Dschugaschwili
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Posts posted by Dschugaschwili
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Have you noticed the distance? 100m is close enough to hit almost anything even if it's hull down. Try the same from farther away, say 1000m, and I'm sure things will look very different.
As for hull down being worth the effort or not, it depends on which part of your tank is vulnerable to enemy fire.
If it's only the lower hull, you should obviously go hull down.
If it's the turret, but not the upper hull, being hull down may be a disadvantage (PzIV vs. Greyhound is the most famous example).
If it's everything, go hull down of course.
And so on...
Dschugaschwili
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Have you noticed the distance? 100m is close enough to hit almost anything even if it's hull down. Try the same from farther away, say 1000m, and I'm sure things will look very different.
As for hull down being worth the effort or not, it depends on which part of your tank is vulnerable to enemy fire.
If it's only the lower hull, you should obviously go hull down.
If it's the turret, but not the upper hull, being hull down may be a disadvantage (PzIV vs. Greyhound is the most famous example).
If it's everything, go hull down of course.
And so on...
Dschugaschwili
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Adding a memory to units would be easier if the relative spotting system was in place already. In that scenario, each unit has its own contact list including a set of "lost contact" markers. The game could then give each marker a threat value (like every other unit) that starts a little lower than the threat rating of the visible unit it represented and diminishes over time. When it comes to deciding what target to choose, the still moderately high threat value of a unit that has disappeared a short time ago can then prevent the targeting of low priority targets far away.
Of course, the lost contact markers are global now, so at the moment there's not enough information available for each unit to implement this.
Dschugaschwili
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Bump again. Any official comment?
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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Doug Beman:
I'm willing to bet that having a system in which a file for "Turn X Movie" AND "Turn X+1 Orders" must be sent is MORE complicated to code than a system in which each and every email sent includes only ONE file (movie or orders)
DjB<hr></blockquote>
It would require a change in the PBEM file format, but not a large one as far as I can tell. Let's take an educated guess on the current situation:
Right now there are two basic types of files: movie files and orders files (based on what has to be done first when loading the file).
In both cases there is full information about the state of the battlefield included in the file, and additionally, there are the orders for every unit. If it's a movie file, there's also the information about what's happening during the minute in question.
After the movie is played, the game knows the state of the battlefield at the start of the next turn.
Now, let's take a look at what the files would have to look like under the new system.
The "movie only" file would carry over unchanged (the second player to issue the orders for the turn in question calculates it). When this movie is viewed by player X, the state of the game at the start of the next turn is known already, so it would be possible to issue the next turn's orders and include them in the file, in the most simple case by appending the file that only contains orders (which would be the next one X has to send after the movie file) to the file containing the movie, thus sending two files as one.
In short, the coding effort should be minimal.
Dschugaschwili
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karch,
As far as I understand the posts in this thread (including mine), people will be very happy if PBEM play will be changed to the faster system in CMBB. (Almost) everyone knows that BTS doesn't want to put any more work into CMBO, but I hope that PBEM play will still be possible in CMBB, and a faster system would be greatly appreciated.
Dschugaschwili
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Another possible way of cheating just crossed my mind. This one only works if the cheater is the one who calculates the movie. He could modify the CM executable to make his troops better, like more accurate or having a better morale etc.
Of course this could be stopped by including a checksum of the CM executable used in the PBEM file, so if both executables are different, it is easily recognizable. This system may even be in place already, I never tried.
