civdiv
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Posts posted by civdiv
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Fionn:
What I said was 'There are still a few bugs that need to be ironed out, and many things that need to be improved;' meaning the following fell into either catagory.
1. I have my doubts about your conclusion. I have seen the AI hit a tank 2 or 3 times in a row, and then miss 6 times, far to the right of the target, even at ranges of less than 300 meters. I have seen this happen on a number of occasions. Teut has acknowledged this as a bug.
3. The inability for the wingmen tanks to backup in itself is a huge design flaw. The habit they have of simply driving in circles indicates poor AI, regardless of the 'understanding of the commands'.
4. I spent 8 years in the USMC as an Artillery FO. The graphic representaion of the round impact is weak. I mean, seriously, I have yet to figure out what they are trying to represent. Maybe I'll take some screen shots. All I see is like a white plume, that lasts a split second. It's almost impossible to tell where it is, sometimes it seems suspended in the air. I'm not sure of it is supposed to represent; the round flying through the air, or the strike, or what. Obviously a solid core penetrator doesn't explode, but it makes a nice flash if it hits metal and it does kick up a great deal of dirt. I can spot the impact of a 20mm solid core round at 1500m in dry ground, I should be able to see a 75mm round impact at 500. Plus, given the shortcomings of depicting this on a cpu monitor, todays qraphic shortcomings, and the lack of 4 other persons also spotting, it seems clear (to me) that a case can be made for actually increasing the depiction of the impacts, beyond that of reality.
5. I doubt if they added the 'chrome' of gun sights after they started development.
This is a tank sim, after all.
7. Not being able to switch tanks is a design decision, but a very ahistorical one. My reading of history (And I enclosed many references in a thread on the Wings board) indicates that given a commander who wasn't heavily wounded or killed, and the close proximity of another tank, he almost invariably remounted to resume command.
8. We are bound to disagree. The crew positions are useless so why render them? And if you render them, why not make them interactive? I have to say, that given the effort that went into them, they were to have been interactive, but they shipped early. Why not nicely render the interior of the engine compartment, or the inside of an external equipment box, or the inside of the commander's binocular case?
9. What I mean is, it looks flat in front of you but when you get within 100m it suddenly turns into a steep incline or decline. I think it's called 'terrain pop-up'.
10. I would make the case that many tank crews discovered they were being shot at when they heard the ear-splitting crack of a high velocity round hitting the outside of their tank. They also heard near misses, felt HE rounds, heard small arms, and then felt and heard the occasional short round that impacted on the ricochet. The only thing you hear in this game is guns firing, and tanks blowing up, nothing in between.
It has huge problems, but the bare-bones for a great sim are there. Sorry Fionn, IMO, the accountants got to this one and forced it out the door. As I told Teut, I just hope the designers fought tooth and nail before succombing.
[This message has been edited by civdiv (edited 12-17-99).]
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I've been playing PE since it came out and it is a game with vast potential, though potential that hasn't been realized yet. The game shipped to soon and required immediate patching. The initial patch (1.07) was flawed which required another version of the same patch (1.07 final), which similiarly was flawed, and required another patch (1.072) to fix it. Then, the patches being having screwed up many persons installs, another download was made available to check your install, which similarly didn't work, followed by a second, and recently a 3rd version of this install checker.
As I said when I opened this msg, it has vast potential, but it hasn't been realized yet. There are still a few bugs that need to be ironed out, and many things that need to be improved;
1) Your AI gunner sometimes enters a period when he shoots well to the right of the target for no apparant reason.
2) The armor modelling is flawed, probably due to coding typos. We had a PSW 222 which was just about indestuctable, and Shermans were dinging Panthers and Tigers from long range, while the Panthers and Tigers have trouble killing Shermans at close range.
3) The wingman AI is pretty bad, and you can't make them backup. They frequently drive in circles, exposing their flanks and rear to the enemy.
4) The graphic representation of rounds impacting is weak, it's tough to tell where your shots are landing.
5) The manual is attrocious and many of the commands are undocumented. As an example, there isn't a single reference to a gun sight in the entire manual!
6) Many complaints of problems with joysticks and the Game Commander. I use the mouse so I don't know much about this.
7) You can't hop from one tank to another, so if you lose yours (representing the Plt Leader), even if you have 4 other nice, shiny tanks, it's mission over. Plus, you have to lead with your tank.
8) Beautifally rendered crew positions which are absolutely useless. They should be like M1TPII, where you can click on things to make them work. Otherwise, why include them?
9) Many graphics glitches. You can sometimes see the explosion and smoke cloud of a tank killed behind you, in front of you! Seams in the tiles are usually visible, objects at a distance 'float' above the terrain, tanks drive right through each other, terrain appears in front of you at a range of a 100 meters, etc.
10) Extremely weak sound, the first you know that you are being shot at is when you explode.
11) The menus are very flawed, or else they aren't documented.
IMHO, M1TPII is still way ahead of PE. PE has the potential to be better, but whether it ever realizes that potential is another question. I still play it regularly, and I've put together a 13 page FAQ to partly make up for the manual. I can even say that it is enjoyable, and very challenging, the learning curve is almost vertical. But I kick myself for reading the review Game Spot gave it with the 9.3 or whatever score and then waiting for the first patch (It didn't even work out of the box for me.). If I had to do it again, I would have returned it and let someone else be a retail Beta tester.
