Brian Smith

Dogfight mission's a little more exciting now! Interesting thing about this game is that it should be possible to play missions from different perspectives - as driver, gunner, TC, for different challenges. I got waxed by that Leopard about 4 times before I managed to beat it. About the third time I had gone like the clappers hard left and hidden behind some hills to the left of your starting position. I tried then to sneak into hull-down positions in different places to try to surprise the Leo. Not much luck. I ended up duelling with him at about 1500 metres, firing, quickly reversing, then trying to jockey and appear from a slightly different spot each time. I ended up running out of AT ammo! It's fascinating tactically - the amount of smoke and dust thrown up by your own gun, enemy rounds hitting near you, as well as your shots impacting near the enemy and the dust and smoke of his gunfire makes for periods where you are waiting for the range to clear before anyone can fire. Those times are opportunities to quickly manoeuvre. This first shot is from the hills to the left and shows a little of the muck that's in the air in these engagements. I finally managed to hit the Leo on the move, while I was madly ordering the driver to zig-zag. I headed right of the road and tried to make unexpected changes of direction. I had a few glancing blows off the turret top, but my gunner managed to put a couple of shots onto the Leopard from about 900 metres and it was over. When I got closer I found that the Leopard had its rear towards me - it looked like I caught it as it was trying to get more distance from me. One thing I tried in one of my unsuccessful attempts was to fire smoke - only problem was I couldn't fire smoke from TC's position - is this something that could be provided in a patch? I'd really like to be able to order my gunner or driver to pop smoke in a gunfight. Anyhow - great fun tonight with the fixed deflated bunch of garbage PS - sorry for the quality of the shots - I'm trying out Irfanview and messing with resizing and resampling.

Yep. Look at the distance man! You can see for miles in this thing. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer the slightly washed-out look of the terrain in this sim (and Flashpoint - that's where I first saw graphics that made me think of the real world - I fell in love with that dusty, worn look of reality) to the cartoon like textures of Far Cry for instance. Far Cry was pretty...this is gritty. And to raise Steel Beasts again (holds Mace up as human shield) - I love that game and I can forgive it its 2D graphics and 16 colours (might be exaggerating here) once I hear those sounds. So in the spirit of friendly cooperation between simmers and recognition of differences.... you're wrong man!

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Don't be so hard on it Moon! As far as games go (and some demos too) this one is pretty damn good out of the box. I appreciate the work Battlefront has done to bring what was an obscure and potentially doomed in the English-speaking world title to us. I for one am excited by this sim, and as a long time Battlefront customer, I've learned to trust you guys! Keep up the good work. smith

Hmm, check the config file (you run the separate T72 configuration application via the programs group, not through the game) and see if joystick is on. My arrows work fine (you can also use the mouse to steer - hold down the left button and pull back to turn left etc), but when i had the joystick enabled it affected the arrows. You can also use the keypad plus and minus buttons to change gears, or hit S while in the driver position to go to automatic gears. I find the driving great fun.

Seems to be working okay for me - turn on stabiliser (S key from gunner pos), make sure my ammo selector is on the type of ammo I'm firing, start to track the target through the gunsight, lase it (right mouse button), keep tracking, lase again, place sight onto target and fire (lasing with rmb is dead tricky when you are left handed and also trying to track with the mouse!). The main problems I think I have had is when i have selected my next reload as a different ammo type to what's in the breech - i think this sets the ballistics computer to the next type of ammo, rather than what i have loaded. Anyway, last night was the first time I have got the gunnery down pat, consistently hitting what i want to at ranges of more than 1200 metres. The only thing that makes my stats look bad is I keep blazing away at the targets because of how cool the hits and 'splosions look! I clobbered that AT gun in the gunnery tutorial with an HE frag round and the gun and crew ended up about 30 metres away!

Seems to be working okay for me - turn on stabiliser (S key from gunner pos), make sure my ammo selector is on the type of ammo I'm firing, start to track the target through the gunsight, lase it (right mouse button), keep tracking, lase again, place sight onto target and fire (lasing with rmb is dead tricky when you are left handed and also trying to track with the mouse!). The main problems I think I have had is when i have selected my next reload as a different ammo type to what's in the breech - i think this sets the ballistics computer to the next type of ammo, rather than what i have loaded. Anyway, last night was the first time I have got the gunnery down pat, consistently hitting what i want to at ranges of more than 1200 metres. The only thing that makes my stats look bad is I keep blazing away at the targets because of how cool the hits and 'splosions look! I clobbered that AT gun in the gunnery tutorial with an HE frag round and the gun and crew ended up about 30 metres away!

