sttp
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Posts posted by sttp
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I don't think tank accuracy is so unreasonable in most cases? I'm sure BFC is aware of the actual hit probabilities, by tank, as a function of distance, and if those numbers are off at all I'd guess it'd be for some very good gameplay reasons. These guys are obviously obsessed with detail and accuracy, otherwise I doubt we'd all be loving the CMx2 games this much.
I've wondered a few times if tank accuracy may be a little exaggerated when the firing tank is on the move, especially for the allied tanks, but... that's really just been a thought or perception of mine, which of course means very little with respect to historical accuracy. My money is on BFC having the hit percentages right where they should be.
Finally, thanks Bil for all the images and status updates. Loved that animated .gif, especially. I didn't know that the 0.5MB limit would accommodate those. And sorry for having mis-spelled you name a few times. I see now that it has only one L.
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[T]wo observations about the Tiger - it's in pretty bad shape, which isn't surprising, and it was a lot smaller than I expected.
<snip image>
I agree. It's always been interesting to me how different pics of the Tiger from different perspectives and with different people nearby can make it look really huge sometimes, yet so much smaller than expected at other times... i.e., the range of size perceptions seems to be wider than one would expect.
The attached pic shows what I mean -- it looks like a total BEAST there. And I've always wondered which perception is correct... which I guess in this case really means which of those two guys is closer to average size? I get the definite impression that the guy in the attached pic is smaller than average, and that the guy in your pic is bigger than average. ????
Doesn't one of the titles (CMBN, I guess it'd have to be) have a loading screen pic with a bunch of German soldiers sitting on a Tiger I? Or maybe it's a Panzer V or even a Tiger II -- don't exactly recall. But I do recall that the image makes that tank seem insanely huge, and the soldiers sitting on it are most likely near average size.
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Given your question I asked Chris if I could post something about steams, he said go for it, so. The answer is that the streams themselves do not have terrain mesh sculpting capabilities so you have to do that yourself with elevations. Below are a few screen shots from my Lanzerath Village Map... <snip>
Wow, thanks for all the info. These streams are a significant development, IMO. I didn't expect many new things once BFC said there wouldn't be as many engine enhancements in this title, so this is really a very pleasant surprise.
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I'd love to see a video aar of this battle with Bil commentary
That would be cool!Interesting idea. I guess a lot of people have nothing more than the most basic video recording / editing software, so audio might be a big deal for them. And it'd be a ton more work, I'm guessing. But yeah, a 1-minute video flyover of the map giving a better look at its contours and LOS's would be neat though. Even if no sound or units showing or whatever. That's probably a lot to ask though. Sounds like these gentlemen may already be spending more time on this DAR than their friends and family would prefer.
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Awesome job. I never thought a comic book story would have me just craving the next page... but here we are!
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My only suggested read has already been mentioned. (A Time for Trumpets.). I'm replying just to boost this fine thread out from within the tangle of Bangalore-mover-man's spam....
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The weather and how far the blue line to go definitely are tied together, its easy to see in the course of a dawn battle. Like mission two of school of hard knocks
But I have also seen what your talking about so good point but I think its just that its not quite right all the time not that it doesn't work like that at all. It could also be that we were both trying to shoot ground that was "out of weapons range", so they didn't fire, and they didn't see anyone even though they could see the ground because they just hadn't cause it was a hella hard spot. But Ill take your word for it that they just cant se it sometimes even tho the blue bar says so that does ring true. Honestly haven't been playing the game much for a whileNo no(!), it would not be wise at all to "just take my word for it"!
I've definitely seen it go both ways too. That's why I'm curious about other people's experiences. It also probably wouldn't hurt if I went and perused the manuals (for the 37th time) and maybe did a thorough forum search, too.....That targeting line being blue is just something I've decided not to really rely on in the snow. It seems very inconsistent to me. Am I a victim of my own confirmation bias? Because it's true that the line's beautiful blueness has always seemed to let me down at the most critical times. (Ain't that always the way....)
Oh, and I never play nighttime scenarios, so hadn't considered how daylight factors in. Excellent point. So yeah, there's one more variable to add.... And I guess another would be the distinction between the targeting line being blue for troops from their current eye position, vs. being blue from a waypoint they've not yet reached. It seems and sounds like they are very, very different things.
Really, I wouldn't be surprised if the relationship between "targeting line color at point X" and "likelihood of actually spotting an enemy at point X" were much more complicated than anyone has hinted at. Maybe if we asked nicely the fine gentlemen at BFC would just go ahead and post the algorithm's source code to the forum? (
100% kidding.) I guess we can take comfort in the fact that, once CMFB is released, the sample size of 'snow testers' will be much greater -- those who hate the snow now won't have a choice! -- and we'll probably be able to come to some more reliable conclusions. -
But is that just during set-up and when the turn begins running will the 'heavy snow' then limit visibility and engagement range?
I'm not 100% certain, but I do know that in snowy conditions it's possible to give a blue-line area fire order out to distances to which your troops really can't see... even to terrain right next to enemy assets that just won't ever be spotted. Meaning that the order was often disregarded....
I had this happen just the other day on a wide open map in the snow. (Gustav Line's Butera Station map, which I had modified just to do a little more wintertime experimenting.) It wasn't that the enemy was attempting to conceal himself in some other way; the inability to spot seemed to be purely a distance and snow visibility issue. Yet the line was blue there.
Maybe the blue targeting line only indicates that terrain (and tree and bush) line of sight is clear, but it disregards other 'soft' factors like weather? That would kinda fit in with what BFC has said about action spot spotting vs. troop eyeball spotting. I'm thinking specifically of BFC's comments in threads discussing the targeting of buildings whose base you cannot see.
So, unfortunately, my own impression is that there's not really a reliable correlation between how far the blue line can extend vs. how likely it is that an enemy will actually be spotted there. But I'm not positive of that, and it'd be great to know if other players' impressions have been the same.
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Great job. Love that you gave those stats on volume of fire. I learned a few new things, and this definitely would've been helpful when I was first starting out.
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Funny thing happened a few hours ago.... I was in a Starbucks not too far from some strangers when I opened that page with Kohlenklau's image in it (beautiful work by that photographer, a true "artiste"!), and the page opened right to that front woman's boobs for some reason. LOL!
I don't particularly care -- I enjoy scantily clad women as much as the next guy -- but I'm pretty sure an employee who was on break saw these events unfold.
I'm a regular there, and I (being paranoid and all) will probably now wonder if she thinks I'm just some perv who comes in to hog the free wifi and browse for T&A. Hahaha.I'm just sharing. Not upset whatsoever, promise. (This was mild, actually -- one time my nephew set my laptop up to play some .wav file of porn sounds... automatically, at Windows startup. Little SOB! So I'm at this Panera Bread having a bagel one morning, and I open up my laptop, and... you know the rest. LOL.) So yeah, this was nothin'....
I am surprised, though, that Kohlenklau can even look at such things given his recent heart condition and all. If I were a guy's heart Dr., I'd definitely recommend that such... uhm... 'interesting' pictures be avoided. Heheh
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You would like to see terrain contours? Here they are:
http://opentopomap.org/#map=15/50.05810/5.74651
By the way, I am absolutely excited to see this new game and the DAR - thanks.
Very cool, and very helpful.
Incidentally, Foy is much closer to Recogne than I'd realized... which makes me wonder if Foy might show up in CMFB's campaigns or default battles.
It's such a ubiquitous setting and situation -- Easy Company, Maj. Dick Winters, Band of Brothers, the original Call of Duty game (the only good CoD game along with World at War, IMO), and all that stuff....
BFC did put a Brecourt Manor scenario in the original CMBN, so they're obviously not opposed to the concept of tackling such a thing. But even if not included, I'm sure someone would hammer out the Foy scenario as an add-on pretty quickly, and having accurate terrain elevations would of course be essential. So thanks.
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Personally... i hope that this 'bogging feature' is not overdone i this game...
- In such a way that the armoured movements will be restricted primarely to a few roads
Maybe this is historically the most correct way but i would prefer to see that tanks will be able to move crosscountry at a carful pace without regularely getting stuck within a turn or two...
Hopefully BFC have found a good balance...
I've got a disproportionately large number of CMFI snowy QBs under my belt -- my favorite module, and favorite weather conditions -- and though I am a long, long way from any kind of expertise, I can at least say that if this new game's rates of bogging and immobilization aren't too much higher than that, then getting stuck is probably not overdone here.
I guess we'll soon see!
