CM's People Blowing Up

[Pirate Bill]

I've looked at most of the QT movies of CM on the page and the graphics are incredible! The one thing I noticed is that when people get shot, shelled, or otherwise turned to casualties, they just disappeared, instead of falling down or anything. Ditto for the M7 commander who buttoned up his tank: Now you see him, now you don't. Is this going to be changed in the final version?

[Guest Big Time Software]

Thanks Bill Guys donn't always just disappear. When a hit is taken, a figure jerks backwards (or some other motion) to show the unit has taken a casulty. But because the graphics are not 1:1 a hit does not mean a figure disappears. A US squad, for example will take 4 casualties before losing a figure (or 6 if the player has the "2 Figure Squad" option turned on for speed reasons).

Buttoned up crew members of open vehicle are removed to make it more clear that they are taking cover. When looking at such a vehicle from different angles and distances this is big help.

Figures will not be left on the map to represent a casualty. The first reason is that a casualty can be ANY man that has become ineffective. This inlcudes KIA and various forms of WIA, but also those panicked beyond recovery, shell shocked, etc. So it would be incorrect to litter the field with bodies since a good chunk of them would not be KIA. And there is where we REALLY get into problems. Each side can have about 1500 men represented in battle. A really brutal engagement could mean 30-50% casualties for both sides. This would require 1000-1500 figures to be left on the map. However, long before this your computer would crawl to a halt because of the graphics load. So we have no choice but to not leave casualties on the map. We must always plan for the larger battles or simply put in an artificial cap on map/unit sizes. And we aren't going to do that

Some have argued that the lack of such a feature will detract from the realism of the game, but it doesn't. Some others have argued that it will deprive them of vital information, but it doesn't. Even if both were true, today's computers are simply not up to the task so that pretty much ends the discussion right there. Arguing with hardware is a losing battle

Steve