GreenAsJade

So ... doesn't this give you strife if you're wanting to wait till your oppos AFVs are found, and your AFV spots inf in the distance? GaJ

You're right Vanir. We do need the TacAI to handle this in a way that will deal with most situations well. You've identified two situations that as players we need to have work properly: - AFVs can be told to hold fire unless fired upon by canon fire. - Inf can set ambushes that are not subject to recon by fire. What about the OP's case? If a target goes into the covered arc, should it be permanently acquired, even if it leaves again? I think it should. If I say "don't fire unless some bastard comes into this arc" I don't mean "if he goes back out again, don't consider him anymore". I mean once he comes in, do what it takes to kill him. What others? What gotcha scenarios are there that imply the exact opposite behaviour to these ones? GaJ

Nah, the point is also to prevent firing on an insignificant or out of range target for an AFV also. IMHO a target becomes significant when it starts firing on the AFV, especially if it has the capability to damage the AFV. I think that the OP has identified a real area of concern. I don't think saying "brain dead AI" serves any point, other than to get Steve into the thread defending the product instead of discussing the issue, which doesn't help anyone. Clearly the AI is not brain-dead, but the usefulness of covered arcs, their intended purposes, and the remaining difficulties that players have as a result could definitely do with some exploration and explanation. Probably this thread will go on arguing about it, but IMHO now that the main area of problem - how to control what AFVs will and will not fire on and when - has been identified., and players have said "this is a problem, we'd like better control here", this is one of those situations Steve identified: he said "don't tell us what the solution is, that's what we're good at. Tell us what the problem is". So here it is: the problem is that we need to be able to rely on AFVs opening fire on other AFVs when clearly they need to do so, yet be able to have them hold fire in strategic situations. It'd be great to hear BFC's thoughts/plans on this... GaJ

No no! The point of a CA is to stop units firing at _spotted_ units outside the CA. It is really hard to imagine how its not going to be ongoing frustration if units don't return fire. This might make sense for inf covered arcs, but for AFVs, it seems like it will always be a disaster, and the opposite of what you would want. If a tank comes under fire from another tank, it needs to return fire, arc or not. That's how it is in CMx1 GaJ

It's quite black and white when a unit should ignore a covered arc: it's when it comes under fire. The compaints about bazookas ignoring covered arc where not "under fire" situtaions. It used to be the case that bazookas would ignore covered arcs for no good reason at all. Thats completely different to a unit coming under fire: in this case, the unit should "drop" the covered arc and return fire. GaJ

I didn't know that: I thought that coming under fire effectively cancelled the arc. Its really ... um, how to say it without being hysterical .... it strikes me as a Bad Thing if units really do not return fire from outside a covered arc. GaJ

It's actually quite straightforwards what's going on during 29%: it's loading all those huge files in Data. You will notice that as you add mods, you get less time on 29%, and some other stops: for me right now it's 36% and 92%: these are I presume where it hits the new big mod files. GaJ

One thing I've learned is that you have to play with a feature at least 10 games or so before you have the first clue whether it will be good or not. That of course makes it hard for the guys who have to code it just to try it out and find out it's really not that great, if that happens. So I don't know whether delays coming back or not would be good. I thought it was a bad idea taking them out, but OTOH, I'm not sure if delays *as such* is what we're missing. What we're missing is a concrete and realistic feeling of units that are out of C&C. Note that the real impact of being out of C&C is not being "slow to react". For example, if a unit out of C&C sees a tank emerge from around a building it is not slow to hide or shoot it's faust or whatever. These are tactics decisions taken by the leader in command. The real impact of being out of C&C is not responding to wider considerations well. "Out of C&C units don't know what else is going on". This is represented well in the current system in that when you click on a unit you get an idea across the board of what they are and are not aware of. Having said all this: we can see why delays could well be the right answer, as would limiting orders that could only come from broader knowledge. Delay from the _players_ order to the unit could well be an adequate representation of the fact that this unit is not finding out what the player knows. Similarly, a covered arc might be set with the knowledge that a higher leader has: that the enemy is "just around the corner", so a local leader out of C&C can't give that kind of order: they just don't know. Anyhow, this is thinking-out-loud typing. Suffice to say the player experience at the moment is one where the impact of poor C&C is slightly intangible, and I agree it might be good to boost it somehow. With care. The last thing we want is a swing of a pendulum to a "totally out of control" feeling. That would definitely be worse. GaJ

Plus have you read the threads about rifle penetration of buildings? Go read them, look at the movies they point to. I wouldn't stay in a building either... GaJ

