Gyrene

Has this topic come up before? I wonder why the flex mount MG's, like TC MG's can't be reloaded in the game? A .50 cal MG on a pintle mount gets fed from 100 round boxes, and a trained operator can change the can & reload in about 40 seconds to one minute under stressful situations (Granted not while under fire). As the game is now TC guns (Allied .50's in this case) have a load rating of 50, run out in about 6-8 turns and become useless for the rest of the game. I think it's a bit unreasonable that the TC would not have a chance to reload in a 30 turn or longer game, especially if the vehicle has not been under fire for a couple of turns in a row. Gyrene

You guys still celebrate Guy Fawkes day and you wonder why Northern Irish Catholics don't completely trust England? Gyrene

No time to fix the problem now. Thanks anyway Gyrene [ 11-04-2001: Message edited by: Gyrene ]</p>

By the way, do you know which model of iBook do you have? The earliest models only have 4MB of video RAM. This is a great place to learn about your iBook. Gyrene

Spaz, try this link for the latest multi-machine ATI upgrade I found. Make sure you also have this version of the OpenGL drivers. Let me know if they work for you. Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Bt Commissar:Oh I do hope you are joking, for your sake.. <hr></blockquote> Mr. Tanaka is including civilian casualties in his calculations, so you if you consider Russian civilian casualties you get a pretty high ratio in favor of the Germans. But no, of course it was not 100:1 as it was not 100:1 in favor of the Allies in the Pacific as Tanaka thinks it was. Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> By Tanaka :..hmm, like 1:100 KIA in favor of the Americans ? <hr></blockquote> I suppose that 100:1 in favor of the Germans in the Eastern Front is different right? Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> The beating of the chest and lamentations of "battles are too one-sided", "the main protagonists are not photogenic enough" or "not enough tanks" smacks of a spoiled child who has been told 'No'. <hr></blockquote> Ron, you have obviously not read my earlier post, and has decided to just jump in and berate away anyway. If you go back a couple of posts you will see that I understand why BTS does not want to do a PTO game. There's no personal or financial interest in it for them. It is their company, it is their time and effort, I nor no one else is to dictate what they do. No one, yourself included, can dispute the fact that WWII wargames are dominated by the war in Europe genre, and why is that? I think that "Not enough tanks", "Battles are too one sided" and "Protagonists not photogenic enough" would be some good reasons why the ETO is more popular. If there is to be no PTO CM I won't cry or wail in anguish from the "Peanut Gallery" as you put it. I don't play any other war games other than CM and I play it because it is enjoyable as a game and it happens to be available for the Mac. Matter of fact this is the first computer wargame I have owned and if I were to buy another one it would be from BTS as I really appreciate the great job they have done with CM, and on the same token I also lament the fact that the PTO is not in the foreseeable future for CM as I am sure they would also do an excellent job with it. Gyrene

Spaz, I assume you bought this iBook used and it's the color case one and not the current white iBook? If you did get it used, I'd recommend that you re-install the OS, you can do this with all your other software in place, this will solve most weirdnesses and will give you a clean slate to start from. What OS version are you using? OS 9.2.1 is VERY stable on my newer G4 and OS 9.0.4 (The last update before 9.1) had been great with my iMac, which is older than your iBook. 9.1 or 9.2.1 would be a good OS for you, I think if you buy OSX 10.1 you also get OS9.2.1 Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>The US in the Pacific defeated Japan with a firepower preponderance far beyond what had occurred in Europe. <hr></blockquote> The battles in the island hopping campaign in the Pacific were some of the most intense fights per square yard in the history of mankind, most of them make the war in Europe seem quite leisurely. Perhaps only the American Civil War exceeds the body count per yard per minute. It really surprises me to read how so many people would think that attacking prepared positions in the Pacific with superior forces would be boring, but at the same time they think fondly of scenarios like "Valley of Trouble" or "Sherbrooke Fusiliers" Here's a quote by Steve from this thread on this veru same subject: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> As for the Med. Theater being boring , I would counter that the PTO is far more boring Just saw another show last night that only reinforced my opinion of the warfare in the PTO from about 1942 on. The bulk was static, suicidal combat with the Japanese being totally overmatched. One of the battles they mentioned the US killed 107,000 Japanese for a total of 7,000 friendly losses. And the US were on the offensive!!! The battle included flamethrowing galore, 100ft deep bunkers (which weren't entered, just blown up), bonsai charges, starving out the enemy, etc. Oh boy, sounds really interesting I can hardly keep my eyes open Steve <hr></blockquote> Begging for PTO CM is nothing new, this thread is from Dec of '99 and was started by none other than Wild Bill himself, and he didn't even get a (public) answer from BTS. I'm resigned to the fact that we will not see a PTO version of CM, the battles are "too one sided" and the main protagonists are not photogenic enough. One quick note on the one sidedness deal: How many battles did the Germans win in the time period of CMBO? An even amount? Gyrene

