MajorH TacOps Developer
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Posts posted by MajorH TacOps Developer
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>Mac OSX 10.1 comments? anything?
I hate it with a passion formerly reserved for Microsoft Windows
.Mac OSX basically appears to me to be a WindowsMe clone that has been heavily modifed by a deranged cartoonist so as to better entertain dilettantes who only use their Macs for email and surfing the Internet.
I bought OSX 10.1 last week. So far I have not found anything useful that it adds to support my daily work use of the Mac. In fact user interface details that used to increase my productivity on the Mac have either disappeared or been so layered with eye candy and useless window decorations that they have become counterproductive.
I have a studio full of expensive peripheral equipment, none of which works under OSX.
I have thousands of dollars of recently purchased productivity software that does not work under OSX and hangs or crashes a dozen times per day under OS9.1 and 9.2.
Inquires to peripheral and software vendors about fixes and updates have been answered with either "we are not interested in supporting OSX" or an invitation to purchase a new piece of equipment or a software upgrade at upgrade prices 30 to 50% higher than earlier years.
I literally can not afford to continue messing around with OSX. It comes off of my computer today so that I can get back to productive use of my Mac tomorrow.
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Try these ...
1. Find the Temp folder inside the Windows folder. Delete everything inside. This will remove possible conflicts from wrongfully surviving remnants of previous CM or other installations. Happens sometimes when an installation is interupted or fails. Restart your computer. Now run the CM installer by double clicking on the file titled "setup.exe" on the CM CD (i.e. don't use the Maintenance Wizard/Add Remove Programs control panel in this case).
2. If the above does not solve your problem then do what is below.
Find and open the "InstallShield Installation Information" folder inside the Programs folder on drive C. Find a folder titled "(BD1DC860-2B0A-11D4-BD2E-00500480A380)" - which is the installer identification string for most versions of CM. This folder should be created automatically every time that CM is installed on a PC. Open this folder and double click on a file titled "Setup.ini" - on most systems this file will then be opened as a text file. If Windows asks you what program to use to open this file then select a text reader or a word processor. Once the file is open, look for the phrase "AppName=Combat Mission". If you find this phrase then you have found the right folder. Close the "Setup.ini" and delete the entire "(BD1DC860-2B0A-11D4-BD2E-00500480A380)" folder. Restart your computer. Now run the CM installer by double clicking on the file titled "setup.exe" on the CM CD (i.e. don't use the Maintenance Wizard/Add Remove Programs control panel in this case).
Some older versions of CM did not use the installer information id string mentioned above. So if you do not find a folder titled "(BD1DC860-2B0A-11D4-BD2E-00500480A380)" then go through the other folders that are in the "InstallShield Installation Information" folder and open each occurance of the file titled "Setup.ini" until you find one containing the phrase "AppName=Combat Mission". Delete that folder and continue as described above.
If the above successfully removes the entries that are confusing the Windows op system, the first thing you should see after running the CM installer is a Window that says "Wecome to the InstallShield Wizard for Combat Mission". Click the "Next" button and you should then see a window that has a block of text at the bottom that includes the words "Destination Folder" and a button labeled "Browse". The default destination should be shown as "C:\Program Files\CMBO". If you want to install to a different folder then click on the "Browse" button and use the subsequent directory window to select a new destination folder. Continue the installation.
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The modify and repair options in the CM installer (what you described as Maintenance Wizard) can only be applied to the folder into which CM was last installed. If you want to reinstall CM to a different folder then you will need to first remove the existing installation by selecting the "remove" option. After CM has been removed then run the CM installer again and this time change the default folder target to where you want it to go.
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It depends on the scenario and whether OPFOR is attacking or defending.
Most scenarios where OPFOR is attacking will have from six to ten (or more) different opening moves.
Scenarios where OPFOR is defending have fewer different opening moves.
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Hold down the Mac option key or the PC Ctrl key as you give a movement order (i.e. click on the map). When that movement order is executed, the unit will do so 'in reverse'.
Due to my error this is not mentioned in the pdf manual. This info used to be included in a shortcut card but I overlooked it when I converted to only digital documentation.
