Claymore
-
Posts
252 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Claymore
-
-
I've been at work all day reading the messages and trying to compose responses between salving my sponsors. Now that I'm at home I'll try and get a few of them in.
First, Schrullenhaft,
Business is always a factor. Time is money and time spent on CMBO to code it to everyone's satisfaction is time that BTS doesn't get paid. BTS needs to create and sell products or their cash flow dries up and it becomes kind of hard to pay the bills and paychecks.
Nothing in my premise to this thread mentioned the if BTS's business model would support delaying their product. When the topic did get raised I again pushed it a more philisophical realm...what would I like BTS to aspire to?
A bit of background now...I am the leader of a team which invents never before seen one-of-a-kind high technology widgets on a 1-2 year development cycle. I must comb the real world and find sponsors, both government and private, willing to spend about $1M/year to support these efforts. Then when the development ends...start the whole cycle over again (actually it never ceases, but continues unceasingly). If I don't bring in enough money to cover my salary, my team's salary, materials and overhead then the company I work for will escort me and my charges offsite in a heartbeat. C'est tout fini. Now in order to be successful I've found that sponsors are enthralled and seduced more by the "revolutionary" than the "evolutionary". This is what my team is very very good at. If we produce a widget in one funding cycle, then the next widget will be faster, better, cheaper by factors of 10, not two or three. Now...am I guilt of wishing BTS to aspire to "revolutionary" as they move to the next widget? Yup. Don't you?
I don't know what the volume of sales for CMBO is over time, but I assume that the sales aren't as great as they were the first few months that it was available. BTS is not a big company, so they don't have dozens of projects going on with cash coming in for each one spread throughout the year (ever wonder why the "big companies" are always pushing to get a product out the door - even if it's buggy ?).
Which may be why software companies are so ephemeral. BTS broke the mold when it came to tactical wargames, entertain a thought experiment where BTS closes its doors and announces it will not return for X years until it unveils CM2! My thread was created to ask -- what X is your pain threshold? and what would need to be addressed.
Don't make it into something it's not.
BTS indeed never even read this thread, check its spelling or grammer, or date my sister for all I care. The BTS CMBO is the de facto location to discuss topics such as these with people of common interest. They can happily follow whatever business model they wish. I am only interested in what the CMBO minions feel about the questions I asked.
CMBO is not a perfect product. I'm sure many of us agree on this and so does BTS. I would love to see a patch for CMBO to address some of the issues in the game before CM2 is worked on (and there are limitations as to what could actually be addressed in a patch too). But that isn't going to happen (as far as I know). Some of your issues (and others on this board) can be addressed in a patch. Others can't without an engine rewrite.
Back to the original question...what if BTS closes its doors and announces it will not return for X years until it unveils CM2! My thread was created to ask -- what X is your pain threshold? and what would need to be addressed.
There are limitations to the engine that CM uses. Compromises were made to make the game playable on computers that are actually available (rather than requiring an NSF grant and a warehouse to house it in).
A team at my company (12 members) developed and currently maintains the wargaming program for the US Army (not sure if the Marines use it) which runs in real-time on a PIII. It can be done by triumphing brains over brawn. I would venture however that the current CMBO engine in incapable of being patched into solving the problems originally stated above. To me, who has labored under the unfair burdens of paper punchouts, basement floors poorly sculpted to approximate terrain, and endless arguements between opponents over what and who was in LOS...I, me, would gladly play CMBO for another 2-3 years awaiting the development of a REAL tactical simulator. After all, I awaited CMBO for more than 30 years, thus 3 years is but the blink of an eye. How about you? Would you really be truely pissed off if BTS announced that they were shutting down to develop the product I outlined above? Really? Not me. I am grateful in the extreme to Steve et al., and they owe me nothing. If they shut down to produce nothing and moved to the Bahamas I would still salute them everytime I turned on my laptop.
BTS tried to get their engine to depict combat as realistically as possible, but they acknowledge that it won't duplicate every situation perfectly (unfortunately it is too easy to find the situations where the engine doesn't model combat they way we believe it should). Some of the "bugs" you and others have mentioned would require the engine to be rewritten so that the path of a projectile is tracked throughout its flight path, terrain is modeled on a much smaller scale, and a host of other things that would have to be changed to elimate these "bugs".
And so...how long is your pain threshold for the above? This is all I've asked.
It's not an impossible task, but it is a time consuming one and decisions have to be made for minimum configurations, etc. It can be complex coming up with a balance for the product in terms of features and how long it would take to create. Past posts from Steve indicate that the intention is to incorporate some minor engine rewrites in CM2 (a step towards CMII). So some features that we want will appear in CM2 (which won't be just a simple change of units using the same engine - though the engine will mostly be what CMBO is running) without having to wait for the CMII engine.
And here is my point entirely. I would be happy if BTS never produced anything before the unveiling of CMII. You (and many of the others above) have difficulty digesting my remarks. They are an advocacy for BTS...an affirmation of their courage in developing CMBO. During a particularly difficult bit of the Normandy landing a Lt. had difficulty getting his men to follow him and assault a series of a dozen strongpoints. While they watched in relative safety from a distance the Lt. assaulted the buildings in succession, killing whoever was not flushed into the next building. The Lt. was joined at times by individuals from the squad, but they were often made casualties leaving only him to go on.
In the end he cleared all the strongpoints.
In effect what you're "pleading" for here is that CMBO's engine be rewritten to fix the bugs that annoy you and others.
READ the original post. I have made no entreaties to BTS. They can ignore this discussion at their pleasure. I am only curious what the other CMBO minions believe.
Are you willing to wait 2-3 more years ?
Finally a glimmer of understanding...yup...2-3 years is but a blink of the eye. I am glad even to have CMBO at all.
I'm sure that BTS doesn't want to wait that long for another product to sell. We all want these changes; the sooner the better. I won't begrudge BTS for selling products in the mean time that are in line with achieving the goal of an "incredible, kick-ass, world class product".
Gawd...that "kick-ass" comment makes me sound like a sixteen year old in retrospect. Oh well...email is forever.
In the meantime we will get a couple of great games that we can play that show the gradual improvements that are being made (and new units to boot).
IMO without the above changes it really is the same game.
Yes, it is the same business model that other companies use when it comes to "sequels", but considering the alternatives I don't think it's that great an evil.
Not evil...just unfortunate IMO.
While some of the issues that people bring up here can have a severe impact on the game in certain situations, it isn't the end of the world. I guess we will have to concentrate on what is good about CMBO (which there is plenty of) and not dwell on some of the shortcomings. BTS has proven that they are a company that cares and they want to create a great product, but business dictates that you will be unable to please everyone without going broke (and grogs are simply the worst audience to cater to ).
You obviously have been in the company of my children...they are IMPOSSIBLE to please.
Cheers
Murray
-
Jarmo
Hmm.. and what would I do instead of waiting?
Jump off a tall building?
To not buy the game after it's been done? Sure.
In short: Fixes or no fixes, I'll wait as long as I have to.
Agreed...agreed...agreed. Even if I consider CM2 to be in reality be only "eye candy", I will be one of the first to pay out my hard earned zlotychs on the product. The tactical model may only have changed by 10% and the skins on the armour include little red stars but I'll happily support BTS with my purchase.
Cheers
Murray
-
Michael,
I too would be willing to grant BTS an additional year to get the product "right" (or a reasonable (term undefined) proximity thereto).
How long did you exhaustively run the demo before CMBO came out? Now that we have CMBO I would venture to guess that the pain threshold for "real CM" would be much longer than a year.
But two things militate against that happening. One is that I expect that you and I are in a small minority. The remainder of the fans want CM2 yesterday and are already starting to froth at the mouth.
