Industrializer

Honestly, I don't like the CM graphics that much, they are functional but not nice to look at. I usually play at zoom level 4-5 and from that perspective tanks are just little boxes and infantry small moving dots. I only go down to level 1 or two to check the terrain. To give you an impression of how I want CM to look like, check out the screenshots and movies at Panzers , I know, it's RTS, it's unrealistic as hell but it's truely a beauty to look at!

I've just learned that other ppl have similar problems with other games if they are using the nVidia 52.xx drivers, well, I use these, too, could it be a problem with the gfx drivers ? Can anyone replicate this ? I don't want to rollback my drivers just to test this without anybody else reporting similar problems

my mainboard blew up and fried my CPU, I got a replacement mainboard (same brand) and bought a 1,4GHz Duron because that was the cheapest Duron still available. I waited approx a minute but the computer is definitely dead, the mouse pointer doesn't react anymore, CTRL-ALT-Del doesen't work, TaskSwictch doesen't work and as CMBB crashed during the battle end report the sound started looping during the freeze (no sample just the tone was repeated over and over). These freezes happen even after a clean XP reboot with CMBB being the first program I run. I have the CDV version, CMBB is pathed to 1.03

OK, I'm having a really annoying problem here with CMBB and CMAK, both games freeze from time to time and I have to hard-reset my computer. With my old computer (1GHz Duron) I had no problems but now with my new one (CPU blew up so this is the only part that really changed) (1,4GHz Duron, nVidia GeForce2, 512MB RAM, WinXP, no overclocking) both CMAK and CMBB have a tendency to freeze my computer (about every second time I start the game!) My computer usually runs 24/7 and I have no such problems with any other progam, including games. The freezes usually happen during the mission briefing, the equipment selection screen or the endgame report screen and it once happend during the computer setup calculation but so far it _never_ happened during the actual game, so no problems while plotting my orders or watching the replay. Help? [ December 10, 2003, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: Industrializer ]

I hadn't the time to read all articles in this interesting post by now but here is something that migh add some hard data, it's a page from the Pantherfiebel, the official manual for the Panther commander in WW2. It shows the saturation pattern and distribution of a 75mm HE shell. every square represents 2m² and every dot one splinter considered lethal.

In a recent PBEM my opponent had a 88mm pillbox sitting on a hilltop overlooking almost the entire map and I had some real difficulties advancing and finally knocking it out. Here is a picture of the map In the rightmost corner were you see the smoke rising was the 88mm pillbox, this is by far the highest point on the entire map. It had good LOS to many parts of the map and the hill itself and the surrounding area had almost no cover. I've also marked another MG pillbox that was covering the wide open area infront of the 88mm pillbox and a few MG and other infantry squads were dug in at the edge of the hill aswell. So, how to knock out this pillbox to finally allow my T34/85 to advance and take care of his infantry ? His left flank was protected by a Panther and was also covered by the 88mm pillbox, trying to advance with infantry was not that successfull and stalled soon. My available equipment: a 152mm FO but without smoke, a 82mm on map mortar with LOS on the pillbox and several smoke shells, a SU-122, 3 T34/85 (one gun damaged) and 2 M17. I had a few pioneer squads and a few rifle44 squads. The way I finally knocked out that pillbox (at a high price) I first took out the MG pillbox (cost my my SU-122 that traveled accidently through the LOS of the Pillbox and a T34/85 that was lost due to a CMBB bug were a rotate-to order was interpreted as a fast movement order), after KO'ing the MG and pushing my infantry as far through the houses left and right of the center road as possible, I smoked the 88-pillbox and drove a M17 followed by the gun damaged T34/85 with a pioneer platoon on top and my last remaining T34/85 at high speed along the road towards his map edge. They made it (but got destroyed by the Panther later on) and the pioneer squad, even tho failing to knock out the pillbox directly, managed to set fire to the grain field and this forced the pillbox crew to abandon their bunker soon thereafter. Well, this was a pretty costly approach, any idea how I could have knocked out that pillbox with fewer losses ?

The tank was speeding forward on fast movement until it 'sensed' the tracing line from the 88 pillbox (that's the moment the second screenshot was taken), than it stoped, trying to reverse but without luck.

In a PBEM I just had a seriously TacAI **** up, I've plotted a movement order for a T34/85 to get into position to shell a MG Pillbox and the TacAI charged the T34 head on towards the Pillbox right into the view of an overwatching 88mm Pillbox that made short process of my tank Now really, why did the TacAI do such a dumb thing, maybe a bug in the path finding algorithm ? OK, here is the situation in detail, on these two pics you can see my tank behind a church and the plotted short fast-move order followed by a rotate-to order. during execution of this order the tank drove forward half a meter, hit the corner of the church, that's probably when the TacAI took over, the tank reversed a little, drove forward again around the corner, to the position I marked as the end point of the fast-move order and continued to race roughly along the line of the rotate-to order towards the MG pillbox. In the overhead view you can see the yellow-line-of-death coming from the 88mm Pillbox. Why hasn't the TacAI stoppen once it reached my end waypoint ??

wind affects sound contact, during a storm it's a lot tougher to locate were the sound of a gun fireing is coming from.

maybe you are buttoned up ? Some AC cant fire when buttoned up.

