McIvan

Having foxholes that are immediately visible post-setup is a huge immersion-buster, in that it is obviously intuitively wrong. Do you guys continue to mull over possibilities for an effective FOW for foxholes/trenches?

To me the solution would be to make area fire delay contingent on the presence of an enemy marker within a set distance of the area fire target. Because we have relative spotting, if the shooter is targeting an area where it personally never saw anything nor was it told about anything (cos otherwise it would have a "?" marker available to it) then it gets the delay, say 30 secs. Doesn't stop this sort of gameyness, just delays it a little. Likewise it can area fire at known or last known locations immediately. Edit: Agree with Orwell, except that I think banning area fire without a marker is a cure worse than the disease. Penalising it a bit for effect is the best you can do.

I don't think it would work, due to the limitations of the AI, with all due respect to the programmers. A realistic AI is, as far as I know, just too hard at the present state of technology. So your troops that went out of effective command would just be a source of frustration rather than fun. Each to his own though, you guys might love it. I don't think I would enjoy it much however. I like to be in command. I quite like Drusus' idea as a sort of half way fudge...although I'd put no delay if you are area firing in the vicinity of a question mark or a fortification as that's an obvious use for area fire. Slap a delay on for just area firing into the middle of nowhere/some random house....that could be reasonably effective.

If your crew would have a rough idea on their chances of hitting, then I don't see that the player shouldn't know. Re the chances of killing, you make an interesting point. I'm not terribly attached to kill chance in CMBB/CMAK and usually ignore it anyway. As you say the crew might not know that much about their chances.....how many times would the average tank crew have bounced rounds off any German tank, let alone all of the various types.

On a related note, seeing as you mentioned a new computer....Steve, I wonder if you lot have any idea whether CM Normandy will put a higher burden on the PC/graphics card than CMSF? It occurs that denser terrain in Normandy might well impose some more strain. On the other hand there might be less ordnance flying about than modern weapons can manage.

Great stuff.....very pleased to hear it So what you're pointing out is that hit probability depends on the motions of the target, which of course can and will change by the time the ordnance is fired and arrives, even if something as minor as turning the turret. But presumably the chance if your vehicle fired at that precise instant at the target's precise then position, inclination and speed could be calculated and displayed as a rough guide. Although I suppose even then flight time of the round would render the percentage moot. Would still be useful though.

Units in contact with each other do filter the info around already, that's kind of the point and is meant to abstractly simulate the actions you describe. The God element is the player area firing before their unit gets the nod from the spotter or otherwise spots the target themselves, just as you did with the LAV vs the BMP. Difficult to legislate against the God element and still have a game that's fun to play.

The answer to that, from reading this thread and observing CMSF, is definitely yes. Again, from reading the thread the answer is yes again. I'll leave that one for someone else. I'll add a plea for detailed hit reports.....even if nothing else, it makes it easy to see which of your tanks you should check out. It's easy, when playing realtime, to overlook clicking on whichever vehicle just took a hit to check for any damage when superficially it looks fine (but now has gun damage or no radio). "Front turret penetration. Loader killed, radio destroyed."

Feel free to elaborate; I'd like to hear about it.

Steiner14: I have no doubt that there will be Panthers....too many of those in the US sectors to be left out. Not so sure about King Tigers at all. German traitors?

The scenario that screenshot immediately evoked for me was Wittmans death from Fireflies in the woods at the sides. You can never have too many tidbits

I missed the CMBO period and a fair bit of the CMBB period, coming on board around the time CMAK was released. I don't mind people disagreeing with what I say. I find it odd when they disagree with things I didn't say. Anyway, that's enough of all that. Look forward to more details on CM Normandy.