BTS ignored the "twitch crowd" and lovingly created CMBO. They have demonstrated themselves to be forward thinking (at least in the past) The same mindset would also allow them to ignore the current business model and not deliver a simple "east front" add-on to CMBO
The other is possible business reasons. If BTS doesn't bring out an East Front game based on the CM engine pretty quick, you can bet one or another of the clone makers will, stealing a good portion of BTS' thunder in the process. Sure, it would probably be a second- or third-rate ripoff, but that would only serve to turn off a portion of the game-buying and playing public to WW II tactical wargames. I'm sure we'd all rather not see that happen. A rip-off or poorly done tactical wargame...hmmm...like some other notable failures...which shall remain nameless. I believe that we've had numerous east front wargames and none of them have either cornered the market, jaded the turn based hordes, or any other prophesy of doom.
Cheers
Murray
-
Aaahhh I've only stirred up but a few wasps.
Heer Schrullenhaft,
I believe some of the issues will be addressed in CM2. Other than the hard-coding of the new Soviet and German units that saw action I haven't heard of any changes in CM2. Creation of the imbedded code for these units appears to be a non-trivial task from past BTS statements. We all remember that inclusion of Allied mobile FLAK was dropped because of the work would have delayed the delivery of CMBO.
Some others ("LOS quirks") may get addressed in the CMII engine rewrite, but possibly not to the level that you and others desire. My postulate was that CM could become a true tactical simulator by including the changes put forward in my message. I also used poor verbage in choosing "quirks" to describe the problem. IMO the current CM engine gets a failing grade for all of the parameter mentioned in my original post.
BTS is plowing forward with CM2 right now and CMBO is considered a "finished" project. Since BTS now has more employees there is a greater need for cash flow to keep things running and employees paid; and with the amount of time that it takes to field a CM game, their efforts have to be geared towards a new item that they can sell. I don't think we are going to see any patches for CMBO in the near future. Which are decisions based properly (or not) on business factors. My post posed a hypothetical question which removed business from the delivery equation.
But your point being considered now...hmmm...is it good business sense to delivery essentially an "add-on" package to CMBO? I would argue that this is the conventional software (or even the entertainment industry!) business model and has been a rut too often traveled upon, and not guaranteed of success. What is the ratio of good software or movie sequels to the unimaginative dross? BTS broke the mold by creating CMBO in the first place. I would say that there are firm arguements for continuing to move forward just as aggressively. Now is not the time to "pick the low-hanging fruit". If I can make a wild analogy then...evolution made giraffes a UNIQUE success by allowing them to forage on foliage undisturbed by the other savanah dwellers. CMBO should leave the "short-necked ground dwellers" behind and stretch forth to browse on we CMBO faithful (the high succulent leaves).
Depending on how much we plead (most effectively after CM2's release) and how much time and effort it takes to do; we may see some of CM2's improvements patched into CMBO. Plead? I believe that BTS has been immune to any arguments that were not based entirely on fact and logic. I doubt whether this would bear any fruit at all.
The future holds all sorts of unpredictable changes and BTS has not committed to back-coding CMBO Not back-coding CMBO...it appears as though a new engine is required.
Cheers
Murray
-
In the realm of the purely hypothetical let me pose a question or two.
1. How long would you the CMBO faithful wait for CM2 if BTS were to delay the product in order to fix the largest bugs in the code?
My answer...as long as I waited for the original product and probably a good deal longer since all I had in those days was the demo to play (over and over and over :eek: )
So in round terms...let's say...another year or more.
2. What are the "Bugs" that BTS would have to fix to make the software truely an incredible, kick-ass, world class product?
My answer:
a) A more complete and accurate modelling of the effects of terrain. For example, currently the reverse slope algorithms are completely and totally unrealistic. Only tanks gain a quirky and poorly rendered HULL DOWN status. For all other assets every other factor from smaller visible size to shielding effects for BLAST is ABSENT.
A truer modeling of LOS, moving beyond the quirks and under representation we have now. Currently you are never sure what to trust...what is just "eye candy" and what will block LOS? For example, consider what the game would be like if tanks (non-burning) blocked LOS. Incredible! Infantry advancing behind the shielding mass of armour! Wow!A point here that pursuing a solution to the "absolute - relative spotting" IMO is a Crazy Eddie task, that is, not worth pursuing . More money and brains than that at BTS's disposal has been applied to the current wargaming software (or even chess). The result? Currently human judges watch over the play and ajudicate legal tactics. Humans are just far too good a positional tactics and computers must rely on brute force and "maximal strength" logic trees. I am sure that some approximation of relative spotting could be worked into the code but it would be as far from modelling reality as the current code.
c) Cleaning up all the individual weapon platform quirks. For example, unarmoured vehicles vs AP/HE or MG effectiveness. This is a large bag, holding many personal crosses the CMBO faithful bear in vain every day on the CM forum.
Ok...grind away boys.
Cheers
Murray
-
Juardis,
Yes that is the point I was making exactly!
IMO forget the efficacy of MGs (sorry Pillar), the speed of turrets, the camo pattern on 2nd SS Panzer Div PzVs in June/44. These are incremental changes affecting modeling of reality by factors of 2 or 3.
If BTS were to invest time in fixing the effects of terrain on ALL fire (e.g reverse slope) then they would move CM a full order of magnitude along the path of a being a true tactical simulator.
I know something of what I speak since I have had long conversations with people who have developed and currently maintain the US Army wargaming software. Wargaming software which modeled terrain such as CMBO is a curiosity at best but no tool for real soldiers. Obviously we are talking scale and resources here...but the point is still worth making.
Now, I have no idea of the algorithms that BTS have used in CM but the difficulties in ironing out the HULL DOWN bugs took considerable time and effort to work out (if indeed they have been solved at all). This in all likelyhood means that CM2 (or beyond?) will not model terrain properly. Comments as to what the faithful can expect from CM2 mirrors these conclusions as well. A sad conclusion IMO since in many way I try to play CM using tactics faithful to the real world.
We have been spoiled by BTS's excellent software support for CM and perhaps guilty of the old adage which states "give and inch and they take a mile". I would make the arguement though that BTS's support has been better than the typical behaviour by factors of 2 or 3. BTS could IMO be better than their peers by another order of magnitude by plowing the CM faithful's "care abouts" back into the software.
Hmmm...do I see another thread forming...
Cheers
Murray
-
A shameful and self serving bump. Nobody willing to discuss this topic or does everybody wait for Monday so they can cruise the forum during working hours.
Looking for the next factual topic to discuss on the forum. Since the topics are now comprised of:
1. Mobile FLAK question - which has been put to bed by BTS.
2. New CM-ers wanting simple answers
3. Where's the MOD!
Cheers
Murray
-
Aaaahh...welcome to the new and improved forum
Now for a little factual discussion instead of the usual divel. Question: Do defenders on a reverse slope sustain lower casualties due to BLAST damage on DF HE that strikes LOW?
Preamble: We all know that the projectile path in CMBO is at present all just eye candy. Placing you ATGs (for example)just below the crest line affords you little protection against being HIT by DF.
CMBO operates on the principle (for infantry, support units, and unarmoured vehicles) that there is nothing analogous to being "HULL DOWN" in a tank. This is quite different than in reality of course
where infantry often used the reverse slope and where completely protected against DF shelling (re: Waterloo for example) The Pak40 was often used so that its barrel was only 1 foot or so off the ground
hiding the bulk of the ATG from harm and sight.
The algorithm currently:
1) CMBO determines if LOS exists (if it exists then you might as well be out in the open for all the good being behind the crest does - not including HULL DOWN tanks of course)
2) calculates a "to hit" percentage
3) rolls the die (so to speak)
4) if a miss is projected, CMBO semi-randomly places the shell impact (left, right, high, low) off target.
Obviously when considering units just below a crest line, those misses that are high (random =0.5 whereas CMBO ~0.25) sail lovingly over your defenders and impact on the horizon. This appears to be the only "benefit" from
digging in on the reverse slope (as we shall explore below)
My question concerns those misses which fall left, right and especially low. In the real world the bulk of the hill side shields the defender from the BLAST damage from LOW DF HE. CMBO instead seems to consider only the
slant distance between the DF fall and the unit location. The "shield factor" of buildings, walls, and other barriers are yet to be investigated.
THE TEST: 3 Elite PaK38 ATGs (no ammo) placed behind a crestline in thick woods, completely out of LOS of 3 ELITE M4(105)s (but not too far down the hill). The M4s are ordered to AREA fire the hill side directly opposite the ATGs. Because of the slope of the hill the horizontal distance between the ATGs and the 105 impact zone is about 20m.
A second group of the same Axis and Allied forces are also chosen, but this time the ATGs hiding about 20m inside thick woods and the M4s are ordered to AREA fire the edge of the woods nearest the ATGs.
In both cases the DF HE arrives within ~20m horizontal distance of the ATGs.
Now...if things were kosher the crestline ATGs should survive much much longer than the ATGs in the flat.
However...after numerous tests (ok...a bunch) the crestline ATGs sustain casualties at the same rate as the others. When running the test you must be careful
to exclude those DF falls which by chance are directly on top of the ATGs in the second group. Consider the effects only of DF falling NEARBY the ATGs.
Other than the LOW strikes being displaced by greater distance (x^2 + y^2 + z^2) than on the flat (x^2 + y^2), the bulk of the hillside seems to do nothing.
Any comments or argument? After all, this is the CMBO forum.
Question for the Bonus Round:
Should massive casualties sustained to nearby friendly units add stress to that unit? Consider a sliding scale where Green troops are influenced more than more veteran troops.
Likewise, non-fatal, non-casualty inducing hits...should they also cause penalties for stress? (Think Goodwood in 06/44)
Cheers
Murray
nothingemial
-
I took off all my mittens and socks and counted over and over...yup
60!
-
Vanir,
Find myself back at work and with a little time on my hands so I can hook up cruise the BTS forum...god America is a great country!
Anyway...I know that the AAR is lagging but Fionn and I have had our turn rate slow to a dribble. ISP problems and work getting in the way of fun mostly, but we are trying to speed it up. I posted to Fionn two days ago that if he had time stream posts to Yahoogroups he had time to post to me.
[right Fionn? waiting....
]Long and short of it...we are at turn 26. I voluntarily withdrew my two 155VT spotters in round 10 after expending 6 rounds total. They were just too devastating to make this or mostly any game interesting. Fionn then promptly put a mortar shell on top of a 105 spotter, leaving me just a single spotter for any arty support OUCH! Fionn also put the touch on a M4(105)which is smoking nicely THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I of course could not let the Beast better me so I retaliated by immobilizing his PzIV(70) with a 60mm mortar shell...and yes, I did go out and buy a lottery ticket after that little piece of luck.
We both have had our moments but he is going down in a big way. He seems thin in most places and his center and right flanks are collapsing fast.
Cheers
Murray
-
Aye...I would also like throw my considerable bulk
into the discussion.Under the Short-75 rules: I also believe the Hertzer to be acceptable under the Short-75 rule. If you or your opponent fixates on the frontal 60/60 armour that the Hertzer carries then the results will be predictable. The tissue-like resistance of the remainder of the Hertzer's body more than compensates.
Under the Panther-76 rules: Choose QBs with shorter range LOSs. Do so and the PzV has no advantage. Fionn and I dueled over land with LOSs much greater than this and his PzVs bested my E8(76)s 2:1, but it was great fun. Ya, sort of like the way I'm grinding him up in our current game - sorry Fionn - couldn't resist
Gotta go...time for my vanpool...more later.
Cheers
Murray
-
Bumpity bump
Sending a personal email to Matt now as the Forum discussion has yielded nothing from BTS.
Cheers
Murray
-
A shameless and self serving bump to the top.
Still waiting for any comment by BTS.
The close assault thread at least got a "I'm looking" message. Am I wandering in the desert alone here?