For an alternative commander view, hit Page Up a few times while in F7 mode (scope view)

Hmm, not sure - about the graphics issues for you - it looks and runs great on my machine, which isn't a top performer - Athlonn 2.5+barton, 1gig 4200 ram, Fx6600gt card, on-board sound. I didn't adjust anything and the install proggy set most textures at highest, 1024x768 32 bit. I'm getting framerates between 17 and 20, which for a tank sim seem fine (they are smooth enough for me in any case). The grass is set to 50m and grass is apparently a big frame rate impact for most users - winding back grass and cloud levels would be a way to get more frames/second. One of the most impressive things for me is the ground surface - pitted, with natural-feeling holes and undulations, which make the seemingly level areas still tactically important. Another thing i really like are the smoke and dust effects when firing. Here's some pics from the demo on my system (bear in mind they are reduced a fair bit) A t34 cops a hit, complete with flaming crew Blackened T34 Looks great

Kobra - mouse works fine for the main for me (albeit with joystick turned "off") in the demo. Pressing left mouse button and moving gives me full traverse. The joystick support needs some work I think, but keyboard and mouse is working well for me at the moment.

However, don't let this stop us from having a multi-page discussion about how Starforce murdered our families and ate all our chocolate...

Thanks chaps - I stands corrected!

G'day all, I noticed in the demo that no matter how much I pounded the Leopard in the demo single mission, it showed no signs of damage, other than the gun tube going "limp" after the first hit. I couldn't get the crew to bail either - it just sat there on the hillside not moving, no sign of life. I advanced to within 100 metres of it and pounded Jebus out of it, with no visual reaction. I clobbered a track and that seemed to release its brake, because it then rolled down the hill a bit.

Yeah, same for me Jussi. I think it's because there's no victory condition set, to allow you to then blow up buildings and stuff (if you charge the telecom towers in the power station they come tumbling down, but you get tracked ). It'd be nice if that mission was more challenging - wonder if it's easy to edit the mission?

Guys, to clarify, while in F7 (commander mode), i can hit the tilde key and it will order the driver to drive to the next waypoint, and this works. I haven't, however, tried to set new waypoints myself. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Ta Moon Loving this sim - placed my order - speed it down under lads!

The keycard is pretty thorough, though you need to read through it a few times to get it all down. Joystick is a bit of a pain in the arse, with the vertical axis reversed (ie when you pull back, the barrel goes down). I've gone back to playing with keys and mouse - they work fine, particularly mouse aim for the main gun.

Tilde works fine for me to tell driver to move to next waypoint.

Bit of a weird setup with the joystick axes reversed, bit of a pain when gunning, or driving (have to hold stick forward - when joystick selected, arrow buttons don't seem to work any more). I have a Saitek Cyborg - any ideas? cheers smith

Nice! Runs smooth as silk on my machine with all textures on highest (Athlon 2.5 plus Barton, I gig 4200 ram, 6600gt). Sounds are a bit quiet, but I can boost those in windows! Neat! Just have to remember some keypresses now and work out how to fire the gun! Bit annoying with the tutorial text only staying on screen for a short while, but overall no complaints. cheers Edit - a couple of screens from the gunnery tutorial - looks great on my system A t34 cops a hit, complete with flaming crew Blackened T34 Looks great Dead Leopard Rellay impressed with how this thing looks and runs. OInly question - in the tutorial, it recommends shooting a helo down with a missile - couldn't work out how to do that. [ July 15, 2005, 05:38 AM: Message edited by: Brian Smith ]

Woo-hoo! Battlefront - the only publisher/developer that ever seems to meet deadlines. Downloading now - if this works well on me PC, my order will follow (unless I decide not to buy it because the demo was released on a Friday night Sydney time! ) smith

Nice video Magnum - do those infantry do anything more than run around shouting things? Could you have targetted them onto that close tank destroyer?

LOL! Classic stuff... All we need now is an appearance by Ssnake... [ July 11, 2005, 05:47 PM: Message edited by: Brian Smith ]

LOL! Classic stuff... All we need now is an appearance by Ssnake... [ July 11, 2005, 05:47 PM: Message edited by: Brian Smith ]

I didn't need to go hull-down when i was last there ya dropbear - i just had to hide from Aldrin!