Dark_au

fine... you make the scenario's then

sounds very un-balancing to me

the mask has to be a .png

Ok I'm going to take another swing at itterating a problem I can foresee... This is REALLY Important. Firstly, I've read back through this thread several times and see a couple of people thought I was bieng insulting. If I insulted you I apologise, but it was not my intention. Believe me I'm not that subtle, if I was going to be insulting I would just do so. Maybe part of the problem is I'm intelligent and passionate and maybe its just because i've never been particularily good at writing things down. My brain tends to be 10x faster than my hands. I think if you'd have sat in a room with me and had this conversation you may have formed a very different impression of the situation. The only 2 parts that I can see which may have been taken out of context are the chess comment and the einstein comment. I'll deal with the latter first. What I was trying to say was that I felt the conversation was going down the "but why" path. I'm sure most have tried to expalin a concept to a child and for every answer you give the next question is "but why". That does not mean I think I'm einstein and you are all children but eventually the answer would become "just because OK". Chess and checkers:- If you take the 2 best players of checkers and sit them down to play. If each player always takes the best move then white always wins. It is a finite solution. You could replace one of the players with a computer and the result is the same. It is an enevitable outcome. Chess is (almost) infinately complex. If you took the 2 best chess players in the world and put them down to play they could play a 1000 games with different outcomes. You may see similarities but the complexity is always a factor. Chess is as much about reading the opponent as it is moving the pieces. It is a contest of will, personality and awareness. You can use subtleties like feints and the concepts of mobile warfare. Modern Mobile warfare makes chess look like checkers. Ok so on to the problem I see. Military history is about hindsight. You can draw an analogy from the tank back to the war-elephant(with a few breaks where technology or the concept of war meant there is not an analogy ). To both the first post in this thread would be true. I could take one of hanibals battles and with only a few changes to allow for the changes in technology convert it to a sound tactical challenge for a modern battle scenario. I can do so because I can join the dots back from now to then and see the relationships and have the history to understand the changes. If you were to take hanibals most competent tactical general and ask him to design a tactically sound scenario for a modern era without access to the knowledge of the intevening evolution he would be unable to do so. Given a year or 2 to read books of the historically significant changes and how they effect the strategic concept of the battle field and he would be every bit as good as Stormin norman. And here in lies the problem i have been trying to convey. As a scenario designer for DT I am hanibals general. The concensus is that the battle field has changed from the one i understand but the historical knowledge of the evolution to that point doesn't exist.

if there were say a 5 minute AAR time for chat then maybe you could have a "vote to save replay" option.

depends on what will not get done to implement it. Persoanally I'd prefer some better tools for coordinating tactics like graphics on the map etc. Replay later is not as much interest to me as just a graphics image for an AAR which appears at the missions end.

no offence but I don't see the use. If you are in outside view then you can see where the turret is and if you are looking through the sights then surely you are already looking where the gun is pointing.

what about as an alternative unit a command squad. Something with similar abilities to the Mercury but in an infantry guise.

Cool, In the hammers slammers books tanks are equipt with a strip of defencive "claymores" around the hull. If they are active then anthing that gets within a cirtain range activates them. Things like infantry popping up etc. Its computer controlled so it doesn't just blast bushes etc. Its lethat at 5m and dangerous further.

or give tanks defence strips ala Hammers Slammers

Just tried blender..... YEURK... I went from anim8or to 3ds max.. I thought 3ds max was a pig until I tried blender... How did anyone manage to make anything in this. I can't even find the line, extrude or lathe tools. Maybe it would be good to start modelling in Anim8or and then import the 3ds it can outpit into blender. Anim8ors interface is intuitive for anyone like myself who ever did technical drawing. I will point out though that its UVW tools are pretty much non existant. All it can do is UV cylindrical mapping.

To me thats not good news. The bots are already hard enough to keep alive, especially with people back stabbing them with Herpes. All this will do is make bot tanks victims to infantry 100% of the time.

you can do something similar with Paintshop pro using Gausian monochrome noise and gausian blur to create patterns. I would think your photo shop would do it too. If you want something specific that you can describe I can probably generate some for you.

i think the question was regarding the coloured texture map not the heightmap Tanki

web page in that thread you will find a link to a tile generator

How about this to add an eery alien feel and to add more to the off world atmosphere:- Atmospheric constituents and ambient atmosphere colour. I'm not sure how "doable" the first one is but it would be an interesting twist. I imagine things like. AtmosphereBurn:- to portray things like odd methane oxygen mixes(unlikely i know cos the first bit of static and its Alderaan). Or high oxygen contents which make the effect of burn higher(and create a bigger muzzle flash when you fire). AtmosphereCorosive:- To allow for highly corrosive atmospheres which will amplify the effects of physical damage. AtmosphereStatic:- Thunder storms and the like, wierd magnetic fields that stop scanners working. For the colours it could be something like the fog but with like a saturation value to effect its opacity.

Konstantine, i don't think its too early. if the community is going to grow its easier to change when its small. If new players get ingrained to styles of play which will effect any long term playability then the battle is lost.

Konstantine, heavy foliage though disirable might be more problems that is worth. It ups the collision detection calculations if you are going to include them. It would add massively to the LOS and AI spotting routines or it would only effect humans and bots would shoot you through it.

Will it be possible to have an inventory for drops and a seperate inventory for reinforcement zones. This way you could portray High G worlds where tanks are too heavy to drop deploy.

Clay have you considered that as the mask is a png it could have an alpha channel which would add another layer of detail / options. This could be used purely for roads even.

I'm sorry... what part of my posts have been insulting, especially to Clay, What is questioning someones argument position insulting?. Point out whining. I think you are putting your own conclusions on it. As far as I was concernerd I'd tried to start a discussion which had turned purile because people were arguing the toss.

Cool, what I was implying was that other people hadn't read the overview or if they had they concentrated on the Space viking line instead of the tactical armored warfare parts. This was refering to people who will argue the toss about the first post in this thread, or about the role of a tank. I played the demo with a group of guys from SB, we played it as a fun tactical armored warfare game as we understood it and enjoyed it. The standard method of play in the servers cannot be described in this manner.

ahhhh good old Shotmagnets crew. Tell him your wife makes Pinata suits for an instant promotion.

Looks good hub. I'll play it with you. If you can host I'll have a try with you anytime. BTW are you the same Hub who plays SB?.

OK let me try an explain how I've seen that mission beaten. It was a low count human game so both sides have mainly bots. The attacking sides player set all of his sides bots off to be a pain trying to capure the AAD. this so far is a fairly sound concept. The player then dropped a hermes at the map edge. Got down into the gulch and sat under the bridge. Scoring points even though the majority of the defenders are still also present in the zone. At the end of 30 minutes you're saying that because someone sat 1 vehicle under a bridge without clearing the defence that the attacker can cross his trucks with impunity. Have I missed something is this the spirit with which the game was intended?. Still the basic problem remains is that if people aren't willing to accept any parts of current tactical consideration "because the game is sci-fi". If they are no contemporary or historical analogies which scenario designers can rely on then how can we come up with anything. Thats like expecting someone to just come up with a perpetual motion engine. Anyway I said I admit defeat you are all right, I am wrong. I should have paid more attention to the overview and the line that mentions space vikings. Instead of reading the numerous comments on Tactical Armored warfare and looking at the pictures of tanks. If vikings are the historical analogy then all the scenarios will be based on one tactical concept. Run up the hill screaming with a mad look on your face, Stark naked, With an axe in one hand and your erect penis in the other.