Dschugaschwili
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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Wreck:
Second, someone raised the point that alternating the machine where the turn is computed is a good thing. Presumably then someone who had altered his copy could only cheat every other turn. However I would much prefer all or nothing -- the "host" machine should always compute all turns, as it is done in TCP. This way I can play people I don't trust (me hosting), and also I can play people I do trust (doesn't matter who hosts). In email I wouldn't play people I don't trust, because if they cheat on "only" half the turns it is nearly as bad as them cheating on all the turns. All they have to do is arrange for their tank to crest at the start of the turn where they are going to control the computation.<hr></blockquote>
Exactly. Let's examine this cheating issue in greater detail:
1. A cheater is able to somehow figure out my password. Now if he
a. calculates a turn himself, he can view the results using my password and try again if the results do not please him. Nothing new here. I'll call this the easy way of cheating.
b. He doesn't calculate the movie. In that case he can view it first, he can view the movie from his opponent's side and see his orders that carry on into the next turn, and if he wants to, he can load a previous PBEM file to redo the opponent's last orders (or even go one step farther back and change his own ones too) and calculate the movie again himself. Of course this has to be done very carefully so the opponent won't notice any difference to the orders he's given. I'll call this the hard way of cheating.
Even if he doesn't do anything else, the fact that someone who knows the opponent's password can always see what he has, where it's located and what orders are left from previous rounds, which should be enough to win the game even without furter cheating.
2. The cheater has found a way to hack the files without needing a password. This means he can "read" what happens in a movie by just looking at the file and knows how to change it without having to look at the movie. In that case it doesn't make a difference if he hacks the movie file he just created or the one he just received. So it doesn't even matter if he has calculated the movie himself or not.
So it seems that the only case where the two-e-mails-per-turn system makes a difference is against a cheater who only cheats the easy way. With the current system he can cheat every other turn, which is enough because he can time the deceisive fights to take place on these turns. With the two-e-mails-per-turn system, he can either cheat always (which isn't really much worse than half of the time) or never, which is clearly better than half of the time.
To sum it up, the only thing I can think of standing against this system is a technical issue with the PBEM file format, but only BTS can comment on that.
Dschugaschwili
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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Kingfish:
But you could reload it and get a different outcome over time.
<hr></blockquote>
No you can't. If you look at my proposal, you can easily see that the player calculating the movie is always the second one to view it. So as long as he doesn't know the opponent's password, he can't cheat in any way short of hacking the file, and that's definitely not easy. I've tried it back in the beta demo days and failed.
Dschugaschwili
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I know this issue has been discussed before, but as far as I can remember nobody has come up with this method before:
The changes I propose start after turn 1. The orders for the first turn are given as always. After that every time a player views a movie he gives his orders for the next turn immediately after the movie. Example (changes to the current system are in bold):
1. Player 1 gives turn 1 orders.
2. Player 2 gives turn 1 orders. Movie is calculated.
3. Player 1 views turn 1 movie and gives turn 2 orders. Movie data and turn 2 orders are sent to player 2.
4. Player 2 views turn 1 movie and gives turn 2 orders. Movie is calculated.
5. Go to step 3 with all numbers increased by 1.
This system would only require two e-mails per turn, and I don't see any way to cheat. It may require a change to the PBEM file format though because movie data and orders have to be sent in one file which wasn't necessary before. Come to think of it, it was necessary even before because you could give orders for multiple turns, so my system probably doesn't even require a big change to the file format.
Does anybody see any problems that I failed to notice? I know that the movies are all calculated on the same computer, but I don't really see a big problem with that.
Any other comments?
Dschugaschwili
[ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: Dschugaschwili ]</p>
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I've just won a night and fog (not thick fog, so visibility was about 50m) battle with regular british troops against veteran Fallschirmjägers in a meeting engagement (auto purchase and random weather). The thing I noticed in this game is that the first shot wins. So rush the flags and sit it out there. If your troops are stationary, they will spot the enemy faster than they are spotted, and the first few shots will be fired unspotted. I'm under the impression that the moral effects of being fired at are worse if the shooter is unknown. Most likely you will pin/rout the advancing enemy squads before they spot you unless perhaps they are coming from several directions and in much greater numbers. But I do think that the "rush and hold" strategy generally works very well with very low visibility.
Dschugaschwili
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A possible explanation of the "bigger is better" observation is the larger blast radius of the larger guns, meaning that you can hit more targets per shell. So if you have an arty round that has four times the blast value and 1.5 times the blast radius (about twice the area of effect) of another shell, you'd need only one eightth the number of shells to get the same killing effect on densely packed troops.
