Tarquelne
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Posts posted by Tarquelne
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I use a wireless trackball: Cordless Optical Trackman.
It's great. I switched to trackballs from mice years ago and never regretted it. (Though it'd be nice if they were cheaper and readily available in local stores.) IMO while common thumb-operated trackballs offer worse cursor control than mice, index finger designs give better control.
I don't use any buttons on the trackball other than the basic ones with CM, so that may be a sign of the device being well suited to the game. (Lets see... there are 6 buttons I don't use that could be assigned some function.)
Ergonomically, finger problems seem unlikely with my current trackball - there's never any strain on them. The wrist sometimes, but not the fingers. I don't remember any problems with the model I used previously either (Kensington Expert Mouse - a rather different design), but I may have just forgotten.
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Is the patch out yet?
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Meanwhile, American rifle platoons had to make do with the BAR, which was terrible even in the LMG role.
Something I'm not clear on is why the BAR is considered a poor LMG rather than a poor assault rifle.
The use of rifle ammo? Doctrine?
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however the icon is still greyed out, and the missing member has gone into the twilight zone.
I had that happen in a QB recently. It was a mortar squad, and the missing solder was (when I last checked on him) about 800m from his squad. (I found him by taking a heading on the icon from his squad.) At first I thought he was just headed to where the truck had been directed. No. Perhaps he wanted to check on something in the enemy setup zone. The game ended before we found out just where he was going.
I thought this was a known bug. But if someone wants a save I think I can recover one via DB. If so... a single save, or, say the turn before the bug appeared and the turn after?
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There shouldn't be people on the forums asking about where they can play H2H... that doesn't settle well with any gamers nowadays no matter what genre you're into.
It's fine with me. I just dig out the ol' modem from under the Civ and Doom disks (great games, I hear there's a sequel for each) and find opponents on an internet BBS like the Blitz! It's no more than I expect, though the site does look a little strange. Maybe I should update my copy of Netscape.
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"I still don't see any flicker."
I like the Zeiss Optics one.
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I can't see how it would be so difficult as I am already able to save every minute of a turn game and then play them back.
Replay is very simple, but in wargames the simplest things become very difficult.
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Which makes it weird how troops mooching about by the rear windows can be spotted (at night) and fired on by enemy across the street (with the street at the front).
I had half a squad cut down by a lone rifleman in such a situation. Happily some of my opponent's own arty soon landed on the guy, and that made me feel better.
How would the game be able to tell whether an AT system in any given building at any given time is in a state that would allow it to be fired?A Fortification map-object like a TRP or foxhole that just allows a AT-rocket to be fired from the building could allow it, sometimes, without re-vamping buildings.
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I don't have a good clue how to do this right...
I think at it's heart it's largely a map problem. The possibility of firing an AT weapon from inside a building would help a lot - maybe as a special "Fortification" object (or was it really weaponized-cow rare?) - or more cover. Some of the maps show you the aftermath of beautification or rationalization project has removed all the clutter from the streets. Gone are the garden walls and greenery, cars or carts, fruit stands, trash bins etc. that an AT team might hide behind but still be able to get a shot from. (Or is that sort of thing abstracted into urban ground-types?)
For now:
Maybe require your opponent to get open-topped armor? You can use grenades from within buildings.
Get Grenadiers. Doesn't help with map issues but you'll have a lot more AT weapons.
Ask to be allowed an extra 150+mm battery. It'll make you feel a lot better even if it isn't all that effective against tanks.
The biggie - Take the current state of the game into account when playing. Use what LOS blockers you can (which is often a whole building), try to get the AFVs buttoned, and Hide a lot.
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Maybe he means that Steve failing to answer questions on the forum might not be the end of the world.
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73% is not a good score.
IMO it's not even a believable score. Assigning even vaguely useful % scores to something as subjective as a game requires either a major effort in defining the criteria and method or a willing suspension of disbelief. The magazines don't do the first two and I need to save up all of the last one for the election.
