dan/california

I was always going to pre-order this module, but now I am dying to actually get my hands on it. Any word on trigger/condition based plans for the AI? As badly as I hate the thought of George Mc's scenarios making me look even more like an idiot, they really would help.

Now I know why some of those Syrian buildings are so hard to knock down, they have 100 ft plus deep foundations. The FAC must have misidentified the target as Assad's bunker

I'll buy whatever they are turning out. BF has the best customer support in the world, period. I just wish they would hire some overseas support for the grunt level coding, but I realize that is a lot easier and cheaper to say than it is to do. While we are talking about long term questions how long will it be before the engine takes advantage of multiple core processors in a major way? I am considering a new computer and wouldn't mind knowing whether to go with two cores or four.

That light bulb blowing up over my head didn't hurt at all. Maybe they will have time to sort out the manual for the Marine module.

If they are going to model additional arty rounds that are appropriate this scale the best thing would be Excalibur. A ten meter error radius with the first round is exactly what you want close to friendly troops. And it won't melt video cards the way modeling smoke would. It is after all specifically and expensive designed to avoid all the problems with DPICM discussed above. Is the army still using single fuse DPICM or have the switched to the dual fuse models? My understanding is that their dud rate is much lower.

Actually the right density of trees around a building are currently the most effective form of fortification in the game. They can soak up virtually any quantity of 25mm fire and a lot more main gun rounds than I want to spend. I have seen this strongly in the process of getting my head handed to me in Hammertime. The building seems to absorb the fragments and mitigate the air burst effect.

The only disadvantage I see for tusk on the M1 is a slightly higher profile. Given the fits that the Israelis had with Hezbollah ATGMs I would think they would want the reactive armor regardless of weight. It will break most bridges as is, so what is the disadvantage? The other vehicles mentioned the additional weight is a far higher percentage of their original design weight and I completely agree that the drive train maintenance issues are significant.

Steve has stated that some ability for the AI to respond to conditions on the ground is a fairly high priority for future development. Even basic instructions like " Attack when X number of enemy units reach zone Y" would make a huge difference.

The only real solution is multiple players per side who then have to communicate what building they want obliterated to their compatriot in charge of the tank platoon. With very small tweaks to the relative spotting system as currently implemented this will provide more realism than most people can stand. The AARs should be fascinating reading. As in train wreck fascinating. I can't wait. :eek:

The reds had an ATGM team on a roof in Hammertime v1005 and I wanted it to go away. I had Three Bradleys shooting at the roof, some targeting the actual ATGM team and some on area fire and it would not die. I literally spent a 100 rounds of 25mm trying to blitz these guys and then had to use 120mm. I recall Steve saying something about tweaking the roof protective values being adjusted for small arms, but I also recall hims saying that Bradleys should turn a building into swiss cheese. I am just curious if anyone else has seen this. [ April 17, 2008, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: dan/california ]

I finally got to play some 1.08 this weekend and I think the game is truly maturing. However, I noticed that couple of scenarios that used to be very difficult have become much easier. "Housecleaning" was kicking my rear end the last time I tired to play it a couple of weeks ago, and I just ran thru it with about 3 casualties( as blue on real time, elite). A lot of bad guys are now showing up as routed. This not necessarily a bug, in fact it makes sense. However it means a lot off scenarios may need to be rebalanced. Some this is also do to better TAC AI which means that less of my guys get shot doing things that truly make no sense, but it still affects the game balance.

I finally got to play some 1.08 this weekend and I think the game is truly maturing. However, I noticed that couple of scenarios that used to be very difficult have become much easier. "Housecleaning" was kicking my rear end the last time I tired to play it a couple of weeks ago, and I just ran thru it with about 3 casualties( as blue on real time, elite). A lot of bad guys are now showing up as routed. This not necessarily a bug, in fact it makes sense. However it means a lot off scenarios may need to be rebalanced. Some this is also do to better TAC AI which means that less of my guys get shot doing things that truly make no sense, but it still affects the game balance.

