David Aitken

If you hide a unit behind the centre of a building it won't be seen. 'Windows' are only factored in while shooting - it's possible that a shell will go right through a house, but this isn't because the firing unit has LOS, it's just chance. As for shells hitting the corners of houses - in reality I don't think a gunner would risk putting shells right past a friendly-held building - it's just common sense. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Madpad wrote: > Surely you are contradicting yourself here when you say recon is about creeping and looking and others think it is about peeking round corners of buildings. I'm referring to the use of vehicles to drive out into the open, take a look around and drive back. Exposing yourself to the enemy while you try and spot something is a bizarre tactic which isn't likely to get you far. > Also when you say "when you have to cross open ground do it swiftly" just after saying it is about creeping. When you're under cover you creep. When you're in the open you move fast. This way, in each case, you have the least chance of being spotted and taken out. (Try moving quickly under cover or sneaking over open ground - won't work. Get my point?) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

> Right now, it does not look anything like a dust cloud. Well, dust clouds tend to be opaque, but they also tend to be irregular. The irregularity cannot be modelled in CM, so the opacity is toned down to compensate. > I have been about 30 ft away from a collapsing building, and I can assure, all those little bits and pieces? They fall down and out, not up. Consider that CM doesn't model the actual building falling down - it just models debris. A shower of debris falling to the ground would look a bit strange, so instead it 'explodes' slightly. Considering the collapse was caused by a high-explosive shell, it's not unreasonable that a few bits and pieces should be flying around. Anyway, this isn't a building collapse simulator - it's a wargame! I think the effect, if not entirely accurate, is still very appropriate and effective. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Jeff Heidman wrote: > the "recce" command is not an attempt to keep the player from having to think [...] it is a tool to try to better simulate actual orders. > Currently, there is no way to tell a unit to move until it sees an enemy unit and then disengage. > I never claimed that this command would save my unit, or be a viable way to keep units put into suicidal situations alive. Hmmm... obviously our definitions of a 'suicidal situation' don't match up. You're talking about sending a unit forward, then if it notices enemy guns aiming at it, pull out - which seems pretty suicidal to me. Consider issuing a 'recce' order. This would either be towards the next line of cover, or into the open - I'm getting the impression that we're talking more about the latter case here. So, your scout car moves into the open. If it suddenly notices an enemy tank lining it up, it'll retreat. But if it doesn't, it'll stay where it is, out in the open - while any watching enemy guns take their time getting a bead on it. Don't forget about Fog Of War - someone can be shooting at your unit, but it won't react until it spots the firer. If you were moving to the next line of cover, a 'recce' order would still be a liability. If someone lines you up - whether you see them or not - you're best to keep moving. The last thing you want to do is stop and reverse. I maintain that a 'recce' command would be redundant in the course of proper tactical recon. I'm more and more getting the impression that you (and Sitting Duck) regard recon as peeking around the corner of buildings with scout cars. Move out, take a look around, move back. Recon is about creeping, and looking. The way to find the enemy is to move forward slowly in cover, and take plenty of time to stop and look around. If you need to cross open ground, do it swiftly and decisively, and make sure there is safe cover at your destination. You can't roll a scout car out and expect him to spot the enemy - he'll be dead in seconds. If you're spotting, you need to do it from cover. You can't expect your guys to stand in the open and pick out enemy units who are watching them from well-concealed positions. As Steve says (and Steve should know, he was only one of the guys who made the game), maybe you're trying to do too much too quickly. Recon is inherently time consuming, whereas the kind of thing you're talking about - and requesting a 'recce' command for - is split-second maneuvreing. There is no special whizz-bang trick you can pull to perfect recon - all the commands you need are at your disposal, it's how you use them that you need to think about. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Fionn wrote: > BTS frowns on the "taking a flamefest into a new thread after the old one is closed down" thing you've just done. That wasn't my intention at all - I posted here first, while the 'Archer' thread was on page 2. Then it came back to the top, so I decided to refute some of tero's accusations - something I'd refrained from doing previously. Considering this thread appears to have a lot to do with me, I feel justified in posting. I just wanted to put tero's request in perspective, since there was some confusion about the behaviour he was referring to. I stand by what I've said... I think I'll edit "never" to be in lowercase, but I'm afraid that's as far as I'll go. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Jeff Heidman wrote: > If the tactical nuclear strike bit is supposed to "represent" the dust cloud, why didn't they, I don't know, just have a graphic of a dust cloud? It is a dust cloud. Compare it to an explosion graphic - these are instantaneous, whereas a dust cloud is big and slow-moving. Unfortunately it would be slightly beyond the capabilities of your average PC to accurately simulate all the characteristics of a real dust cloud. > Why does the building appear to blow into a zillion little pieces flying all over the place? Are we showing a building being blown apart, or a building that is collapsing due to sustained damage to its structure? When a building collapses, you tend to gets bits 'flying all over the place'. This is not the same as being blown all over the place - if a collapsing building was actually an explosion, it would throw debris halfway across the map. Unless you're a world authority on collapsing buildings, I'm not quite sure what the problem is. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Jeff Heidman wrote: > I find it kind of funny that David is suggesting that it is a bad idea to advance to contact and then pull back. Does he really think the tactically better idea is to advance to contact and then get blown away? Who are you talking to here? Stop playing to the gallery. In my first post I talked about moving from cover to cover. This is what I mean by creeping forward, and as such yes, my second sentence does 'follow from the first'. Again, you seem to be playing for laughs. I'm sorry, but I'm not part of your show. Advancing to contact and then bugging out would rarely preserve your scout the way you assume it would. The 'hunt' command assumes the hunter is equipped to engage any units it spots, whereas the 'recce' command assumes it is not. However, the fact is that the proposed 'recce' command is still effectively 'hunt and bug out'. You're waiting until a vehicle runs into trouble, and then hoping it can get away before it gets wasted. What I'm saying is, modifying the 'hunt' command and calling it 'recce' does not suddenly produce viable recce tactics. If you want to spot the enemy, but not engage them, you can't put your unit in an engagement position to start with, as the 'recce' command would - you've got to ensure the unit doesn't loiter in an exposed position, as part of your tactics. What is the purpose of a recce? To spot enemy units which you can't yet see. We're not talking about getting a tank into a hull-down position, from which it can reverse into safety - we're talking about sending a scout car out under the enemy's gaze, and expecting it to spot the enemy before it gets blown away, and then retreat to safety before it gets blown away. You can't expect a 'recce' command to save units which you throw into suicidal situations - your tactics should ensure that they don't get too far into trouble in the first place. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Sitting Duck wrote: > Do you feel the same way about the vehicle hunt command? Nope. The hunt command simulates a simple 'advance to contact' order. A recce command, however, would be like 'advance to contact and then bug out', which isn't very realistic. If you want to sight the enemy but not fight them, you should be creeping forward using the commands which are currently available in the game. Marching forward, letting the enemy see you and then withdrawing to cover would be an extremely bad idea, because - assuming you actually reach cover in one piece - the enemy knows where you are and can either shell you or hunt you down. I can't see a 'recce' command adding anything useful to the game. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

