sburke

LOL and it isn't hard to find worse on just the American side. I have been working on this Huertgen map and am figuring I don't even want to try and make a campaign with it as folks will say the same thing. Who in their right mind would push a regiment across a tiny hard to access bridge right into the midst of German defenses with no armor support facing parts of 4 German Divisions including a Panzer Division. :-P But they did and a lot of good men paid for it. At least in the campaigns in the game the attacker succeeded. I figure if I try to make this into a campaign I will get lynched. I think I'll stick with providing a map.

Agreed, respectful discourse goes both ways. Steve even responded to this thread with more detail on some of what they are trying to do with the UI that I think we should all appreciate.

Curious as well. The timing would fall under the Market Garden module, but not necessarily the building structures and terrain options.

Thanks, that does help. One other question, is that the facing the German units is coming from I expect not as I think that is impassable. Can you take shot of the facing direction towards the armor or even better a shot from the view of the tank?

Elmar I am not sure if I understand the above, but in short IMHO we are having this discussion because there is a group that seems to be more impacted by the AI behavior than others and they are fairly frustrated and vocal and impatient. The discussion isn't about whether the behavior needs to be changed, but how. This thread and many many comments all point to trying to go back to something else when that isn't an option on the table. Not being an AI programmer I have to rely on what BFC says is possible and what they want to do with the engine. So in the interests of keeping this on what BFC has actually said as opposed to us all just expressing how much we liked the behavior in another game I am going to extensively quote Steve's comments from the previous discusion. Please grant me some leeway here is much of this comes from a back and forth discussion of both the % of hits on the move and a discussion about trying to add commands to get the AI to present different behavior as well as alter the UI commands. I've bolded the comments specifically germaine to this thread. I hope this helps somewhat as I think we all need to go back and make sure we actually understand BFC's position as I think it is very frequently misstated. One thing I would ask is if folks on both sides would stop trying to say who is speaking for the majority opinion. I don't think any of us really know and I for one am willing to be patient. From everything BFC has said, they do view it as an issue they would like to address and are trying to come to grips with how. That for me is very respectable response.

I don't think Steve is disagreeing with anyone about wanting to correct the behavior. What he keeps pointing out, and no one seems to want to hear is he doesn't want to spend the effort on a (in his words) kludge fix that they used for CMx1 and try to apply that to CMx2. Their position is they want a real answer and will correct it as they develop it. The behavior that you feel looks easier on the eyes and more believable (assuming they could even apply the same logic in this engine) would require them to spend extra effort on something that they feel is not a good option and possibly create other issues for them as they try to come up with a better answer. They have limited resources and in that light I think the answer is valid. If they do figure it out and come up with a better solution I think we'd all be much happier. Any attempt to do anything else though will only slow down their ability to come up with that solution. That kludge fix could also impact other AI behavior and end up creating more of a mess than we started with. Soooooo we can either wait for them to find an answer and apply it (and we've only had the product since May), or we can continue this discussion which isn't going to get any attention from them as they have already clearly stated they will not apply what they consider to be a broken alternative. If we want to continue it, I don't think he will care as long as we maintain some level of civility. The other thread was shut down because of the behavior, not the subject.

oh damn, that hurt. Sick, but funny. Anybody here happen to watch Wilfred? If so, did ya see the episode on Pride?

Hey you aren't criticizng the Tankers guide to aggressive driving manual are you? Reminds me of a reference I heard at one point about German armor and movement that in summary said, drive fast. Going slow isn't going to improve your ability to fire and just keeps you out there as a target longer. Maybe all CMBN tank drivers have that as required reading. The gunners on the other hand....

Nice! Any small children around to hear you swearing at the top of your lungs? I have seen a lot of misses from that distance and am usually cursing my teams for opening up too soon and myself for not cutting their target arc shorter...and a bazooka round no less. Not even a respectable Shreck. That would be one of those tales that would show up in a history book as an anecdote about the effective range of the bazooka that we could all argue over endlessly.

Actually it isn't quite that simple. There are a lot of different ground terrain tile and tree qty types that can alter things by degree. Also how far into the woods itself can change things. For example in Bois de Baugin, if you stick infantry at the edge of the woods line they are spotted rather quickly. If you take them a little further in and into the hvy forest tiles, that changes dramatically. Am working on a map of a portion of the Huertgen and the number of possible options in creating forest terrain is pretty nuts and it all varies your concealment. If you have a copy of that turn a screenshot of the map at low level of the area of the incident and a screen shot of the game turn itself could do wonders to illustrate your point and remove a lot of the confusion.

Man you got that right! +20 W/O this forum, I'd likely be staring at the wall with a glazed look in my eyes muttering something about lines and dots.

Can we all just take it down a notch? We don't need to be just trashing one another in an already frustrating thread. Personally I haven't had that many issues, but I think that largely comes from the scenarios one plays and how you play them as to how evident behavioral issues are. My opponents and I spend a lot more time slowly reconning etc rather than charging assaults. Those however who play more wide open armor engagements may be having to face the compromises that have had to be included and I can see how they could be getting frustrated. My only suggestion for folks that are finding this frustrating and yet still want to play the game is look for some alternatives that limit the effect. I know that may be a sucky answer, but it can at least reduce some of the frustration temporarily while allowing things time to develop.

