combatplus2

I've noticed the frame rate seems to bog down the most when there are a lot of smoking vehicles, or just a lot of billowing smoke going on in general.

Thanks Clay - that's one mystery less. I'm glad it sounds like the "automatic-building-suck feature" is set to be eliminated soon. What about the opposite problem - those times when it's difficult or impossible to enter a building (when pressing the B / special action key)? Is it because not enough of the squad members are nearby?

What are the necessary conditions for entering a structure with infantry? As the attacker in today's game (in the "beach" map), I was never able to enter by pressing B as usual. (Often in other games my squad will enter automatically just by being close to or touching the building - also mystifying!) Secondly, while my squad was not able to properly "board" a building, it was able to get inside the thing nonetheless. In fact I was able to use the building as concealment for my 20mm dude, who (quite gamey-ly) picked off a bunch of enemy infantry before his position was ultimately discovered...

I'm all for a precision strike option, as long as it doesn't become an unbalanced weapon (naturally). One plausible "balancing factor" could be that your precision strike is *usually* very accurate -- to 10 meters or so about 90% of the time -- but 10% of the time $%^& happens (malfunction, etc) in which case the shell lands who-knows-where, maybe even right on a friendly position. A precision strike feature should be coupled with new (upcoming?) artillery spotting / ATGM targeting units! It would give that Afghanistan-style joint operations feel, as well as new incentives for teamwork.

This is now on the wish list!

I think this issue has been touched on before (probably Yurch), but I couln't find the thread... Recently I found myself in a high-speed Apollo vs. Apollo shootout. We were travelling parallel with each other on nearly flat ground, with our speeds matched exactly, shooting at each other "broadside". Now, believing that my shell would properly inherit my vehicle's velocity, I fired without leading. Sadly after a few attempts, each shell landed well behind my target in the dirt. I only then succeeded by leading my target (which should not have been required since our *relative velocity* was about zero). Have other folks seen this effect? ... Are there any plans in the works to have projectiles inherit the gun's velocity?

Agreed, the thrust force of the Tempest just isn't what it used to be. I was quite dismayed the last time I tried to use it, for that reason. For one thing, it just can't be used for the "grab the flag right under their nose" tactic anymore. Regarding the IC, I agree on that too. But now I recall Clay saying the Ion weapon is set to be majorly overhauled anyway (I wonder when...) It is indeed unfortunate to see unused vehicles and weapons...

Thanks for the assistance Clay! For the forum - it turns out my firewall (McAfee)was blocking the Game Updater program. This never used to happen, but apparently it does now. My workaround was just to temporarily disable the firewall while running Updater. (For those McAfee firewall users out there, expect to get no alert or diagnostic message! It will simply block Updater from running.)

I had been running v. 1.5 on my Win XP box awhile back, then missed the 1.6 version (I believe). On my attempt to leapfrog to 1.7 the Game Updater bombed and simply gave me the message: Checking platform 'WIN32' files... FAILED - press RETURN to quit. I did a full reinstall from CD, back to v.1.0, and tried update again, but got exactly the same bomb and diagnotic as before. Please help! Thanks.

And, the review complains that the game is UPDATED TOO OFTEN! Good lord.

(bump)

I like it! I'm all for the Paladin being integrated into the squad, especially because you wouldn't have to keep switching back to the tac screen. Anything would help, since right now we don't have enough online players to really justify tying up two for doing an infantry transport (hm, maybe when we get building-capturing engineers I'll rethink this tho!)

I've always liked the idea all these guys are vikings. Or mercenaries on the viking's payroll. Or mercs working for vikings subcontracting from pirates? Of course while bearing in mind this is "just a very cool game", these Who and Why questions really are pretty important, and actually have practical consequences. Just a couple examples: - What should a crew member be "worth"? (in points)? And how relevant should crew survivability be, if at all? Is there a tangible "value system" that will make hitting CNTRL-K worse than it is now? If our driver and gunner are damaged, should we fret and extract them for their safety? - What is an infantry guy worth? If he's a clone, maybe nothing, or $20 in materials. This would make sense in current gameplay, seeing what tends to befall them! Or if they're pirates or mercs, what's the reward that would motivate them to take on all that risk with HE flying all around? (presumably the objective / resources equating to great riches...) - In what ways would higher or lower human valuation affect tactics? strategy? AFV design? Maybe the DT backstory has some answers (I'm hardly a student of the backstory!). But regardless, in other games these questions could be reasonably waved off - just red vs. blue in a deathmatch over unreconcilable ideological differences. But it seems like DT is going for more than this. I'd like to see the value/point/victory-condition system somewhat linked to the basic society and economy of DT's world.

agree 110% </font>

I haven't found a video yet, but here's a great pic... http://www.spectrumwd.com/c130/images/c130_086.jpg Seems they call it LAPES (Low Altitude Parachute Extraction). Agreed, this looks like quite a hazard to the cargo! Someday it would be fun to have this kind of (nail-biter) method as one drop option in DT... Say, when you're down to your last two dropships, but you've got plenty of Shrikes to spare...

I wonder if the developers have thought this one over before: One way to keep these valuable dropships safer is to keep them from ever having to completely slow down to zero velocity for the actual moment of drop. For a modern point of reference, I believe it's the C-130 that can drop an AFV into a hot LZ by skimming low, not quite landing, and booting the thing out on a pallet with a drag(drouge?) chute. Since in DT we want the system to work with or without an atmosphere, maybe an AFV could get kicked out on a disposable "rocket pallet" that would accomplish two things - a) finish the job of nulling out horizontal velocity, while the expensive dropship gets away, and the rockets could stabilize the attitude a bit, to reduce the chance of one of those freak flip-overs that can happen even on a gentle slope.

