MajorH TacOps Developer

> why not a TacOps for the iPhone? The iPhone screen display is too small and a mouse is a practical requirement for a tolerable user experience. The very first version of TacOps was done on the original Mac when its screen was only 512 pixels wide - so I know whereof I speak.

> If i see this correct there are no KIA, WIA or MIA statistics ? Select the Reports/Game Status menu item. This will show the current order of battle situation expressed in numbers of vehicles, complete infantry teams, and or complete infantry squads/sections. Vehicle casualties will be shown in this report as they occur, on a one for one basis. Infantry personnel casualties are not listed until such time as a particular infantry team, squad, or section unit marker is completely eliminated.

> however the fanbase is very small now, nearly non-existant The fanbase has always been very small. However, the game still sells and still provides a nice little royalty check every month.

> Is the game easy to understand for CM players like me ? Yes, if you invest 30 minutes in doing the "Basic Training" scenario while following the Basic Training text section in the user guide. Less so if you just load a randomly selected scenario and start clicking. > And is the game still supported with patches, new scenarios ect ? The game has not needed a patch in several years. It survived Vista and I so far have no reports of any problems with Windows 7 (knock on wood). However, I still have the code and its supporting development system in reserve on an otherwise retired computer and am prepared to produce a patch should one prove necessary. I am not currently working on any new factory provided scenarios. > I expect the game runs in window mode, but hope you can play it full screen with 1280x1024 at modern TFT's too ? TacOps4 does run in a cooperative window mode. In other words, it does not totally take over your computer when it runs. You can easily get to the desktop or launch or access other running programs without having to quit Tacops. TacOps does not expect nor force your computer to switch to a different monitor resolution and maps do not automatically zoom so as to take over your entire screen. TacOps uses a standard scale of one screen pixel per ten meters of terrain. That means that a map smaller than your current screen setting is going to reveal some of your desktop. If a map is larger than your screen then scroll bars will appear in the map window so that you can move the map around as necessary in its window. You can resize a TacOps map window but you can not "zoom" a map.

Try the free TacOps4 demo. It's only a 15 meg download. http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=947&Itemid=318 If that link does not work for you then you can find it manually by going to www.battlefront.com and then selecting the Downloads/Demos menu item.

No, to the best of my knowledge, the book died with Arsenal Publishing.

> How to give "orders" to the AI? You can't. The AI in each scenario is hard coded. So far I have not been able to make a scenario editor that is user friendly enough to distribute.

> Do you think it would be possible to use some form or > manipulation of google earth maps ... Yes but Google earth maps are copyrighted. A hobbyist could likely get away with using a Google map image as background art for a privately circulated map but Google would track me down and crush me if I did that.

> will the terrain imaging be amped up a bit? I don't expect so. My intent remains to keep TacOps maps looking more like real world paper maps than like aerial imagery. Besides, I am not a good enough artist to do imagery style maps.

> just downloaded and played a few games Have you purchased the full retail version? It has a lot more scenarios than what is included with the demo, and they are all playable solitaire. > doesnt seem to be any site still up and running where you can find an opponent The old guard can still be found on a semi-private mailing list. http://nxport.com/mailman/listinfo/tacops Sign up, announce yourself, and ask if anyone wants a PBEM game.

> TacOps 5 not in my lifetime Whoa there. I am bound to get tired of kayaking and sailing eventually.

Welcome aboard. Late or not. > Its a shame I never heard of TacOps before(why didnt I) > more people should know about this game. I've mostly been on vacation for the last two years and intentionally let the marketing side of things slide since I wasn't coding full time anymore.

> Is it possible to play a cooperative two player game against a computer AI? Yes but not in a way that you likely would want to use. There is a way for two players to play the AI in multi-player network mode but it requires a third computer to act as a host/umpire and an undocumented keystroke. That is a bit more effort than most folks are interested in. The feature was put in for military users.

> are going to develop the game further still or is there anyone else > going to do that in the future? I've been enjoying real life and haven't done much TacOps work in the last two years but I have not abandoned it. I'll return to the code one of these days. >Is it possible to make the message window larger in the bottom part of the screen? No. >It is too easy to miss important messages there. That comment has come up before but always from new users. Most people soon tune out the combat event messages at the bottom of the screen - much like the pop up ads on webpages. However, it is on the wish list but I doubt that I will ever get that far down the list.

I don't expect to release a civilian version of v5 anytime soon.

Glad you liked it.

Bump. Bump.

Do the tutorial!

Its on the wish list.

In my experience, successful fluke shots in a game are more often perceived by players to be bugs rather than features. In TacOps direct fire weapons currently only engage targets that they have a reasonable chance of hitting and harming. Units did blaze away at every opportunity in the first test versions of TacOps. The play testers did not like that at all because it wasted ammo and gave away unit positions prematurely. To prevent that behavior, the testers had to be continually fiddling with the "range limit" boxes in the unit orders window. That extra work was not appreciated, particularly when many dozens of unit markers were in play. That being said, I have considered adding a feature whereby units do automatically "roll" for fluke shots without actually firing or consuming ammo and with nothing being displayed to the players unless a "roll" is successful. [ March 31, 2008, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: MajorH TacOps Developer ]

All TacOps maps are done at the same scale of one hundred pixels per UTM 100 meter grid square (one screen pixel per ten meters). Thus, if a map is only a few kilometers wide then it is not going to fill up a monitor. It was never my intent that a small map should zoom so as to always fit the available screen space. My design intent is for all TacOps maps to be presented at the same scale (given the user's preferred screen resolution) and that TacOps act as a cooperative, windowed application rather than as one that highjacks/changes the user's desktop settings. The overwhelming majority of TacOps users prefer it to work the way that it does. You could temprorarily change the resolution setting on your monitor before running TacOps.

Every year I think that there will surely be a new version "next year". Hasn't happened in a while though. I have been stuck on trying to develop a new scenario editor for several years now. I have not given any thought to working on a fully dynamic AI.

A customer just reported getting a "Error -5009" alert while trying to install the download version of TacOps4. He also reported having this error while trying to reinstall the TacOps4 demo. An Internet search on "Error -5009" suggested the following three step fix. Step 1: Locate the InstallShield folder on your hard drive. It can usually be found at the following location. C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield. Then change the name of that folder to "InstallShieldOld". This will cause a new InstallShield folder to be created the next time that the TacOps installer is run. Step 2: Then shut down and restart your computer. Step 3: Then run the TacOps4 installer, which should be the file that you downloaded from Battlefront.com. Please let me know if this does or does not work. Please note that "InstallShield" is a standard Windows installation assistance program that has been produced by the InstallShield Company for many years. This program is just an installation support program, it has nothing to do with copy protection or eLicensing. The InstallShield Company has apparently inadvertently introduced incompatibilities between some older versions of its installer engine and some newer versions of its installer engine. It is likely that some software that you installed recently introduced a flawed version of the InstallShield program.

Short answer. A group of gents get together on the Internet and play an umpire hosted, multiplayer network game. Games may last from a couple of hours to all day. Long answer. See Appendix J and Appendix K of the TacOps user guide.

> Are announcements for these typically posted somewhere else? TacOps mailing list. http://nxport.com/mailman/listinfo/tacops