I thought I just made a basic point that you basically agreed with. It wasn't actually a criticism.....or, at least, it wasn't intended to be. Extrapolating some criticism from that basic point and answering it is what I was referring to as defensive....and I can say that because I know what I meant. But maybe it didn't read that way. You can take this next point on board or not, as you please...and I'm not entirely sure why I'm bothering to write it....but sometimes an outsider who has only infrequently trawled these boards over the last year or two (because I'm primarily a WWII enthusiast) can see changes that people who visit every day don't.....like going back to your hometown after a decade, describing the changes to people and finding that the changes happened so gradually that they didn't really notice them. Anyways, back in the days when CMBB/AK were going great guns and everyone was more of less happy, you were a relatively happy chap, albeit with a tendency to pontificate . CMSF has been a somewhat more rocky road and you have had to deal with a barrage of criticism & disappointment, some constructive, some decidedly not. It should hardly be a surprise to you if your behaviour should change to take on some aspect of siege mentality...with a relatively thinner skin and a tendency to read criticism into people's words. Not that that is always wrong...just cos you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. But it does seem like it became a lot harder around here to voice a contrary opinion without getting jumped on as people reacted to not just the plain opinion but every possible negative connotation that could be drawn from the passage.......and vice versa, it has to be said, so maybe this is directed at a wider audience. (It's been like where you tell your wife/girlfriend something and it can be taken two ways...you meant the nice way, right? Good luck explaining THAT to HER.) With 1.10 and 1.11 proving to have mostly made people happier, you've become a trifle happier (in contrast, the people riling you around 1.1-1.6 got both barrels). Now I'm not saying that I'm on the receiving end of this tendency, because we've had a perfectly civil dialogue, but I think others have been, and not necessarily from you or just you, and along the way there has been way too much generalisation about customers...how they act, complain, don't know what is good for themselves etc. That's psychoanalysis 101 out of the way. The solution would be for everyone to lighten up a bit. Relax! We're not all out to get you. Most of us just want a good game, and it's fun to argue passionately about what does or doesn't make one. On the other hand, if I get responses back along the lines of "Who? Name them? Which thread?" so that my no doubt ill-conceived perceptions can be dissected in minute detail then I'll just withdraw my observations. I don't care enough to play that kind of verbal warfare. Mildly surprised I bothered to write this.....it was just some musing on defensiveness that set it off, and an awareness that the "intermittent outsider" perspective can often have some value. Make of it what you will. Funnily enough, one of the reasons I'm looking forward to giving CM: Normandy a try is that all the CMSF shennanigans have greatly reduced my expectations. I get the basic idea of what it will be like. As a result, I might well be pleasantly surprised by the non-CMSF features that get thrown in. Looking forward to it....and if you could personally organise this to happen just prior to, or coincidentally with, my next new PC purchase, that would be much appeciated

Thanks Eddie, I meant in Normandy, which I presumed to be the timeframe of the game. You do realise that Villiers Bocage did not involve US forces?

With the special MikeyD pseudo Tiger mod...

Ah no matter...I had a read and I see it's because Dan wanted to because Tigers are cool. As reasons go, that's about as non-contentious as they come Come on, let's have some more tidbits....and don't let that Moon fellow near the keyboard again. This is serious stuff!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

Did, er, Tigers actually operate against the US forces? This probably got covered ten pages ago and I'm about to get hammered for not using the search function.

It's also a truth that random elements like this, while they might be realistic, simply aren't any FUN from the point of view of a game.....and although it's borderline heresy to hardcore realists, there's a necessary balance.

Very good But, erm, what do we then use for.....trenches?

Steve, Stunned because it was out of left field in terms of warning....but it's not important. My major purpose in writing was to object to a caricatured generalisation of critics. Obviously every developer has to make some judgment calls because customers will never be unanimous in what they want, nor can they realistically be expected to understand the limitations of the engine and how the developer is planning to mesh the various elements together. Either those judgment calls work or they don't. My personal opinion is that some of the abstractions in CMx1 work better than the more explicit, but still abstracted, representations in CMx2. However, each to his own....and for the sake of balance I should mention that there are elements in CMx2 that work very elegantly, such as chained orders (once the pathing was, um, worked on). It's all been covered elsewhere. It's undoubtedly a good thing that units can now move into and out of bunkers. There's no need to be somewhat defensive about the issue; I expect you would like to incorporate more elements commonly used in Normandy than bunkers/ditches, and I assume there will be some. It would be desirable if trenches could be concealed, but I can understand that if the game engine has its limitations in that regard there's not too much to be done about it without a major concept change in the visuals.

You are pretending that every single CMx1 player demanded every single one of these "features", which is just silly. In particular, I certainly don't remember any groundswell at all for realtime. What I do recall is people being rather stunned, and hoping in a somewhat worried tone that WEGO would in fact still be bolted on....somehow. Secondly, just because someone implements a concept, doesn't mean they implemented it in a manner incapable of improvement or impervious to criticism. Whether it gets constructive criticism or not is another question. Thirdly, while the developers giveth, the developers have also taken away.....for example trenches that now give only poor cover and (unrealistically) cannot ever be concealed no matter what terrain they are in. Harder to use and benefit from cover. Lack of fortifications (hopefully this will be addressed in CMx2 Normandy). Any game can benefit from comparisons of strengths and weaknesses versus a predecessor. Nothing is gained by silly straw-man stone-chucking. I'm looking forward to giving the Normandy demo a try.

It's more like 10% or 20% chance (or whatever) PER UNIT that they disappear. So, with a very small force pick, some bad luck can chew a huge hole in your points.

Forty metres, not thirty. Maybe thirty nine. But the closer you are, the more likely they will close assault. Morale state plays a big part.

Oh dear

I suspect he was on hunt orders, that will give the same result. Fast will usually get you where you want to go. BTW the Russian "tank cower" will sometimes result in fast orders straight ahead being given rather than reverse...eg if you are on top of a hill, sometimes you will get orders to go full speed ahead.