stoex

Michael, A teacher of mine once said (or quoted): "In the vast majority of cases, the bug can be found sitting in front of the screen." Don't worry, it happens to the best of us, and usually more often than we'd like to admit. Memory is not absolute. Glad to hear your problem cleared itself up, in any case!

I see two things happening in Lt Bull's series of screenies: 1. The icons do scale with distance, but they actually scale through their three available sizes pretty quickly (within the first 4 screenies), while the tank is still close enough to see relatively easily with the naked eye. They cease scaling at greater distances where I cannot discern by looking at the map whether my tank is 1 mile or 3 miles away. Maybe this should be changed so that the icons start scaling later and thus give more information at greater viewing distances. 2. The relative floating height of the icons obviously increases in the first few shots, but it is difficult to tell what the relative height does in the later shots where the tank is so small. However, the absolute floating height of the icons (which is a more visible clue at greater distances anyway) first goes up, then goes back down again, which to me is also somewhat confusing. It is clear that the icons can't scale exactly the same way with distance as the units - or else they would become practically invisible just like the units themselves, no point in that - but the scaling of the icons is rather inconsistent, disjointed and unintuitive overall, and Lt Bull's screenies demonstrate that well, I think. In general, it only bothers me sometimes because I try to know where my units are anyway, but it can be a hassle when there are a lot of units on the field in particular. The icons in general are one of the things I hope receive some attention in the GUI overhaul slated for the next major release, as they are one of the concepts in the current GUI that most fail to live up to their potential in quickly and clearly conveying relevant information to the player. They are much more prominent than the GUI at the bottom of the screen, much easier to see and follow without taking your eyes off the action, and there is so much that they could do to convey information (e.g. change their size, their shape, their color, blinking or other visual effects). Yet they do nearly nothing except float unchanging above the battlefield. Things have gotten a bit better with the blinking when a unit takes casualties, and the greying out when the unit cannot accept orders, but so much more would be possible with them.

You might find it hard to picture, but believe me, it is so natural that if you had it, you wouldn't want it any other way, even though you might not notice it consciously. The main reason why the icons seem disjointed from the units is because the icons don't properly scale with distance like everything else, believe me. See Lt Bull's excellent post. They rarely go behind trees, tending to be high enough to avoid them, but they do. Also buildings and particularly hedgerows. As well they should, in fact, since this indicates to the player that the actual unit is behind something. They just need to remain partly visible, probably dynamically adjusting their height when behind an obstacle. Um, sorry. They are not bigger than most obstacles (depending on your camera angle). I wish you luck with that request, but seriously I don't think it will change the basic problem. Just imagine a slightly rolling map. If you look at it from a low camera angle, there may actually be several places on the map which line up due to the undulations. Meaning they will appear at the same height but be at different distances from your point of view. Now if you have units in these places, and their icons are all the same size and the same height above the units, the icons will not let you know which unit is closest and which one furthest away from you. Your screenshot is actually a good example of this the height of the icon above the unit cannot possibly give accurate positional information without adding some kind of depth of view effect to them.

My artillery when it IS falling on the enemies. That and the cacophony of screams when something splodey hits a full enemy halftrack or truck (thanks to Mord for the Immersive American Voices mod).

While I am not overly critical of the stacking issue (a difficult thing) when units OR their icons are close together, I would like to make a point regarding the icon height in general: Simply put, there is an optimal solution for this. It is just as the combined posts of the genteel members above say: if you put the icons high above the units, the icons will usually be visible, but will naturally not convey very accurate positional data about the units. If you hang 'em lower, the icons will be closer to where the units are and give a better positional representation, BUT they will vanish behind terrain, buildings, trees etc. You can't have your cake and eat it too, IN THE CURRENT CM SYSTEM OF ICON DISPLAY. This is because the icons are strictly two-dimensional objects floating in a projection of a three-dimensional space. THE ONLY SENSIBLE SOLUTION IS THE FOLLOWING: The icons need to be given a "third dimension" just like the terrain has, meaning their SIZE NEEDS TO CHANGE depending on how far away from the viewer they are. You can then merrily leave them hanging at a goodly height where they will not be blocked by terrain etc., and they will STILL convey the necessary depth perception. DUH! This is the only way to do this (well, OK, you could "fade out" the icons depending on distance or some other weird trick, but relative size is the way we recognize distance in a 2D projection of 3D space).I mean, that is how TV and movies work, and it's also the way it's done in just about any video game you can name that depicts a three-dimensional space. I'm not going to go into the whole "BFC GUI and usability problems" thing right now, I will just say that this is simple physics, it's literally the only way of dealing with this basic problem, and the vast majority, if not all, video game designers got it a long time ago. I shall say no more.

Sorry, really weird double post. See below.

When you think about it, this is actually a really silly and unrealistic design decision. Imagine you are an FO and you call your arty asset and say, "OK gimme 20 rounds on this-and-this location in exactly 15 minutes", and then after 8 minutes you call again and say, "those rounds I ordered a few minutes ago? I need them 300 meters due north-west of the original target designation as we have now pinpointed the enemy location". The asset is not going to answer, "roger, resetting your 15 minute timer". Why should they? It should only take longer than the original call if the recalculations for the new target take longer than the time left on the original timer, shouldn't it? At best, they should actually ask, "roger, do you still want the remainder of the delay or shall we drop the rounds asap now?" I really think this should be changed. In fact, I think adjusting a mission should allow you to enter a new delay if you wish, not just a new target pattern and position.