Cheers
murray
-
ASL Veteran,
From the dim crevices of my memory the FLAK ammo stats were as follows:
(I will check this from home later)
20mm Projectile Weight = 0.13kg
Bursting Charge = 0.06kg
ROF = 120 rnds/min (practical)
37mm Projectile weight = 0.75kg
Bursting Charge = 0.36kg
ROF = 40 rnds/min (practical)
So per round the 37mm will deliver 6 times greater HE to the target than the 20mm, however the 20mm fires 3 times as fast. Overall then that means the 20mm puts only half the HE on target per burst than the 37mm. This is why the Germans switched to the 37mm for FLAK duty. Against fast moving airplanes you need to ensure a 1 round hit/kill. Against the more leisurely movement rates of jeeps and infantry I leave you to make your own conclusions. IMO against infantry and the like the 20mm would be far more effective than MGs or even the 37mm.
As for the historical record, I can only recall Korea, where the 40mm BOFORS was prefered (slightly) over the (non-explosive) Quad 50's in long engagement distance attacks against the Red Horde. Close in (<200m) the mounted 40mms were far less effective.
So...let's take the CM model of the 37mm as the "good baseline" for our comparisions since nobody has ever complained about it (except those on the receiving end)
CM models:
37mm - BLAST = 26
Quad 20mm - BLAST = 26
Single 20mm - BLAST = 6
Going straight from the HE fills and ROF the math predicts:
37mm - BLAST = 26 (benchmark)
Quad 20mm - BLAST = 52
Single 20mm - BLAST = 13
Obviously there is a "fudge" factor in the BLAST ratings that BTS applies to a gun's ratings. Let me say here that I do not think that given the CM model the BLAST ratings should be changed as the math predicts. However, I still cling to the hope that BTS will do something about the impotent 20mm vs infantry and soft-skinned targets.
Waiting by the window...
Throw me a line BTS...let me know what you think.
Cheers
Murray
-
Every burst (4 rounds) from the cannon has a total BLAST = 6.
-
Damn...
The OPEN TERRAIN casualty rate for 20mm should be r < 1/turn
Cheers
Murray
-
Vanir,
Could you please email me your setup?
[address: mrdarrach@skyweb.com]
I repeated my tests using a completely new setup. It comprised 6 platoons of Vet infantry in OPEN, SCATTERED and FULL woods given zero ammo. They are targeted by 6 x MG42s and 6 x 20mm FLAKs from about 250m. At time t=0 the infantry start running (either perpendicularly or back and forth).
I will send you my setup as well if you want.
Fog of War is OFF
MGs and 20mm are TARGETTED manually
The setup gives a direct comparison between MG42 and single 20mm FLAK against infantry in the different terrain types.
Results: Open Terrain Casualty rate
MG42 = ~3/turn
20mm = >1/turn
Scattered Trees Casualty rate
MG42 = ~3/turn
20mm = ~1/turn
Full Trees Casualty rate
MG42 = ~4/turn
20mm = ~1.5/turn
I have only run this for about 50 turns but the results seem very repeatable. The casualty rate goes up as the woods gets thicker mainly because the soldiers move slower. In OPEN terrain the 20mm typically misses the targetted squads by about 5-8m, whereas in the FULL WOODs it only misses by half that.
Cheers
Murray
-
Vanir,
Thanks for the pointer to the previous discussion regarding the 20mm. I do however get different results than you for the 20mm vs infantry. Last night (before your response) I was running tests to submit to this thread where I ran 3 platoons of VET infantry over OPEN TERRAIN at 250m distance from 6 VET Single barrelled 20mm. Movement of the infantry was first perpendicular and then directly towards (then away) from the 20mm battery.
For Brevity the results were: CM(latest patch)
Elapsed time:50 turns of runtime
Total salvos: 6 guns x 50 turns x ~8 bursts/turn
Casualties/turn: 1 +/- 0.5
Interestingly enough the direction of infantry movement made little difference in the casualty rate. I note that these rates are much less than you noted in the previous posting. Either the decreased deflection at your test range of 700m increases the 20mm effectiveness or something in our tests are not capturing the true results because of poor statistics.
Cheers
Murray
-
Dear BTS,
I realize that the pronouncement that CM has taken its final form has been issued but in the thought that one last final tweak may be performed may I ask you to revisit one topic?