Dschugaschwili
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The manual is wrong on this one. Padlocked units have an orange base and cannot be moved during setup. So far the manual is right.
Units with gray bases on the other hand are placed outside of a player's setup zone without being padlocked and can be moved to any of the player's setup zones during setup. However, once you've moved them, you can't get them back to their initial position outside of the setup zones. That's how it really works, despite of what the manual says.
Dschugaschwili
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by russellmz:
"Scattered trees only give a 5% chance of bogging against 28% on open terrain. "
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You do realize that this test was done in deep mud, do you? On dry open ground the chance for a vehicle to bog in is about 0%.
The interesting result of the test you pointed to is that the chance to bog in in scattered trees is unaffected by the ground conditions, so in bad weather driving through them can be an advantage.
Dschugaschwili
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Soddball:
Doom is now 5 years old. It deserves a high rating because of its revolutionary impact on the PC game marketplace.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Doom is much older than that. Quake is 5 years old. But I also consider Doom (one of) the most revolutionary games ever made.
And the fact that CM even made it into the top 50 is a great accomplishment for a game that's still pretty new and not really a mainstream product.
Dschugaschwili
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To get the spelling right: "Für das Reich".
Dschugaschwili
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As to the accuracy of the German Nebelwerfer rockets, it's horrible. It doesn't seem to matter if the spotter has LOS to the target point or if there's a TRP there, most shells land within 300m around the target. So buying it in small battles (read: small map) will just as likely kill your own troops as the enemy's.
Dschugaschwili
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Agua:
[...] I have to say it seems there are very few tcp/ip I play where I don't get just **** HQ units with no bonuses (usual case), or a bonus that is not very useful in the terrain (i.e., command bonus in heavily wooded terrain - once the squad is out of los, influence is lost anyway).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Actually, the command bonus is perhaps the best bonus you can get in woods because the influence is not lost once you're out of LOS, but the in-command distance is halved in that case. So with a regular +2 command HQ you still have 50m command radius in woods which is enough most of the time.
Other points raised in this thread: the combat bonus is not included in the displayed firepower rating of your units. This is why there is no information available about how big this bonus is.
And even if you get one of those 4x +0 HQs you should remember that being in command of a +0 HQ is still better than being totally out of command and control.
Dschugaschwili
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The trajectory of a shell is not figured into the penetration calculation. A quick search (knowing that I've asked a similar question before
) finds this answer from Charles why not.Edit:
Not to confuse anyone, as far as I know the angle of impact caused by height differences between attacker and target (extreme example: a PIAT firing at a vehicle on the road from the top floor of a building standing next to the road) is included in the calculations, just the trajectory of the projectile (the change of direction during flight) isn't.
Dschugaschwili
[ 07-30-2001: Message edited by: Dschugaschwili ]
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Of course, the chat system would have to be redone for this. Of course, BTS can't let an observing player see both sides and chat with both players for obvious reasons (except both players agree).
Restricting each observing player to observe and chat with one player only would be one solution, observing players being able to only chat with other observers would be another.
Dschugaschwili
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Yes, it's "pyrrhic". So now I'm darn-right mean, right?
Dschugaschwili
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Has anyone ever tried infantry only Quick Battles? For a combined arms game it's quite clear why the AI never buys Gebirgsjäger: they don't get any armored support. You'll have a really hard time trying to spend all your points without buying a single vehicle in a combined arms game. I think they may show up in infantry only QBs every now and then, although I haven't played many of those, so I can't really know.
Dschugaschwili
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Iron Man Rules for OPTION for CMBB?
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
In order to implement the iron man rules, there has to be a possibility of disabling any mods the user has installed, otherwise you can cheat pretty easily by using a blank tree texture, bright colors for vehicle models, a different color for each model, and so on.
Dschugaschwili