But, at least in CMFI, if you keep the heavy armor down to MOVE and SLOW speeds and keep it off of hedges and fences and all, the frequency of occurrence is usually pretty tolerable.
Still, yeah, total immobilization is eventually going to happen, so I've learned to deal with it just like I deal with the morning commute: I simply expect the delays, as a sort of fact of life, and only rarely do I obsess over who or what caused it or let it truly annoy me.
The good news is that total immobilization seems to usually be preceded by several 15- to 30-second bogging incidents, so (I assume, but again, it seems like) track damage usually only gradually increases, until some immobilization critical point is reached.
Immobilization that comes totally out of the blue doesn't happen that often in CMFI snow, not in my experience. Hopefully CMFB didn't up those rates too too much.
So... who knows, maybe Baneman actually will have a short window where he's safe from total immobilization, and will be able to (intermittently, between bogging incidents, LOL) move the heavy stuff to some useful place????
There are some tactically interesting incentives created by the higher probability of total immobilization. Though I'd often want to use the more remote routes for my heavy armor and keep it shielded by terrain as long as possible, in the snow it's often wiser to use routes that aren't quite as out of the way -- places where, even if your tank became totally immobilized there, you could still get some use out of it. Neat little twist in the thinking/planning.
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I realize I posted this pic before in another thread, but... I'm wondering if some of us have the wrong idea about how vulnerable the sides of that JagdTiger are? (And I am 100% open to the possibility that it is me who has the wrong idea.)
But I bet there were 3 dozen + hits to its sides here -- it's from a ChrisND YouTube preview, BTW -- and this beast survived just fine. And those AP rounds weren't coming from piddly little Stuarts or whatever, either.
Any reason to believe the JagdTiger's side armor thickness in-game wouldn't be very close to its real life number (which is about 80mm, AFAIK)? That's not too shabby for the sides....
It'd also be interesting to know how many rounds the Panthers and the JagdTiger come with. That could easily be a factor at these long distances. Bill mentions limited or "short" LOS's in his terrain analysis, yes, but on a 3km map that seems like it could still end up being a pretty good distance.
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Good stuff, I hate feeling time pressured to rush in scenarios.
Me too!
Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone, but... I'll often nudge the scenario time up by a few minutes, save that version as a copy, and play that one instead of the original. (Unless the scenario time limit is explicitly mentioned in the briefing as a fundamental part of the mission, then I wouldn't, obviously.)
But the extended time often makes it more fun and relaxing for me, and... well... it's my damn game, so I'll use it however I want!
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Yes, I also thought of terrain type that could be dealt with by engineer operations. <snip>
Is that actually possible, to have the game change a tile's terrain type during a battle? That would certainly open up some interesting possibilities for scenario creators. Gives me a few neat ideas.
If that's not possible now, maybe it'll be added to the list for CMx3. (A list that must already be a mile long.)
You also mentioned, in a different post, a "Heavy: 50m deep (minimum)" felled tree obstacle, as outlined in the real German manuals. Just wondering if anyone has seen any examples of those? (Yes, I know that they mean 50 meters "deep" in the horizontal, on-the-ground sense....) The engineering side of me would just love to see one as used in practice. It seems like it'd be more work to construct one of those than it would be to just create other types of barriers, other types that'd probably be more effective, too? I guess, though, there would've been times when no other options were available.
Very interesting info you've provided. Thanks.
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Holly smoke I did not know that. I have to remember that for next time. Thanks!
Yeah, no problem. Glad it helped someone. I was 6 months into the game before I realized the darn shortcuts even existed! I actually used to kinda dread constructing my forces -- it seemed kinda tedious, really -- but the shortcuts (if you can call 'em that) have made force selection downright fun for me now.
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RockinHarry,
attaching single tanks as infantry support in an attack AFAIK is strongly against German doctrine. Using single Jagdtigers that way I think even was explicitly forbidden.
Yeah, good observation. I thought about that too. But I ultimately concluded that, since the battle sizes in the game are so comparatively small, there's really no other way to simulate how armor and infantry would mutually support each other. (Or does anyone here see a better way to accomplish that, using different formations and/or organization schemes?)
Either way, what Baneman has selected is definitely not too far out of bounds for an interesting and entertaining battle -- one that's appropriately demonstrative of some of this great new CMFB equipment, which is one of this battle's primary purposes, as far as I can tell.
