Gary T Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Superb demo, its what I've been waiting for for years. One question, though. In the Last Defence scenario I cunningly managed to trick the Yanks into knocking out my Tiger and Stugs in strategic positions along the main road. I then attempted to leapfrog my squads down the road using the wrecks as cover. However I found the wrecks did not stop LOS or incoming fire even when fire had to pass through the Tiger. Is this a bug or do wrecks not stop LOS - I think they should. Apart from that minor gripe there is nothing to say apart from BRILLIANT!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Gary, As I understand it wrecks DO block LOS but a squad is pretty wide so finds it very difficult to fully hide behind a wreck. Also, bear in mind that if you are trying to use wrecks for cover you'd better by on REALISTIC SCALING (use shift c to get there). ALSO the Hellcats are on higher ground which means unless your guys are directly behind the hellcats withn a meter or so they are going to have great LOS to ur men. It's not as simple as the old hex-based "wreck blocks LOS" ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaakko Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Hmmm, I've had a couple of LOS problems too (in the Last Defense). A Hellcat destroyed my Tiger from behind a tree! I viewed the turn from the AI tank's perspective, and found that it was firing its gun straight at a tree. Also, it reacted to my Tiger even before it had come out of cover (I had hidden it behind a woods). The weirdest part was that my Tiger never fired back (even though it took four shots from the Hellcat). So, are the trees abstracted or something (as you can sometimes "see" right through one)? The second time I played the Last Defense, I managed to destroy two of the Hellcats with one round! It seemed that the first 'Cat's ammunition exploded, taking another with it. I really love the way nothing is the same twice in CM. I have played the First Defense four times now (with Axis, of course ), and haven't got bored with it at all. I haven't been this excited about a game since Steel Panthers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Jaakko - indeed, the trees are just a graphical representation for the eye, but have nothing to do with actual LOS calculations. Was the Tiger buttoned up? If so, then it simply might have not spotted your units because they were out off its spotting arc. Buttoned up tanks are big blind animals Woods do not stop LOS completely and you can see into them for a few meters. It might also be that when your tank roared up its engine, the Tiger became aware of it and targetted it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 1. Trees are a little abstracted so although it SEEMED to fire through the tree it didn't realy. 2. Firstly vehicles can't be in woods SO you must have put it in scattered trees. Unfortunately if a unit is seen entering scattered trees (as your Tiger undoubtedly was) then it will remain spotted and this is why it was targetted. 3. You Tiger was buttoned. e.g. suppressed. That is why it didn't respond to the enemy fire.. Also it is possible the Tiger's gun was damaged by one of the shots but you didn't notice. Basically though the Tiger was probably suppressed as hell and simply was too shocked to react. 4. I've never seen sympathetic detonations so I'd guess one of your other tanks must have killed the Hellcat without you noticing it. Otherwise I'd be very suspicious of sympathetic detonations since they would be extremely rare. Hope that helps some. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaakko Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Fionn, Moon, First of all, thanks for the quick reply! The tree was only about 10m in front of the Hellcat, blocking ~45 degrees of los (the Tiger was at 500m, several dozen meters out of the woods it had been hiding behind). Also, my Tiger was not *in* a woods (or scattered trees), but right behind the woods "template" (and stayed the for several turns, unspotted). Perhaps the Hellcat just passed some incredibly difficult "spotting roll". As for the sympathetic detonation thing, I had no other tanks in a position to fire at the moment (only one StuG alive, shelling a house, no LOS to the Hellcats). I did watch the replay many times to find out if something else had killed the other Hellcat. They were almost touching each other, though. Oh well, I guess it's one of the many mysteries of war (maybe the loader jumped at the explosion and dropped a primed HE shell ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The tree was only about 10m in front of the Hellcat, blocking ~45 degrees of los<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The "tree" is only on the screen to show you, the player: there are "some" trees here. That one particular tree could be anywhere, it has no meaning for the LOS engine under the hood. Trees as such are abstracted and not modelled individually... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Jaakko, The graphical representation of the tree has nothing to do with the spotting BUT what you say about the Tiger behind the WOODS is strange. Do you have a saved game of that turn? If you do then send it to me and I'll have a look to see what happened. As for the Hellcat. Were you firing Arty there also? Maybe an arty shell took it out? If not then I'd say it is just one of those REALLY strange things which can sometimes happen. Probably the other Hellcat was so near (that with its thin armour) the hit on the first hellcat was deemed a near miss sufficiently powerful to destroy it. Very weird though It WOULD be an excellent entry for my screenshots page. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Jaako, It's possible that the M18 may have been taken out by a mortar round, just coincidentally at the same time the other M18 was destoyed. Because they have open-top turrets, the occasional mortar round can find its way in there and destroy an M18. Charles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 Is it maybe possible that it was an HE round that took out the Hellcat, and the other was so close by that it got damaged seriously by the blast? An 88 HE could maybe do that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaakko Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 I did a bit of testing. There is a patch of scattered trees (sorry, not woods as I first thought) next to the small house by the left-hand side road. Right behind (not in) it is a small spot where the Hellcats can't see you. This is where my Tiger was. I have a save, but it's a StuG in there instead, since I hadn't saved the original game (if you still want the save Fionn, I can mail it to you). I tried moving my tank out of the cover a few times, and each time the AI reaction was different, often it did not spot it right away. Nothing weird in it after all, just the abstracted trees and human-like AI confusing me... I didn't use artillery on that double-kill incident. I tried to reproduce the conditions but I couldn't find a spot for my StuG where it wouldn't see the Hellcats on the turn they arrive. So it might be that it was the StuG that destroyed the other Hellcat. It was on the second turn after their arrival that the double-kill happened though (the Tiger missed with everything on the first), and the StuG certainly didn't shoot on the first. But these sympathetic detonations are possible in the game, right? This is just great, you know, it's only a demo, but already there are tons of different things happening that you never see in other wargames. I'd love to see the Finnish wars in CM someday though (hint, hint, nudge, nudge... ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted October 30, 1999 Share Posted October 30, 1999 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd love to see the Finnish wars in CM someday<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> We're considering it already! (For a sequel game, that is). We'll just need some people who can speak the language to supply us with authentic Finnish voice sound effects shouting "Forward march!" and things like that. Charles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaakko Posted October 31, 1999 Share Posted October 31, 1999 Hey, that's great! I can imagine it already, all those classic lines from Finnish war literature/movies... "Ei saa jäädä tuleen makaamaan! Eteenpäin! Eteenpäin!" "Hakkaa päälle pohjan poika!" and when they're ambushing someone could mutter "Ku siu varjo ossuu tuon näreen kohalle nii sillo siul tulleeki noutaja..." and when someone is mortally wounded "Tähtää alemmas, s**tanan kierosilmä!" LOL! Sorry, if you couldn't understand it, I'll translate it later, gotta go sleep now Apologies for foul language to anyone who does understand. It has to be accurate you know... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 31, 1999 Share Posted October 31, 1999 AHA !!! I knew it had to be scattered woods. My guess is that it was the Stug that got the other tank. Unless the Tiger fired a HE shell at an enemy tank (which won't happen unless it runs out of ammo) then sympathetic detonations shouldn't be possible. Charles will have to give you a definitive answer but personally I'd say you just didn't notice the StuG firing. BTW this is a GREAT example of how a cool example of Fog of War would be destroyed by little "StuG fires and kills Hellcat" text tags in-game. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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