L.Tankersley

Hmmm, I'm not so sure. The Win32 SendInput function lets you synthesize a series of keystrokes, mouse moves and button presses and inject them into the input data stream. Raw input doesn't care about user interface graphics, it's just "move the mouse to (127, 388) and generate a left click." The bounds of the various "controls" can be found by brute force. (Hey, I said it was a kludge.) Does CM run under Win2k? If so I'll try a small proof-of-concept tomorrow. I think it just may be a SMOP (small matter of programming).

I've just thought of a really kludgy way to do this ("Automatically" generate CM maps that is, not extract maps from data files): Use a macro generator/user interface tester/stimulator thingy. I know these exist, at least in some environments, but my mind is coming up dry on names just now. The idea is to run a script that will synthesize the proper mouse movement and button clicks to automate the manual procedure of building a CM map in the built-in editor. You would probably need to design your own map data format to store the map in, which would probably mean building your own editor as well. But once that was done, you could customize your own editor to do whatever manipulations you want (cut-and-paste, mirror image, all kinds of stuff). One thing you couldn't do would be convert existing CM maps to your format (other than manually). But you might be able to come up with a "macro record" feature to watch your manual user interface activity while you build a map from scratch, and reconstruct the map data that way. Aesthetically unsatisfying, but I think it would get the job done...

I just finished Alan Clark's Barbarossa on vacation last week and liked it quite a bit. Nice overview of the high-level thinking that was going on, and some fascinating transcripts of discussions between Hitler and various generals/marshalls.

Lest anyone think that the 1337 h4x0r5 don't have their own problems... http://www.thetoque.net/020709/softwarepirate.htm

I have occasionally seen PBEM files reach 2.1MB, but a more common upper limit even for quite large battles (say 5000 pts) is closer to 1 or 1.5 MB.

and d).

The vast majority of my experience with Shermans firing smoke is with Shermans firing smoke when I WANT them to fire HE at a single point target like an MG that is holding up my advance. However, I have recently had occasion to utilize massed direct fire smoke to screen movement. I had a large number of 75mm Shermans basically sitting out in the open in LOS from a bunch of high-quality Tiger tanks on a hill. Range was high, probably 1200-1500 meters. My intent was to skedaddle the Shermans the hell out of the area. I identified some LOS "chokepoints" formed by some patches of woods and other obstructions between the Tigers and my intended route. I then ordered nearly all the Shermans to fire smoke in the general area of these points. I'd say I had 6 or 7 tanks firing at each of 2 points while everyone moved at fast speed for safety. There were a few drastic shorts/longs, but for the most part this resulted in very thick (if relatively small) smokescreens that were sufficient to completely block LOS. On subsequent turns I targeted chokepoints further along my line of movement. It worked pretty well (if you'll accept about 15% losses as "working well" under these circumstances).

It is possible, but can be hard to manage. If the transport is moving faster than "Move" (i.e., "Hunt" or "Fast") the passengers aren't likely to disembark. I find it helps to try to disembark at a turn (waypoint), also, because the vehicle tends to slow down/stop momentarily at these points. If experience matters, I would think it would be that of the passengers. Low experience troops might still be fighting their command delay when time comes to disembark, and they could miss their opportunity. The only way to pause at a waypoint not at the start of a turn is to have the next waypoint be the first in a new set of orders (the first "white" waypoint after a series of "red" ones). For example, on turn 1 you issue 3 waypoints. At the end of turn 1, the vehicle is still following this path. You issue orders for 2 additional waypoints. When the vehicle reaches the original 3rd waypoint, it will pause for its command delay before continuing on. I think it helps to issue your disembark order for a point RIGHT NEXT to the point at which the vehicle is stopped/moving slowly. You can issue more movement orders for the passengers after disembarking to go wherever you want, but if the first (disembark) waypoint is too far from the vehicle, I believe it significantly lowers the chance your passengers will disembark while the vehicle is moving.