I think 'recce' is the kind of maneuvre that you should be planning yourself, not expecting the game to do for you. Don't sent your forces too far ahead in one go - move swiftly but carefully from cover to cover, so that you won't blunder into enemy fire. This is more of a tactical issue than a programming issue. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

I was going to leave this alone, but since it's come back to the top... tero wrote: > No amount of smileys you may use will ever purge your underlying tone unless you make a attitude adjustment. > At first sight it does not seem that malicious but please check his "tone of voice". I think you'll find that, when people type, their tone of voice isn't quite audible - it is notoriously difficult to put feeling into words you exchange over the internet. The whole purpose of smileys is to reflect the way a comment has been intended. Simply because I dispute a point you've made (as I may have done in earlier threads) doesn't mean I somehow despise you. It's called discussion. I happen to enjoy making proper use of my language in my posts - if you interpret this as any particular 'tone', I'm sorry I don't type badly enough for you. When you're reading my posts, you obviously assume I'm out to get you. When I'm reading your posts, the personal insults are plainly obvious. Please make this distinction. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

There have already been requests for a 'follow' command. You might want to check up on that thread - do a topic-name search for 'follow'. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

After checking the 'Archer' thread, I've confirmed that this thread was started in my honour. It should be noted that tero is a rampant paranoiac, and is the very person who should be adopting the code of conduct he proposes. tero, I have never 'singled you out for special treatment'. However, after the 'unwarranted personal attacks' I have enjoyed from your quarter, I may well start to treat you differently. Of course, this will only feed your conviction that I hold you in contempt, but I get the feeling there isn't much I could do to change your mind anyway, so I won't bother trying. Just trust me when I say that you have me wrong, and you also have this board wrong. It's people with your attitude who provoke the kind of behaviour that you're complaining about. I suggest you chill out, take a break, and come back here without the paranoia. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT [This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 08-17-2000).]