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I hope to do some more scenarios after I finish the U.S. Army contract.
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The computer opponent (AI) uses its normal setup areas. Only human players can ignore setup areas.
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>So far as I can tell there is no way to make a scenario with
>a map other than those 15 that are already in sp scenarios.
That is correct for creating scenarios that include a useful computer run opponent (AI). The additional maps are only useful for human vs human game play.
>Also there is no way to change opfor units/locations or the
>setup boxes for any new scenarios. Is this correct?
The U.S. and OPFOR player can choose different setup areas by first selecting the "Options/CPX Mode" menu item or by first selecting the "Options/Ignore Setup Limits" menu item.
>There must be some sort of editor that was used to create
>them. So why not include it in the game or offer it as an
>additional product?
The tools that I used to create the factory provided scenarios were too unstable and too user unfriendly to add to the package without months of work. This has been a wish list item for a long time but so far I have always had too many quicker to do things on the wish list to get around to it.
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Custom units can not be created with the scenario editor. You can exchange any unit in the game data base for any other unit in the game data base. In other words, you can turn a Bradley IFV into an M113 APC, turn a T72 tank into a T55 tank, etc.
At present there is no way to realistically portray WWII actions using TacOps.
The key problems follow ...
The oldest U.S. tank in TacOps is the M60. The oldest OPFOR tank is the T55. Both of these tanks are too accurate and long shooting to have any resemblance at all to WWII tanks.
Artillery in TacOps is far too responsive for WWII.
Almost every dismounted unit in TacOps has a disposable anti-armor weapon that can defeat tanks from the side or rear. This is far more anti-armor capability for dismounted infantry than existed in WWII.
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If all you want is "a feel" of WWII you might try ...
Get rid of all ATGMs.
Change all US APCs and IFVs into the M113 APC or into the M548 Load Carrier.
Change all OPFOR APCs and IFVs into the MTLB.
Change U.S. tanks into the M60A1 or into the XM8 AGS Tank with Level One armor. Change OPFOR tanks into the T55 1974. Or change all tanks into self-propelled artillery.
Engage the preferences for "Smoke grenades block thermal sights" and "Artillery smoke blocks thermal sights"
Use only HE and smoke ammo for artillery units.
Mentally cut the distances displayed and reported by TacOps in half. If the game says 2000 meters, consider that to represent 1000 meters.
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The Combat Mission installer does not use the Windows CD auto-run option. You need to open the CD and double click on setup.exe exactly as mentioned in the previous message.
When building an installer package, it is optional whether the intaller runs automatically or not whenever the CD is inserted. Personally I find it very irritating when CDs run a program automatically whenever they are inserted.
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TacOps includes two NTC Ft. Irwin maps but there are no factory provided scenarios that use these two maps.
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Some users have made addtional maps using the map making utility.
Goto ...
http://www.battlefront.com/resources/tacops/
Then click on the button labeled "Map Room".
I don't think these maps work with the demo version.
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That is an indication that there is not enough memory on your system to load the map.
If you have Windows set to use True Color (32 bit) then change the setting to High Color (16 bi).
If that does not help then change the setting to 256 colors.
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I/we should not be picking on just Compaq here.
These days, any brand of PC is probably going to come out of the box loaded with a dozen or more CPU, memory, and resource hogging (always resident) background programs. The PC manufacturers probably feel they have to do this so that their advertised "special feature" list has as much stuff on it as the competition. Most consumers don't realize the performance costs of these features.
The real sin here is that the manufacturers make it way too dificult for knowledgeable users to disable or remove these special features. In my case I was not able to completely defeat all of Compaq's idiot features until I reformatted the hard drive and installed a separately purchased, non Compaq, version of the Windows op system.
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>Treadhead said ...newest biggest
>fastest personal Compaq out there
Compaq still makes good computers but in the last couple of years they have developed a reputation for dragging down prerformance severely due to layering on a host of little programs that are always running in the background. Most of these programs provide special keyboard features related to browsing the Internet. Others are "Compaq knows best" system support utilities that may or may not cooperate well with similar Windows op system srevices and utilities. Some of these programs can best be described as advertising support items.
