phil stanbridge

Royal Fail. I'm near Ayr. I'm surprised as well as disappointed. Especially as some here have got their copy with no excess charges

Ouch! Got a card in the post saying my parcel has landed in the UK - yay! Customs want £17.90 before they will release it! Noooooooo! I haven't a leg to stand on, I've just gotta pay it. I know it's not BFC's fault, but my god, how on earth do Customs UK justify a charge this high for something of such little value/size. Pretty disgusting! Just a heads up for others in the UK awaiting their copy.

Count me in on the list. I've also had stuff (parcels) arrive in less than a week direct from the US and even less time from Germany, but I guess it depends on how it has been shipped and what customs are up to etc.

Hey nice to see you here! I still have your original mods on my hard drive Looking forward to these, thanks.

I've just got back from a 2 week holiday and expected to find my parcel waiting for me! I presume they are 'en-route' then. By the way do we have to report out steel boxes as MIA or is BFC aware of this?

Excellent detective work Pondscum. I've been suffering these crashes in Shock Force repeatedly and it was my guess that it was a memory leak of sorts. However, my O/S is Win 7 64 bit so how do you think that fits into this? I haven't played any massive scenario in Normandy yet and have so far had a totally smooth experience.

Are you absolutely sure the mortars were deployed? I'm able to direct fire from XO and Platoon HQ's at variable distances from the mortars because they have radio communication with *their* platoon HQ.

Out of interest for the chaps in the UK, will it likely fit a standard letter box? I was rather hoping it would arrive before tomorrow but now it seems unlikely. I'm away for a couple of weeks and will miss the post!

Didn't the SF modules take a year? BFC themselves have said the modules for Normandy will happen quicker. I think we're looking a 6 months per module.

How big is that saturation mod Vein? I'd live to give it a crack if you upload it.

I got owned! Totally owned as the Germans. I left my men more or less as I found them in the setup phase because I wasn't sure where the enemy armour would appear. Although my Panther took out 9 Shermans and inflicted numerous damage on men and morale I eventually succumbed to greater numbers - there seemed to be a never-ending flow of half tracks and tanks! I was also completely out-flanked on my left side - the AI simply encircled me from the rear! A challenging scenario but one thing I definitely do NOT like is the way enemy tank crews will carry on the advance on foot once they have bailed and are injured/shocked! I lost two schreck teams to a single tank crewman with a machine gun! It was laughable actually. The shermans had decided to sit it out, and were quite happy to wait on the crest of the hill whilst a tank crew or two charged out in front with guns blazing!

Don't get me wrong - when I said I setup in 'wooded' terrain I didn't mean completely covered as that would be pretty daft I had LOS to the target remember - how does wind effect trajectory of the shells etc? Because the branches were swaying and possibly interfering with the path of the LOS. Although the mortars are deadly accurate most of the time due to the relatively small maps they are quite hard to locate safely. At the mo in one scenario I have two mortar teams setup behind a two level building - and a stone wall. They have little or no LOS to the target area of course, but I was intending on using a platoon commander to direct fire. But after reading some of these posts I'm thinking they are best positioned in completely open ground.

I took some friendly fire casualties in a battle when I setup one of my mortar teams in some woods - although I thought I could see daylight between them, LOS and the trees I lost all but one man to an exploding shell! So can mortars be setup within trees/woodland or are they supposed to be out in the open? Obviously if this is the case, and you can setup hidden amongst the trees, this takes some pretty accurate placement. Could this be a little bug we are seeing here.

I'm patiently awaiting the arrival of mine.

I can't really answer this - all I would say, post in the technical support forum first as it should work out of the box so to speak. I'll just add that I had some trouble with the demo on my pc - although the full game is perfect (touch wood!)

I play more or less exclusively WEGO as I can't cope with the realtime - plus I love to check out the action from various perspectives. Works for me anyway. I haven't even read the instructions yet - I forgot the TAB key did that.

Yeah is the weather dynamic? I haven't seen any sort of effects like rain or wind change once in game. I'm now trying this battle from the German perspective. It's significantly easier!

Dead impressed with this. I know it's early days - and yes, there a few little bugs to fix, but generally, isn't it amazing! I've only played 2 different battles too, but I've spent hours on it already. The last one really reminded me of that epic Hurtgen Forest battle out of 'When trumpets fade' - when hundreds of American soldiers are killed trying to take out those '88s. It was sheer madness as my little pixel men tried desperately to evade the guns and artillery screaming down on them. I barely managed to reach the train tracks (which are modelled so well too) before I was pinned down by machine gun fire and small arms. I lost 47 men and all my armour in the end and I felt it too! I love the way you can properly use natural defenses now, like embankments and cover from fire behind trees and such like. At one point I had individual men popping up behind an embankment taking pot shots before ducking down again. It felt like I was watching a film! I can't remember the last time I was so engrossed by a simulation! Or maybe it was CMBO?

I've been wondering this as well - I was trying to deploy my men in a wooded/dark green area, but I couldn't work out if the terrain was supposed to be wooded or partially wooded or not wooded at all - all I had to go on was the tree trunks really. The greenery is just a little disconcerting. We could do with a little clarity on this subject. I was driving my tanks over every surface, not really knowing whether I could or not? At least in SF, you know where you can send your vehicles immediately. Then there are the streams/rivers - again I have almost no idea whether they are passable or not - I ended up positioning a waypoint, and then promptly saw the unit move in the complete opposite direction until they found a shallow spot I presume? But I couldn't easily identify this myself.

I like the sound of that, but I am still finding real-time just a little too difficult to handle. Especially in the slightly larger sized battles - I also love the battle replay feature which I sorely miss in real-time engagements.

It's very good indeed. Just playing the Last Defense now

Yep, absolute must!

Didn't Winecape just state this a few posts back? It's on the to do list, but it might have to wait until the next 'major' release whatever that means.

Anyone working on coloured icons yet? Scipio? hint hint..

Yeah I vouch for this - I decided to try the smallest scenario going first of all. I think I'll work my way through the single missions first, then maybe on to a few QB's, then the campaigns once I have a hand at the tactics.