All right, it might be easiest if you have a look for yourself, here is a little unhittable gun scenario, run the test scenario with patch 1.01 and the guns gets destroyed almost immediately, run it with patch 1.02 and the guns will kill the attacking StuGs one by one without ever being threatened. I agree that it should be hard to hit the guns, certainly harder than in 1.01 but 1.02 made it impossible.

Fine, than please explain my unhittable building test, and especially the part that the building can be hit with patch 1.01 but can't be hit with 1.02.

Ace Pilot, you got it !!!! It's a 1.02 bug ! I rerun my test scenario (i've updated it a little bit so that the units are already set up correctly) with 1.01 and the building was leveled after 40-50 sec wit 90-90% hits, rerun it with 1.02, zero hits !!

Schürzen are not meant to protect against small caliber ATG or ATR but against HEAT munition. The reason why there are no Schürzen in the rear is the same as the generally pretty thin rear armor: If the enemy manages to get a shot at your rear you've probably done something wrong, NEVER turn your back towards something hostile

testing testing, 1..2.. OK, I made a little test myself, this time to demonstrate the situation that a building can't be hit with AreaFire. I set up a little test scenario were the map is 100% flat (elevation 6) except for 1 spot were the elevation is 5 and a light building is sitting inside. The Axis has 6 PzIII with approx 50HE each that got set up at 270-280m distance to the light building from were they have good LOS and are ordered to area fire the building. 6 turns later, all 290HEs are spent, the building is still standing not being hit a single time. BUT some shells magically flew right through the building, impacting at the other side of the building. Well ?? This is no almost invisible AT gun, this is a 3-4m high and equally wide not moving building! Impossible to hit ???

It's a single store light building, you can _only_ target the base.

Oh well, than for god's sake it's 1.25m, but that's not important. What's important is how much of the building is visible to the TC and presents a valid target. here is another screenshot, taken at elevation 1 at the position of the PzIV G with zoom x8. It's obvious that most parts of the building are visible to the TC but he keeps hitting the road infront of the building (in this picture covered by the roadblock). My question plain and simple is: Is it possible for a PzIV G equipped with good optics to hit a non moving target that is as big as this building at a distance of <300m, that is as visible as shown in the above screenshot, yes or no. If you answer is yes than it's a bug in the game, if your answer is no than I wonder how tanks could have hit anything in WW2.

OK, I'll try again to illustrate what I think is buggy in CMBB. I drew a little sketch with the situation I encounter in the PBEM. The targeted building is in a small sinkhole (and no, it's not like 1,50 as one member said, it's really just barely visible!) and the tank is ordered to area fire at the building. What happens is that the tank tries to fire at a point at ground level inside the building but on it's way to that point the shells impact in the small rise infront of the building. The building is clearly visible and if the tank would aim at approx. 1m height it would hit the building easily!

You can't change the evevation at which you want to target a small building. You can only target the base and hope that the TC hits the damn thing. And why don't you give a new (better!), area-target order? Maybe it is your targetting that causes the problem? </font>

I can't post the scenario because it's a still ongoing CMBB tournament map at WarfareHQ. If you wnat the map I suggest you contact the scenario designer: scipio@warfarehq.com An I can assure you, the map is almost 100% flat OK, I took another shot taken halfway along the distance towards the building, you can see that the building is in a small valley, judging from the proportions I'd say approx 20cm lower than the terrain in front of it. 90%-95% of the building is still clearly visible but judging from the impact craters the tank seems to aim at the end point of the area target line (which seems to be at ground level !!), trying to shoot in a straigt line at it thereby hitting the street. But no tank commander would try to hit a building at zero elevation, he would aim at the middle of the building. That's were I think the bug is, the programmers simply forgot that guns and buildings have a height and instead the tanks are aiming at the base of the enemy gun/building and if there is just a small crest in the way they'll hit it instead of the target. So, this is a bug, please fix [ March 03, 2003, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: Industrializer ]

Ladies, this IS a bug OK, here is another proof: In a flat city map I ordered a PzIV G tank (green crew but happened with vets, too, this has nothing to do wit experience!) to AreaTarget a small light building at 288m distance. Here is the situation, pic2 shows that the map is indeed flat and no crest in the way. Now my tank was fireing for 2 mins at the target without scoring one hit! All shells fell way short but his MG was always hitting the building. After 2 mins and 10 fired shells the result was like this: All shells fell down infront of the building, some were even hitting the exact same spot as previous rounds! At 300m the gravity has no influence on the shells path and it'll leave the gun and fly in a straight line. A small building is approx. 3m high! There is _no_ way even a constript crew would miss more than one shot and absolutely no way that the shots would fall short! This IS a bug, period.

you can easily simulate tank trenches with lots of roadblocks. Just buy 50 at setup and you are able to build a formidable tank obstacle

Hmm, tricky. In the Situation above if I hover the mouse over the wall between the rubble and the building occupied by my men the move-line goes red, indicating I can't move from the building into the rubble. In my test scenario I surrounded a small grass spot by heavy buildings and replaced one HB with rubble. In this test scenario my infantry was able to cross through the building and the rubble to reach the center. Hmmm, why is it sometimes possible and sometimes not ? I don't want to check every wall before issuing my movement commands just to check wheter it is passable or not. :confused:

Aha! But in my experience the connection interior wall/rubble tile is[/] passable. Or, at least should be. Seen it happen often enough. OTOH, I've also seen what Industrializer encountered. </font>