Rod

Dar, Goodluck with that migraine. You know I think Sally Jesse is on this afternoon. A couple minutes of watching that and I'm sure you won't be fit for softball. I think I'm outa luck although the wind is picking up a bit. As a side note I booted up my computer when I got here and it hung. I about freaked. It hasn't done that since I built it a year ago. The gods have a funny sense of humor. Luckily I rebooted and it worked.

...and it feels great. Mega-thanks BTS, its been a long wait but I can finally put away my Squad Leader games. They've been sitting on the shelf where I can always see them but never have time to play them. Now why again did I volunteer to play softball tonight do-oh. Please rain.

Mattias, Thanks, I'd be scared if I got it all right. Another note. CM2 is Barbarrosa and beyond and CM4 includes the invasion of Poland. I think that about does it.

Hi Guys, I believe BTS has it all covered except no plans for the Pacific Theator. CM2-Eastern Front including Finland CM3-Mediterranean Theater including the Baltics,Italy and North Africa. CM4-Early War in the West. Keep the sales coming I really want CM4.

Barbarossa, Just bought an ATI All in Wonder 128 32M agp at work for video capture stuff. It seems to run CM very well. The tuner works nice and video capture is pretty impressive. I haven't tried running Cm on a tv yet (no real desire to) but I'm sure it would work fine. As a bonus you could record some cm movies to VHS then capture them back as mpgs or Avis ect.. in realtime. Got this one at egghead.com for $199 with free shipping.

Looks great guys. Now all you have to do is add some film graininess and scratches and you'll have the real thing. Oh and one little hair dangling from the top of the frame. I see an Oscar for Best Documentary in a Computer wargame simulation in your future. [This message has been edited by Rod (edited 04-06-2000).]

This was actually originally posted under interface gripes a while back but never got a response and is quickly fading into oblivion. So here it is again. By the way they aren't really gripes. BTS, I have another minor suggestion for the interface. Is it possible to lock out the Caps Lock button. Several times I accidently hit it while trying to hit tab or the shift. When It gets locked I end up turning off sound, trees ect when I'm trying to give orders. Nothing major but it takes a second to figure out whats going on. One thought would be to swap the shift with the ctrl button. While I have your attention I'd also like to put in a request for a new feature on the interface. For the record I'm all for keeping the interface as simple as possible and yours is the best since Panzer General. This feature is actually from PG and addresses the problem of people losing track of units. I've played several games and have had that problem several times. In fact one time I totally spaced off some reinforcements for three turns. This was mainly because I was so engrossed in a flanking manuever I was trying to pull off. Anyway I would like to see some buttons (similar to PG) which basically do the same thing as the -/+ to cycle through units. These consist of a advance to next, advance to previous and an ignore button. The advance buttons would actually send you to the next or previous unit which hasn't been issued a new order or been ignored. Once you give an order to or ignore all units the advance to next unit button would get grayed out (or unhighlighted). Of course unlike PG you would still be able to go back and make changes to any unit. I know you'll probably say just use the -/+ keys, but what usually happens is that I use them to get to a certain spot on the battlefield I then make changes to those units in that general area. Once I click on a different unit the selection cycle is then all screwed up. I then have to cycle through a bunch of units again until I find one I haven't moved yet. Call me lazy but I really am. Well I would quit here but I just thought of another one. Could you possibly move the done button a little farther away from the <| | button. This only happened once but I accidentally hit it when trying to hit the <| | button. Just like to say stick to yours guns. As far as I'm concerned you guys know whats best for CM. Great Game.

To be fair to the AI you should really only count the first time you play a scenario. After that (even playing the other side) you pretty much know what is out there. The AI doesn't have that luxury. I know myself from playing Reis(berg?) scenario the first time I already knew to watch out for a couple of 88's from reading the message board. This was a huge advantage. Not to say there can't be improvements made but generally I find it pretty tough the first time I play a scenario. With all the scenarios that will be out there I doubt I'll play a single one more then a couple of times. Still with the demo each time I try different tactics to see what works and what doesn't and don't concern myself with winning or losing. Plenty of time for that when the game comes out. Hope this approach helps.

BTS, I have another minor suggestion for the interface. Is it possible to lock out the Caps Lock button. Several times I accidently hit it while trying to hit tab or the shift. When It gets locked I end up turning off sound, trees ect when I'm trying to give orders. Nothing major but it takes a second to figure out whats going on. One thought would be to swap the shift with the ctrl button. While I have your attention I'd also like to put in a request for a new feature on the interface. For the record I'm all for keeping the interface as simple as possible and yours is the best since Panzer General. This feature is actually from PG and addresses the problem of people losing track of units. I've played several games and have had that problem several times. In fact one time I totally spaced off some reinforcements for three turns. This was mainly because I was so engrossed in a flanking manuever I was trying to pull off. Anyway I would like to see some buttons (similar to PG) which basically do the same thing as the -/+ to cycle through units. These consist of a advance to next, advance to previous and an ignore button. The advance buttons would actually send you to the next or previous unit which hasn't been issued a new order or been ignored. Once you give an order to or ignore all units the advance to next unit button would get grayed out (or unhighlighted). Of course unlike PG you would still be able to go back and make changes to any unit. I know you'll probably say just use the -/+ keys, but what usually happens is that I use them to get to a certain spot on the battlefield I then make changes to those units in that general area. Once I click on a different unit the selection cycle is then all screwed up. I then have to cycle through a bunch of units again until I find one I haven't moved yet. Call me lazy but I really am. Well I would quit here but I just thought of another one. Could you possibly move the done button a little farther away from the <| | button. This only happened once but I accidentally hit it when trying to hit the <| | button. Just like to say stick to yours guns. As far as I'm concerned you guys know whats best for CM. Great Game.

Just my two cents on the esc question. I would have to say that I'm in the use esc for cancel orders camp. Here are my reasons. First off I think some of the problem is that the right mouse button does different things for different commands. For instance the LOS command is canceled using the right mouse button while for movement it actually allows you to continuously add waypoints (while the left one just adds a single one). For the target command the right mouse button basically is the same as the left. It also just picks a target. Not sure why this is. As it is now in order to use the backspace to cancel an order you have to actually place a waypoint marker. Now if you are placing waypoints using the right button this still doesn't kill the order. It just makes the last waypoint dissapear. You still have the rubber band activated. To kill it you need to place a waypoint with the left button and then hit backspace. Not exactly elegant. What I think people want the esc key to do is basically exactly what the right mouse button does for the LOS command. Why use the esc, to me it just seems natural. Being right handed my hand is usually over on that side of the keyboard especially since I'm constantly using the tab and 1,2,3 keys to quickly change views while giving commands. Even while I was checking out the commands while writing this I caught myself going for the esc key. I rarely need to go to windows so maybe a shift tab or something would be fine or maybe just the home key or something. Thinking about it now, would it be possible to use the right mouse button to just cancel all orders. I think the only one that would really need to be changed is the move. But if you just move the waypoint command to the left button it would work. If you just want one waypoint place it and then click the right button and your done. Sorry this got kind of long and I hope it makes sense. Didn't get much sleep last night for some reason. ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!!

"Keep'em warm and cozy and way back from enemy fire... they're worth their cost points in gold." Just curious but has anybody else seen enemy FOs wandering near your own lines. Playing the Americans in last defense a FO crossed the forward wall while I still had troops there in the middle of a firefight. Later on I had one enter a building well ahead of the rest of the squads. In fact I had a squad basically run past it and head upstairs in the same building. My apologies if this turned into a bug report. If I haven't mentioned it yet. BTS this was the Bestest Birthday present ever. Sniff Sniff .

For all who haven't noticed (I didn't at first) There is a button on the interface which brings up a list of the hotkeys.

Guys you really didn't have to wait for my birthday to send out the demo. Seriously. Your the greatest. Dilema now - Bars or CM, Free drinks or Squad Level tactical warfare. Hmmm Oh hell I hate birthdays anyway. 3 Meg down 12 to go.

FWIW I checked the CC2 weapons decription section and the movie that goes with the panzerfaust description is the same as the pictures above. If you step through it you can find a pre-firing shot and it is most definately a panzerfaust.

Regarding the Panzerfaust photo above. I'm thinking that I saw a movie that this comes from. It could be in the weapons description section in, I believe, CC2. I'm at work now so I can't check. It might be a different movie but I think it showed the trajectory fairly well.

"Dying aint much of a living, Boy" - Clint Eastwood "Outlaw Josie Wales" "GENTLEMEN, you can't fight in here this is the War Room!" - Peter Sellers "Dr. StrangeLove" "Combat Mission ships today" - Steve "BTS Message Board"

From Ames, conveniently located in the center of Iowa. Also at the top of Big 8 ...oops... Big 12 country.

Hey Pixman no problem, Its been about as long for me although I do delve into the world of physics occasionally at work. (When I'm not reading this dang message board ) Thinking about it some more I guess the length of the barrel would have an impact but more on the force side of the equation, as an impulse so to speak. A longer barrel might distribute the force over a longer period and thus the maximum torque may be lower where a shorter barrel might just give one sharp whack and be over. So I guess we would need to integrate the equation over the period of.......ouch I hurt my brain. I need CM out NOW!

Pixman wrote: "Just think about how much torque that 88mm gun is going to impart on the whole vehicle when it fires. Torque = force x length of the lever arm. On a Tiger, the gun is long and the force of the muzzle blast is high. So, if no other forces were acting on the tank, the firing of the gun would act to point the tank away from the target." I think there needs to be a slight correction here. From the above you seem to be implying the length of the gun is the moment arm, when in actuality the moment arm would be more like the distance the turrent is offset from the C.G. of the tank. For example if you fire straight ahead no torque is generated (ignoring the verticle offset) since you are firing along the axis of the tank. Now if you rotate your turrent 90 deg in a tank like the T-34 where the turrent is located well ahead of the CG lets say 2 meters(don't have the actual numbers) then the torque=force x 2m. On a tank like the tiger it seems that the turrent is more or less at the CG therefore there isn't much of a moment arm and thus low torque. All in all it would make for a really cool physics experiment. Maybe we can get Steve to strap a 88 to the weasel and do some high speed firing tests for us. We'll expect a report in the morning complete with quicktimes. On second thought you can do it after CM is out.

