cannon

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jarmo: Yes, but the ammo loadout of s.shooter is so low, he'd get it full if he'd get even nearly the same amount as other riflemen. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes, I agree with your point here. I should have made a more careful reading of your post. Since the marksmen used the same ammo as the regular riflemen supply should not be a problem.

From the manual the supply level is set by the designer of the operation. If your american troops are not recieving full supply that is because the scenario designer chose a lower supply level.

"It's true, though, that until you can remove the AT guns, they're pretty useless." Jadayne Don't forget the deadly .50 cal too. They make very short work of any halftrack based weapons platform and its not uncommon for the Americans to have a few of these. Also there are other circumstances that can negate halftrack mounted mortars or any onboard mortar for that matter. I had a QB under heavy fog at night. Since the LOS was limited to 28 meters and the 81 has a minimum range of 100 meters, I just drove my mortar carrier off the board on the first turn. Robert

I have to agree that these vehicles need some tweaking. By these vehicles I mean all of the vehicles in CM that have rear facing guns. The hunt command is not just a command used to engage the enemy. It is also a way to tell your vehicles to reposition cautiously. In other words, move over there but if you see a threat stop and eliminate it or run away. Having to reverse these vehicles means that they tend to ignore these threat. Not something I think would really happen.

I don't think it would necessarily double the LOS calculations. First you check LOS for the TC and then you check that subset that he can see for LOS to the gun. The gun LOS should be a subset of the TC LOS. It would certainly make the TC an even more important aspect of gameplay.

I cut this out of the thread on Hull Down because I think it deserves a seperate topic. "In reality, a TC would not 'see' through terrain. He would be very aware that terrain to his front is blocking his LOS. Lets take an example of relatively flat terrain where there is a small hill in front of our real life TC. What he would do is slowly approach the hill on as gentle a slope as he can see and manuver so that HE, the TC, can JUST see over the terrain. This 'turret down' position would allow the TC to see targets and have his vehicle protected. He would then advise the gunner of targets range, position, etc ("T34, 1 o'clock, 400 meters!) and tell the driver to advance slowly. The gunner would depress his gun as much as he dares (dont wanna scoop up dirt..another good thing about the muzzle brake is that it can keep out dirt!) and hopes to have the target 'rise' off the terrain at which point he yells 'halt'. A TC will intervene if its obvious they are going over and the gun barrel is clearly 'tilted up'. A driver will immediately reverse if he starts to see a target. So the way the game is now, the cart is in front of the horse. I believe the game does NOT model TC LOS different from Gunner LOS/LOF so that is a major part of the problem. Example: There should be cases where the 'Unit' can see places he cant target.." Lewis I think Lewis brings up an important point here and that is that the TC should have LOS over a ridge before the vehicle is exposed to fire. This would have a tremendous impact on the survivability and utility of several vehicles in the game such as the light tanks, open topped tank destroyers, recce vehicles, and halftracks. My personal feeling is that the ability for the TC to spot before the vehicle is fully exposed would have a large enough impact on gameplay and modeling "reality" that it should be seriously considered. Naturally I can't speak for the programming requirements, but I invite comment from other players on the gameplay issues involved. It seems to me to be a concept that would have been used in WWII and would have a wide impact on gameplay. Robert

I just wanted to add that I think we are going to start seeing more and more of this model in several industries. Ones that come to mind are book publishing and music. These two are good examples since they also take the lions share of the profit and tend to supress good products in a search for "best sellers." I don't know of any examples in the music industry, but Stephen King published his latest novel through the web using ebooks and made a lot more money than he ever would have using a publisher. I believe the web will revolutionize these industries. I can hardly wait until I will be able to buy books from my favorite authors online for less than $1.00, and they never go out of print.

"My Company HQ got caught in an artillery barrage and was wiped out but there did not seem to be any effect its platoons." I think you will find that this has a larger impact on your overall moral. Every loss has an impact on your moral, but some units like leaders and tanks have a higher impact. These moral hits add up until you no longer have an effective fighting force.

Just wanted to lend some moral support. I'm running an old pentium 200mmx. There's nothing wrong with trying to get some more life out of your machine. $150 may be a great deal on a 3d card, but it's still $150 dollars that can go for more games, parts for your bike, or a fun weekend with the wife. You might try overclocking to get a little more life out of your system. Mine is overclocked to 225mhz right now. It seems like just enough to get under the minimum requirements for many games, when used in combination with a 3d card. You could try asking around about a card. You might come up with one for free. My card is a Stealth II by Diamond. It has 4mb of RAM and is going for about $30 retail right now. I wouldn't be surprised if someone wouldn't give you one of these for nothing.

The topo lines are pretty much what I expected. Too difficult to implement. Although, I still think they would be very nice to have. I am still pressing for some sort of alternative pallette that does not really so heavily on shades of red and green for the terrain. I find the 1st person views difficult to use too because of this issue. It's definitly not a show stopper, but would in my opinion make things a lot nicer for a significant number of us with some degree of color blindness.

Lawrence, KS

Yes, we all agree that camera view 1 is a very important view. The problem is that the overhead view is also a very important view. Unfortunately, there are some of us who cannot see any topographical information from the overhead view due to color blindness. I find vot easier to play because it's elevation changes are so extreme that the differences in shades are discernable from the overhead view. I would like to be able to see this on all of the maps. When the game is issued there are going to be a whole hell of a lot more maps to play and I would like to be able to make use of the overhead view. I know that a new color palette was issued for Alpha Centauri after it came out because of a similar issue. I think when this game is distributed and there are more maps available it is going to be a bigger problem with CM. Frankly, I don't think topographic lines are going to be the answer. I think coding them in would be to hard. I do think they would be very nice to have from a map readers standpoint. I think an alternate palette might be more doable. The one used for SMAC was atrocious, but I happily used it since it did make such a great difference in playability. I think that there are going to be a significant number of people frustrated by this game and they are not going to know why. My experience with SMAC has made me much more aware of how much more enjoyable a game can be when this is taken in to consideration. I liken it to going to a play or movie and not being able to hear the dialogue.

I agree with bullethead also. If you need to check LOS it is best done from the ground. However, when I am trying to manouver my troops, if you can call what I do manouvering. I like to use the overhead view. Especially during the early stages of the game. This does not work as well for me as it does for others because I have trouble differentiating the shades on the map. The VOT scenario is the only one in which I can actually see changes in elevation. It would be nice to be able to see changes in elevation on maps that aren't as extreme in their elevation changes. Changing the coloring or adding topography lines would accomplish this. I would expect that their are a lot of other people having the same difficulty since color blindness is pretty common among men.

I think what you are describing are topographic lines like on a topographic map. I think this would be a good idea too. I'm pretty color blind myself and have great difficulty telling elevations from the overhead view. Some sort of topographic lines would be nice. I would even settle for a color scheme that is not concentrated in the color blind region. These are the red/green colors for the majority of us. A different palette was made available for Alpha Centauri to help those of us who are color blind and it worked really well for me. It made the game play so much easier. Of course the new colors were atrocious, but I could tell the difference between the new shades so much easier. I'm sure people without color blindness have no idea what I'm talking about. This link will give some indication: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/8833/coloreye.html Most of you will have no difficulty seeing the numbers. Myself, I can only makeout two of the numbers in the set. If your having trouble with elevations in CM, you probably cannot see all the numbers either. Robert

This meta campaign stuff sounds really cool. How do I sign up? Keep in mind that I really stink at this game, but I make good cannonfodder. Robert