I finally got to play some 1.08 this weekend and I think the game is truly maturing. However, I noticed that couple of scenarios that used to be very difficult have become much easier. "Housecleaning" was kicking my rear end the last time I tired to play it a couple of weeks ago, and I just ran thru it with about 3 casualties( as blue on real time, elite). A lot of bad guys are now showing up as routed. This not necessarily a bug, in fact it makes sense. However it means a lot off scenarios may need to be rebalanced. Some this is also do to better TAC AI which means that less of my guys get shot doing things that truly make no sense, but it still affects the game balance.

The single biggest thing that doesn't require cloning Charles to get done is event based triggers in the AI programming. This would ad a fantastic amount of depth to the whole game. Steve has brought it up before but I have no clue where it is at on the list.

I am guessing on this, but I think that two of the issues with arty smoke are the frame rate slowing to .2 frames per second, and the second is that there is a lot of disagreement on the extent to which it is a vicious form of tear gas/incendiary and the extent to which that should be modeled. There was an "eloquent" quote from an artillery officer in Fallujah during the big assault there about using WP smoke to "encourage" insurgents to leave covered positions followed by VT and cluster munitions to finish ruining there day. There are several post above about how the game currently ignores this effect with vehicle smoke grenades. My question then is if the effects of the WP were modeled would be gamey or good tactics to lay vehicle smoke right on the enemy trenches. How long would a follow on infantry assault have to wait to avoid being effected? Would gas masks help? Would this amount to admitting to a violation of the Geneva conventions? Would anyone care?

I am guessing on this, but I think that two of the issues with arty smoke are the frame rate slowing to .2 frames per second, and the second is that there is a lot of disagreement on the extent to which it is a vicious form of tear gas/incendiary and the extent to which that should be modeled. There was an "eloquent" quote from an artillery officer in Fallujah during the big assault there about using WP smoke to "encourage" insurgents to leave covered positions followed by VT and cluster munitions to finish ruining there day. There are several post above about how the game currently ignores this effect with vehicle smoke grenades. My question then is if the effects of the WP were modeled would be gamey or good tactics to lay vehicle smoke right on the enemy trenches. How long would a follow on infantry assault have to wait to avoid being effected? Would gas masks help? Would this amount to admitting to a violation of the Geneva conventions? Would anyone care?

I am guessing on this, but I think that two of the issues with arty smoke are the frame rate slowing to .2 frames per second, and the second is that there is a lot of disagreement on the extent to which it is a vicious form of tear gas/incendiary and the extent to which that should be modeled. There was an "eloquent" quote from an artillery officer in Fallujah during the big assault there about using WP smoke to "encourage" insurgents to leave covered positions followed by VT and cluster munitions to finish ruining there day. There are several post above about how the game currently ignores this effect with vehicle smoke grenades. My question then is if the effects of the WP were modeled would be gamey or good tactics to lay vehicle smoke right on the enemy trenches. How long would a follow on infantry assault have to wait to avoid being effected? Would gas masks help? Would this amount to admitting to a violation of the Geneva conventions? Would anyone care?

Is there a ay to make them kneel?

If they could just use the breach animation when they are coming through a regular door or a hole that got made some other way, it would almost work come to think of it. [ March 29, 2008, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: dan/california ]

I would argue that building entry is a much bigger problem in 1.07. Cornering is usually doable with careful waypoints. No amount of waypoint tweaking gets them to kick down doors and toss grenades thru windows the way it is actually done. Having said that I would consider both of these and some work on how to arrange troops on the military crest of a hill to be good uses of Charles time.

This strike me as something that Charles could fix when he finds the time.

This needs to be its own thing. A special movement or combat command that says do the obvious drill to enter a probably hostile building. I would actually argue for two separate versions. One for when the building might be hostile, and one where you KNOW that it is. In the later case grenades and such would be included automatically. I think this would fix the single worst problem that is left. I also want UAVs and artillery delivered smoke badly but those are more along the lines of additional features than bug fixes. On a completely unrelated note, if the game is accurately modeling the difference in effectiveness between a Bradley 25mm and a 50cal then someone needs to be demoted to foot patrol in Basra for picking the 50 call for Strykers. The difference when engaging things like armed pickup trucks is just amazing.

BootCamp has been flawless for me.

it may or may not be gamey, but it possible to use a line of strikers to throw a screen of smoke almost all the way across the map. I have done this very effectively once or twice. Not to move the troops thru it but to screen them from a great many Syrians as they moved parallel to the line of smoke.