ramagel

My chaps had this Stug in LOS for a whole turn (I had 'targetted' them to it the turn before seeing that it would move into LOS/LOF). They sat and watched it for a while and then let it reverse to just beyond throwing range, at which time it lobbed 2 HE shells in their general direction. (It later got flamed, serve it bloody right). How SHOULD I have dealt with this beast? Oh, I have asked about this elsewhere, but there it's the nature of the grass mod that's exciting interest! [ November 22, 2006, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: ramagel ]

Toast!

Ta. I think there was an issue with directX (since the install program 'ran', which it wouldn't if all was OK, but it made no difference to the visuals! Am I expcting too much? Could someone maybe describe the difference between e.g. partial and extreme weather visuals? (I have a couple of low-spec PCs hanging around, maybe I'll load CM up on them and see what they look like ....I'll have to check the lowest specs CM will run on!)

Thanks for the pointer: I'll start there. No, I'm not using anything else as a reference, only the absence of any (visible) change moving from partial through to extreme weather effects. What I'm expecting (correctly I hope!) is that at some point, in a scenario with dense fog restricting LOS to 80m say, is that I will have a similarly restricted view at say level 1 when selecting a unit. I hope that's the kind of thing that would happen, if not I think I'll just stay where I am with a kind of 'atmospheric' effect, but no real impact on what I can actually see .....

That's an interesting suggestion, go back rather than forward! I'll do that! I know from experience with one or two games that they need earlier drivers - I should have thought of that. Would you have any idea sort of about where to start? In the 40's? 30's? Anyway, many thanks for a quick and informative response .....

I had a problem with this card where enabling *any* weather effects would give a 'grey screen' where the battlefield is. Text labels would show through, but no other graphics. I seem to have *partly* solved this problem by using "Riva Tuner" to “Enable Fog Table Emulation” on the ‘Compatibility’ tab of the ‘Direct 3d tweaks’ icon from the ‘Customise Driver settings flyout of the Main tab. (Phew!!) At least I can now get what I think are ‘partial’ weather and fog effects, but no increment through ‘full’ to ‘extreme’. I find it difficult sometimes to see more and better than what and how my troops can see, so I’d really like to be in a position to ‘turn up’ the weather effects to replicate actual visibility. I’ve searched the forum (which is how I found out about fog table emulation) but can’t seem to get any further. Drivers and bios are up-to-date (93.71 drivers) Any tips for detailed tweaking would be appreciated.

Nice one, Sergei - huge swathes of fields and woods are a PITA sometimes.

And, Manteufel, the outcome was ........?

Not only faster d/l (which is sort of important) but MUCH more responsive to searches etc ...... that's a big bonus in my book.

If you know VB I wouldn't have thought it was that difficult - "just" change the mouse click co-ordinates, test, retest, test again, test some more, change the screen res and start testing all over again. OTOH assess how long you spend actually looking at the start-up screens, how much pleasure they give you; how much easier it is to play many games at the same time using PBEMH and how much "better" fast+trusted mode is. Then make the right decision for you.

Don't some modded startup screens have buttons in different (relative) locations? Doesn’t the vbs script essentially create a mouse click in a specific location? These symptoms (especially the first) indicate to me that a mouse click is made in the 'wrong' location. Perhaps some 'non CM standard' screen resolution is the problem - à la widescreen issue described elsewhere ......

The dl'd version works fine for me (I assume you dl'd it from Battlefront?). Have you maybe modded the start-up screens already?

I read that too: I beleived it until I got shot over the crest of a hill when the LOS told me clearly I could NOT see the foxhole due to that hill crest. If the crest is between me and the foxhole, then it's between the foxhole and me (not like you being hidden in a foxhole and my not being able to see you, but you being able to see me). Since then my gameplay has become a lot less fun as I just 'wing it' rather than taking trouble to be precise with my positioning. Dissapointing.

I must disagree. If you have once managed to read the data then this almost certainly a damaged/dirty CD, and CRC problems in my experience are always an indicator of a damaged disk (yes, sometimes of a faulty write, but normally that’s only with ‘home burned stuff on crappy disks). It is MOST annoying, but easily cured unless the damage is substantial. Clean the CD. How? Carefully! Use google! But seriously: begin by using the same method you would use to clean spectacles (esp. the new plastic lenses, with or without 'hardcoat'. Clean around the disk not radially across (ie in circles, not straight lines). Use newspaper even (the oils in the inks help clean spectacles - and windows btw - to a gleaming finish - at least British newspapers do). If a gentle clean/polish doesn’t cure the problem – check the disk for obvious signs – gunk/scratches etc. One of the best ways to remove gunk (and that annoying sticky residue from labels and suchlike) is oil – simple vegetable oil/olive oil: smear it on the gunky/sticky bit and leave overnight. Gently wash off with slightly soapy water. If you have a visible scratch. You can try to polish it more aggressively (still using a soft cloth/newspaper – nothing abrasive) back and forth but still around (what’s the word I’m looking for?) not across - until the disk does become readable – it can work. If that doesn’t work then you might have to move up the abrasive sale- I’ve no idea what might be available to you – start with talc. Then use your imagination - you’ll have nothing to lose. Finally, bear in mind that you’ve bought a licence to use the product – ask the supplier to provide you with what you’ve paid for – they are responsible for the durability of the medium, since they have not sold you the medium itself, merely the right to access a certain arrangement of bits and bytes on a medium of their choosing. I’d expect to have to pay a maximum of £10/$15 to get a replacement disk. If you're in the US forget that: I don't think American consumers have any rights, do they? [ November 03, 2006, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: ramagel ]

Onomatopoeia not being a strong point of Finnish then ........ 