L.Tankersley wrote: > Say, infantry within 10m (or whatever distance) of a vehicle/wreck (or even a stationary vehicle/wreck) receive some amount of cover I do agree that vehicles should provide some cover, but don't think it would be a good idea to abstract it to this extent. For example, you could advance men in front of a vehicle, in order to flush out AT crews - but they'd get the same cover as though they were behind, using the tank for protection. A lot of things in CM are abstracted, but they're always the kind of things that make sense to abstract - whereas the shortcomings of this idea would be all too obvious, and would also encourage gamey behaviour. I might also point out that this doesn't escape the problems which led Charles to omit vehicle cover in the first place. In the same way that the path of a projectile can't currently be traced in relation to units other than the target unit, it would also be the case that the cover afforded by a unit can't be calculated dependent upon the position of another unit. If this were possible, then vehicle cover itself would be too. It's a pain being unable to advance men in the cover of tanks, since this was such a common practice in reality - but if it's going to be done, it needs to be done properly. Until CM2 (or whatever) we'll just have to do without. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Joe Blow wrote: > I did not see this covered earlier in the forum. Wow, you must have been in the wrong forum. Try doing a search (link TR corner of main screen) for "tank crew target". Should only bring up about half a million threads. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Naw, Mickey Mouse - not 101 Dalmations... David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Aah, but you've gone and dug it up now. Knocking it to the top of the forum is not the way to 'lay it to rest'. Lucky for you I'm too tired and too pressed for time to care to add anything. =) David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

M Hofbauer wrote: > In other words, sometimes, which in war tends to be the rule not the exception, you are caught in a certain situation where you have to improvise and make do with the means available Well, you try driving a real flak track backwards over rough ground, engaging enemy vehicles (which is the only purpose of the Hunt command) and see how far you get. =) I would suggest the difficulty you're having is not so much down to the inappropriacy of the Hunt command, but rather the inappropriacy of what you're trying to do in the first place. Battles are usually desperate situations, yes - but that doesn't mean you can suddenly do things with your equipment that were previously impossible. David P.S. Maybe you're a cynicist, but I was a cynic the last time I checked. =) ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Don't forget, though, that vehicles with rear-facing guns are designed exclusively for defence. They shouldn't be 'hunting' at all. Trying to reverse towards the enemy over rough terrain would be REALLY asking for it. Flak tracks are mobile air defences - if they're used for ground-based purposes, it should be purely defence. Archers should also be used purely for defence. In my opinion, hunting backwards with a flak track would either be classified as gamey, or suicidal. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Hakko Ichiu wrote: > the pining maidens' groans for husbands Bladdy 'ell, first it's sexy mormon wives, now it's groaning maidens. Even the morals of the fine, upstanding members of the CM forum are being bastardised. Dear oh dear oh dear. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Flamethrowers are no use for general infantry purposes, but essentially they're nutcrackers. You should ideally keep them in reserve (or at least, out of harm's way) until you come up against a really stubborn fortification, and then use the flamethrower to clear it out. The instance that always springs to mind when I think about flamethrowers is US Marines clearing out Japanese island fortifications. Very handy for making sure they're clear, because flames get into places where bullets can't. The Germans didn't really dig themselves in so well, or defend so fanatically, so there's less need for flamethrowers in Europe. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

The politics may be irrelevant compared to the lives of these guys, but unfortunately the politicians are putting the final nails in their coffin, if they're not already dead. Unfortunately politics does have serious implications in situations like this. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

howardb wrote: > What about that rifle with the sights mounted on the side for urban fighting??? Cowards. They should come out and get their heads blown off like everyone else. Mind you, if the US military doesn't find a way to achieve 0.0 per cent casualty rates, they'll never fight a ground war again. And if Kosovo was anything to go by, that means they'll never win a war again. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

Joe Shaw wrote: > It's lonely out here, alone on the firing line, the ONLY one to take a stand for JUSTICE Standing on firing lines is generally accepted to be bad for one's health. No-one told that to the platoon of extras at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, and look what happened to them. Special effects? Aye right. Those men are dead, and I've got the skulls to prove it. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

tero - I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. What I'm talking about, is that the suggestion you made was negated by the post you were responding to. What do I need an excuse for? For stating facts? I may have been curt, but I had no reason to descend to the level of personal insults, which you seem to have been compelled to do. What you think is my problem is actually your own. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

It's funny (in a morbid kind of a way) to hear how the Russian government handled the situation. First it was a malfunction on Monday, then it was a collision on Sunday, then it was an explosion on Saturday. The situation seems to be that they haven't got a scooby what's going on. If anyone's still alive down there, I pity them. David ------------------ There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT