Binkie

Like Cory, I have seen graphical pass-through...in my case, an opponent's running squad went right over my hiding team, which remained undetected. So sneaking/hiding can be very effective at what it is supposed to do, and I thus agree that the sneak command should remain "sneak unless seen/engaged, even if your buddy is on fire over there", because the brass (you) may have some grander scheme that requires getting units in undetected. But it sure seems like in real life, a big portion of infantry movement commands would be "move at <insert speed here> until you spot something, then stop, drop and do what you need to do". Shouldn't CM have at least one command that can do this?

Tom, I couldn't get into your german halftrack mod page, it gave me a 404. Can you help me out?

Thanks, Matt. I checked this out and I see now that all my orders from the previous turn are intact. I think I just panicked when I saw my guys in their same positions from the previous turn. Couple of questions remain for me though: 1) Is the game going to generate the data again based on those orders, or just replay a data file it already compiled somewhere? If it is generated again, wouldn't some things happen slightly differently, since there is some randomization based on percentage chance of hits, kills, etc? 2) It seemed like I was able to issue/modify orders during the special phase you mentioned (though I wasn't able to resolve because my opponent is currently unavailable). Will the game simply disregard these order changes or is this a bug with v1.1-16? Thanks again for the support.

Twice now I have lost a completed turn by losing the TCP/IP connection before I hit DONE on the replay (I was hosting both times). Since the data has already been generated and results implemented, couldn't the autosave do its thing right before the replay is shown (or even immediately after its first viewing is complete?) Does anyone else share this concern?

Go Kyle! We are all rooting for ya! Even with the stopped-on-quit-confirmirmation-then-skip-a-turn bug that I reported, I would still use the program if it would let me exit out of it without crashing. Cheers!

I couldn't find anything on a quick search, although I'm sure a myriad of terms could have been used if this has been discussed before. The question is, if an HQ has the combat bonus (lightning bolt), does this confer any accuracy or time-to-fire benefits to an artillery FO who is in his C&C?

Hey, Seanachai, now that Steve has clarified that the huge-thread issue is completely solvable with an occasional restart of the thread, I'm happy to back down. That maintenance serves my interests, and I believe the interests of the majority of unique board visitors (who I don't think are Pengers or Grogs), in keeping the board healthy and accessible. P.S. Strong language (what you call "whining") is a GREAT way to get a discussion going. Sometimes you need extremists to get people to consider the middle ground.

Did I mention that, in addition to being pointed in the opposite direction, my halftrack was at least 100 meters out of the flamethrower's range (and getting further)?

In fact Steve himself has publicly stated his suspicions about the Peng thread causing technical problems with the board. But I got locked down when I tried to start a discussion about it (although I suppose I could've been a little more tactful with my topic title... ) I guess the Pengers have friends in high places.

Played a quick battle last night and had a forward-facing MG halftrack charging at a weaker halftrack head on. Two turns in a row I gave it explicit instructions to target the enemy halftrack, no LOS problems, and both times it immediately cancelled to target a flamethrower IN THE WOODS BEHIND IT. Now I understand that a flamethrower is a high priority target, but this is a forward-gun-only vehicle! While it was moving straight into MG fire from the enemy halftrack, it was basically sightseeing 150 degrees behind and to the left of it, because it couldn't actually fire over there. Not a single round left its gun those two turns. "Realistic battlefield snafu?" I think not -- this was a crack level unit, folks. Needless to say, my halftrack was knocked out on the second turn of the charge by the enemy MG (I cannot provide this saved game because it was TCP/IP). I know that with so many variables on the killing field it's impossible to simulate the ideal AI, especially when it comes to targeting, and I know Matt has indicated that there are tweaks being made, but this seems like the perfect evidence in a case for trying to implement an IGNORE TARGET command. Put the power in the general's hands. In situations like this, it's not too much micromanagement, it's basic survival. Thanks for listening.

I'd be the last person to deny you peng people your freedom of speech, but why don't you take your "topic" elsewhere? Why don't you leave this poor BBS alone so it can help and support people who want to dicuss the actual game?

Customizable keys are, of course, the preference, but I would like to see the ENTER key being the default for chat. It is the one I'm used to from other strategy games and has caught me out several times already during TCP/IP. Just remap the "detailed info" key. But hey, I'm usually having too much fun to get mad about it or anything...thanks BTS!

This is a terrific offer, KMan, and I bet a lot of people would use it, especially if you sent it in to Matt at CMHQ for posting in the downloads. My personal preference is that it would would load the next email file automatically rather than routing through a dialogue box regarding which turn to load. That's the whole spirit of the continuous movie thing...more automation, fewer menus and mouse clicks. I suspect most folks would only want to watch forward anyway, since they can watch the current turn as many times as they want before proceeding. Also, like Juardis wrote, I think using a hotkey other than ESC is a good idea. Thanks!

Ok, I've been thinking about how we can get as close to continuous battle playback as possible, given that BTS has indicated that this feature will most likely not make it into the code until CM2. My idea is fairly simple, actually, and would hopefully take no more than a day to program (minus the texture-retention enhancement mentioned below, perhaps). I propose a quick load feature for the next CM patch: alt-L. Currently, to load the next minute of battle, you have to 1) alt-A, 2) confirm, 3) join muliplayer, 4) load email, 5) select, 6) wait for textures, 7) enter password. This process is long and really drops the immersion factor. The quick load would be a special function for replays only. It would automatically search for the next-higher-numbered file in the PBEM folder (or even a REPLAY subfolder, to keep the PBEM folder uncluttered) and load it immediately without asking for a password, as long as the password is the same as the one currently being used. So if your working PBEM file name was PBEMChance, for example, you would save all of your replay files with a number in them: PBEMChance1, PBEMChance2, etc, so the program would know which one to load next without you selecting it. So hopefully the process would be 1) alt-L, 2) confirm. And boom, you're watching the next minute of battle without being dropped to the main interface. Even quicker to have a keyboard confirm, like a "Y" or "ENTER". OPTIONAL: To get the highest performance out of this feature (though I suspect that this is too fundamental a change to the code and would take too long to implement), the program would retain all the current textures in memory and only load any new ones that the next turn is going to need. This would allow for fastest possible loading of the next replay. Certainly the textures in use don't change much from turn to turn, and I would think it's mostly additions. Rarely are textures not needed that have been loaded already (dead units are still visible), right? So I don't think this would cause memory usage bloat. What do you guys think about this idea?