I'm really looking forward to this DAR. (It's the first one I'll get to follow as the action unfolds. Yahoo!)
Anyway, good luck to both Baneman and Bill, and thanks for taking the time to do this.
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Should be a really interesting battle.
I'm wondering if Baneman's tanks are going to be able to engage at the kinds of ranges those tanks would ideally want to engage at? Bill's terrain analysis makes it sound like there are very few places where you'd get to use JagdTigers and Panthers at those long distances. Could mean that Baneman's tanks might end up being a little more vulnerable than we'd normally expect. And without them... yeah, true, that's a lot of infantry he has, but... Bill has a lot of tanks. Who knows how it'll all end up though. I just know it's sure gonna be fun to watch.
Edit to add: now that I go back and think about it more... this map is over 3km long. So a 'short' LOS on it is still probably a pretty good distance. This makes me worry less about Baneman's tanks than I was before. As long as there's plenty of tank ammo and he plays it straight, I think his armor will be okay. (I wonder how many rounds that JagdTiger comes with?)
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Please examine my suggested picks and let me know what you think!!
One more vote for Option B.
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A side note on this topic of picking forces (and I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me way too long to realize this): you can purchase formations by simply double-clicking on them, and you can deactivate sub-units on the right with the Backspace key... i.e., there's no need to ever use the mouse and those "Purchase" and "Delete" buttons (that seem so small and so very far away, especially at super hi resolutions). 90% of the people here already knew this, I'm sure, but for the 10% who don't, it can eliminate what was always kinda a minor PITA to me. I still see people on their YouTube vids purchasing and deactivating the 'slow' way -- not sure they know of the keyboard shortcuts? -- and it makes me wonder how I ever lived like such an animal. (LOL)
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When I started playing (almost exactly 1 year ago), I found Games Pusher's "Monster Combat Mission Normandy Tutorial" video to be both helpful and enjoyable. It's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbE8795rt2s -- a good passive source that you can watch as you're going to sleep or whatever. Also, Armchair General's Tactics Tutorials helped quite a bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ6dDlqye9Q
For true depth of knowledge, though, there's really no substitute for the manuals. Sounds boring, I know, but they're all very well written and are densely packed with useful info.
For more obscure issues and tips about how the AI 'thinks' or whatever, the best source of knowledge is undoubtedly the veteran forum members here. They've been tremendously helpful.
So I'd say just start with the very basics -- the move and targeting commands -- and then jump right in and play and experiment. Do a forum search when you have major questions. (Note that a google search with site:community.battlefront.com appended to the end has some advantages over a standard forum search, IMO.) And when that's not helpful, just ask. Some people have been playing this game and browsing the forums for nearly 5 years, and they'll answer you without biting your head off even if your question has been asked before....
Good luck and have fun.
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I know its a video, but its a short one. Think of it as a fast screenshot slideshow!
LOL. That has yet to happen to me. That I've noticed, at least... though I do spend lots of time rewinding between turns, so I think I would've. It's got to be infuriating. But like someone else said, pretty cool that the simulation is rich enough to allow for these kinds of rare incidents. (Who'd have it any other way?!)
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I am concerned you don't have enough armor (Yeah yeah I know Jagd tiger counts as like 10 panzers).
Yeah, at least 10 panzers. Look how many shots these things can absorb! (This was taken very soon after it was knocked out. It's a screen grab from one of ChrisND's YouTube videos.)
How many points to buy one of these monsters?
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I've never been that into comics, but this... this is really well done. Thanks for your efforts. These set the mood for the new game in a way that not much else probably could. Can't wait to get my hands on this new title.
That would be cool!
But I have also seen what your talking about so good point but I think its just that its not quite right all the time not that it doesn't work like that at all. It could also be that we were both trying to shoot ground that was "out of weapons range", so they didn't fire, and they didn't see anyone even though they could see the ground because they just hadn't cause it was a hella hard spot. But Ill take your word for it that they just cant se it sometimes even tho the blue bar says so that does ring true. Honestly haven't been playing the game much for a while
Some Final Blitzkrieg basic details
in Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg
Posted
Still very cool. Having that style of shadow and good game performance seems like quite the feet of programming, trigonometrically speaking. Those soft shadows, IMO, add a kind of depth and accuracy to the battle scene that could really increase immersion.