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my name is johnny and i have a rare liver disease and i want this game to do a review for the elementry school grognards with rare liver diseases and mike mcgwire wouldnt come and see me and im really depressed and i dont think i will make it till you release this game and the doctor said i should have something to pass the time while they are removing my gonads cause i also have gonad disease and my dog just died and daddy said if he catches mom with the safeway bag boy one more time hes gonna leave and i ate lead paint flakes when i was a kid and im still a kid and i really need a copy of this game and a pentium 600 with a 21 inch screen and a dvd player and a gazillion gig hd cause i dont have a computer and i need a modem too
[This message has been edited by civdiv (edited 12-08-99).]
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Excellent link for weapon and penetration data:
Guns and Armor 1939-45:
http://www.wargamer.org/GvA/index.html
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This was wild!!
Goto this site:
Then type in 'villers-bocage'
That's the only town I tried, then I raced back here.
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This first one is about Kursk but is one of the best web sites I have ever seen:
dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/
Army Books on line:
www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_CONT.HTM
AFV Interiors:
www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/5182/
AFV News:
Francis Liew's Home Page:
www.geocities.com/MotorCity/8418/index.html
On Armor:
www.mobilixnet.dk/~mob75281/index.htm
HyperWar:
Another East Front site:
www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/2941/index.html
Rob's Panther Page:
members.tripod.com/~dietmagic/panther.html
Panzer Diesel:
www.panzerdiesel.com/e100.html
Red Steel:
www.algonet.se/~toriert/introduction.htm
Richard Denning's page on AT Gun Factors:
www.rdenning.demon.co.uk/rpdfire.htm
Russian Military Zone:
www.history.enjoy.ru/index.html
Armored Web Site:
www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/1975/armorweb.htm
PanzerGrenadier:
www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6931/
[This message has been edited by civdiv (edited 12-03-99).]
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Almost all US tanks, 44 onwards, had gyro-stabilized guns. Now obviously this wasn't done to the level of the M1, but it did give it a big advantage. The problem was that most crews weren't trained to use it, especially late in the war when tank crew members became scarce. In fact towards the end of the war many tank units omitted the bow mg gunner because of this shortage. Many crews disconnected the system. Some, uninformed IMO, critics have used this as evidence that the system didn't work. Actually it was due to this lack of training, and the fact that it caused the gun to move violently when the tank was in motion. I believe it was stabilized along the verticle plane, the crew still had to aim on the horizontal plane. With a well trained crew that was ALSO trained in it's use, it was a very valuable attribute.
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I killed 3 half tracks with what I believe to be one burst from a .50 cal. The HT's were so close together they actually overlapped. I didn't watch the .50 cal unit so I'm not absolutely positive it was one burst, but in the course of about 15-20 seconds he killed all three. I do know that at least 2 of the HT crews bailed out at the exact same time.
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BTS, please delete this thread, I started a new thread instead of adding a post to Wild Bill's thread.
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Sorry Bill, hit the wrong button (I started a new thread). Here it is again:
I tried to stick to smaller battles that might be some what simulated at the scale of CM. I would include St. Lo, St. Vith, Bastogn, Aachen, Huertgen Forest, etc, but they are larger battles (Though fighting in a pure forest, a la Huertgen, would be interesting. I ordered them from what I feel are the most appropriate for CM's scale, to (relatively) least appropriate.
1. Remegan.
2. Orne River Bridges by Brit paras.
3. That Ranger assault of the gun position that had been removed. Took place on D-Day.
4. The battle for hill XXX (Can't remember the number) during the Battle of Mortain. The one where the 2 US infantry bn's were encircled.
5. St. Mere Eglise (I know I spelled that wrong.).
6. Krinkilt-Rocherath.
7. Noville and Foy. Lots of Fog.
8. Wiltz.
9. 21st Panzer Div's drive to the coast between Omaha and the British beaches on June 6th.
10. Hatten-Rittershoffen: Check out Hans von Luck's 'Panzer Commander'. Considered one of the most brutal battles on the Western front during WWII.
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I tried to stick to smaller battles that might be some what simulated at the scale of CM. I would include St. Lo, St. Vith, Bastogn, Aachen, Huertgen Forest, etc, but they are larger battles (Though fighting in a pure forest, a la Huertgen, would be interesting. I ordered them from what I feel are the most appropriate for CM's scale, to (relatively) least appropriate.
1. Remegan.
2. Orne River Bridges by Brit paras.
3. That Ranger assault of the gun position that had been removed. Took place on D-Day.
4. The battle for hill XXX (Can't remember the number) during the Battle of Mortain. The one where the 2 US infantry bn's were encircled.
5. St. Mere Eglise (I know I spelled that wrong.).
6. Krinkilt-Rocherath.
7. Noville and Foy. Lots of Fog.
8. Wiltz.
9. 21st Panzer Div's drive to the coast between Omaha and the British beaches on June 6th.
