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Why ride the suicidal Hanomag halftrack when you can walk?


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12 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Yep, one the main issues that remain. I´ve seen HT drivers backing up often enough and with passengers in panicked state, the situation gets increasingly worse. If the HT driver decides to back up in an angle, thus uncovering the gunner to become vulnerable to fire from sides and panicked state not stopping the loaded squad to keep replacing the now completely exposed gunner, you could loose the whole squad in 1-2 minutes. Nothing a player could to about that, as long as panicked state carries over to next game turns.

OK thanks for clarifying. I have to be honest I really don't see it as a problem. It the HT is buttoned but the gunner is getting replaced anyway that would be a problem. But if the gunner is up then they are in fighting mode and the gunner should be replaced. 

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4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

3. Buddy aid (already released as single mod at CMMODS III)

9. Seat stance (the new one for half track passengers)

A bit of an Off-topic here but, do this things really affect the chances of a soldier being hit or spotted? The buddy aid for example, will the guy make a smaller target with that mod or it would be the same for the game only with a different visual for the player? How would this affect MP games if only one side is using the mod?

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1 hour ago, Ivan Zaitzev said:

A bit of an Off-topic here but, do this things really affect the chances of a soldier being hit or spotted? The buddy aid for example, will the guy make a smaller target with that mod or it would be the same for the game only with a different visual for the player? How would this affect MP games if only one side is using the mod?

From my experience, stances or change of stances do matter, so yes, a prone lying medic is less spottable and makes a smaller target. But why not testing yourself?

Primarily this "mod" (if one could speak of a mod, which only does involve changing of names for files that come with the game) was meant to be played in single player vs the AIP on the same computer (which is what I preferably do). It also was only tested in this mode and I could only guess about what happens (or not) in cases where H2H players use it, or only one of each. Some volunteers could help and clarify.

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"I'm very surprised that soldier and vehicle scales should be out of kilter"

I believe back this time period your average übermench was perhaps... 5 foot 7? BFC has one figure size originally done for CMSF. You bring in a modern height (6 foot) soldier and that adds 5 inches to the height, throwing off the 'look'. This is one of the reasons why 'renactors' are often unconvincing. They usually have a good 3 inches and 25 pounds on the folks they're seeking to represent.

This is a generalization of course, I remember many many years ago spotting John Banner (St. Schultz in Hogan's Heroes) on the street in Boston. The guy was huge, like 6 foot five and 300+ pounds. Banner, who was an Austrian Jew, had fled Hitler for America at age 28. He then served in the US army til '45. So not everyone back then was 5 foot 7.  ^_^

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19 hours ago, Ivan Zaitzev said:

A bit of an Off-topic here but, do this things really affect the chances of a soldier being hit or spotted? The buddy aid for example, will the guy make a smaller target with that mod or it would be the same for the game only with a different visual for the player? How would this affect MP games if only one side is using the mod?

FWIW, I don't think this is "off topic" at all ... I tried to ask - I think - the same question quite a while back in the thread, but nobody (as far as I can tell) took me up on it, or responded. I guess I made a poor job of asking the question!

I don't follow the logic of the "animations / mods" issues within the thread?

A mod will change the visual appearance of what we see on the screen: but *only* that?

The game is - say - dealing with a standing soldier, for LOS, combat resolution, etc; if he cowers as a result of incoming fire, morale status, etc, we see him cower, so we know what is going on (roughly).

But if the on screen graphic for a standing soldier is changed to that of a cowering soldier, the game will still treat him as standing for all game purposes, even though we are seeing him as cowering. The game engine drives the graphic we see, not the other way around? Surely?

So in this context, even if the visual appearance of the Hanomag occupants is changed to make them smaller / sit lower /cower etc ... the combat results won't change at all, unless and until BF also change the engine calculations to reflect the fact that the vehicle occupants are now deemed to be less likely to be hit.

Or is it only me (and Ivan! If I've understood his point properly ...) to whom this makes sense??

 

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PhilM, I have always understood that each bullet (and piece of shrapnel???) are tracked, and when the trajectory intersects with a polygon on the 3D model, whether soldier, vehicle, tree or building, a hit calculation is made. If that is the case, then the actual animation stance would make a difference. I understand what you are saying, and it does make sense that the game engine would "read" the renamed animation as "standing" even though it looks like it's cowering...but apparently the actual placement of the model's polygons in game do make a difference...maybe, lol!

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1 hour ago, PhilM said:

But if the on screen graphic for a standing soldier is changed to that of a cowering soldier, the game will still treat him as standing for all game purposes, even though we are seeing him as cowering. The game engine drives the graphic we see, not the other way around? Surely?

No, the stance of the model is what counts for hit testing.

18 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

PhilM, I have always understood that each bullet (and piece of shrapnel???) are tracked, and when the trajectory intersects with a polygon on the 3D model, whether soldier, vehicle, tree or building, a hit calculation is made. If that is the case, then the actual animation stance would make a difference. 

This is correct. Every bullet yes. Shrapnel I am not 100% sure. I remember reading once that shrapnel was more abstract but I cannot find the reference to that any more.

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If you do extreme things with the animation files, it all gets more complicated and unpredictable. In a past discussion on the animation file topic, a community member suggested to replace the running animation with the crouching one just to see what happens. The result was that soldiers who were actually to run in the game, were just crouching (at mormal crouching speed), highly increased tiring in very short time and distance and offering the normal targetable profile you´d expect and see from a soldier crouching on his belly. I didn´t follow this further as I´m not interested in extreme bending of the games capabilities and probable breaking of normal game play.

In case of lowered stances/profiles (half track passengers i.e) where it makes some sense game wise, soldiers simply offer less footprint for enemy spotting and fire and yet not entirely confirmed, also have reverse spotting abilities reduced (lower stance = lower eye level for spotting purposes).

From my own experience and the feedback from players who actually tested the "mod" in game (single player vs. AI), I know it does the expected effect without breaking things. Obviously the game keeps track of what it really sees and can shoot at in the 3D game world, but also possibly draws info from the animation file that allows to evaluate the true condition of a pixelsoldier. Like in the running-crouching soldier example above, you can´t get a running soldier use a crouching soldier animation in running speed and without further consequences.

If used wisely (for purpose of more realism), some the animation file swapping leads to a less carnage, stealthier infantry and less mutual spotting in games vs. the AI and both opponents affected alike. If used in H2H/PBEM games (which is untested by myself), I have no idea if animation/stance data is kept within save game files, or directly pulled from an individual players computer (data/z). For the latter case it might lead to a cheating/exploitation situation, where the player not using the mod is at a disadvantage. That remains theory unless some PBEM players start some test match, with one player i.e using the simple medic mod and the other not and then reporting observations.

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