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Cameroon

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Posts posted by Cameroon

  1. Originally posted by redwolf:

    [snip]

    However, when very competive opponents clash in meeting engagements, they usually fall back to the mortars, and then the biggest mortars, because they need the speed. As a defender, you can use TRPs, but they are not very useful and the big howitzer modules are still slow. As the attacker the slow modules may pay off.

    [snip]

    This is with regards to MEs only, right? I guess I'm just trying to clarify whether you're saying that TRPS, at all, are worthless (which I would disagree with) or just TRPS in MEs, which I've got no experience with.
  2. Originally posted by Philippe:

    Might not be a bad idea to try to adapt CMMOS for CMBO to MAC first, since it is already up and running.

    Oddly enough, some people may continue to play CMBO, even after the release of CMBB. A little brie and calvados can make a nice change from borscht from time to time...

    I looked at doing a Mac "CMMOS" a couple of times, but CMBO:Mac doesn't use loose BMPs and resource files have a max file size of 16 megs (and that's pushing it, they can start to go 'bad' earlier than that). There are other issues with resource files and things going "wrong" while manipulating them (rez files). Shuffling resources around between the files that CMBO loads, keeping track of where they are, etc and so forth is just a huge PITA and I didn't want to tackle it.

    That is the prime reason that I did not do a CMMOS for CMBO on the Mac. It continues to be the reason that I would suggest focusing on CMBB. CMMOS on the Mac would always be "broken" no matter how well we wrote it (unless we did some very not-recommended things ;) ).

    With CMBB:Mac being loose BMPs, well then, things start to improve drastically. I think I'll take a look at this again, though maybe I'll just offer my coding help to Karch if he wants it (CW pro 5 here, I've mostly moved to OS X and Cocoa so haven't kept the CW up to date).

    Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't CMMOS just have all the BMPs in the BMP directory and copies them over the appropriate file as needed? If this the case, I'd love to be in on providing some different storage options. My 'ideal' solution would be to allow the user (as an option) to leave the mods in their zip or sit archives. Slower, yes, but less space taken up too (and there's the cool factor ;) ).

  3. Two in one of the PBEMs I'm currently playing. First, a Cromwell VI had recklessly careened down a road into a village partially held by my infantry. The 95mm was keeping their heads down though. So it turned to present its side to me, woot!

    Or so I thought. I hunted a StuH up over a crest, perfect position. Fire, miss. Fire, miss. *WHAM* a shot from another Cromwell further away takes my StuH out on the first shot!!!

    Then, my only other AFV (Wespe) hunts up and KOs the original Cromwell. Plays hide & seek with my opponents Cromwell (another VI). This goes on for a bit, neither side doing much.

    Finally, another perfect set-up where I've got him in my sights but he doesn't see me. Fire, miss. Fire, miss. ARGH, turn over.

    Now my opponent has targeted me, obviously. Turn starts, 3 seconds later (or so)... dead Wespe in a hull down position against the Cromwell on its first shot after having to rotate to even aim at me. What the hell is he feeding that crew! Two first shot, hull down kills.

    It was frustrating, to say the least smile.gif sigh.

  4. For the sake of "well, I'm not upgrading 'cause I'm sure I'm fine..."

    Got a 350Mhz B&W G3, 576 ram and a 32 meg Radeon. I am absolutely not worried about CMBB at all. Sure, turns might take a little while to calculate, but so what smile.gif As for the movie playback, I expect things will be fine so long as I don't try to view the entire battlefield with units at +4 size on a 9km sq map with full weather ;)

  5. Here are some things it sounds like might help you out.

    Your troops will try to carry out your orders during the turn. However, you must remember that your troops have morale (and not just the Global Morale -- each unit has morale). So if you order your troops to move and no one is providing supressing fire on the enemy, then there is a good chance you'll see results like saw (panicing, getting all shot up). So move in a leap-frog manner with heavy weapons and other infantry providing supression.

    Once you plot your orders (move, targetting, etc) the turn is generated. Then the movie is played back, and that's what it is, a movie. You can change your viewpoint but not the actions of your troops or anything. That's why your orders in the orders phase are important ;)

    As for your Shermans, you have to put them into positions of cover smile.gif Vehicles will usually back out of sight if something they can't handle comes into view, but otherwise they'll do just what you tell them.

    As someone said, Artillery takes a while to come down. Plot a fire mission, you'll see the time remaining until the fire mission starts. If the spotter has LOS to the target, the time shown is the time it will take. Without LOS, the time is more indeterminate (around 2x as long though). Once the fire mission starts, it will continue unless you cancel it or run out of ammo. You can also adjust the targetting point for only a minor delay (instead of the full delay -- the targetting line will be green instead of blue).

    The general thing to remember is that real-world tactics work (and are necessary) in Combat Mission.

    Yes, cover acts as cover. Heavy houses are better than light houses, woods are better than scattered trees and so on. Foxholes provide better cover in any terrain.

    The ability to move around, rewind etc is definitely not a gimmick smile.gif Since you're in charge of your whole force you've got to know what's going on in each sector all the time smile.gif

  6. Originally posted by Biltong:

    Someone mentioned an Excel spreadsheet to help with the calcs - pls e-mail it to me if you've finished it.

    That would be me and it works pretty well, I'll write up some docs and send it to you.

    Don't lose heart, my first two or three battles had me at -30 favor, but I had a lucky break in an armor battle. The AI had 4 Wespe's, all of which were taken out with 1 105 shell. That put my favor back up smile.gif

    After that, my troops started gaining more experience, and I got better against the AI.