You seem to be assuming that "within command radius" is a simple yes/no answer. What the heck is a "command radius" on the battlefield? I never say a real soldier with a command radius. What is real is a complex network of information flowing to units. This is now modelled more realstically. Spend some time getting used to it. Take a look at what each unit can see and importantly what it knows - which enemy contacts it is aware of and how old they are. You will start to see that the C&C system makes sense, and realise that "yes/no" "in command/not in command" is a simplistic thing best left behind. And you might stop trying to operate your soldiers at 89 metres from their CO because at 90 metres they will be out of C&C... GaJ

Because they are too weak minded to form their own opinion? Because they have low self esteem and want to have their opinion validated? Somefink like that. GaJ

(note, we're not hacking CMBN, we're just renaming files!) GaJ

It might be able to be done, but I'm not sure it will solve anything. You might not be able to see the ground at a target action spot, yet be able to see a tank when it is parked there. What do you want the tool to tell you? Will you be OK with it when you find out that you can see a tank when it told you there was no LOS to that spot? GaJ

Here you see the two games that I have yet to play at the top of the list, above the other games... those games where I'm waiting for a turn are marked with a "~" Real soon now... GaJ

Dat's da one (BTW, Ranger, in the mean time we've implemented a trick whereby you get the games that you have to play a turn on at the top of your list in the "saved game" menu, leaving games that you actually have already played that turn below them ... thanks to Texas-Mac-Genius-Toast. You'll see that in 2.0.0 Alpha any day now). GaJ

Great hear from you. I've PMed a few of you Not actually you Phil: might have been before I was aware of you Was quite some time ago now. There have also been threads on this topic. Here are the two things on my mind: if you guys can cover them, it'd be awesome: - Can you let is know that you'll let us know if you'll be changing how H2H (aka PBEM) file saving or mechanism works. That would set my mind at rest about investing effort in H2HH - Can you support a command line option (or indeed any way that suits you best) to start up CMBN and go straight to a saved game. Just one example of how it might work would be CMBN.exe \g GajVPhil001.ema \p a_secret_password But anything to allow this to happen: a file that is put in place, a CORBA API... you name it, we'll use it to fix the one big remaining "irritant" while playing CMBN: the need to select the game and type in the password every time. Thanks heaps for your response! GaJ

IMHO, it's actually a good thing that it's separate from the CM product itself. This separation allows more people to work on creating cool stuff: if it were part of the product, the BFC team would have to spend their precious coding time worrying about how to connect to gmail instead of how to make tanks behave nicely. No-one else could help. If it were part of the product, you couldn't request a new H2HH feature and have it the next day, because artillery spotting or tank behaviour clearly must come first for the BFC team. What's missing at the moment is any support from BFC. This makes the whole community add on thing much more risky and less "cool". It's less "cool" because with some support from BFC that add-on could do what it really should do: one example is be able to start the game for you. It's risky, because BFC with a new release may change how the whole CM product works, without any prior "warning". We could wake up tomorrow with CMBN 1.02 released and a new mechanism for PBEM in place that puts all the work so far up for a re-do. I have to say I don't really understand why this small level of support from BFC isn't possible, but to date it seems not: BFC don't even reply to my messages on the topic. So we work with what we have. GaJ

In case it wasn't clear, there is one: http://combatmission.wikia.com/wiki/Combat_Mission_Wiki GaJ

I guess the clip is showing how tough a Stu is! Poor guys inside: just when they decided it was time to get out of there, they took a wheel hit! And it's showing some wonderful realism: shots rebounding as molten metal and landing "poof" in the nearby field: awesome. And it's showcasing the fantastic sounds that accompany! GaJ

To be fair, we have at least one person claiming to be a tanker and sharing his experience that you can't hit squat on the move. Of course, we didn't follow up his creds But if he says then I believe him, I guess. So it's not "no-one can tell us" That said, I totally agree: play and enjoy. It is what it is. There were some rather broken things at the beginning, there's still one that I know of (dead FO team member) but other than that there's nothing debilitating. GaJ

Usually the something that is a threat is only spotted when it fires upon the Hunting unit. As soon as the hunting unit is fired upon, from outside it's covered arc, it forgets about the arc, stops moving, and returns fire (right??). I agree it would be good PR for us to hear about the thinking process behind today's Hunt vs yesterday's. I haven't yet experienced the problem you're describing (of tiresome advance). Doesn't mean it's not there, I just haven't experienced it. Any time I come to a stop under Covered-arc+Hunt, I've been fairly glad to be stopped... GaJ

I enjoyed the realism of this... especially the audio actually ...

What is so wrong with the current CMBN Hunt? How often, really, do you encounter the enemy and then want the unit to move on without your interdiction? Sure, it happens. But it's hardly every turn... GaJ

You're starting the hysterics again that closed the previous thead. "Dismayed". Sure it would be nice if tanks on Hunt would start moving again if the threat goes away. But for 30s the TC says "hold on boys....waiiit for it.... OK all clear, lets roll". Seems like a workable workaround, which is what was being asked for. GaJ