Hey Moon, Thanks for your input. Things are sounding better all the time and I can't wait to get my hands on the demo.

Hi Steve, Thanks for the reply. Sounds like you have a good handle on what I'm getting at. And maybe its not going to be a problem in CM, I'm totally willing to take your word for that and have to until the beta comes out . But I'm wondering if say you have a couple or several PBEM games going on at once or maybe just one but only get around to it a couple times a week.I could see where you might not quite remember how well some unit was positioned. I could see the need to post a bunch of sticky notes along the edge of my monitor reminding me not to move squad x unless absolutely necessary. Anyway congrats on going Beta. Oh the sticky notes kind of brings up another point. I know this was talked about a long time ago but was it ever determined if it would be possible to generate a crude map of the scene that could be printed out. Something along the lines of whats on the intro page to the battle reports. That way I could just make notes on it about my or enemy units. Thanks again Steve and Good Luck Martin.

Moon, I would think that by watching the disposition of enemy troops and knowing what kind of cover I'm in and how much time I had to prepare my position would give me some idea as to how well I'm hidden. I'm not saying I want to know exactly if I've been spotted or not, just how well I feel about the position I'm in. For instance if you set up an outpost along a path and had some time to prepare you would might feel a whole lot better about your position when a patrol came by then if you had just arrived two minutes before. My main point is in other games it was sometimes hard to remember if you had moved a unit and possibly comprimised its position. For example, Say you had the bazooka team hiding in those woods from the beginning. Lets say as you retreated you moved another bazooka team there and had him hide. This bazooka team might or might not have been in enemy los as he entered the woods. Now I assume that the original bazooka team would be harder to spot then the recent arrival and thus would have a higher confidence level of being not spotted. Might even tell the other guy to get lost so as to not draw fire . But lets say both stay, you go off to handle lets say a renegade Puma for awhile. After you come back a few turns later you decide to move one of the bazooka teams. You don't want to move the better concealed one but you can't remember which one it was. It would be nice to click on them and get some kind of indication as to which one it was. Thus the High medium or low confidence level. Or maybe something that tells you you've been hiding for x amount of turns. Again I'm not saying I want to know if the enemy can see me its just how well I feel about my position. In fact you might have a high confidence level but in actuality there was a guy with a radio and binoculars in that outhouse over there whos been there even longer and has known about you from the start. His confidence level might be pretty high also until he sees someone doing a little gig and start running towards his position while undoing his fly. Mainly though this would help to eliminate mistakes of moving a unit that is well concealed instead of one that might be questionable. A lot of this depends on the spotting rules and if time to prepare and lack of motion decreases your chance of being spotted. Maybe Steve could help out here. Well this got kind of long but I hope you see my point.

Hey Moon (and Steve), I have a couple questions concerning ambushes and hidden units. Is there a way to tell whether a unit is indeed hidden from the enemy. I always found it hard in SP or CC to tell or remember which units were probably well hidden i.e. never been moved. It always sucked to think your guy is safely conceled only to have something move up and blast it. I would think that it wouldn't be too unrealistic for a unit to know to some extent whether it is in good hiding. Maybe give a confidence or probability level. High medium or low. This would at least help you keep track of which units you should leave in place and which you should maybe move out of the way. For example, your bazooka team that you had in the woods covering the approach to the bridge might have a high level of probability of being hidden if he had started the scenario there but if he had moved there while maybe in the line of sight of the enemy and then was given a hide command his level might be medium or low. My other question concerns that same bazooka unit. I'm curious as to how his morale was affected as he became more and more isolated from friendly units. I would think he would get pretty edgy as the infantry moved closer and closer and in fact may totally lose his nerve and bolt even without taking any fire. Of course his confidence in his hidden status and his experience would I think affect this I would think.

BTS-Most of the sounds are really low on the scale an you can really feel them. Oh Oh looks like I'm going to have to spend some money on a subwoofer. So far I've just been piping the sound threw a receiver to a couple of bookshelf speakers. Any recomendations on a computer speaker system.

Mikeman I'd definately recommend it. Not only will things sound much much better but the game will undoubtably run much better with the hardware acceleration of the sound. I recently upgraded from a SB 16 to a Monster Sound 300 and was quite impressed. I picked the Monster card because it had game port acceleration, since I play a lot of flight sims. But I have a friend who got the SB Live and is equally satisfied. Hope this helps. There might be other newer top o the line cards out there now but I haven't kept abreast of the situation for a while.