Michael, are you aware that a big red X does NOT mean that the asset is denied to the spotter, it just means the slowest possible response time/accuracy (quality of connection, so to speak)? An asset that is denied has "DENIED" written across its icon in big black letters. I expect you probably are aware of this, but your description is misleading in that case.

IMO the GUI should be at least partially customizable so that players can adapt it to their preferences, monitor size etc. There is a lot of information available in the current GUI that I never look at, but quite a few things that I would like to have available are not there.

Nah, their morale was OK, they were unsuppressed and couldn't see any enemies. There were no obvious "outside" factors contributing to the situation in any way AFAICT. Except that it was raining, but that shouldn't have made any difference, should it? It does mean what they were doing can't have been a rain dance.

Will do, tomorrow evening though since I am visiting with my folks out of town. I have this funny feeling that when I reload, they won't do the crazy stuff any more. Ya know, it never works when someone's watching... Will see what I can produce.

Well the whole issue is certainly odd and unpleasant. What I meant was, if you are getting a different series of status messages than the usual "Aiming, Elevating, Firing" for the tank in question, you might be seeing a different issue than the (well known) "not firing despite having blue LOS" problem. Or a different variation thereof. There's no question that there is sometimes a problem with LOS lines vs. actual LOS in the game, anyway.

Reloading would be strange. Are you sure you were reading that right? The usual sequence for the "I got him - no I don't - yes I do - oh wait no..." -loop is "Aiming, Elevating, Firing". But in principle it doesn't matter as the effect is the same.

I just had something strange happen to me in a battle. I had a PG squad crossing some open ground and one of the men got shot. Later, when I had taken out the enemies with LOS to the area, I sent the depleted (2 men by then) fire team whose man was down back to the action square with the fallen soldier. For several minutes they just lay prone next to their wounded comrade and did nothing. Fine, thought I, maybe they can't carry the extra weight any more or something. I brought the other fire team from the squad back to the action spot, where it unified with the second team, and together they commenced a "ritual death dance" for their fallen mate. One by one, the soldiers in the squad would run up to the wounded man, then lie down and get up several times in quick succession next to him, then run away again to let another buddy come up and do the same. It was kind of eerie to watch. Anyhow, no-one actually helped the guy, they seemed afraid to touch him. I tried moving the squad away and back into the action square to no avail. I brought their platoon HQ onto the scene, and they performed the same artistics. At one point I had seven men lying in a half circle around the fallen soldier, doing crazy shamanic pushups in a kind of wave like people do in sports stadiums. It didn't help the wounded soldier any, though, he remained WIA at the end of the battle. What gives? I have no pics or video of this, though I guess I could make them since I do have a savegame (in RT). Thoughts? Anyone seen this before? I know the men were in the right action spot, and there were no obstructions whatsoever, just flat grass. Bug?

Well, it seems the Shermans aren't seeing your tanks either, so at least the cloaking is "reciprocal".

Relax, LemoN. All you need to do is specify a user name (where it says email) and password in the registration dialogue. GaJ doesn't want to know where you live or how to reach you.

Yeah unfortunately the "sort by date" function at cmmods doesn't work right, it seems. I got there by doing "sort by author" and then picking FMB from the list.

FMB, You don't really have an 'account' as such at GaJ's site. Just pick a user name and password and you're ready to go.

Well, they could just put them in a patch. However, remember that flavor objects need to be coded in as well as designed, since they are supposed to offer cover, but not concealment (or is it the other way round? I can never remember...). Thus, it is probably more work than it might seem.

And of course don't forget to give the US AI several dozen batteries of rocket artillery, and have them deliver it liberally to the entire map. Also give the player only 10 minutes to reach the objective. Give him a battalion of immobilized Kübelwagens at the start, then reinforce him with a single truck and a green sniper team (half strength and severely low ammo) after five minutes.

This game is so weird with hardware specs, I have heard from so many people with better machines than mine that they have trouble. No idea what causes problems for them. For what it's worth: I run on a Quad Core 4x2.40 GHz, 4 GB RAM, GeForce 8800 GTS - I play in 1920X1080, have all settings on highest, AA on and get fine FPS in almost all circumstances (25-30 minimum). I guess it's usually something less obvious that causes trouble - slow bus systems, aged motherboard,....

Another way of achieving what I understand you want (if applicable in the situation) is to give the tank a pause order and a short move or reverse order (as short as you can or want to make it). Then set a target order from the end of that move order. This way the tank will wait for as long as you set the pause for, then move the short distance and start firing. Again it takes some practice to get the timing right, but at least you don't have to expose your flanks or rear that way.

There's an opponent finder forum right here on site, in fact: http://battlefront.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=74

patboy, What's with the rifle clip in your picture? That looks weird. :confused:

Yeah, all of my mods seem to still work after the patch and I didn't remove them or anything before patching. Sorry to hear you weren't as lucky, KR.