That is 20mm performance against thin skinned vehicles and infantry. The performance of the single barrel 20mm is completely off base in relation to the real world. For example, place a dozen jeeps on flat grass land and allow a dozen 20mm FLAK units to blaze away at them. Or again, have a platoon of infantry advance in lock-step across an open field against the 20mm battery. You will find that the weapon is IMPOTENT in the extreme! It's got that big-old phallic barrel out there...come on it's got to be doing something! I believe that CM models the weapon's effectiveness incorrectly low because it has a BLAST = 6 (hand grenade strength). This of course neglects that important fact that the aforementioned targets are sporting 1" diameter holes. In CM, MGs are more effective at destroying jeeps than 20mm!
Of course against beefier targets there is the possiblity that the 20mm will loose off its AP rounds and its performance skyrockets. I have personnally fired the 20mm FLAK as well as the 7.62mm GPMG, both are EQUALLY and wickedly effective and destroying soft targets quickly.
I am not one given to posting to the forum without due cause, as in the recent request for an examination of the close assault problems.
I await your response.
Sincerely
Claymore
-
After checking all of the dimpled ballots and a complete inventory of chads found on the floor of my workspace, the results are clear:
Former VP Al Gore would like the close assault of armoured vehicles patched by BTS.
Amazingly enough this too is my opinion.
Cheers
Murray
-
Well, except for the last round of our game Titan I would have said the Hertzer. Unfortunately they are very vulnerable to REG M24 charging about the field!
Damn you ... after I even requested that you throw in the towel you go and pop three tanks and my mobile FLAK in a single round!
Damn! Damn! Damn!
Please post your picture to Chup's thread so that I can have some "fun" with it.
cheers
Murray
-
Hey buddy! Everytime I send you a message I get the "nobody's here" reply.
You can't duck your spanking that easily. Stand up and take it like a man.
Cheers
Murray
-
Groggy!
A likely story if ever I've heard one. Your troops are really near mutiney. Sick and tired of getting shrapnel wounds from my exploding armour! Either stop killing my tanks or move your men farther away.
This is your last warning.
Claymore
-
An interesting question and one that has been at the back of my mind is the following:
Are mortar crews more likely to abandon their weapons than other crew serviced weapons? (e.g. MGs or AT/INF guns)
I did a quick check using a custom map with 1. 60mm VET mortar and 1917MG crews
2. Mortars in command radius of a Platoon HQ
3. Mortars hiding in woods
4. Woods under LOS 81mm mortar barrage
I ran this through a couple of times and it seems that the mortars were twice as likely to abandon their weapons as the MGs.
Any FACTUAL input from the BTS crew?
Is this an artifact of statistics? Historically were mortar crews more likely to bug out?
A forum search has revealed little information on this topic.
Cheers
Claymore
------------------
he which maketh the first assault doth endanger himselfe most (sometimes)
A truer modeling of LOS, moving beyond the quirks and under representation we have now. Currently you are never sure what to trust...what is just "eye candy" and what will block LOS? For example, consider what the game would be like if tanks (non-burning) blocked LOS. Incredible! Infantry advancing behind the shielding mass of armour! Wow!
CM2: Will it live up to our high expectations?
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
My opinion has been posted previously and lifted verbatim by Stacheldraht: "evolutionary not revolutionary"
My expectations however are that CM2 will occupy my CD drive continuously after its receipt (just as CMBO has).
Predictions? Hmmm....IMO
1. Obviously there will be a whole host of new units to choose from, the whole Pz catalog for starters.
2. Minor tweaks to the TacAI. Examples: simulating Russian C3 structures or enhanced weather effects
3. Minor tweaks to some individual weapon's systems. Example: kludging together a more representative MG firing structure.
4. A little more eye candy, in response to what appears to be almost half of the people who post. Example: dust etc...
After this the crystal ball becomes a little murky...
Suffice it to say though that CM2 will not generate the same enthusiasm as the arrival of CMBO did. It will however do this when (or if) the CM engine is recoded as per my previous postings.
Cheers
Murray