Thanks for all the hints and advice. I am going to continue with it and finish both this one and a larger scale one, but I suspect I won't really feel right until I do it again for the Bulge family. I am also taking the tools I am creating for this one to use to convert Screaming Eagles, TCS game of the 101st at Veghel. I just finished making a 4x4 map with 125 yard grid lines to facilitate transferring info to the map faster. The Veghel map as very little elevation changes, but I'll need the MG module to get the terrain right. Hopefully we will get Dikes and windmills.

I have to say I love em, but just doing screenshots can be a little time consuming. I can't imagine the effort to do many of these. I like the idea of being able to drop the UI though for grabbing shots. @ClarkWGriswold nice work.

Funny, that's what he said, right before his mother taught me that expression..hmm naaah that can't be right...

Not to intrude upon the learned discourse and deeply profound philosophical discussions of the denizens of The Cesspool (did I get that right?), but my best friend's mother when I was a wee sprite taught me to say "go pound sand up your a**" in Polish. She certainly didn't learn it in the mid west and would have cast a leary eye on me if I'd said salt. Okay I will leave now, I know you all have deep meaningful things to contemplate as you remove them from your navels.

Thanks, could you pass the paper towels so I can clean the coffee off my workspace?

LOL I read the couple posts already answering you. Just to speak for myself, I followed the directions on the thread from Sergei. It is very clear and has loads of good suggestions. I personally use Imgur. When you click on a pic in your gallery it has a link you can simply copy to post in the forum. I typically write want I want to post in notepad and copy the links where appropriate. I then paste all that into a reply and do a preview to make sure it looks as I desired. It actually is a pretty simple process when you get used to it and the next thing you know you are posting 17-20 pic threads Good luck and looking forward to seeing the story. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97288

I believe you are correct, I mis spoke. What I was thinking of was the discussion of actually not hearing sounds that from units you couldn't observe. My bad.

LOL yeah sound contacts are another issue, but I understand the reasoning for them not being in (now if only I couldn't hear fences being driven over no matter where it occurs on the map). In one of the posts of my last PBEM I had a Sherman teleport into within 20 meters of my infantry. At least that is how it appeared. Scotty beam this Sherman down to hill 146, aye aye cap'n! Considering they were in the middle of a firefight however I found it easier to accept. They were too busy surviving to listen for tanks especially in dense wooded terrain.

I think that is the point, what is the range that you are having issues with? At close range and flat trajectory, a hit may not be so unexpected.

I suspect he may not be aware of this. Much of what I have from him is not compiled into a brz, but simply kept as BMPs in folders. For example his Mod of the M4 mid has a variant, it is not done by incrementing, but rather appending Tonto on it.

That is most impressive, kind of scary too. I haven't even managed to do that successfully.... I suck. Friggin AI trying to make me look bad.

Well to be honest most of my battles have been primarily Infantry oriented, however I have successfully ambushed tanks multiple times. Under the screenshot thread I even had a recent one where a tank darn near ran over one of my troops in the open and I still got in first strike. I have also been on the receiving end from both my opponents in situations where I have tried to take the offensive (most of my PBEMs have had me as the defender). Not saying this is not happening as it is obviously driving you nuts, but my experience couldn't be more different. I have experienced none of those issues regarding map switching or saving pbems. I know that doesn't help you but it at least says there should be an answer, it may be just hard to isolate if it is a specific hardware or OS related issue. Regarding tanks missing, there is a video AAR that was just posted showing quite a bit of that. I have seen quite a bit of it myself, in fact if the shot is distant and the target is moving most first rounds have been misses in my games. I think Broadsword and Von Kleist can attest to the same for their side as well in our PBEMs. Honestly really sorry to hear that. If you have followed any of the stuff I have posted in the screenshot thread, you must think me a mindless lunatic, but my experience so far has been quite the opposite. The game engine and TAC AI has left me in awe and I have plenty of material to show for it - really I don't dream this stuff up. It isn't just better, it is better by far. * *note subjective opinion not to be confused with "facts".

Thanks, I'll be copying all these suggestions into a notepad to try to apply them. As to that last suggestion, great idea if for no other reason than it allows me to actually use what I had already done and have a reason to continue to work on. I have started slicing up the game map and I think I can create a map not too overly ridiculous that can handle Schmidt and KommerScheidt and include the Kall Trail. I will probably create a bigger map than necessary and then pare it down once I see what is really needed for the AO. I expect it may start out somewhere around 2x3, but will be to scale, not half scale. It's bit better than 2x4. Only reason I am shooting to include the trail is the issue of whether on not those tanks make it across can have such a huge impact. Gonna suck though for the US player if their tanks bog on that trail..... An alternative that might allow shrinking the playing area while still dealing with the bog issue is simply to put the tortuous climb up from the gorge on the Kommersheidt side. That could cut out upward of 1000 yards.