borg' spotting. It's mighty tough to actually sneak up on an AFV, even if it's buttoned... Ben Ben

In general, I've found much better luck in NOT specifically targeting armor with infantry. The infantry seems more likely to fire their anti-tank weaponry if you don't give them a set target, but just get them in range. This may be totally bogus, but it's just what it seems like to me. Ben

Just to clarify Guachi's point, I don't think higher values are shown on the units stat screen (when you hit enter) but if you target an enemy squad with an elite squad and a green squad (at roughly the same place), the firepower number shown over the enemy unit will be different. Dunno what happens with leader bonuses, but it could be easily checked... Ben

How would any potential issues with onboard arty 'leaning' be any different then with the off-board stuff? If my crew spots that vehicle behind a building, I can call in offboard 81mm mortar fire on it, with the penalties for shooting out of LOS. Why should that be much different then for an onboard 81mm? There would have to be a wider dispersion pattern for firing blind, and it could g et tricky with the fact that onboard fire starts immediatly... Hmm... Ben

I think you've just had bad luck there, John (or I've had good luck) I've got 4 (or 5, I'll have to check) maps so far, and all have been daylight, with no percepitation... Ben

It was a concious design decision to not have it this way in CM 1, so I would be suprised if they reversed themselves on this in CM 2... Ben

The battle flags that you see are not the same as the ones that your opponent sees (except for after the last turn). So a flag that is a ? to you, could be actually in control of your opponent. Or, a flag that is shown in your control, could be shown to your opponent in his control, and in reality would be a ? at the end of the game. The flags only show who you think is in control. If you can't see any enemy units around the flag, it won't be shown in your opponents control. But if he does have units around the flag that you can't see it will actually be under his control (and shown to him as such). And to answer the original question (sort of), either play scenarios (which is my preference, there are plenty of them out there), don't play MEs (I think this is a fine option, but you don't agree about the point balances), or have a third party make a map (it can be randomly generated just like a QB in the map editor) and you send your purchases to them. Ben [ 09-06-2001: Message edited by: Ben Galanti ]

Well, the visual representation of the fox hole has nothing at all to do with how soon you see them. Now, whether CM has foxholes become visible at longer distances in snow then not in snow, is a good question. But a fairly quick test should be able to confirm that.

Mike, I've finally got my purchases for the game with Claymore done, but my your mail still seems to be down. I'll try resending them again this evening. Ben

Just a quick note. The speed problem with having vehicles block LOS would not be in displaying the movies, it would be in generating them. So screen resolution and what not wouldn't affect it. It would just take forever for the computer to compute each turn. Ben

I saw a link to Bigtime Software's website back in the fall of '98 on the Mac Gamer's Ledge wenbsite. Been reading the forums ever since. Ben

One other thing to note, the CM tac AI doesn't seem to take hills into account when breaking like this. The units go towars the nearsest terrain with good cover, ie woods, or brush, or buildings or what not, even if there is a nearby hill that they can break LOS behind. This is most apparent when cresting a large hill or ridge. If a unit comes under fire, instead of going back over the crest, it will generally head for the nearest patch of woods, even if that is further down the hill. Ben

And another: Questioning MG Effectivness? Ben

And another: Questioning MG Effectivness? Ben