Yeah; everybody wants you to conform to the standards, but everybody ALSO wants you to provide non-standard additions. The diamond frame is used for hostile icons (also "suspect," "joker" and "faker" affiliations). Michael, unit echelon or number of vehicles/whatever is indicated over the top center of the icon. 3 dots is a platoon. Not sure what you mean by the "angle" for PL; the only angle that goes over the icon in the standard is the feint/dummy indicator. An HQ icon gets a little staff line extending down from the left side of the icon, but I don't think you'd actually use that for a platoon leader. Similar icon shapes are used to represent units and indidual soldiers/weapons/vehicles. Except for friendly forces (there always has to be an exception), where you use the rectangular frame for units, and a circular frame for individuals, weapons and vehicles.

Having written software to draw the entire MIL-STD-2525B warfighting symbol set including all variations of friendly, neutral, hostile and unknown frame shapes, I can confirm that the diamond shape is a pain. It's not as bad as the "unknown" symbol frame, though, which is a kind of a four-leaf clover shape that is inefficient to draw and annoying to figure the bounds of.

This sort of thing probably happens a bit more often in CM because a lot of the reaction and reload times are constants, or nearly so.

The maximum range you can change an artillery target and still have it be "adjusting" rather than a new fire mission is right around 80 meters. This is true even if you don't have LOS and so have to deal with the orange/black LOS line instead of the green/blue line. Try going to an overhead view (6 or 7) over the target area, that makes it easier to estimate distances if you want to keep the new target within the adjustment radius. (The gridded terrain mods help a bunch with this, too.)

I agree, that's a big problem. If the map is small enough that it's hard to guarantee the enemy is unlikely to have LOS to the entry area, the entry area should at LEAST be screened by a hill or trees or something.

Gotcha. I vaguely remembered something like that. Thanks!

Ok, so I finally installed OS X. CM will start up in Classic, but after entering my password at the pbem screen I hear the sounds but I get no pretty 3d graphics. Do I actually need to reboot into OS 9 to get CM to work?

Those Germans, gamey bastards. I had a few minutes to kill at someone's house the other night and flipped through a book called "The Moscow Option" -- can't remember the author's name. It's an "alternate history" book that postulates Hitler being injured in a plane crash in '41 and temporarily in a coma, allowing the army to press on to capture Moscow instead of being sidetracked at Kiev. It's not a novel, it's really a history book written about the history of a war that might have been. The author's introduction says he tried to construct a plausible "could-have-happened" scenario in which the Axis was victorious in WWII. Seemed interesting, but I didn't really have time to do much more than skim. Anybody out there read this?

TRPs are purchased as fortifications, so most predesigned scenarios don't include them. They will only show up in a quick battle for the defender. If you buy one, it shows up in your "parade of units" in the setup phase and you can select it and place it where you want. Just for completeness, ambush points are set by HQ units, AT teams and armor. They are not the same thing as a TRP although they look somewhat similar.

Gun and mortar crews get 15 ammo points for their pistols when their gun is knocked out, in contrast to vehicle crews that get bupkiss.

LOL. Perhaps I could have phrased that better...

A sneaking unit moves until it is fired on and then stops. They don't withdraw (unless the incoming fire convinces them to). They also won't shoot themselves. Sounds like Rich is employing a nice reverse slope defense.

Does the orientation of the arc change as the unit moves, or just the position? That is, if you issue an arc to the left side of the tank, and during the turn the tank turns 90 degrees to the left, is the tank now covering the area in front of it, or has the arc shifted?

Unfortunately, infantry in open ground behind a wall tend to think of themselves as being in open ground when they come under fire, even if because of the direction of the incoming fire they are protected by the wall. So once their state goes beyond alerted, they tend to get up and run for the nearest trees or building, even if this means running across the wall towards the enemy that is firing at them. The consequences of this behavior are left as an exercise for the student.

Well, if you didn't have forces positioned to prevent the enemy from doing a last-minute charge like that, I don't think you could really claim to be in control of the objective anyway.

You're just a shill for The Man, Matt. Regarding GameRanger, that was discussed a year or two ago. I think the bottom line was that, while it might not be too hard, given the limited manpower resources available to BTS they chose to focus on building and improving the game rather than adding support for services that lots of their customers might not use anyway. They didn't rule it out for the future, but I don't think it's really on their radar, either.