Bnej

Small games can't make it without good single player. You need something for people to play when there aren't heaps of people playing. Single player DT just isn't that great. The campaign has always felt a bit cobbled together. I bought the game primarily to get single player of what I felt was a great multiplayer game, and was really quite disappointed.

That is much improved, 76mm gun seems much more lethal, or is that just me? Much better feel of game than last release, hope to see more swish effects coming.

I want that OGRE game mode that was going to be in the game at some point.

Usually a realistic objective might be "take that hill", but the actual intent would be: "don't allow the enemy to shoot us from that hill, and make it so we can shoot at their positions from there". Or "take that bridge", would actually mean "make it so we can move vehicles safely across that bridge" - the area that "controls" the bridge would be somewhere else entirely. So, probably, you're having problems finding a solution to the wrong problem. The problem isn't "how should the scoring be?", it's "what should the objectives be?" and "how can you tell they are accomplished?" Now IMO, a bridge objective where you are aiming to cross should be determined by scoring the number of defenders who can fire on the bridge (Have LOS and weapons with range capability on that bridge - 20mm @ 2000m is worth less than 120mm @ 1200m). To secure the bridge, the attacker would have to reduce the enemy's ability to fire on units crossing the bridge by controlling overwatching positions, rather than occupying the bridge directly. Because, in modern warfare, sitting on an objective is nothing, it's all about who can shoot at what, where, how soon and how hard.

I notice suspension on vehicles has changed a bit too, they sway now instead of just flipping. But on a cosmetic point, the chassis should sway like that but the wheels shouldn't actually lean should they?

I think: - Remove mobile AAD totally. It's only necessary because of overpowered ATGMs. Make the Hermes EW only. Have an option to disable ALL vehicle sensors on a scenario (i.e, NO red blips at all!) - Remove Lock-on/top attack mode from ATGMs, make them Line of Sight direct fire only like a real wire guided missile. - Replace infantry Ion beam with a direct fire ATGM with short range to burn out (~800-1200m) - Assassinate the president of Chile. - Allow infantry to mount up on the Paladin chassis vehicles. Plus: - Make the AI use infantry please!

I like how effective AT grenades are close in. You can ambush vehicles and get them really fast. I think it looks silly to have the full drop ship. Have pods but make them extra vulnerable to AA defences. But no changes on jet packs. It'd just look better. Inf Ion beam sucks. Sorry but it does. The Ion tanks are already boring (fire for half an hour to get any effect) the infantry version is more so. They're just annoying from either end. Have some kind of anti-tank rifle specialist instead. Or a wire-guided missile with no "Lock on" capability. (but I've always thought the "lock on" ATGMs were BS, forced SACLOS guidance would be so much better) But what is needed most of all is the ability to set up the spawn lists. i.e, map with lots of infantry and wheeled vehicles only, or no ions, or no ATGMs, or none of whatever you don't like today... Or 30 hurricanes each side... omg craters...

I notice bots fire as soon as they have a target. For those with 20mm guns, this means they quickly run out of ammo without killing anything. Is it possible to change this such that they make an estimate of if they can harm the target, and hold fire unless they have a chance of doing damage?

Campaign still really not ready I think. Just played Treachery for the 3rd time, finished with 7 minutes spare, (didn't see victory notice, just saw "Team Hartford has reached the objective), tried to press esc then Quit... button, crash to desktop. v. Annoying.

Why not? The price won't change. If you spend the $45 now you'll get the same game as you'll get in the future, but you'll get to play it for longer before you die, = better value for money. There are bugs still, but no real game breakers, there's plenty of fun to be had.

I notice taking a Hurricane under water blows it up though.

Not to mention if the bots would actually go to the dropship when they need ammo.

I've never seen this. On "Treachery", I reached the dropships ~10 minutes to spare, the score went to 1000-something, dropped back to 0 in jumps of 250, went back to 1000 etc until the time ran out. Then the game crashed. I've never seen a "victory" message, even on the first level when I finished it.