Well, point taken that plasma turrets are "nuisance guns" which mainly serve to burn up some of the attacker's precious time. And that even makes some sense if deployable turrets are truly "cheap" in the DT universe. It just seems to me that if a defender had some WW2 German 88's in their arsenal, they wouldn't bother much with plasma turrets. The 88 would be more concealable, serve AA, AP and AT roles, and would fire faster and more deadly projectiles. Yes the current plasma turrets do _some_ good for the defender, but it would be still cool to have fixed defenses that enable you to set a proper ambush!

Great game DT folks! Some thoughts on the state of turrets and fixed defenses in general.... The subject of questionable ground turret effectiveness has come up a few times in this forum (e.g. low rate of fire and slow projectiles). I also think other main problems are that turrets are just too visible and vulnerable. Even when jammed, the're easy to spot by eye, and fairly easy to destroy (by AP rounds of any caliber, by artillery, or infantry). One of the first things a player learns is how to search-and-destroy them, to pick them off one by one. The best use I can make of ground turrets is to line them up along a defensive ridgeline, and place them in radius of jammers on my side of the ridge. This gives them good concentration of fire, while not being too clustered and subject to wipeout by a single artillery strike. This can be coupled with an EMP strike on attacking AFVs, rendering them sitting ducks. But this seems to be the only effective application for ground turrets as they exist right now. I'm imagining one or more of the following, which could spice up our fixed defense options: 1. "low-profile turrets": deployable turrets that keep the gun low, until an enemy AFV is vulnerable (say, either nearby or presenting an attractive side-shot opportunity). They rise, take a shot, and lower back to ground level, perhaps concealed by any grass / foliage. If they're also jammed, they could be wonderfully frustrating to try to defeat. 2. Fixed pillboxes: (for some scenarios) Maybe set into a hillside or otherwise well concealed, hardened and nearly impervious to mortars. You'd have to fire an ion or well-placed shell into the firing slit, or get infantry to flank it or drop in from above to take it out. 3. Hidden bunkers: containing infantry ready to ambush? These are admittedly WW2 inspired, hardly sci-fi, but would open up more devious defense strategies for the defender. I'm not suggesting tunnels or actual below-ground movement, just tougher and more ambush-capable fixed defenses. I'm not so worried about toughening AA turrets, for the sake of game balance. Finally, just wanted to complement the developers, Clay and all, on an impressive game - especially on their receptiveness to feedback and very frequent updates! Keep up the fine work...

Some thoughts on infantry... -- I'm having the best luck using them for defense in objective scenarios. Esp. the ice mountain map, or anytime you have to protect elevated or urban terrain. For some reason, ppl tend to want to take AND occupy the objective with AFVs (with no infantry support). My squad lies in wait, I order them held in place, and my leader goes Rambo with an ATG. My single gray dude viewed against gray ashpalt and gray buildings is very hard to notice before it's too late. -- This "Rambo" technique can be effective. It actually lets one player engage a target from two different directions. All but the leader act as the distraction, while you take your leader around for a flanking shot. -- Clearly, once an enemy AFV spots your infantry at decent range in open terrain, you're dead. One nearby HE hit puts you in that stupor. The stupor lasts just long enough for the AFV to reload and finish you off. Very "WW1" when that happens.... -- Since concealment is so critical for infantry, it would be cool to have a better way to know roughly how concealed you actually are. (My PC can't really handle the foliage, so I always look exposed). Maybe just an icon or an "idiot light" that appears when you're truly standing on bare rocky ground where you can be spotted at max range, or something.... -- Really looking forward to the sticky-bomb / satchel charge... Jet up and land on an enemy Thor, hit B to plant the charge, and you have 3 seconds to split...

I wonder what the difference in mass actually is between a shrike and a Thor. I agree, it always looks like all vehicles are the same mass when they collide. Given the Thor's amount of armor, it really shouldn't lose a shoving match. Collision modeling is tricky though. Elastic, inelastic or some intermediate? For near-elastic collisions, vehicle crashes would look a bit like a game of pool, (esp. when the two are equal mass). For inelastic cases (think of a real car crash) they kind of stick together... In the extreme inelastic case, the Shrike gets shredded to pieces. Also, collision damage must be activated for inelastic cases! This kind of behavior seems like quite a project to code up. It would be cool to see though!

Those Holy infantry were mine! Quite a funny sight. Three of them walked on water, while two would sink to the bottom. (I wonder if they were equipped with Holy Hand Grenades......)

It's a good point -- Dropships look expensive! It always feels weird that we get to treat them like they're made from paper mache. Some brainstorming... Maybe heavy (Thor) drops would require the current (big "re-usable") dropships, with some point value. But a lightweight wheeled vehicle might come down in something disposable and cheap-looking with no point value, like a pod w/ descent rockets or parachutes. The dropships do add an important dynamic element to the game, so I'd like to see them stay though!

I got a kick out of playing that no-atmosphere moon map! The creepy ambient and silent explosions really work for me. A better Sci-fi feel than I was expecting. Yes, I suppose one should really hear the crew "arg"s from his own vehicle (altho it's my least favorite sound effect), and projectile impacts on your vehicle would make sense to keep audible.

LOL. My fiance has taken to actually mimicking the DUN DUN sound, as she mocks that "battle robot" game I play.

Awesome, Claytonious! I like the idea of painting the target beforehand. This would add some drama and make you feel like you're weilding a sniper-like weapon.