(OTOH, I sympathize with the magazine's attempt to remove literacy as a requirement to subscribing. But I think they could go a lot further with using colors and shapes. Instead of "73%" they could have a sort of purple octagon with fuzzy edges, where 100% is a red circle. You've got 2 degrees of freedom (color and shape) rather than one (score), immediate emotional/visual impact, and you don't get people wondering why 73 rather than 74 and 3/5s. How many % points would color-coded or labeled end playback/end turn buttons be worth?)
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"CMBN is a very good tactical wargame saddled with pre-alpha looks & controls.
Pre-Alpha? No way. Totally unfair. They're well-developed looks and controls from last decade.
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I thought saved games and completed turns (as in, you hit the end-turn button) always go in different folders (Saved vs. Outgoing Email) and that H2HH will only pull files from Outgoing Email.
Yesno?
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So what's the difference between 'combined arms' and 'Mixed'?
If you want to make sure you have a combined-armed battle, just convenience.
How much working/thinking is involved in hitting automap selection, 'mix', and automatic unit purchase? 1-2-3 and you're done.
Clicking those things until you get a good combined arms force from the auto-selection? Not a lot of *work*, I guess, but it can take an annoying amount of time. Especially since you may have to play the QB awhile to see what the AI picked for the other side.
The only way to make it any easier is to... I don't know... build a standalone scenario that you just have to click & play!
That'd give perfect control, but no uncertainty. (Where AI-selection gives very little control but with complete uncertainty.) Combined arms would give enough control (hopefully) while maintaining uncertainty.
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I'd much rather have a more realistic - slower, more limited - access to information on enemy units.
OTOH, I've realized the current system isn't as bad as I first thought.
First, the out-of-place formation information may actually make for a better game. In that it's not really all that useful in-play, but it makes it easier to discuss the game with your opponent or just keep track-of yourself.
Where in real-life the question of how many companies your facing, for example, might be something of deep and immediate concern, in a QB or scenario you'll usually already have a pretty good handle on the size of the opposing force.
(OTOH, 3 floating icons telling you that the three men you see are from 3 different teams or squads can be very useful. Limiting the floating icons would be very useful part of limiting formation knowledge.)
Secondly (and finally) a lot of information can be gained from carefully observing the units during the turn. Not really an option during RT. But in WEGO a player can determine a great deal from studying the individual pixeltruppen.
Ideally the information we're told would match only what's been seen by your men: You don't know a unit's a HMG squad until the guy with the HMG has been seen. But I think the gap isn't all that great. The big exception might be FO units. They'd be (completely?) indistinguishable from HQ units without the "Shoot Me!" binoc icon.
So I think that while there's a lot of room for improvement, the practical effect of the unrealistically high levels of unit info we're getting isn't that great.
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What I'd really rather see is a "Player Defined" mix, where whoever creates the QB can allocate points into the various categories for each player. That could take care of a few other common requests, too. (The "free foxholes" thing, for example.)
And all it'd require is even *more* work from BFC!
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The Allies are down 7 to 8 Shermans plus infantry casualties yet these losses are not reflected one iota in the end score.
Another reason to uncouple score from casualties is if you're trying to reward good performance with the score rather than simply track the progress of the battle.
For example: If in a scenario the defender is expected to take out 50% of the attacker's armor over the course of the battle then having armor lost count for little, or only count after the 50% mark, could be a perfectly valid approach.
The other player might get a reward for armor survival... though just not having the units destroyed may be reward enough, in that it'd help increase that player's own objective or casualty points.
The closely tracking losses is indeed an approach that should generally feel right. It's simple and obvious. But taking the opposite tack may actually give a better measure of in-game performance, in that the "noise" of expected-losses (and thus merely-competent performance) can be filtered out. Such a scheme is harder to set-up right - so I think GaJ's caution has some merit - but in general I prefer it to the simpler approach.
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ok where in the statement it is something indicated that its not the only cause ?
There's no explicit statement either way.
as far as i know: as a result means ... because something happens a certain consequence is happening.
As a result of your post I'm posting.
Does that mean I only post in response to your posts? It does not.
but he only says as a result ! he does not state anything about other hit locations that cause TZF damage. so how can you say that its not the only case ?
The only thing one can say for sure is that you *can't* say, for sure, that MANTLET hits are the only cause. When you base your argument on that certainty your argument has a poor base.
also i do not doubt that in 1 out of 1000 incidents other hits could have caused damage to the optics but i think the statement clearly supports my theory that optics damage in cmbn is triggered to easily from non penetrative hits all over the tank ( such as tracks, hull front and side, armor skirts, turret sides and rear top hull) !
Maybe we don't agree on the meaning of the word "clearly." I'd say the statement "clearly" supports the idea that MANTLET (does it really need to be in all-caps?) hits frequently cause damage to the telescopes... and thus to "optics". But the real issue is just how often other hits cause damage to "optics". We need to understand just what "optics" means, and what the real frequency of other hits causing optics (OPTICS?) damage was. Your quote doesn't really address either issue.
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but it clearly indicates that it only happens when the MANTLET is hit
Not from the quote you gave. Maybe there's more context, maybe it's a language thing, but to clearly indicate it only happens when the mantlet is hit the quote needs to say it "only" happens when the mantlet is hit. The quote could instead indicate there's a problem with the great frequency with which mantlet hits break the telescopes. Without context I'd even say that's the way it should be interpreted.
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2) I am noticing a significant advantage for Axis armour over Allied armour making the game to imbalanced to play.
It's largely situational. On a big, open map Allied armor can be in big, big trouble. It's pretty easy to come up with an "imbalanced" QB or scenario.
But, historically, the Allies did a pretty good job of avoiding that situation in Normandy. It's not really that difficult to avoid imbalanced QBs and scenarios.
So I'd say it's incorrect to claim the "game" is imbalanced. Any number of battles, OTOH, could be.
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In an attack/defense situation, the effect of this is to swing things away from having fortifications in the exact situation where in reality the defender would have had them.
That's a function of the cost and effectiveness of foxholes vs. units.
ATM I don't think they're generally worth it, which is why we don't see as many fortifications as we should. (Yes? At least I haven't seen them much even in Assaults. Anecdotal, though.)
Maybe that'll change in a patch. Or maybe I'll come to understand that they are worth the points as they are. I need to do my own tests...
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What I'd like to see is a "Player Defined" force/battle type, where for a QB the creating-player can determine how many points for infantry, armor, arty, and fortifications each player gets, and what the location vs. casualties victory point division will be.
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Do you play many QBs? When setting up QBs I think it's a good idea to talk about limits on arty, TRPs and pre-planned missions. Ideally waiting until after the map and battle type are chosen. I've found it quite easy accidentally create QBs overly-dominated by arty.
The smaller the map the less arty should be allowed for either player, and the smaller a player's area the less arty their opponent should get. I'd say the attacker should generally be allowed more arty, especially in Assaults.
OTOH, you could also be extra-generous on the time allowed in Attacks and Assaults, but ban or limit the arty.
My very first QB involved a Small map with American rockets and not one but two P-51s: Way too much.
I'm in a couple of QBs now where we limited it to 81 and 60mm mortars. Largish MEs: Arty's still deadly, but getting it on-target is far from a trivial exercise. I think it's working nicely.
In another pair of Assault games I'm wondering if we shouldn't have limited the arty. Now that I'm seeing it fall I'm wondering if the Defender's area is too small. Oh well, we'll see how it works out...
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About 3 out of 4.
A little quirk i found.
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
A fudge-factor that has a tank delay it's first shot - time based on how far out-of-elevation the target is - might be nice. As a visual clue for what's going on the tank could boogie-around in place, as if it's trying to find a firing angle.
As with all problems involving combat, dance really is the best solution.
But what we really need is for the forumites to vote on the worst realism bug (or lack-of-feature), with the agreement that the item with the most votes will be deemed by those participating to be the most important problem.
Then we could present a united front and all complain about the same thing while waiting for BFC to work their way down their own list. It wouldn't really change anything, but we *would* avoid duplicate efforts at impotently whining.
We may be grognards, but we don't have to be disorganized about our grumbling.