Wolfe

While this does make some sense, we really don't know what's going into the next game and so some fanciful suggestions are naturally going to crop up. Many of the more far-out ideas are likely useless, but some will probably make it in. One I offered many moons ago (sun placed in sky according to latitude/longitude; and moves within the timeframe of the scenario - CMX2 Wishlist) was completely off the wall and seemingly difficult and time-consuming to implement, but it appears something like that may actually be in the game! :eek: (see IGN.com Article) I have no idea if a Vietnam CM is possible, much less in the works, but BTS has said the new engine will be quite flexible from a programming point of view, and so may be capable of simulating a wide variety of warfare types. I'm sure we'll get at least one WWII-oriented game, of course, but that doesn't mean that's the limit of the engine. I'm hoping for a Napoleonic version myself, though that's probably unlikely. BTS has put out 3 full games since 2000; they're pretty good at focusing on the task at hand, and are unlikely to get too sidetracked. In addition to the article linked above, some more tidbits on what's in store: Ammo consumption CMX2 Details - dynamic lighting, shadows, battles passing from day to night, placement of sun in sky, line of sight linked with light levels, 2005 release Theaters of War for CMX2 - No pacific theater for *current* CM engine Small Scale CM3 - no tiles - Chris

Thanks, junk. I hovered over the link and thought it was part of the search engine. I can understand that. The ones I think are the most unnecessary are the Light/Medium/Heavy Machine gun categories and the Howitzer/Field/Infantry Gun categories. I think these six would be better off as just two: MGs and Infantry Guns. I also don't think there's any functional difference in the game between a Howitzer Spotter and an Artillery Spotter, so those two might be better off combined as well. There are indeed in-game differences between the Mortar, Rocket, and Arty FOs, so having them in different categories is probably a good idea. But I wonder if they might be renamed so that they're all listed together in the Menu. Maybe something like: Artillery FO - Guns Artillery FO - Mortars Artillery FO - Rockets BTW, I hate to ask as I suspect it wouldn't be easy, but is there any way to get the database to recognize that 75 is actually less than 105? So things are a bit more in order? And just to be anal, the categories themselves should probably be capitalized (e.g. Antiaircraft vehicle should be Antiaircraft Vehicle). It just looks neater, IMO. Thanks again! - Chris

Nice site. I enjoy reading the comments. Spotted a few errors, mostly typos. The German Puppchen is listed under Rocket spotter; it's an AT gun, and it has no penetration stats listed. Armored car and Self-propelled artillery are misspelled throughout the Menus. It might have been better to combine the extraneous support weapons (like anti-tank teams, flame thrower, mortars, and sharpshooter) all into one category. It seems odd to have a whole category for one or two units. Same for the Heavy/Light machine guns. Likewise, German tractor and transport would probably be better off in one category instead of two. The German 88mm Flak gun cannot be used as an AA gun, so should probably be in the AT gun category instead. Calling the different infantry guns by different titles (Field vs. Infantry vs. Howitzer) makes it difficult to quickly find them among various countries; a bit of consistency would be helpful. In other words, call all of them Infantry Guns across the board to avoid confusion. I also think it would be better to combine the Brit Scout Car category into the Recon vehicle category. The Brit Flame tank could go into the close support tank category. It would be nice if there was a way to get back to the main menu listing all the countries without having to hit Reload or hitting the back button a dozen times. Thanks for all the hard work. - Chris

The 75mm IG is good out to about 1000m, but beware if you're playing in the CMAK desert with dry or very dry ground conditions. The constant dust kicked up by the misses near the enemy AFV will definitely destroy hit chance and your guns will lose their target often, killing their accuracy. So you might have to let the tanks get closer before opening up in those conditions to reduce the chance of misses. One slightly gamey thing about the 75mm HE chuckers is if you have a lot of them and gang up on enemy AFVs, they can quite quickly get gun hits and immobilizations. Penetrating the enemy armor isn't required at all to put it out of action, so don't fret if you don't have many HC shells. I've taken out King Tigers with hordes of 75mm Pack Howitzers, which have no chance of penetrating but will pepper the AFV into submission (immobilize and gun hit). And after the AFVs are gone, the guns are quite good at stopping an infantry advance and eventually (after a few turns) chewing them up. They can also draw enemy arty fire away from your troop concentrations, so they can be useful that way too, even if they can't directly contribute to the fighting while under the barrage. And be sure not to place your guns deep into the trees or cover; always place them right on the forward edge (except for Rocky or Rough or Cemetery or Vineyard, where LOS isn't affected by the terrain it's sitting in). The extra hiding ability you gain by placing them deeper into cover is extremely minimal while the accuracy you lose as the targeting line gets darker and darker blue is significant. BTW, the German 75mm Howitzer turns *much* more slowly than the IG 1918 or 1937. You can place guns up to 14m behind a wall and still receive benefits from it (so long as the enemy unit is on the same plane as the gun). And look for depressions in the terrain (and reverse slopes, of course) where your gun still has good LOS out over its target area, but is as low down as you can place it. - Chris [ September 03, 2004, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

How about combine these two? Take the existing Rocket unit and remove its ability to reduce an enemy unit's strength. Instead, it only reduces entrenchment and readiness of any units attacked. And against cities/mines/oil, it reduces MPP value (whether a unit is sitting on it or not). It also can only move a couple of hexes (forcing Op-moves to move around by rail). - Chris

I agree that simplicity is certainly important in SC and there always have to be abstractions at this level, but my thought was that a cumulative loss of readiness would be helpful at limiting the constant movement of units in the game. When the Germans finally stalled out at the gates of Moscow due to the Russian winter, their men and equipment were exhausted. But in SC once your Panzer Groups start moving through Poland, they literally never stop except to reinforce from time to time. I guess you could say that necessary pauses are abstracted within the turns, but I was hoping for something more. If readiness remains a calculation of that turn's supply (along with a few other factors), there's no incentive to pause and let some units rest and recuperate. I was hoping to add a bit of realism and more decision-making to the game without adding too much complexity, particularly from the player's point of view. I also think it could be a useful feature if readiness for new units were to begin at very low levels and rise (while resting) to simulate required training time, which would still allow fresh units to be thrown directly into the fray. This would turn the readiness factor into a handy multi-tasker. And sorry for not quoting myself before; I suppose it would have made it easier than scrolling through that tome I wrote. - Chris

Speaking of readiness, has anyone said how this will work in the game? In SC it's intimately tied to supply. I think it could work nicely if it were more independent of supply and had more to do with how much a unit moved and fought. I made some suggestions in one of my previous request threads: Yet Another SC2 Request Thread Will the readiness calculation change much in SC2? - Chris

So if someone were to create unit graphics that contain a bit of text (e.g. BB to indicate a battleship), the text would also be flipped along with the unit graphic? And what about the number indicating the upgrade level; is that separate from the unit BMP or does it get flipped as well? This "feature" could really limit the types of mods people could do. - Chris

There's also Flags.net. But I wonder which has the more correct shading of colors in the flags? - Chris

That would be very cool (I hope to do an SC1-style mod), but I wonder if releasing the BMPs themselves would really be all that useful. Since we wouldn't have the game yet, how would we be able to tell how well things fit? And are the bitmaps the same as in SC1; tiled onto a BMP sheet? Or is there some other special thing that needs to be done since they extend over top of adjacent map tiles? Is the shadow on the unit a real shadow or just a part of the bitmap? - Chris

I've been reading concerned posts about the new tile layout as opposed to hex-based, and I'm honestly not sure where I stand. Mostly because I'm not sure how it will play or, as KDG said, if there are some locations that will see a significant advantage from the layout. The decision to use tiles is obviously set in stone, but how about this: What if instead of having both north-south and east-west incur a 2-move penalty, only have the east-west move incur the penalty and be subject to ZOC. This way, you would have 6 directions of movement (the two diagonals and north-south), just like you do with traditional hexes, but also have the option of east-west if you wish to incur the movement penalty. You still get 8-sided attack/move choices, but it more resembles the more familiar hex moves. Just a thought. - Chris

Congrats, Hubert! Looks very cool. The map is 4 times wider than the previous game and with editable terrain! Impressive. Will there be a Pacific campaign included? If not, is the map editable enough to be able to create a Japan? In the Stalingrad map, next to the city is a German unit with two figures. The rifleman is kneeling to shoot, but the standing figure looks like a flame unit; is this an Engineer? - Chris

Thanks, guys! Glad you like 'em. They're a lot of work, but well worth it. - Chris

All of the PC-based Radeon cards from 9500 series on up only support multi-sampling AA. This does wonders for object edges, but can't do anything with textures such as the roofs as well as transparencies like the trees. Your Geforce card supports supersampling (actually mixed MS/SS modes) which handles both edge and texture aliasing, though the Radeon edge AA is better, especially with gamma correct. Unfortunately supersampling is much more bandwidth intensive than multi-sampling, so I don't know that ATI will ever return to SS (it drags down performance a lot); even the upcoming Geforce cards reportedly will be more MS-oriented for its AA, though they may still retain some mixed SS modes. One option may be to turn the resolution to as high as your monitor will support and run CM in that mode (you'll have to switch your desktop to that res or higher beforehand to get CM to run in that resolution, though). This can help lessen some of the texture sparkling that you see. I'm still waiting for someone to implement a Voodoo-5 style rotated grid supersampling mode, which was gorgeous (but slow) in CM. But I'm not holding my breath for it. - Chris

Not sure if this is your problem, but: If you're using Rage 3D Tweak, it installs a program called Game Util which allows you to change the gamma and then saves those settings in the registry. You can stop using Game Util (take it out of the Startup with msconfig) and/or reset the gamma to standard by deleting the reference in the registry. Fire up Regedit and find it in: HKEY_Current_User | Software | Game Util | Game Gamma You only need Game Util running in memory if you're overclocking the card or using it for creating game profiles; otherwise I don't think it needs to reside in memory and can be removed from startup. - Chris

I thought it was mono, not stereo. - Chris

CMAK charts have now been updated for CMAK 1.01. Added terrain exposure chart. Tanks Chart: * Changed availability dates for a number of units * Removed PzIIIF, PzIIIJ Short, PzIIIJ Short late, and PzIIIJ * Added canister rounds to 75/L24-armed PzIVs * Corrected bomb loadout on Ital Fiat CR.42 * Added Brit 75mm FO (Airborne only) * All Commonwealth 3" Mort and 4.5" Arty FOs no longer shown having radios when they never actually did * Removed Australian Valentine Guns Chart: * Ital 75/L18 Semovente gun gets Hollow charge rounds Infantry Chart: * Changed availability dates for various squads * French units now get Rifle Grenades - Chris

The howitzers turn much slower than the infantry guns, which may explain the price difference between the 1937 Inf gun and the 75mm How. Though the fast turning 1918 Inf gun is almost the same price as the How; I wonder if it doesn't get many Hollow charge rounds and maybe that explains the price difference there? *shrug* - Chris

Excellent! Glad you got it. And thanks for putting together this compilation. You're free to use my mod and alter it as you see fit. - Chris

See my sig. - Chris

Be careful, Jeff. I don't think this mod includes any of the graphics needed for the TCPIP update that occured in 1.06. I think it's missing 6 or 7 graphic files. BTW, I've uploaded a newer version of my tanks mod; it now includes a version that gives research dots to all the units, not just the tanks. Thanks for the plug! - Chris

Hi, Jeff. Not sure how to delete reg entries, but here are a few examples of how to create REG files; they might give you some hints. Be sure to back-up the registry first, though. http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/reg_files.html - Chris

HKLM Software ATI Technologies Driver 0000 atidxhal Within atidxhal add a String Value called ZMaskEnable and it give a value of 0 (that's zero, not o). - Chris

Thanks! It's nice to hear my hard work doesn't go unnoticed. And I've just uploaded the infantry firepower charts for CMAK. Yay! - Chris

The gun penetrations table has now been added. Yay! And a few corrections were made to the tanks chart: * Added Tungsten ammo to German Panzer IIC, Panzer IIF, 222 AC and 222 AC late, 231 AC, and 232 AC. * Changed caliber-length on US M3 Medium late. The new L/40 designation may or may not be more correct, but it helps distinguish it from the L/38 of the Sherman gun. * Corrected availability date of Australian forces. * Corrected caliber-length on Cruiser Mk IV CS. The only significant change is for the multi-gun AFVs; I used two rows to list the info, which might be problematic. - Chris