I'd really really love to see a Pacific War version of CM, but I'll be a realist and say that there really isn't 1/2 of the interest in the PTO as there is in the European/North African war. I think the reason for that is very straight forward: There are no Germans & their wonderful machines in the Pacific. I have no figures to back this up but I'll stick my neck out and assume that at least 80% of all land combat WWII games involve the war against Germany. Hell, if I'm not mistaken the Gung Ho module for ASL got released after there was nothing else to cover in WWII; even partisans and minor Allies got attention before the US forces in the Pacific & the Chinese did. I would buy CM in the Pacific, possibly even before I would get the Eastern Front version, but I know that I am in the minority. Hopefully we'll see it one day. Gyrene

John, I was going to bring up the Game Wizard Voodoo2 card, but if the support is to be dropped then I think it's curtains for Bondi. The Game Wizard was fully 2 times faster than the RageC 6mb cards found in the later iMacs (Up to the Rev D 333mhz model) and was a great addition at the time, but if CM will not work with it... Some web retailers are offering CPU upgrade/Game Wizard combos for Rev A/B iMacs if you are still interested. Try dealmac for prices. If you are going to get a new iMac, you should make sure you get one of the models with the 16MB Rage Ultra cards and skip the 8Mb card equipped models. smalldog.com has some good prices. Gyrene [ 11-03-2001: Message edited by: Gyrene ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> Gyrene, I did a few tries with Snapz Pro long time ago in my G4/400 320mb RAM, and didn't come close to what you get... What settings have you used? Have you tried in a Mac less capable, more like mine?<hr></blockquote> Argie, your 400mhz G4 should have been plenty, as I've had some success capturing video with my 333mhz iMac also. The settings and some other tweaks are key, I'll post a quick tutorial soon. I've uploaded an improved version of the film btw, the image is sharper and the scene the the first M8 getting hit was improved as it was bugging me. Michael, thanks for the hints on the music, I guess I could go through some of those songs in the Military Music mp3 site and try to find something also. Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> I had to DL Quicktime to see it, but it was well worth it! <hr></blockquote> As an added bonus you can now see CM's intro movie. I'm thinking of making an entire mini movie, but the only problem is to keep it small enough to be able to host is and share it, 1000.mov, CM's intro movie, is almost 45MB. I'll have to keep it much smaller than that. I need to find some suitable music also, I think "Surfing Bird" is right out. The theme from Band of Brothers would be nice. To those combat cameramen the right angle was worth more than their lives. Gyrene [ 11-03-2001: Message edited by: Gyrene ]</p>

Another tip, prepare to have your scenario that you have spent so much time on be completely ignored or just scrolled off the page. Unless you are as prolific as Wild Bill odds are few people will try your scenario and out of those people fewer still will give you any feedback. That doesn't mean your scenario sucks, it's just that there are many other things in this forum fighting for each member's attention. Think about it, have you written a thank you note or comments to any of the mod makers or scenario designers whose work you have enjoyed? Gyrene [ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: Gyrene ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>How did you make this clip? A friend and I were thinking about trying to do the same for our film class. We've tried hooking his PC up to a VCR and recording but it only does black and white with no sound. That actually looked kind of cool because it looks historical, but I want to know how you got the jumpy frames and grainy faded look. <hr></blockquote> Cameroon is right, after a lot of trial and error I found the right settings to capture video with SnapzPro2, the source footage is of much higher quality than this small web clip and I'm able to capture fairly large battles at 20 fps. The clips were spliced in Premiere and the tint , hit flashes & camera bob/focus were done in After Effects with native filters; the film grain/skip was done in AE with the Digieffects Film Damage filter. I did all this on my Dual Processor G4-533 with 768Mb of RAM, with 600Mb allocated to After Effects & Premiere (VM on, one app at a time) The final clip weighed in at over 120MB with the high settings I used in AE, so I put the clip through MediaCleaner and got it down to 2.7MB for the web. I guess I'll give a try at putting a soundtrack in, I'll use iMovie2 just to try it out. I was thinking of making a "Greatest Hits" CM video, so If anyone has any weird/cool CM movies send them over and I'll add them, maybe even make a new intro movie Mod. It's about the only Mod left. I guess I should finish my train track mod first, though... Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> By the way, this ought to be proof that using cheap M8 Howies for scouting is historical. <hr></blockquote> Hmmm....You got something going there...If I could "find" the right films I could prove all kinds of gamey, er I mean historical theories of mine... Gyrene

