David Aitken

Those having doubts about Berli's veracity should consider how he looks in the dark.

...the breech of an M8 Greyhound and fired at high velocity towards any monstrous armoured vehicle the Germans could field, the M8 crew safe in the knowledge that their ordinance was fortified with the will of god and would penetrate the thickest armour plating. Heinz leaped out of the crippled wreck of his Kleine Maus, .50 cal bullets lancing through the 10-inch thick armour like butter and narrowly missing him as he dived for cover. Too late he remembered the 20-foot drop to ground level...

Discussions concerning Soviet weaponry can easily be located with the appropriate keywords. I would say that the vast majority of the topics on this forum are already CM2 related. New feature requests and such. If CM1 and CM2 were happening simultaneously, it would maybe make sense to have two separate forums. But one follows on from the other, and the forum will progress also. Creating another forum will simply fragment discussion. David

Gunny Bunny wrote: > I would suggest that CM takes advantage of the opportunity to enhance their software. Still not worked out who actually makes the game, eh Gunny? While we're at it, can we have interpolated combo moves for the infantry? When they get into close combat we should be able to take control individually and use our martial arts skills to overcome the enemy. I suggest various moves such as punch, kick, flying kick, rolling dodge, throw and half-nelson. This would increase BTS's appeal to a much wider audience. BTS is a great game but CM should keep it up to date with computer technology. David

I classic frieng from our resident German... uh, Canadian... or whatever he is: I just wrote "frieng" instead of "thread". How bizarre. I want to know if I win before I play! PS. I classic?? What in god's name have I been smoking?? Okay, try again... A classic thread from our resident German... uh, Canadian... Didn't we just do this? Well yes! Then why didn't you say so?! I thought it was a continental version! [This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 01-24-2001).]

Croda wrote: > As for Andreas, I would have thought, due to the relatively educated nature of over half of his posts, that the lad was just joking calling himself GermanBOY. Has that kid hit puberty yet? I'd swear he's the smartest 13 year old going. Andreas is one of these people who looks the same in no two pictures. I think he's slightly older than 13. YK2 wrote: > Ohhhhhhhhh and a pic of Matt, steve and Kwazy pleaseeeeeeeeee. Haven't seen any of Dan, but here is Chas, Stevie and the Padlock Fairy himself. Chas is the clean-cut fella, the straight man. Stevie is the over-zealous sidekick with a collection of firearms and armoured vehicles. Matt doesn't need any explaining. My mug has been dispatched Lorak-wards in all its retouched glory. The fact that I am a handsome young lad is true. The fact that I am in a Dutch APC with a Bren gun is questionable. David

Juardis wrote: > But that is yet another indication that the box conveys information beyond just keeping the location of the highlighted unit. Frankly I think it just means that the box will surround the unit model and anything attributed to it. As another example, the box size changes when you toggle coloured bases. The bases are not relevant to LOS, but from a modelling point of view they are part of the unit, illustrating that the box simply outlines the 3D model rather than conveying relevant information. David P.S. I haven't done any testing on this, but I think you'll find that when hidden, a unit has a standard box size. When it comes into view the box size changes to reflect the visible size of the unit. Again, it's just an interface issue and nothing to do with the underlying calculations. [This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 01-24-2001).]

Cheers for the plug Tom. =)

Mr. Clark wrote: > What, the Russians win? Aw, man! Now you ruined the end for me! GeoffP wrote: > This way, BTS gets some additional sales from people who think it's combat with Jayne Fonda. LOL

Gremlin wrote: > by the time CM2 comes out, the current minimum system requirements for CM will be vastly outdated (and they already are for most gamers). Outdated system requirements? Are you suggesting that a game isn't worth its salt unless it requires new hardware? And who are "most gamers"? Certainly not the CM audience. > The better the graphics, the greater the emotional immersion and the greater the sales. CM does not sell on the basis of graphics or emotional immersion. It sells on the basis of being an accurate historical simulator. The audience which this appeals to is BTS's core audience and they would alienate this audience at their peril. Plenty of people want CM to be more visually impressive, but that will never take precedence over the game's historical credentials and the relevant audience. > Graphics promote and sell games, like it or not I think gameplay is rather more of a selling point. Never forget that BTS have pushed the historical simulator into a whole new arena. Everything prior to CM was done in 2D with approximate calculations. Now it is done in 3D with exact calculations, and it has the graphics to match. This is a complete revolution for the wargaming genre. The drawback is that now people are comparing CM to more visually impressive (but less conceptually inspired) 3D games. This is not fair or relevant. As I have explained above, most games need flashy graphics or they won't sell. This is why the first-person shooter genre requires hardware which isn't available on release of the games. CM sells because of what's going on under the hood. Its competitors are all still in 2D with hexes. Such games still sell well, not because of how they look but because of what they do. Think about it. > Improved graphics would only be icing on the proverbial cake and help draw in an even larger fan base, meaning more money for BTS and more games from them based on that success. This "larger fan base", if drawn in on the basis of flashy graphics, would demand more. To satisfy this audience BTS would have to make compromises on their vision. As such this audience is not sustainable. BTS will stick with the audience which appreciates the aspects of CM which all the work has gone into. Treeburst155 wrote: > I still think Charles could enhance the game if he knew he could aim at the above system for a minimum. BTS have a lot of ideas for enhancing the game. Some of the more (relatively) straightforward enhancements can be incorporated into CM2. However, from a programming perspective it is simply not possible to make more fundamental enhancements without totally rewriting the engine. This rewrite has been planned, and is scheduled for after the current series of games. Most of the issues you mention, plus many more, will be addressed at this time – but until then the engine will remain basically as is. David

Combat Mission 2, a tale of passion and intrigue, following a dashing young Wehrmacht officer and his Soviet opposite as they contemplate their humanity and try to overcome the horrors of war in their pursuit of love!