Bottom line - all of that garbage sitting in memory and or running all of the time eats up system resources and memory, increases startup time, and reduces your processing speed for real applications.
I bought a 500mhz Compaq Pentium III last year for coding use. On day one it took longer to compile TacOps than a clean 133 mhz Packard Bell Pentium I. Over the course of a tedious week of deleting unneeded garbage I eventually attained an increase in processing speed of several 100 percent.
For more info visit ... http://www.cexx.org/craputer.htm
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Hmmmm ... that used to work. Maybe I got the address wrong.
You can also subscribe by using a web brower. Go to the following address and follow the instructions that you find there.
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> Major, what product has required phone registration?
"Product Activation" is the name of Microsoft's new license enforcement mechanism for consumer level users of Microsoft products (applications and operating systems). This mechanism is now in effect for most new Microsoft consumer level products and upgrades. After you purchase a Microsoft product it must be activated by Internet or telephone voice contact with Microsoft before you are allowed to have full use of your purchase. Certain business users are allowed to obtain Microsoft products without Product Activation.
During installation and activation the Microsoft software examines your hardware configuration and produces a "hash" value based on what it finds. That value is then embedded somewhere on your computer and it is also eventually transmitted to Microsoft. That information is then used in the future to control whether the program or operating system works or not on your computer. It may or may not be true that the software also must contact Microsoft periodically via the Internet as an additional enforcement check.
If you replace or reformat your hard drive or make certain other undefined changes to the hardware configuration of your computer then the hash value will no longer match and all of your Microsoft software will have to be reactivated via a new contact with Microsoft. Microsoft says that the reactivation with be virtually instantaneous for Internet users and should not take more than six minutes if telephone voice contact is required.
My main problem with this is the concern that the rest of the software industry may adopt this approach - particularly the average company which is far less stable and far less able to provide support than Microsoft. It may only be a minor inconvenience for me to cope with Microsoft Product Activation (mainly by buying other products whenever possible). It will not be minor at all if over the course of a year or two the rest of the software industry also adopts Product Activation.
Although Microsoft may be around for a long time yet, other software companies come and go. Product titles often get passed to companies who will not support versions of that title put out by an earlier company. More companies than not refuse to support products or product versions that are older than a year or so. If product activation becomes the norm, once a few years have passed moving up to a new computer or installing new components in an old one or recovering from a major system crash is going to cost people the use and value of every "Product Activation" program that is no longer supported by its manufacturer.
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>If I download my opponent's orders through WretchedMicrosoft's Outlook
>Express, TacOps does not recognize them.
I am assuming that you are a Mac user since you mentioned "file type". However, some of the info that follows also applies to PC users.
Many email programs can damage unzipped/unstuffed binary file attachments in a variety of ways depending on how the options are set in the email program. Simply traveling across the Internet can also damage an unzipped/unstuffed binary file. Mac users can also intentionally or inadvertently make op system settings that assign incorrect file types to incoming attachments that are in or that are thought to be in PC format. Mac unzipping/unstuffing programs may assign incorrect file types to incoming attachments that are in or that are thought to be in PC format. Some time ago I gave up on trying to keep track of all the damage causing "favors" that the many different programs try to do for a user.
Rather than going through a long series of email exchanges to try to figure out which of your programs is the culprit I will give general ways to solve the problem below. There will be info for PC vs PC play, and Mac vs PC play, Mac vs Mac play.
Everyone ...
Always compress (zip or stuff) PBEM files before sending them to your opponent. Although it is possible to discover programs and program settings that will successfully transmit uncompressed files, it is still possible for such files to be damaged while they are crossing the Internet in a way that TacOps can not detect - thus causing your game to crash or go out of sync. Compressed files may also rarely be damaged during Internet travel but if this happens to a compressed file then the damage will most likely be automatically detected during decompression and you will probably be alerted to the problem by the decompression utility.
PC vs PC ...