10. Hatten-Rittershoffen: Check out Hans von Luck's 'Panzer Commander'. Considered one of the most brutal battles on the Western front during WWII.
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Here's my list:
Company Commander: The single (IMO), best book ever done on the individual soldier level for WWII.
Seven Roads to Hell: I'm reading it now and another poster mentioned it. Excellent.
Panzer Commander: From the German perspective. Only limited coverage of post-D-Day western front.
Anything by Paul Carrell: German persepctive. Mostly east front stuff but 'Invasion, They are Coming' is Normandy.
If You Survive: Good read. U.S. perspective.
Anything by John Toland and Cornelius Ryan: Great first person perspectives; 'Longest Day', 'The Last Battle', 'Battle: Story of the Bulge', 'A Bridge Too Far'.
Iron Coffins: Can't remember the author and I lost the book in a move. The author was an ordnance officer in a tank bn. Great insight into the equipment, especially the Sherman vs. German stuff.
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This goes out to John Maragoudakis,
Now my being a Marine means this feels mighty strange, defending the Army, but 'Anzio' is just a movie, that thing, at least as portrayed by the movie, never happened. Yes, the Rangers took a big hit but it wasn't as if the Germans just appeared from behind their camaflage.
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Got it, works like a charm. Thanks for the help.
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This is a plot to deprive me of sleep. I'm active duty USMC and I haven't done anything but eat 1 meal, sleep, and play CM since last night. No PT, no studying (I'm in a pretty intensive military school), nothing but CM. How about another scenario, call it a Thanksgiving present. And then maybe a Christmas present, and Hanukkah, and New Years, and Valentines.....?
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Something pretty wild just happened and I tried all my known print screen commands and nothing. I looked through the forum and in the on-line manual and I'm having the same problem another poster had, I'm getting snap shots of my desk top instead of the game. I tried 'alt-prnt screen' with no success.
[This message has been edited by civdiv (edited 11-27-99).]
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Thanks Moon and Panzer Leader. Is it just me or is the 81mm FO missing from the 'Close Encounter' scenario?
Still having loads of fun, playing the 3rd scenario as US, then I'll go back and play the 3 from the German side.
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Moon,
Thanks for your quick reply.
1. What is the difference between 'abandoned' and 'knocked out'? I assume not because I couldn't do it but can/will crews remount 'abandoned' vehicles?.
2. Is there an actual numerical FP reduction for 'low' ammo units?
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I dl'd the demo earlier today and I've played against the cpu twice, Reisberg (Draw-sneaky cpu flanked me and took back an undefended vp location.) and Last Defence (Total Victory). I love this game! I honestly can't say enough and kudos to all involved, you guys are doing phenominal work and I'm salivating over the final version.
The 'Last Defence' was a blast, but then I got really lucky. The Hellcats showed up and 2 of them, from their start location torched a STG-III and a HT apiece. The third Hellcat tried to smoke the Tiger but the Tiger promptly moved and a neat little gun battle developed. I raced the Hellcats off the hill and while one was flying for cover behind a building just past the bridge, while moving, killed the Tiger from the front. After that it was a turkey shoot.
Now my questions. I looked through the forum and read the online manual, and I couldn't find the answers.
1. What do the little icons on the unit information box mean? There's a little, radio, maybe, that sometimes has a red cross-out on it. Does this indicate C&C? What is the lightning bolt and the question mark?
2. Do units like 60mm mortars and bazooka teams have fire power besides their main weapon?
3. Will AP have any effect on infantry? I run out of HE for my tanks and force them to fire AP (Use main gun Y/N.)?
4. I think my first game answered this one but will prisoners become enemy again if not in close proximity of friendly units? I guess I mean, do they have to be guarded?
5. Are there mines in this game (The demo)? In the Reisberg scenario I lost a Sherman within about 2 minutes of starting. I didn't check to see if that nasty 88 on the hill killed him. Also, the Sherman info box said 'Abandoned', I tried to get the crew to remount and I was unsucessful.
6. What effect does 'low ammo' have. I noticed that you can force these units to fire by directly targeting an enemy for them. Under what circumstances do they fire on their own?
7. I noticed a strange occurance in the 'Last Defence' scenario. I had my .50 cal target a German HT, range about 400 meters. Now I know the .50 cal is quite capable of killing a HT, but could this guy shoot. I didn't actually watch him, but in one turn he killed 3 HT's that were so clustered together they overlapped. I don't know if he fired 3 bursts, or if somehow he hit a mid point and the results applied to all three. Needless to say, I bought that crew a beer after the battle.
Anyways, thanks in advance for the info. Again, Battlefront, I love you guys.
Please, a new demo scenario for Christmas???
in Combat Mission Archive #1 (1999)
Posted
Given the close relationship between The Gamers Net and BTS, I think that BTS should introduce one demo scenario for every exclamation point used in the title of any MadMatt post.
FLAME WAR HITS CMHQ!!!!!
This Just In!!!!
AHHH The FLAMES!!!!
Monday Night Update on CMHQ!!!!
Sunday Night CMHQ Update! You Won't Believe Your Eyes!
Late Night UPDATE!!!! CMHQ Strikes AGAIN!