Performs good. From what I've played of campaign, it's pretty rough around the edges. The victory conditions can be a real pain, though the gameplay is pretty good. The main problem for me at the moment is if you finish the conditions early, you still have to wait out the clock to finish the level. Standalone games are good fun though, but essentially what you play in multiplayer but vs AI only with no lag.

Got it on the third try. It's just a bit annoying. Esp. when you have all the objectives and there's no enemy left, but you still have 3 - 4 minutes left to run down on the timer. Look forward to the OGRE type of play though, that sounds cool.

Okay, campaign mission 2, Recon In Force. Destroyed 20 or so enemy vehicles, in a few waves, had 5 friendlys around the objective, no enemy left in sight on map. There was a smoke trail coming out of the ground, I think an enemy had clipped through the terrain. It had a red tag with a bot name when I aimed at the ground under the smoke. In any case, despite EASILY meeting the objective of the mission, it was still counted as a defeat. I've done this twice now.

Haven't been able to reproduce the bug again. Still find campaign missions annoying. You can utterly destroy the enemy and still have one or two stuck on the map somewhere, which prevents you from meeting victory conditions.

Yep. Been playing. Frame rates are a bit better than beta at least.

In single player, when you're out of stuff to drop, you get a funny blank when you choose drop on a bot. If you click drop on that window, the game crashes. BTW first mission is very annoying, after killing all enemy I still had to wait out the timer to finish the mission.

Modern tanks have bunches of smoke grenades, but not actual smoke rounds for the main gun. Both HE and Smoke ammo work better if they are fired at lower velocity, as the shell wall doesn't have to be so thick, so modern tank guns are not the best HE/Smoke throwers. The intention of the smoke launchers is to completely obscure the tank from the front and allow it to reverse out of danger. Artillery still uses smoke rounds, often with particles included to interfere with infrared vision devices.

Well, I just killed 6 Thors one after the other on the Raid map, then two and an Apollo the next try, it's really not hard. I wasn't doing it before because I didn't think it was possible, but now I know how to do it it's really easy. Even if it's a slugging match, you usually win, because unless they turn their hull to you immediately, they're toast by the time they take their second shot. There needs to be distinct levels of capability I think. Right now, on the Raid map, the 20mm Paladin rules all - the terrain allows it to rush or ambush all the way. The ice map has the ice patches to stop rushing, which gives the 120mm gun a range advantage, but otherwise the 20mm vehicle has the speed to dictate the fight and the close in lethality to win when it gets the first shot. I actually find with the game as it is that penetration is not a problem, it's accuracy & lethality that's making units more or less effective. All of the weapons penetrate all the vehicles, in the right conditions, so it comes down to the number of shots you need to win.

"Why assume a WW2 20mm has the same characteristics of a future-20mm weapon?" Because projectiles of certain size and mass tend to have similar characteristics? From the table posted above, it looks like they do follow a similar performance curve - CM:BB is 37% @ 1000m, DT is 36% at 1000m. Just the DT curve drops off later. The problem is that the base penetration is 300, and that's enough to beat most of the armour in the game, and secondly that the lethality is higher than any other KE weapon in the game due to the rate of fire. [ March 24, 2006, 08:50 PM: Message edited by: Bnej ]

Well I certainly have the impression that the 20mm is the best close in weapon. The 76mm is completely useless. I've killed several Thors with 20mm, just by driving up close and firing into the sides. The 20mm reloads much faster too, you can get about 10 bursts from the 20mm between 120mm shots. I don't think 20mm guns should be taking on tanks, otherwise what's the point of having the 76mm gun and ATGMs? They're more accurate I guess... It's a bit lame that the 120mm gun has only 60% or so more penetration than the 20mm, and the 76mm is hardly better at all!? Also, slope modifier shouldn't have a 50% limit on it, a narrow angle on side armour should protect you as well the front armour.

I was thinking, what about allowing ripple-fire for manually guided too? So if you use lock-on you have to lock each missile, but if you guide them manually, they all follow your crosshairs and you can change the aim point as they impact. I mean, if you look at the launcher graphic they're all in a block, so a big reload delay doesn't *really* make sense.

ahhhhhhh