    I'll get that Excel sheet to you ASAP.

  7. I don't believe they could be hiding on the tank. I've seen the same thing, but honestly, how could 9 - 12 guys ride on a tank and be hiding? ;)

    Regarding the W, that isn't a gun notation. Shermans with the W store their ammo differently than Shermans without the W, making them less likely to catch fire. (I believe, though I'm by no means certain, that the rounds in a tank with a W are stored in water or similar.)

  8. After a first reading of the rules (back before my other post), I was of the "cool, but sheesh that's a lot of work..." opinion. Then, I tried it... now it's just about all I've done. After seven battles, my company is now "regular" overall.

    My "best" moment? One 105 shell killed 4 Crack Wespes. Heh, silly AI. Didn't give me much experience, but the brass liked it ;)

    I just put together an Excel spreadsheet to try and ease the after-battle work. Guess I've got to play some battles to make sure it works...

    [edit]

    I wish the CM Quickbattle generator would let you buy any unit at whatever quality. And/or delete sub-units. That's the biggest hassle with regards to the system.

    [ August 08, 2002, 02:19 AM: Message edited by: Cameroon ]

  9. Originally posted by Flesh:

    I've been thinking along these lines (solo campaign rules) for quite some time. I reckon these rules could be easily implemented as a computer program. I'm a computer programmer myself, so I can help out, if needed. However, it would be really cool if we could do a program that generates CM scenarios for the campaign. So, in this regard we have two options:

    a) ask BTS nicely for the details of the scenario file format and hope they are feeling charitable.

    B) reverse engineer the scenario file format ourselves.

    I must admit that I don't hold out much hope for option a. Also, option b could prove very difficult.

    Anybody else got any opinions on this?

    Heh, this comes up every so often... and seems to do so in waves.

    Re: a) It won't be happening any time soon. And, reverse engineering the file format is pretty much right out. Maps are encrypted (with a real encryption system ;) ) to prevent cheating. There are lots of threads on this subject, go ahead and check 'em out.

    Re: writing software to do Wreck's campaign rules... I had started throwing something together for the Mac... then I realized I was doing so in OS X.

    How about a show of hands, how many people would want a Mac version that does "Wreck's Rules" but only in OS X? Of course, with the speed at which Wreck modifies his rules, I doubt I could keep up with changes until the rules stablize ;)

  10. Sorry man, the files are encrypted. The biggest reason is to prevent cheating, though there may be others. The files that get sent during PBeMs (as well as normal save games) are map files.

    There's been much clamoring in the past for a way to feed a text-based (or similar) map into CM in order to create the battle. For the same reasons you listed (campaigns). I don't believe any such thing made it to CMBB. Maybe the new engine will get us this feature.

  11. Well, let's hope that this at least gets read 'cause I couldn't think of a better title.

    I don't know how many people have experimented with this, but (at least on a mac) if the sound is on during turn calculation, it takes MUCH longer than if it is off.

    Especially in large battles, my sequence of events is turn off sound, hit go, turn sound back on. Now it seems to me that this could easily be an automatic function of the game. I mean, do I really need to hear the engine idle sound for a minute while the turn is generated? And of course, as I mentioned, it makes the turn calculation go faster.

    What I'm hoping is that CMBB does this automatically for you. I wish I would have thought of this earlier since I imagine it's too close to done to make such an improvement.

  12. Originally posted by Scipio:

    </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Pacestick:

    When playing operations in cmbo, a side's global morale often starts at less than 100%. I could never work out why but assumed it reflected my poor deployment or the troops getting spooked by hearing armour sounds in the distance etc.

    Whatever the reasons, it does indicate that cmbo does take into account factors other than the actual shooting/casulaties into account in determining global morale.

    I assume you frequently split your infantry squads in the setup? Cause this causes a global-moral loss (don't ask me why), also if you remove troops from the map (like unused transports).</font>
  13. Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

    </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />...and when Steve says that a certain post cost us a tank model ... well you better take him seriously.

    I wonder what this is all about?

    Sounds like this is some sort childish of tit-for-tat... if true. Why would the entire game community be penalized. Anyone know?</font>

  14. Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

    MM state something likes "with little VRAM the game will automatically downsample the textures".

    From that I draw the conclusion that this downsampling will require some CPU power on its own, thereby increasing the need of a fast CPU if the graphics card is substandard.

    Cheers

    Olle

    Maybe if it were downsampling TONS of textures on the fly. I'm pretty sure it would do the downsampling during the "Loading 3D Graphics" phase.
  15. Originally posted by Michael emrys:

    And yes, you can reboot under 9 (notice the Arabic numeral) and run CM as long as you get rid of the Classic Rave extension. Well...actually, you can run CM even with the Classic Rave extension, you just wouldn't get hardware 3D rendering, which would be kind of a drag.

    Michael

    No offense, but that's partially misleading/incorrect ;)

    I dual-boot my Mac and have two bootable partitions (one 9 the other X). The OS 9 partition is also the partition used when Classic is started in X. And you do NOT have to delete the Classic RAVE extension, RAVE works fine. The extension only loads when running under OS X anyway.

    Now, I place a caveat on that. I do not know if that is also the case for systems where the OS 9 and OS X systems are on the same partition.

    As for my video card, I've got an ATI Radeon 7000 'cause I've got a B&W G3 (thus PCI graphics... oh well, no FSAA).

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