David Aitken

Oh dear, that was a bit of a wasted effort. Try pressing Shift-T until the trees disappear. You will notice that the different areas of the map have different ground textures. These are the important bits - the actual tree graphics are just to make things a bit more convincing. Hence you can choose different tree-coverage levels without making any difference to gameplay. It would make things a bit complicated if you had to plot paths for your units around every single tree... much more elegant this way. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Mark IV wrote: > now I'm down to just the X-Files. That was me a couple of years ago - now I don't watch TV at all. Load of rubbish (even in the UK). David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Joke or not, this is still pretty disrespectful. ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Sitting Duck wrote: > But isn't there other 'superfluous fluff' in the game? We're talking here specifically about the squad placeholders. In this context 'flying bodies' are completely inappropriate, for reasons detailed above. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

CM3: Heia Safari You won't see many lions on barren tabletop desert. ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

I was interested to see how convincing an urban map could be made in Combat Mission, so I put all my efforts into creating a realistic European town. The result is my scenario Trojan Horse Not Supplied. Not only is the scenery exceptionally dense and varied, it also makes for a very interesting battle. A strong British force must fight up a hill with their flank exposed, then effect a river crossing, and then fight their way through the town to secure objectives in opposite directions! Download the Zip file here. Let me know what you think! David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT [This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 08-19-2000).]

pcelt, you're obviously looking for a fight. I'm sorry I irritate you so much, but I would suggest that's your own problem. My most was my own personal opinion. It was not a judgement or anything else. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Elijah Meeks wrote: > Valve didn't, though, and Counterstrike has spurred sales of HL immensely What you're talking about is a game, not the facility to modify a game. I expect BTS will be putting all their efforts into making CM2 even better than CM, not allowing us to mess around with it. I'm sure there will be scope for modification, as there currently is - but no-one, not even BTS, could currently tell you exactly what. Again, we'll all have to just wait and see! David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

This specific change was made to reduce instances of tanks losing track of their opponents, and then spinning around idly taking potshots and bailed crews and such, while their opponents jockey for a shot. I haven't had much experience of this behaviour myself, but them's the facts. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

You don't get anything for free... I prefer to stick with Demon. Tenner a month, and you pay for phone bills, but a fast and reliable connection is most important to me (and with free ISPs, this is the last thing you can expect). I hear surftime is due at the end of the month, but again, the connection reliability will be questionable. The way I look at it is, if the 'net is of value to my existence, I'm willing to pay for it. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

When you see a unit 'twitch', it is a variation of the placeholder which lets you know that it's taken a casualty. It is not an extra object, as a flying body would be. Likewise, the eliminated unit placeholder (dead body) is another variation, not something extra. What you have just now is graphical feedback. What you're proposing is totally superfluous fluff. Elvis wrote: > PS David..is that an REM reference in your signature? Hurrah! ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Offthewall wrote: > It just seems to me that the people who want this left out feel that way because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Dunno where you pulled that from. If you have flying bodies, where do they come from? As I have said, individual soldiers are not modelled. The men you see in squads are placeholders. Where is the logic in a placeholder spawning a flying body? As has also been pointed out, in war bodies don't tend to fly - they get torn apart, and generally just fall to the ground. Sure there is eye candy in the game, but not this kind of theatrical rubbish. Combat Mission is a squad-level simulator, and as such, individual men are out of its scope. Bodies belong to individual men, and are therefore irrelevant to this game. The one kind of dead body you see is simply a placeholder to indicate the demise of a squad, so that it doesn't just disappear without trace. This represents all the casualties the squad has taken. If you want total graphical realism, this is the wrong game for you. Simple as that. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Mirage2k wrote: > To experience the full power and horror of a combined hamster/field mouse onslaught, one only has to visit [...] ARRGH, one of them's followed me back!! ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

PzKpfw 1 wrote: > they were in use in large numbers during Zitadelle God, Citadel has got to be one of my all-time favourite words. It's so loaded... very medieval. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

SF wrote: > Actually I'd expect to see them in CM2 PzKpfw 1 wrote: > CM 2 is Ostfront 41 - 45 right? If so PzKpfw III's should be included Sorry, apparently part of my brain wasn't functioning when I made that post. I just thought "PzKpfw III... Poland... France... CM4" - but yes, they'll likely be in CM2 as well. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

To cure all your pillbox ills, just take one dose of Firefly™! Works every time! Ask your doctor before embarking on a course of medication. Always read the label. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Well, keep in mind that this isn't an open source project. There are ways to add your own stuff, but they're not officially endorsed, and I doubt BTS will be accepting submissions for CM2. As has been recently discussed, vetting 3rd party submissions is effectively as time consuming as doing the work yourself. Furthermore, I doubt BTS will spend much time building structures to accept third-party additions. The best answer you're likely to get is, wait and see. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Scortchus wrote: > for realisticly proportioned battles, Shermans should cost about 35 points and allied air-support about 75 One of the design considerations of Combat Mission was that, if it modelled an average of the Allied forces versus the Germans during the latter years of the war, basically the game would be pointless because the Germans would be hopelessly outnumbered every time. So what you see instead, are small-scale engagements, where the Germans were often more than a match for the Allies. War isn't about overall numbers - it's about small-scale engagements and tactics, so in the scope of Combat Mission, the force balance (and the cost of units) isn't unreasonable. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Scortchus - The decision of which vehicles to include has been based on how common they were in the depicted armies during the depicted timespan. You'll even find that when you're setting up a Quick Battle, depending on the month and year you choose, certain vehicles will be unavailable. For example, you won't get a Jagdtiger or a Comet in July 1944. PzKpfw III's will likely feature in (I think) CM4, which is projected to cover the early years of the war. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

mg - Combat Mission is currently the computer wargame. Trust me. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Generally, advancements will be made as and when possible and appropriate, and time probably won't be spent doing extremely rare vehicles. As for other scenery, anything that goes in really needs to be programmed in - you can't just throw in eye candy, because it's on the battlefield and it'll affect the battle. Modifications are likely to be to their current extent - texture mods and such. Actual new classifications of object are up to BTS. I doubt there will be any 'expansion' to CM. Bug fixes, and then it's onto CM2. Of course, you've got plenty of expansion in third-party maps - no shortage of those. Soufflés are basically warm hair mousse. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Chupacabra wrote: > Why, just last night I saw a full brigade of Waffen SS throw down their rifles and start singing the jub-jub song I should know better than to try and eat or drink while I'm reading this forum. =P ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Mr. Johnson-- wrote: > so no one would say anything back to me about how wrong, or this would not be codedable, or fill in blank with whatever. Sorry, I couldn't resist. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Germanboy wrote: > Your illustrations, do you draw some of your inspiration from Manga? To be honest, I despise Manga. =) I do agree there is a certain similarity, though. My illustrations tend to be much less stylised. Mikeydz wrote: > The most times that I can remember men "flying" because of an explosion comes from action films from Stallone, Arnold, or Van Damme. Yeah, so what's your point? I mean, Combat Mission is a long way from the cutting-edge realism of Commando or Universal Soldier, but let's face it, Charles and Steve are only really amateurs. Give them a chance, they'll soon get it right. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

If you listen very carefully, it suddenly dawns on you that that's not the sound of a Tiger's idling engine... it's actually the chanting choirs of the spirits of the undead. Just listen to it long enough (5-8 hours should do it) and you'll see what I mean. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT