Bruce70

Some not particularly constructive thoughts: - I think the choice is more limited by the blue force than it is by the red force (not that either are going to significantly change). Israel going it alone against Syria (or with limited US support)would have been just as plausible (ie. plausability zero) and potentially more interesting IMO. - It would be nice if you could come up with a backstory that gives the US limited air support. - Any back story that makes rapid intervention necessary would be very interesting - perhaps a hostage situation. Maybe someone or something is grabbed in Iraq (by Hezbolah?) and the US/coalition is forced to pursue across the border, with the situation escalating from there. - Is there any reason that victory needs to be defined by the destruction of the Syrian armed forces? - Is there any reason why Syria cannot be the invader? That would force the US to act with whatever they have available. e.g. The US is in the process of withdrawing from Iraq (much less than 50% remaining) after establishing a moderate government. Syria/Hezbolah is not happy and see an opportunity to turn the tide in Iraq and establish their own puppet government (insert any half-assed excuse that Syria might use for this). They obviously wish to take advantage of instability caused by the withdrawal and expect a quick victory before US can respond. That puts the coalition on the defensive from day 1 and gives at least a few days fighting before the US can establish overwhelming air support. - What would be the TO&E of a newly formed Iraqi defense force? Disclaimer: Just random thoughts in no particular order and with no assertion of validity whatsoever. IOWs, I know next to nothing about ME politics or the military preparedness of any ME country or faction.

Like I said, that could be a misinterpretation. He may think that by small arms you mean rifles, pistols etc. Not MGs. I think that not having an unjamming animation would go against their design philosophy for this game. But perhaps they could just have a generic unjamming animation, rather than an accurate animation for each weapon.

No, of course not. You may just have one core sitting there doing nothing. Or alternatively it could be doing something completely different.

Since the game is based on the IL2 engine, I doubt there will be any support for dual cores.

I think some clarification is needed. I agree that no MG jams would be bad, but rifle jams I could live without. GrAL: Can a machine gun jam?

"No framerate hit because you start the battle with all of them anyway" Except that there will be reinforcements.

What about the machine that goes PING?

I like MP as much as the next person (especially coop MP), but I spend 90% of my gaming playing SP (for a number of reasons). A lot of people here are the same as me. For that reason alone I do not buy a game if it is no good SP. However I also believe that if it is not a good SP game it stands little chance of being a good MP game anyway.

Well it looks like the piat guy wouldn't have a shot if he was anywhere else. For the guy assaulting the tank with a grenade, well I wish him luck no matter what his strategy. And for the guys prone behind the fence, it is entirely likely that there position offers better cover and concealment than behind the tree for example (but you can't tell from that camera angle). What about artillery? Not to mention the fact that they can fire more effectively from that position. AIUI being prone is almost always your best bet, and the only reason not to be prone is if you need to fire over something. From the little that I have seen so far, the individual soldier AI is some of the best that I have seen in any game, including FPS games.

Good, then I see no reason for any more desent regarding captured equipment. If done properly it can only add to the game. Should the time have been spent on other things? Maybe, but it's done now so there is nothing to be gained from further discussion.

AIUI, each soldier has specific skills, experience, etc. So if you have a squad member manning a captured gun, with no prior experience with such a weapon, how will that effect things like reload times, accuracy etc? Assuming that these things are drastically effected, I see no reason to think that capturing enemy guns etc is unrealistic. Instead, 9 times out of 10 it will not be worthwhile using captured equipment, but the other one time when there is an approaching tiget and an abandoned 88 sitting nearby who wouldn't try and turn the gun on the approaching tank? So what are the possible ways in which performance may be degraded for captured equipment, in what circumstances will that degradation be evident, and will this be enough for players to quickly realise that using captured equipment is rarely worthwhile? P.S. Looking forward to the game, hope this is the beginning of a long and significant series, that continues to improve.

So the Syrians would probably get together as many mortars as possible, fire as many shells as they have the guts for, and then run away leaving the mortars behind. After the counterbarrage they go back and see what can be salvaged. AFAIK mortars are relatively cheap. Obiously they wont be able to do this indefinitely...

Building options sound interesting... I assume from Steve's comments that there are tools to help with elevation, and I guess a large brush is just as just as good as a macro-tile for some terrain types, but as Steve says that still leaves buildings. Some pre-built city block would be useful.

I am not sure what you mean. A 1-to-1 scale is surely a lesser abstraction than that in CMx1. I think you mean that the 1-to-1 scale will introduce a lot of new problems. If so, I agree and that is why I personally would not have moved to a 1-to-1 scale. It is certainly a huge step up for the AI, and on top of that it must run in real time. However, I trust that BFC have overcome these problems or they would not have moved to a 1-to-1 scale. It remains to be seen just how abstract CMx2 will be, but I will be disappointed if the new scale is just eye candy, and I will be equally disappointed if they have moved the simulation ahead of what the AI can handle.

I do not think that this level of control is desirable. However, with a 1-to-1 representation, I hope that the AI will do most of this automatically. I would certainly hope that each individual soldier chooses his target more or less independantly from the rest of the squad.

"I think you may be confusing distance with time in the example here." I was a little surprised to find out that it didn't matter whether you consider time or distance, the ratios come out the same. I thought that the t-squared in there would throw it off, but actually it doesn't.

But on that subject, there are some very good (and free) terrain generating applications that export greyscale images, not to mention real DEMs. It would be really nice if CMx2 could read those so that at least you don't have to set the terrain height. I know that lot's of little features do tend to add up, but really I can wait an extra 30 minutes (it really wouldn't take longer than that) for the release to get this feature.