Huh? What's wrong with Combat Mission 2: Before Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord But Beyond Combat Mission 3: Scrap With Jerry In The Sun?

Nathman wrote: > Exactly my point. It is the Combat Mission forum. Yeah, but I said Combat Mission, not Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord. CM2 is still Combat Mission. You can't draw a line between what is CM1 discussion and what is CM2 discussion. Most is appropriate to both. And as CM2 draws near, discussion will become more weighted towards it. But I can't see the point in splitting the forum. We'll just end up with the same discussions going on simultaneously. Treeburst wrote: > I think they should make it so that a PII 450 with Geforce SDR barely squeeks by and do away with the many restrictions to the game engine built in just so low end machines can handle it. BTS isn't powerful or arrogant enough to require us to upgrade our machines to play their games. That's for bigger companies. BTS must cater to their niche, and war game enthusiasts on average have much less powerful machines than other gaming audiences. For BTS to hike up the minimum requirements would be to shoot themselves in the foot. I imagine CM2 will be slightly more demanding than CM1, but it's not going to be bump-mapped and ray-traced. The fact is, CM doesn't rely on flashy graphics to appeal. I've just been playing the Oni demo from Bungie, and it's bloody impressive, but regardless of how nicely programmed it is and how realistic it looks, I can't escape from the feeling that it's just the same old clickfest. Punch, kick, run, jump, shoot, repeat. If it didn't look cool it would be a pretty miserable game. If CM didn't look cool it would still be fascinating, because it's so complex. You've got to think about what you're doing, and it takes time to implement your orders – and the results are dependent upon thoroughly researched information from real-world weapons and vehicles. CM's strength is in the detail and complexity, not in the 'wow' factor and compulsiveness. I've played the two levels in the Oni demo a few times, and I feel I've seen it all and I'm not sure I'll be getting the full game. I've owned Combat Mission for something like eight months now, and I've barely scratched the surface. I don't play it because I need an injection of cool graphics and violence, I play it when I want to test out my tactical abilities and have a sense of achievement at the end of it all. I wouldn't care if the game were completely untextured, it would still knock the socks off everything else. David

Juardis wrote: > Am I reading too much into this? I think so. The yellow box simply bounds the part of the unit visible from your viewpoint. Click on a tank while it's firing and you'll notice that the box even expands with the muzzle blast. It has nothing to do with LOS. David

This is the Combat Mission forum, is it not?

thhrrrppp All right, who let the gnat in?? Gosh chaps, isn't this a jolly nice new thread? Shall we have a picnic and play hotseat games? But wait, aren't those fellows shooting at each other? Ghastly! We must exchange their rifles for bunches of flowers! The war should be won by the side which can flatter its opponent most effectively! Hey man, that Hitler dude sure is a wacky fellow! Ja, he is qvite a character! Please pass meine best vishes on to Herr Roosevelt! Gosh Fritz, that's an awfully smart uniform you're wearing! Ach, you are too kind! And might I say zat I haf zer greatest respect fur ze Britische army! Whoa man, I wish we had some of those big tanks you guys use – your technology is like totally awesome! It is nicht really zat good – your Shermans are far more reliable! I have to say your Luftwaffe chaps really gave us a run for our money back in '40! I do admire Göring for switching attacks from airfields to cities – it seemed like a strange tactic, but I'm sure he had good reasons!

... so I snuck up behind a Striker and broke his back, and then did a flying spin-kick on his mate...! Whoops, I remember, this is the Combat Mission forum. Never mind, can we have interpolated combo moves in CM2? Good god, next time I play the game I'll be pressing Shift-Right to try and make my squad do a rolling dodge and then Forward-Kick to pick up the enemy squad and throw them on their heads. Bungie may have defected to the Dark Side, but Oni isn't a bad game. And the Voodoo 5500 I picked up for a song doesn't do any harm... Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I think the brinnel hardness on the upper glacis of a late Churchill VII has been miscalculated by at least 3.78%! Why, I fired no less than 459 hollow-charge APC-BS rounds from distances ranging between 200 and 2000 yards, and achieved a mean penetration rate of precisely 24.36%! This is clearly wrong, deviating from historical evidence by a factor of 0.0056. And that's not even accounting for a trilithium force field... umm, sorry, I mean the ubiquitous appliqué armour found in the European Theatre of Operations between September 1944 and February 1945...

One more bump =)

Bump

Marçel, get in here!! Your woman is running amok! If some people's hormone levels don't drop soon, they're going to have a cardiac arrest! PLEASE FIX!! Or do somefink!! And buy a Nicholas Cage mask!

Silver Stars wrote: > I remember watching "The Big Red One" on cable a few years back. nothing awe inspiring but over all a pretty decent flick. I liked their reconstruction of the Normandy landings with 1 squad, 1 boat, 2 rolls of barbed wire, a smoke grenade and a couple of miniaturised obstacles. It was sunny too. =0

I just picked up a Mac Voodoo 5500 for £60. A PC shop in Edinburgh has ordered a bunch of them (I don't know how many) by accident and is flogging them off cheap. You can order one by mail – go to UseNet group uk.adverts.computer.mac and read Shaf Rasul's post from Saturday. This is a genuine bargain – get in before someone comes to their senses! David P.S. I got mine from the shop – it's purely coincidence they were nearby.

The bill is in the post, presumably... =)

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. himself! Napoleon Solo! I couldn't adjust to him in the role of a German. =)

Ales Dvorak wrote: > Awesome crew! Elite? That's what you call a 'skeleton crew'...