Dschugaschwili

I'm playing at 1152x864. My Duron 700, GeForce2 GTS 32MB, 384MB RAM system can handle this quite well. Perhaps I should try 1280x960 some time (according to my calculations that's the largest resolution that my 17" monitor can display physically). Dschugaschwili

I once played a game of CMBO at a LAN-Party. And we even had pizza and beer! No uniforms though. And when we want violence and blood we can always play Quake3 with 15 players in Q3DM1. Dschugaschwili

Too bad they don't have a discussion area. I certainly won't give my e-mail adress to anybody who writes such an article. Dschugaschwili

:confused: :eek: :mad: Great! The only place where they mention Combat Mission is a citation of somebody who asked a valid question in a very questionable way on CDV's CM forum. Perhaps the authors should have taken a look at this forum to get a more balanced look. They don't seem to notice that there are also gamers who like strategy/war games because of the thinking required to play them, not because they happen to portray WWII. My thoughts: If you don't understand German, you don't miss anything if you don't read it. If you understand German, you don't miss anything if you don't read it either. Dschugaschwili [ January 27, 2003, 07:32 AM: Message edited by: Dschugaschwili ]

I can't test it right now because I'm at work, but here's a wild guess regarding arty falling off target even with LOS: Maybe this could be related to the "0% exposure without a wall" effect. I mean those occasions where you get a blue LOS line, but an enemy infantry unit shows an exposure rating of 0%. Perhaps such a spot is considered unobservable for the arty spotter, so the target point is randomly shifted. Somebody would have to test this. Dschugaschwili

I haven't tried it yet, but I think the gun is dropped off a few meters behind the gun tractor (about where you see it while embarked on realistic scale), so it should be possible to reverse the gun tractor close to some woods and drop off into them. Has anybody tested this? Of course, not getting blown away while unlimbering is another story... Dschugaschwili

The vehicle type is most certainly a factor here. Watching a Puma, a Panther and a Tiger drive the same path shows large differences how they take their turns, especially narrow ones. Dschugaschwili

YankeeDog: Great post. I did some experiments myself comparing CMBO and CMBB. It seems that tanks in CMBO will cut corners slightly and only to the inside. If the turn is too sharp they will quickly stop and rotate. This isn't much of a problem considering the very fast rotate speeds in CMBO. On the other hand, tanks in CMBB try very hard to drive curves smoothly and only start rotating when it definitely can't be avoided any more. This makes sense because rotate speeds are very low in CMBB, even for tanks that could neutral steer. CMBB definitely knows a minimum turn radius for each vehicle. (In CMBO it is not apparent if this is also the case, but with the high rotate speeds it doesn't really matter anyhow.) Compared to CMBO, the low rotate speed in CMBB coupled with a minimum turn radius while driving makes much larger deviations from the plotted path necessary. Only cutting corners towards the inside would mean that you would have to have at least 10m of free space on the inside to prevent bumping into something. Even driving around a house on a street would probably cause problems especially for large tanks. Another thing that I have noticed is the fact that different tanks have different minimum turn radii. I have compared the following German vehicles that show up in CMBO and CMBB: PzIIL, Wespe, PzIVG, StugIIIG, StugIV, Panther, Tiger, Puma. The Tiger has the largest minimum turn radius of those, followed by Wespe, PzIV and the StuGs that have similar values, the PzIIL seems to be slightly better, the Panther is even better, and the Puma wins every obstacle course test with ease. MeatEtr: If I plot several fast move orders in a row, I would be severely annoyed if my tanks would stop after every single order to rotate towards the direction of the next waypoint, and only then continue to move. If you really want a tank to stop, rotate and continue at a specific point, you can do this at the expense of an additional waypoint by plotting an extremely short reverse waypoint at the point where you want the tank to stop. This is mainly useful if you want to drop off a passenger at that point and continue driving somewhere else after that. Dschugaschwili

I have seen both animated GIFs, and I just downloaded the scenarios (although I suspect that the one for CMBB is corrupted), and it seems that tanks in CMBB cut corners in a different way than in CMBO. To drive a nice round curve, they have to deviate from the movement path somewhere, and it seems that in CMBO they only need lots of free space on the inside of the turn, while in CMBB they need some space both on the inside and on the outside. The advantage of the latter system is that navigating through narrow paths between obstacles is much easier because you can plot the movement path in the middle of the gaps, like you do normally. I think in CMBO you were more likely to crash into obstacles if there was not much space available. I may test this over the weekend. Dschugaschwili