Well, now to answer my own question: "It doesn't, unless the file is a .pbm". The 'problem' such as it was stemmed from installing PBEMH with the CDV versions of AK and BB. PBEMH didn’t find the games, and therefore didn’t create game-specific subfolders of the 'additional working directory' into which one must manually drop .txt or .zip files. Not having these subfolders after I manually configured BB and AK, I just assumed you could drop the files into the ‘additional working directory’ itself, and that is not the case. What I was seeing was PBEMH randomly getting the game right in some cases and wrong in others! Something Sergei said, and a kind email from deiseltaylor followed by a reinstall of PBEMH now I am running the ‘pukka’ versions of BB and AK which did create the necessary subfolders, gave me the final clue to answering the question in the negative! (Of course, in theory it could be possible for PBEMH to automatically process files once the user had ‘told it’ which game they were to be played in, but that’s the functionality of .pbm files, I guess). Sorry to have troubled anyone with what was my problem .....

Similar command malfunctions allowed me to more clearly understand what the Americans mean by 'clusterf*ck'. I try to avoid them these days ...

Thanks for that: they are fragile - but what about the 'direction of travel' to make use of the 2nd driver? In other words, to get out of a 'hotspot' backwards, to allow the rear driver to drive should I 'reverse' or should I 'fast' in a backwards direction ?

I had need to find an answer after I accidentally deleted my CMAK PBEM folder! A partial answer seems to be emerging: In the PBEM.ini file PBEM seems to record receipt and sending of files with timestamps under the game name (along with email addresses, password etc) e.g. [CMAK] Advance/R=2006-10-21 09:02:10 Advance/S=2006-10-21 09:54:29 This means it must have some way of identifying whether the game is AK or BB (perhaps from the game the user first opens the file with – even if wrong? This is what Sergei alluded to above) In the two cases I was experiencing (and then when I tried to recover from deleting my PBEM folder a third) the entries were NOT under [CMAK] they were wrongly under [CMBB], and PBEMH had moved the files from its ‘additional working directory’ to the CMBB folder. I (partly I think) managed to correct this by moving the entries in the PBEM.INI file and the actual files to CMAK folders. It now properly shows the stqatus of all three files. I don’t yet know how PBEMH will treat the next incoming files. The question is still open, however: how does PBEMH initially determine whether a game files is AK or BB – only after which can it populate the .ini file and move the game files .... This is a very handy program and I’d really like to be able to use it for all games, even when somehow it’s all got mixed up ....

This jolly handy unit has an 'alternate rear-facing driver': very useful, I'm sure, but I cannot seem ever to get the orders right. Should I *reverse* this unit to get the benefit of the rear driver, or should I 'forward' the unit in the 'reverse' direction? Under my command these units have a limited life-span ... one of them decided to rotate on the spot so it could "reverse" out of being a sitting duck ..... I can only assume the alternate driver was having a cigarette break, or whatever the Germans did instead of brewing up a nice cuppa ... I guess he had a heck of a suprise when the Crusader nailed him. Thanks for folks' patience in answering all my newbie questions - it's only since PBEMing that I've needed answers!

It's not just you .... it seems to me that the units assiduously follow waypoints and rotations, and seem to ‘stop - rotate – go’ rather than just 'turning the corner'. I think the TacAI just takes the corner .... if it's worked out it can go round the rocky patch rather than through it .... I did read elsewhere (can't recall where - probably from Poor Old Spike) that tracked vehicles certainly benefit from smoother plotted turns - IOW don't do a single right angle turn, do two 45˚s, or three 30˚s with short legs between. That certainly works for me in practice.

If I want to move a vehicle along a winding road*, should I plot waypoints along the road or should I just specify end-point ant let the (Tac)AI do the path finding? Does it matter if the road is bounded by impassable or semi-passable terrain? ISTR that the TacAI pathfinding sends my vehicles through scattered trees when there is open ground available – does it know about roads? * or through terrain of varying impassability .....

Good thought, Sergei but it isn't that this time. I'll look out for that in future tho. I'll check out some other possibilities along those lines too, like maybe I tried to open the file in BB first of all, and so forth, but it's unlikely as we are actually playing TWO different games using the same map, both of which PBEMH thinks are BB when they are AK. I'm sure there has to be SOMETHING in the file that PBEMH looks at to determine AK vs. BB (maybe using the password decrypt a particular byte or so).

Thanks Sergei: that's what I (have to) do now with ONLY these files. However, the question I'm asking is about how PBEMH distinguishes between AK and BB when the file is saved to the "Additional Working Folder". If you save incoming files to that folder PBEMH mostly correctly identifies BB or AK and automatically puts them in the right folder for you*. Except not with the SPECIFIC instance I mention (and probably some others I have not yet come across). So, my question is still open if anyone has the answer ..... * Meaning you can either just dump all incoming game files to one single folder without having to work out whether they are AK or BB, or – better – you could automatically dump all game files into that folder.

I am playing PBEM in a scenario set-up by my opponent from (I understand) a BB map converted to be AK. CM knows it is an AK file and will not open it in BB ..... PBEMH insists it is a BB game when processing the incoming .txt file, but will happily let me play it in AK provided I manually put it in the AK PBEM folder. Any idea how to tell PBEMH that it's an AK file? PBEMH is really very useful, but it’s a bit nit picky ......