nonickch

Just had one of those huge russian tanks shoot through a dead tiger and kill the one behind it. Sideshots ofc, but still quite "yarrrr" Their reload time is absolutely awfull, but they pack a mean punch and can take quite a beating. "please mr panther, keep shooting from that 1500m distance while I have my breakfast".

yup, I found it, it was as I suspected. -------------------------- Open mission in editor (USSR->R012_Kowel), and at the upper right window: expand Kowel, expand Army_composition, expand Permission, Select "Detachment/Rus=2" (that's the bugger), at the window at the bottom Select the field next to "limit" and put 4 (the number of infantry units allowed) --------------------- Wh000, nice first for both modding any game. The problem was kinda obvious. Also, I love the XML structure, and from the looks of it there are quite a few things that can be changed (dunno if everything in the dtd is supported by the game). Finally, someone up there can tell me if this was a mistake or a forced limitation of infantry selection in this map? I guess one could just forbid all infantry types apart from plain if he wanted to limit the map in such a way. EDIT: oh, and in order to use the new settings you must start the map fromt he campaign selection window. Apparently savegames contain all the map information in them.

yup, I found it, it was as I suspected. -------------------------- Open mission in editor (USSR->R012_Kowel), and at the upper right window: expand Kowel, expand Army_composition, expand Permission, Select "Detachment/Rus=2" (that's the bugger), at the window at the bottom Select the field next to "limit" and put 4 (the number of infantry units allowed) --------------------- Wh000, nice first for both modding any game. The problem was kinda obvious. Also, I love the XML structure, and from the looks of it there are quite a few things that can be changed (dunno if everything in the dtd is supported by the game). Finally, someone up there can tell me if this was a mistake or a forced limitation of infantry selection in this map? I guess one could just forbid all infantry types apart from plain if he wanted to limit the map in such a way. EDIT: oh, and in order to use the new settings you must start the map fromt he campaign selection window. Apparently savegames contain all the map information in them.

nope, no matter how many times I start the battle and then restart (via menu), or load the saves from the unit section, I still can't get to get a single staff squad in my roster. Or any other squad for that matter.

nope, no matter how many times I start the battle and then restart (via menu), or load the saves from the unit section, I still can't get to get a single staff squad in my roster. Or any other squad for that matter.

EDIT: whoops, wrong section. some mod can move this to tech support? Looks like there's a bug in Zhukov's advance in the unit allocation screen. Even though you start with 4-5 units pre-allocated (2 non-removable), you cannot replace any of the rest. If you try to remove one of the squads to add another, well, you just can't. Squad gets removed and then you find out you can't add another one. Tried removing all but the 2 unremovable, still doesn't work. Maybe max_soldiers < pre_allocated_soldiers ? I was gonna re-test it, but once again the game crashed on the map loading. And after goign through steel rain, I ain't got the patience to. Who the hell designed that map? Was he high?

EDIT: whoops, wrong section. some mod can move this to tech support? Looks like there's a bug in Zhukov's advance in the unit allocation screen. Even though you start with 4-5 units pre-allocated (2 non-removable), you cannot replace any of the rest. If you try to remove one of the squads to add another, well, you just can't. Squad gets removed and then you find out you can't add another one. Tried removing all but the 2 unremovable, still doesn't work. Maybe max_soldiers < pre_allocated_soldiers ? I was gonna re-test it, but once again the game crashed on the map loading. And after goign through steel rain, I ain't got the patience to. Who the hell designed that map? Was he high?

Also, ATG's are unreasonably expensive. A ZIS-2 as expensive as a T34? Since the AT's have a tendency to survive 1-2 shots in open area, at least as a defending force you should be able to field more of em and hope for the best. On the other hand, AT's just don't like breaking down even after getting direct shots from AP/HE, so that's something. Altho there are quite a few maps where I'm running out of infantry not because they're getting shot in the trenches but in the AT's. 2-3 AT's vs 10-15 panzers in open space is not my cup of tea, but I have to admit it's doable and it keeps you on your toes.

camera seems ok. Sure, I'd like to be able to reassign free-cam button to something else other than middle mouse button, but it's ok (as long as this mouse I have works and I don't have to swap to the 2-button reserve mouse) As it was stated before, this is kinda the standard way of navigating around a map in 3D apps/games.