Yep, definitely randomly generated.

In a QB ME (and I agree that this is probably not anyones favourite), HTs can sometimes be the difference between having a company assaulting an objective and a platoon with heavy weapons defending it. In such cases the HTs are worth the points. But since you can't see the terrain beforehand, it is always a gamble.

"Impulse is the integral of force over a time period, not just F*t" That's like saying that distance isn't v*t. You are 100% correct, but it is also just being pedantic. "KE does not matter for knockdowns and is not a vector. Momentum does, and it is a vector. Someone needs to pay more attention in physics class..." Yes, someone does. You cannot calculate the outcome of a collision by considering momentum only, except in special circumstances. Now I conceed that if you know that the bullet is lodged in the body, that is one of those special cases, but if the bullet bounces off, then there are many possibilities. The problem can only be solved by considering KE (assuming you know the coefficient of elasticity), and the fact that it is a scalar is completely irrelevant. Perhaps you have not seen the toy I was talking about (although I find that hard to believe). If a steel ball (10grams) travelling at 1m/s hits a group of four steel balls (same weight and size) lined up in a row and touching. And if the collision is perfectly square: o -> oooo What will happen? There are many possibilities if you consider momentum only, but only one if you know that KE is conserved. Now as I said, in the bullet lodging in the body case, you are quite right - you can work it out by considering momentum only, just as you can if you know that the 5 balls all stick together. But for the turret example momentum will not give you a conclusive answer. However, in that case it makes more sense to consider the forces involved and hence the impulses as has been pointed out already. And in fact it is probably easier to consider impulses in both cases. If the bullet accelerates over a distance of 1m and decelerates over a distance of 0.1m (lodging somewhere inside the body) then the firer will experience a force 10 times less than the target, but for 10 times longer... simple. I think that could easily be enough to make you lose balance if you weren't expecting it (in fact my grandfather was often knocked over by the recoil in his old age, let alone the impact), but not enough to send you flying through the air. No idea about a moose, but I would guess that it would barely notice it, if it wasn't for the damage caused.

Drusus: "The bullet stays in the body (inelastic) or even worse, goes through. What happens to the energy? It does a lot of internal damage to the target, thus there is a lot of deformation." Ah yes, fair point. For some reason I was only thinking about deformation of the bullet - pretty stupid huh? However, it's not an all-or-nothing equation. The less deformation, the more KE is important. You can't just write off KE, that energy has to go somewhere. However, I guess that your statement: "in calculating the knock down effect of the bullet the energy doesn't matter" is fair enough. But don't forget that classic physics toy with the five metal balls. Yes I know this is an elastic collision, but it just illustrates that it is dangerous to assume that KE doesn't matter. c3k: Impulse = Force * Time. To stop an object, or change it's momentum in any way, you need to apply an impulse. If the amount of time that you apply the impulse is short, the force required is much greater. e.g. car breaks to a stop vs car crashes into a brick wall. The impulse is the same in each case, but the amount of time and hence the forces involved are much different... ...and this is also what explains the baseball example. Not human anatomy. That just explains how the body deals with these forces. BTW Drusus, you got this the wrong way around, you should catch with soft hands because it hurts less. Maybe it's different when you have a glove (I don't play baseball), I was thinking of cricket but trying to phrase it for a larger audience.

All I have to say, after seeing this thread near the top for the last week, is that despite popular misconception, "could've" is not short for "could of" - you may now call me whatever name seems appropriate.

I didn't say KE was conserved, I just said energy. But in any case, if there is no deformation, KE is pretty much conserved (not much heat generated in the collision AFAIK), whereas if there is deformation (and of course there is) there is not much you can say except that energy is conserved. As for angular momentum, I was just being facetious. Now back to momentum being the only thing that matters... bollocks. If you are catching a baseball without a glove, there is a huge difference between catching it with "soft" hands and catching it with firm hands. Momentum is conserved in both cases, but one hurts like hell - even though it didn't hurt the pitcher. Same with the tack turret, momentum is conserved, but the forces involved are enough to knock the turret of it's rim and gravity does the rest. The gun barrel is like the pitcher slowly accelerating the ball, and the target is like a frightened child trying to catch it with stiff hands.

My tests were against 37mm AT guns, so perhaps you are right that there is some combination of gun and armour where it is better to be hull up, but I think those cases would be rare [Edit: I mostly play CM:AK so russian 76mm is indeed reasonably rare]. Since I don't care to remember all those details I will continue to stay hull down as I believe that most of the time that will be the best tactic. In any case it is no-ones funeral, so I'm not too fussed. Does anyone know what strategy was used IRL? I can just imagine infantry saying to themselves "I know my body armour will stop a round at this range, so when I return fire I will stand up to give them a better target and avoid head-shots"

Yes, that's fine. But I was talking about the deceleration at the other end. F=ma is useless for that, too many factors to consider, as per John's post about impulse above. John: You are right about the impulse being important, of course. The projectile accelerates over the entire length of the barrel, but decelerates (mostly) over just the thickness of the armour, therefore larger forces are involved. But I have no idea how that applies to moose and it also doesn't take into account deformation of the projectile and heaps of other factors. In short, unless the bullet loses most of it's velocity penetrating only a few inches of the moose's body, I do not believe that it is the bullet that knocks over the moose. I refer you to the Mythbusters pig shooting episode [ January 29, 2006, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: Bruce70 ]