FinnN

RAID isn't going to do much one way or the other due to the large file sizes (the SFS archives). Looking at filemon you'll see the game is looking through lots of files that aren't actually used. I doubt in the bigger picture it has much effect on total load time, but it does point at this area not being as efficient as possible. Have fun Finn

You have it wrong - tanks should hardly be able to spot infantry at all at short ranges. Another problem is that they have 360 vision at the moment. Fix those two and infantry would be much more dangerous to tanks even without adding superhuman powers to them. Have fun Finn

Yep, in the game options there's an entry for camera height, by default the lower value is set to 2 or 3 I think. You can lower it to 1. While you're at it you may as well up the top to 250. If you do take the camera that far up you often get caught in clouds, so disable advanced skies and you'll get a clear view. Have fun Finn

Impossible! Didn't you know that trees don't block LOS! BTW, I wonder if that having to pause at the beginning of the game is why some units get spotted at the start of a scenario (demo AT mission being the best example of this). Basically before you get a chance to issue orders all your men are standing up and allowed to move - maybe the AI gets it's spots in before the orders happen? Have fun Finn

They already have the basis for buildings - trenches and walls. In trenches men cluster around the firing positions - could easily be windows and doors - and can duck, etc. Walls and the floors could be modelled in the same way or by using a sheets of 'armour'. LOS and ray tracing are already in there. So all that's needed is a way for troops to move between levels and for the AI to recognise this. Abstracted stuff is already almost there with pillboxes, it just need to be changed so that the firing positions used the crew members weapon rather than the pillbox's with one pillbox per mannable location (windows etc). I think there are a number of options for them, getting the AI to deal with it is going to be the difficult thing rather than anything else - although I suppose the extra animations will be time consuming to produce. Have fun Finn

I think the maximum number is somewhere between 200 and 300 (closer to 300) - so you're looking at company sized forces, which is indeed smaller than in the CM games. Much more than this and the maps would be one big traffic jam, so if they increase the number of units available then they'd need to make the maps bigger too. Have fun Finn

Yep, if one track gets knocked out the tank will continue forward for a short while spinning slightly around on the damaged side. I guess what's happened here is that the tank has been knocked out but the damage hasn't spilled over into the engine or tracks yet. So long as it didn't carry on indefinitely it doesn't seem that unreasonable - did it? Have fun Finn

Overall I like the game - and I'm afraid I agree with Panzer76. The demo includes tutorials with tactics and deployments in that will get you killed in the game, the AT gun one being a particularly good example. The 'real' battle that's included has a lot of units in it and does affect performance on my machine (an old 2.8GHz P4 with 2G of RAM). I'd pre-ordered but I think it would have been unlikely (but not impossible) that I would have bought the game if all I'd seen was the demo and I think I'm more tolerant of problems in games I like than most. BF would be doing themselves a big favour if they revised the tutorial missions to make them finishable and put in a mission or two that's more typical of the number of units you find during the campaigns. Have fun Finn

Doesn't need patching - you select a unit (or units) and then right click on the location you want them to look at. Agree with your second point though. Have fun Finn

Yep, same with infantry. The seasons seem to be arbitary, so it is actually possible to add 'autumn', 'spring', 'tropical' or whatever. As far as I can tell it only picks them out of the list of date ranges, the season is just a naming convention. Key to this is storing the information in a database and exporting it to the correct format. I guess it's still just about manageable for vehicles, but for infantry it'd be a nightmare to do by hand with all the interrelated files and the mission editor at least seems to want things exactly right so the chances of typos creeping in are high. I've almost done this for infantry and after a rest from programming to get the new units appropriate uniform graphics I'll probably extend it to the text files associated with vehicles. Have fun Finn

I see there's a new dev diary entry on the Russian site, here it is translated from Russian courtesy of Google: http://ww2.games.1c.ru/?action=devdiary&id=154 (edit translation didn't work in the link, so changed it to the original address) Nice to see lighter vehicles getting some love for a change from a game developer rather than the Sturmtiger, etc. These are for after the patch - I wonder if they'll be for an add-on or a future patch? There's also some interesting snippets about the patch version - if the translation is trustable there's mention of fatigue in there for example... Interesting reading all-round - but how come we don't get an English version, as they seem to get information on things coming from this side? Have fun Finn

Surely you're joking!?!?!!!! Have fun Finn

On the 1C site they have 22nd June as the release date for the 2nd edition - how does this relate to the patch for us, if I understand it correctly isn't it basically the same as our game now, just localised to Russian? Have fun Finn

Problem is, at ground level you can't tell how much cover you're getting from bushes. One bush is opaque, but not enough to give an infantryman cover - you need two in my experience. As the bush is opaque you just can't tell if you're behind one, two, three, or whatever items - you can only do it from above. Enter view is good for cresting and going around hills and subtle terrain variations (which is important), but not much good for much else apart from the nice graphics. My infantry survive a lot longer since I started doing that. Have fun Finn

Reparations begin when the war's over. Have fun Finn

In the skin definitions some are limited by various things like date. It could be that if you change the date of the mission you might see more (just a guess, not actually tried this). Have fun Finn

Silent Hunter III (with GWX) & IV (if you're tolerant of bugs and patient!) Have fun Finn

This is true, but the mod is aimed more at mission/campaign creators than the existing missions. For starters a stock squad takes ones infantry detachment placeholder - my ones will take between 2 and 3 (unless you are willing to play with half strength squads that is!). As far as the officer uniforms - ingame the men using the officer skins are those with rank 'leutnant' (in the case of the Germans) and above (it goes up to oberst, but could be extended I think if you wanted to do assassination type missions with generals as the target). So, yes, the uniform is wrong. There are other examples of this. You will be pleased to hear that my textures have the correct 6 buttons for tunics after 1942 and if not once I've done a few I'll share the templates so you can alter/create your own too. I've shifted the equipment like belts onto their own layers, together with other odds and ends like buttons, same goes for shadows/highlights - so all you need to do to get a new texture is change a single colour layer and pick the right set of overlays, pretty straightforward - and spot on for doing zillions of uniforms in next to no time. (I've used this technique before) Have fun Finn

Well, it's override rather than write - the SFS files stay unchanged (which is good news for distributing mods!!!!) but files outside them using the correct naming conventions and entries in one particular file (filesid.ini) override the SFS files. You can also add entirely new files and folders. Have fun Finn

Yes - using the tool that Dr.Jones built. Have fun Finn

I had the same problem with the map in the German campaign - when I tried to get behind some Soviet units using the gorge they insisted on taking a silly path. I think that map might have some buggy roads/paths in its definition. Have fun Finn

BTW, you can see all the stock uniforms currently available here: http://ww2.games.1c.ru/?action=uniform_germany Look for the link at the bottom with 'CC' in it for SS units. As you can see the only helmeted one with M43 trousers is the one in a black parka. Have fun Finn

I'm already working on this. Expect to see a whole range of new uniforms, including but not limited to SS, in the next few weeks. This includes some detachments with a realistic mix of different styles within the same squad (eg one soldier might have a jacket, another jacket and trousers). There is one ss camo style in-game already (autumn oak leaf I think, not sure off the top of my head) - but it's only used on the SS-sniper. One thing we're missing though is a model with a helmet and M43 trousers - so all helmeted Germans are in jackboots. Might be able to paint over these, but a way to modify the 3D models would be handy for the best effect. Have fun Finn

That's fantastic news! Have fun Finn

That's fantastic news! Have fun Finn