Hehehe, those combat cameramen were some ballsy fellows, I tell ya. Gyrene

I've recently found some old combat footage that shows 3 M8 HMC's & what looks like a Sherman 76 shooting it out with unspecified foes. The quality is little grainy and the film has some damage, but the action shots are pretty good. You can get the QuickTime clip here (2.7MB) Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Moriarty spake thus:If the HT's crew is two people and the gunner gets whacked, the vehicle will still move around, tow guns, ferry squads, etc., but there'll be no one to pull the trigger on the MG. <hr></blockquote> On a PBEM game I'm playing my shocked HT's (German) will not take any passengers, I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, but I think I have used shocked American HT's to load & move troops before. Btw Moriarty, it just dawned on me that I forgot to thank you for the excellent map you made for me and Abbott's Blood Hamster match a couple of months back. Severe lapse of manners there. Gyrene

I hope the minor Axis allies don't suffer the same fate as the Poles and French did in CM, that of becoming "I'll try it once" novelties. Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> By Stoffel:you beat me twice allready and maybe now for the third time And look at my member number <hr></blockquote> Oh yeah, you're such a pushover If I remember correctly I barely beat you in those 2 games, couldn't get much closer to a draw. Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> I have played Abbott and Kiwi Joe and I KNOW they are NOT newbies <hr></blockquote> What's Abbott been up to? I've haven't seem him around in a while. Newbie is hard to define, I don't know if member numbers would be a good indicator Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> For the life of me, I can't imagine why a turn-based game would need lots of horsepower. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <hr></blockquote> Some of the scenarios can have as many as 300 animated 3D objects on the map, and when you add path and target lines + smoke & fog effects you can actually push a video card pretty hard. For example, my Radeon drops a few frames when rotating the map in the Sherbrook Fusilier's scenario (A large battle in CM's CDROM) which is something that never happens when I play Unreal Tournament with all graphics options maxed out and 16 bots in play. All the high res mods available also have a way of filling up a video card's memory. You'll want a decent CPU to help with crunching the results of huge turns too, while this does not have an effect in gameplay as much as the 3D frame rate, it can save you some time, especially if you are playing TCP/IP games. You can play the game with some failry low spec computers, I started with a 333mhz iMac with a 6mb video card for example, but will get your money's worth from any hardware improvements you see fit to get. Gyrene

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>This doesn't even take into account hits by Panzerfausts or Bazookas or Schrecks, which deliver a molten stream into the inside of a vehicle. <hr></blockquote> Any shaped charge penetration to the cabin is also likely to fill the whole tank with smoke and toxic fumes. Scipio & JasonC: I agree with most of your points and it matches my suspicion that too many Tank & Vehicle penetrations result in knock outs. While a shot can penetrate & bounce around creating havoc, it can also penetrate and hit nothing and when there are no casualties shown in the game then why do the crews almost always bail out? On the other hand I also think that multiple hits of 20mm - 37mm rounds should realistically kill light skinned vehicles like the Hellcat just by the fact that the odds of something vital being hit are much higher. Also in the game when you get "Internal Armor Flaking" results has anyone seen casualties caused from that? I'd expect that casualties from flaking armor should be as heavy as casualties from bounce-around-inside shots, but I don't think I've ever seen casualties from that cause myself. Gyrene