Zip PBEM files before sending them. Some PC email programs may think that an uncompressed TacOps PBEM file is a text attachment (it is not) and may try to automatically convert it to text and may try to automatically display it and or save it as such. Check the options settings in your email program for such features - disable or modify as appropriate. Check the options settings in your email program for anything that offers to try to automatically display or run file attachments after they arrive - disable or modify as appropriate. Most people disable such features anyway since they are a popular door for viruses. Also look for options settings that offer to automatically decompress incoming attachments - disable or modify as appropriate.
Mac vs Mac ...
Zip or Stuff PBEM files before sending them. Examine the options settings in your email program for items similar to what was described above for PC vs PC play.
Mac vs PC ...
Examine the options settings in your email program for items similar to what was described above for PC vs PC play. Zip PBEM files before sending them. The Mac user should get and use a Mac compression utility that can Zip files. The Stuffit format is the compression standard in the Mac world while Zip format is the compression standard in the PC world. The latest versions of the Windows op system have Zip compression/decompression capability built into the desktop. Although Alladin (the maker of Mac Stuffit program) now produces a Stuffit compression utility for Windows, there is exactly zero chance that the PC world will switch to the superior Stuffit format at this late date.
Mac user. The Mac version of TacOps expects PC saved game and PBEM files to have Finder Type fields of either '????' or 'TEXT' (even though they are not really text files). If your email program or your decompression utility or the Mac operating system assigns either of these types then TacOps will automatically recognize and display the file name in the TacOps file finder dialog. If a different type field is assigned then TacOps may or may not display the file name in the TacOps file finder dialog.
Mac user. When playing against a PC opponent, always confirm and set the 'PC Filenames' box in the TacOps preferences window at the start of each PBEM game session. This will normally cause the TacOps file finder dialog to also look for and display file names that end with the appropriate TacOps PC file name dot extensions.
Mac user. If all else fails, hold down the Shift key before selecting 'PBM Receive Orders'. This may widen the file name search. The Shift key trick may also allow a PC saved game file to be loaded by the Mac version of TacOps if the Shift key is held down while clicking on the 'OK' button in the game session startup window.
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I will not produce or sell software that requires Internet or telephone product activation. I will not buy software that requires product activation if a reasonable substitute is available. Where a reasonable substitute is not available I will continue to use an older version of the product for as long as possible before buying a newer version that has product activation.
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<It was a bit tricky to follow the lengthy adventures of Major H's software distributor shuffle.>
Imagine what it was like for me
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<Where are all the TacOps people>
This forum has never really caught on with the TacOps faithful. What talk there is seems to mainly be via the TacOps mailing list.
To subscribe to the TacOps mailing list, send a message with "subscribe tacops" (no quotes) in the body to Majordomo@perilpoint.com
P.S. The mailing list is a very good place to find people who want to play TacOps by email and IRC.
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Mac and Windows patches for TacOps v3 can be obtained from the Downloads page of this web site. These patches only support the TacOps v3.x game engine and v3 scenarios and v3 maps. There is no patch that will transform TacOps v1.x or TacOps v2.x into Tacops v3.x.
To use scenarios for earlier versions, you should use the game engine that came with those scenarios.
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Surviving crew members from destroyed or damaged vehicles are not gamed although surviving cargo (infantry dismounts) from destroyed or damaged APCs are gamed. My original design thinking on this was that orphaned vehicle crews are not significant given the grand tactical scale of a typical TacOps scenario. Also I didn't think that recently orphaned vehicle crews would usually be inclined to immediately continue the battle as poorly armed and poorly trained infantry. I thought they would either hang around their vehicle to safeguard it for recovery, or to await pickup, or they would try to escape and evade. Well trained infantry on the other hand, would be more inclined to continue the battle.
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Rub the lamp and get your wish
...Hold down the Mac option key or the PC Control key as you give a movement order (i.e. click on the map). When that movement order is executed, the unit will do so 'in reverse'.
I only just now realized that this is not mentioned in the pdf manual. This info used to be included in a shortcut card but I overlooked it when I converted to only digital documentation.
Virus scanners
in Combat Mission - Tech Support
Posted
Zone Alarm.
Norton and MacAfee scatter garbage all over your computer and are difficult to cleanly uninstall. Both companies seem to have the attitude that your PC belongs to them once you install their product .