Huh? What's the problem? I just finished playing this scenario, and I got a tactical victory on the first try with the AI using the default unit placement (the Russians surrendered on turn 31). Perhaps I should add that none of my tanks survived the battle. A couple of HMGs would have probably done more damage... Dschugaschwili [ January 17, 2003, 06:00 AM: Message edited by: Dschugaschwili ]

Yes. This is not a problem. My tanks often start rotating, and while it increases traverse time I can live with it. The problem arises when the tanks rotate way past the point they were supposed to.</font>

The seek hulldown command uses the behaviour of the move command according to BFC. This means that a tank using this command does not expect to have enemy contact before it has completed the command. It also means that the tank is unlikely to fire while using this command. And moving units are more likely to get nervous when they are under fire. Considering this, you really shouldn't be surprised if the TacAI overrides a seek hulldown order and reverses back out of LOS when your tank is targeted by an enemy tank. Dschugaschwili

He's saying that US/British and German penetration figures are calculated in a different way, so they are not comparable. In order to compare the different figures, you would have to add about 20% to the German data (even more for vertical hits). Dschugaschwili [ January 16, 2003, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: Dschugaschwili ]

I once read (before the release of CMBB) that the TacAI was supposed to switch to HE ammo against indestructible targets to increase the chance of mobility/firepower kills, but I haven't noticed this. Perhaps this was taken out during the development process. Aiming for weak spots is definitely out. Dschugaschwili

This is not an official response, but still: It seems that vehicles in CMBB have a minimum turn radius. If you try to have them drive a turn sharper than that, they will start rotating at some point to cut the corner. Where they will do this seems to depend on current speed and the number of waypoints. The solution is to give your vehicles enough space to turn. Making sure that the radius of your turns is at least 10m, the movement orders are at least 2m away from any impassible terrain and the last movement order (the one you want to use to set your vehicle's facing) is at least 15-20m long usually ensures that they will behave as you want. Dschugaschwili

Ok, another really bad idea: Sokoban Maze-like map (lots of cliffs). Soviet player gets a T34M43 and lots of tank hunter teams with RPGs. German force consists of a couple of ammoless 221(late) ACs (padlocked and already surrounded by the tank hunter teams) and some other troops in a cut off corner of the map to prevent auto-surrender. The russian player has to push the ACs onto the target spots (marked by wheat fields) before the time runs out. Dschugaschwili

King of the hill 1x1km symmetrical map, open ground except for a one tile wide ring of scattered trees around the map. Terrain rises slightly towards the map edges so basically every spot on the map is visible from everywhere. A single small building with a large flag in the center. Both sides get a green rifle company with extra ammo. The first player to get a unit into the building wins. Dschugaschwili edit: now that I think about it, this one could even be fun... [ January 14, 2003, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: Dschugaschwili ]

If only I would get a dollar for every :mad: graemlin MasterGoodale uses... Dschugaschwili

A dead vehicle offers nothing. If it burns, the smoke offers some concealment, but that's all. Dschugaschwili

That's probably why vehicles in CMBB don't get the Stielgranate. Dschugaschwili

Laox, your observation is correct. Victory flags take the status they would have at the end of the turn at the first second of the movie and keep it until the action stops. This isn't really a big problem though. Dschugaschwili

This problem already existed in CMBO. Gun and track hits never cause any other damage than to the gun/tracks. Don't really know why, but it works this way. Similarly, in CMBO top hits were "absorbed" by the vehicle hit. There were reports of a light tank being hit by the spotting round from a 14" gun, absorbing the entire blast and thus saving hundreds of men around it. Don't know if it still works this way in CMBB. Dschugaschwili

The "seek hull down" command tries to find a hull down position relative to the destination point of the command. Your vehicle will drive along the plotted movement path (behaving like it was using move) until it is hull down to the end point. If it doesn't find such a position it will continue all the way towards the end point of the order. Dschugaschwili

You mean in the map editor? You could always place more craters manually, but I don't think you can alter the damage levels of buildings. Dschugaschwili

If you can dig in your tanks (this is set by the scenario designer), you have to do so during setup by selecting the "dig in" option in the tank's command menu. A dug in tank will be hull down from any direction, but it will also be immobile for the entire battle. Dschugaschwili