Fuerte

Why not run to a safe place instead?? It is unrealistic to assume that panicking units would check the compass: "OK, it seems that south is there, so let's go to that direction!" I'm sure that panicking units run back to the place where they advanced from, rather than to the general direction of friendly lines, if there are enemies in between.

Happened to me twice in the same scenario. I have units behind the enemy, ambushing them behind. I advance unit to forest edge, and when it panics (one soldier killed from veteran squad), it decides to run to open plains, and after a second they are all killed. Why not run back to the forest, away from the enemy?? :confused: Or back to the HQ unit??? :confused:

Right, this is not for everyone I think. We can only do one e-mail per day with my opponent, and we get two turns each day now. The only downside is those unit bases, if I or my opponent forgets to set viewing direction away from units.

It means that you should TRUST your opponent not to cheat. You send your encrypted password with the game, and PBEM Helper will skip your opponent's movie replay, using fast forward button and black bmps, so that you don't see anything, almost. Currently the unit bases are visible, but this can be avoided by setting the view direction away from the battlefield before you hit Go in View+Plot phase. You get two full turns with each e-mail... it makes the PBEM game three times faster.

It seems to work OK, although I just found out that if you have started CMBB, and then Alt+Tab:ed to PBEM Helper, and start another game, then it does not work correctly. I have already fixed it, will make a release tomorrow. You can use PBEM Helper with opponents that don't use it, just don't use the .PBM format. And of course this new fast&trust mode requires that both have it. Bad news: It seems that making the unit bases black is much harder than I thought. I don't know where CMBB has that color information... Charles, drop me e-mail and tell me how you do it! Or better yet, load the color from some external file, or bmp. Perhaps it does it already, but I just have missed that bmp.

I added support for two turns per e-mail to PBEM Helper, but it currently only works with CMBB. If there is any need for CMBO version, please let me know, it should be quite easy to add it to CMBO as well.

PBEM Helper v 1.3.290 (2.3.2003) released: New: Pressing F5 while saving a file in CMBB will send a mouse click before sending the next numbered file name. New: CMBB has Trust/Secure button in game Edit F2 window. This tool changes the game mode from standard secure mode to fast&trust mode, and back. New: CMBB fast&trust mode should work with Operations as well, with a little help from the player. I am still trying to patch CMBB memory so that the unit bases would not be visible when skipping the other player's view turn. Stay tuned!

I finally realized that the full setup didn't always contain the latest files, and there were other problems as well. So I made brand new installation packages, please download from the link below. We have now entered the fast phase in the two games with my opponent. It works great! It is almost like playing with AI, you get two full turns, except that there is a human opponent. The problem with unit bases has to be solved, though. I have an idea: patch CMBB process memory, change the blue/red squares to black. The AntiCensorshipLoader already does this, it changes WG text to SS, so it should be possible. For now, just change to viewing direction away from the battlefield before hitting Go.

Yes. The executable download contains all the necessary game definitions (.ini and .vbs files) and a couple of DLLs that were not in the original full installation file. So in almost all cases it is enough to download this smaller file only. Only if it does not work, then perhaps the full installation file contains some updated system component.

Fuerte, what is the correct uopdate process? Can I just download the executable and cpy it onto the install directory? Or should I install the whole thing, and do I need to uninstall if I do that? It would be helpful if you posted update instructions on the pbem helper page. </font>

Yeah! It could be done. After a turn is generated, the file is sent normally to the opponent, but also to this secure server, that has both player's passwords. The server would fast forward other player's movie replay, and send the file back. It would work! I could add the automation of sending to the server to PBEM Helper... and creating the e-mail server should be quite easy as well. Of course the server needs to have CMBB installed, and there is a copy protection in CDV version, I don't know about the U.S. version. One server can't handle very many requests, because it takes time to load the graphics. OK, loading black graphics is much faster. HUH! It all sounds possible. I just checked that Outlook Express can't launch external programs when e-mail is received. Outlook can.... I might start doing this server stuff once I get the trust mode working reliably. Oh no, more work... :mad:

Huh! I just uploaded version 1.3.285, it still had problems with the hot key thread (there is a new hot key F5 for entering the next numbered file name) and loading a PBEM.PBM file directly from e-mail program. It should be fixed now. I have two first fast games going with my regular opponent, still on early phases. My friend had problems with PBEM Helper, so it was not fool-proof yet!

I don't know how invisible bmp is better than black bmp. 2nd monitor... perhaps, but sounds very advanced! It might be possible to get rid of the penetration etc texts that are visible. There are a couple of bmps, 0.bmp, 1. bmp and 2.bmp, that contain just letters. If these are made black, then perhaps we don't see the text? But this requires that CMBB is closed and restarted before fast forwarding the other player's movie, it would be a bit slower. But perhaps it should be done. Then the remaining problem are the unit bases, colorful squares behind the units. Simple solution would be to turn these off, but I like to keep them on. It is easy to switch them on and off, but you probably forget to do it...

You could do this manually before hitting Done or Go, but you have to do it by yourself. PBEM Helper has no idea when this should be done. OK, there could be another hot key for this... change view, click Done or Go or both, and enter the file name. But then you would have to change the view back... again PBEM Helper might be able to do it automatically. But I think that current solution is better, because it requires less user intervention, and is less error prone. Having the black bmps solves the problem of not seeing the other player's movie replay... almost. I originally thought about adjusting the screen or DirectX settings, but I didn't know how to do it. It would be better solution, the whole display would be black. Or displaying a black full screen window in front of CMBB screen, but I think that it would minimize the CMBB screen and sending mouse clicks would not work. Perhaps I could change the display to energy saving mode. All ideas and suggestions and hints are most welcome...

Sending mouse clicks and keyboard presses. The idea was originally in One Click.

Sorry guys, the loading of PBEM.PBM file directly from e-mail program didn't work right, a new version 1.3.277 is available. I had another idea: It would be great if there was a tool to change from normal playing mode to fast mode, and back. Changing back would work always, in fact just renaming the file does this (without the 2- prefix), changing to fast mode only when view+plot is just done.

It is trivial to add it to CMBO too, just about copy CMBB.VBS to CMBO.VBS. It should work the same. If someone starts a new game with this system, it will take a few days until he gets to the 2turns/e-mail phase (if one e-mail/day). Unless he tests it by himself, as I did. [ February 20, 2003, 05:15 AM: Message edited by: Fuerte ]

Thanks for the kind words! It's really simple in fact. I created one black bmp, called cmbb_bl2.bmp. It is a two color 16x16 bmp, all black. Then I have a list of all needed interface bmps, that I don't want to replace. I make a folder bmp_black, copy all interface bmps to it and replace all other bmps with the black one. And it works, just rename the bmp folder to bmp_original and bmp_black to bmp, and vice versa. The code for implementing this is in CMBB.VBS, it is VBScript code. I think that Mac should have VBS as well, if it has IE5/6. CMBB.VBS interacts with PBEM Helper via COM, so you can't run it directly, but all the implementation details are there, including the automatic loading of turn, sending the password, generating a file that contains two turns etc. You can view the CMBB.VBS file, if you can open PBEMEXE.ZIP. I agree, in my tests this works very good, and it is fast. Thanks to you!

Two turns per e-mail is enabled if the file name starts with "2-" characters, e.g. 2-PBEM001.txt. Both players must have PBEM Helper . Warning: This feature is beta. Operations (switching to next battle) probably do not work, and end-game sequence may not work in all cases. That said, if you have an opponent that you TRUST, then this makes PBEM game much more enjoyable, and faster. You get two full turns (view, plot, view+plot) after the setup phase is over. The trick is that the opponent's password is sent with the game file, encrypted, and that password is used to skip the other player's view turn, so that you can view and plot moves for your next turn in advance. When the other player's view turn is skipped, the ordinary bmps are replaced with black ones, so that you don't see anything, and the movie is quickly fast forwarded to the end. The only things that you may see are the colored squares under the units, and messages about penetrations etc. Even these can be avoided by setting the viewing angle away from the battlefield before you hit Done or Go. This is how it works. On the left is the ordinary PBEM sequence, on the right is the two turns per e-mail sequence. We have two players, A and B. The first two turns is the setup phase. A turn is generated when there is a separating horizontal line. On the right, two turns are sent to the opponent at each time (in one file), the first view file is just dropped (marked with d). When a player views other player's turn, hidden, it is in brackets. </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> A B A setup -> 001 | -> 001 B 001 setup -> 002 | 001 -> 002 ------------------- A 002 plot -> 003 | 002 -> 003 B 003 plot -> 004 | 003 -> 004 ------------------- | A 004 view -> 005 | 004 -> 005d | (004 -> 005) B 005 view+plot -> 006 | | 005 -> 006 A 006 plot -> 007 | 006 -> 007 ------------------- | B 007 view -> 008 | (007 -> 008) | 007 -> 008d A 008 view+plot -> 009 | 008 -> 009 | B 009 plot -> 010 | 009 -> 010 ------------------- | A 010 view -> 011 | 010 -> 011d | (010 -> 011) B 011 view+plot -> 012 | | 011 -> 012 A 012 plot -> 013 | 012 -> 013 ------------------- | ... etc.</pre>

Of course, if something blocks visibility, but you can't see the thing that blocks it, it is a bit illogical!

Currently the turn calculation takes under 10 seconds on a 1 GHz CPU (of course depends on the scenario), this seems very quick to me, and I wouldn't mind a 20 second calculation if it did this dynamic LOS. Or 30 second. Should do the building LOS correctly as well. But this affects the plotting response as well, it jumps even now, it would be much worse I guess.

Yes yes this whole LOS thing seems to be very unrealistic, wonder why they didn't fix it in CMBB, guess too hard.

I also updated to CDV 1.02 and found no problems with 1.01 PBEM files.

I noticed this in CMBO and now in CMBB. My tanks are able to see enemy tanks through my own tanks, and even fire through my own tanks like they were not there. Not very realistic? I saw in the CMII thread a request for dynamic LOS, maybe this is the same thing, except that not only LOS but also firing should be checked properly.

The CDV screen disappears immediately after it has checked the copy protection, but it takes a while. Sending mouse clicks has the same effect as escape, it gets rid of the intro screen etc.