Haven't played with the germans yet, so usually I'm at a severe disadvantage when tanks come into play. What I've found that works very nicely is that I try to engage the entire hostile panzergroup with 1 or two tanks with the most frontal armor. I also try to do so at the greatest possible range so there are minimal chances of anything dying. Then I take one or two medium tanks and run around like mad, prefferably hidden. It seems the hostiles don't switch targets that easily so eventually you will get in a position ready to get rear shots. Then I read the med tanks head slowly as to only get LOF on one tank at a time (also I start shooting it with the bait so it doesn't turn to face the med). Sure it takes a long time to go that far, the bait even run out of ammo. No hurries tho. Like this I managed to kill over 10 panzers in the 2nd french mission, and at least 4 of them had armor that I had no way of penentrating frontally. And I only had 2 fronts, 3 tanks and one was tracked

I'm just only into the 2nd french mission (done the polish), and I have to say there is plenty of place to hide. Tanks are next to impossible to hide in anything but behind ground elevations (which are a lot, just zoom in and pay attention to the ground). You can hide tanks in bushes and other assorted stuff, but only at ranges of 1km (much closer in bad weather conditions). Infantry on the other side can hide really easily in bushes, I've had a 0-scout infantry in the 1st polish mission hide for the entire 1hr duration of the battle 150m away from hostile infantry. The one thing that makes me a sad panda is the quite low ability of hiding those AT's. It seems their sig is quite high, even in bushes and camo. Apparently tho this changes in the next patch. "Clean out those tanks, silence the AT's, fast-scoop all the infantry, wait for the rest of the tanks to get close" is what I try, but it doesn't work to my expectations. Ofc I have no idea how visible AT's where in reality. There is a way around it but I find it quite lame: unman the AT's and hold the men prone next to them till the tanks are in range. The AI seems to ignore empty AT's. Hmmm, now that I think of it, it looks like the game calculates visibility on the AT and NOT the manning crews. AT becomes visible quite easily and the game informs both the AI and the player if it's manned or not. In order to avoid this freebie of intel it would be a good change to require for the player/AI to actually spot a soldier manning the AT to consider it hostile. And since the soldiers are behind the screen facing the tank, they can be considered somewhat hidden. Since AT crew is just kneeling, it would not make their detection impossible from tanks. Also, this would reenforce mixed-unit tactics since the infantry can easily spot kneelig infantry, even under cover (I hate the fact that I can bbq things all over the place with just tanks). From the looks of it, some design choices are supporting this since the sniper can target specific soldier crews (so the AT+crew are not considered a single entity). [ May 10, 2007, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: nonickch ]

it seems that at least this map (and from the looks of it more), are way too small. If you're the defender, the second you start the battle the tanks will be well within their firing range so you have to sit tight and hope for the best . Suffice to say, as this mission was my first in the game I freaked out. Everything I had was getting obliterated literally within a minute and my AT's in the bushes hiding were getting spotted way too easily and usually died before firing a single shot. Then I remember everyone yelling about AT's and reverse slopes (can I get an accurate definition of the term plz?) + killzones. So I made a welcoming party crossfire at the entrance to the village and laughed at ze germans. It is quite a shocking introduction to the game, but a good spankage is all I needed to go "oooh, more than challenging". Oh, as for those tanks holding at the first trenches I trucked one of those big I-don't-remember-their-name AT's all around the right road where apparently you have it all: Clear sideshot (all the armor in a line), and the reverse of what many people are whining about: I have LOF on all the tanks but only the first and mebbe second could had LOF on me :cool: Ofc when the 3rd wave comes you gotta drop the gun and run... [ May 09, 2007, 05:17 PM: Message edited by: nonickch ]

After spending over 2hrs studying the encyclopedia (I love to RTFM), I couldn't help but notice that the indicated crew positions has skills represented below them (Assuming that the bars mean skill). What does that mean? Does it indicate that there is a minor skill required? Does it indicate that there is a difficulty penalty applied for the gunners/drivers? Does it indicate that someone was bored when making the encyclopedia and just screenshotted something from his unit setup? XD And what about the possible deviation of encyclopedia entries on armor/penentration? Can someone confirm/deny any deviations? If yes, is there a wide gap between enc and gameplay or just a few minor-ish errors here and there? Which are they?

One thing I learned from these forums is that apparently the ballistics incorporated are above anything an outsider would expect (e.g: me). From a thorough whoruming I pulled the past 3 days, I remember that general AP shells have a shattering problem at least in sub-100m ranges. Apparently switching to HEAT (that may not be available) resolves any shattering problems and apparently they work like a charm in close range. Oh, and hello guys. I was saving my first post to go postal on the retarded threads about the LOS and the trees, but I'm too bored while waiting for the download to finish. If you think that flak is a killer in this game, just post another thread arguing the graphic representation and tank visibilities followed by some nice admin abuse and see what eve-o forum experience means :cool: