jpinard Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 Has anyone else had a little trouble seeing the difference in the middle of battle? I'm wondering if there could be a small blood pool under or next to a team that has been eliminated. This would be very helpful and is better than having the labels option on. Any other thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brethon Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 It's simple, the ones you can give orders to arent dead Seriously though, if your looking from too high to see if they're face up or down, how can you see a pool of blood? i belive that you will also notice, when dead, their limbs are in more of a star shape. And don't forget, that it will only be dead if there is one troop icon there and not 2 or 3.....that's all the info I have...unless you want an option to remove the dead from the battle field...which would make sense to me.... ------------------ The worst part of any conflict is peacekeeping, it is the time when only one side may fire. [This message has been edited by Brethon (edited 07-20-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 A quick SHIFT-B will put highlighted bases under all live troops and leave the dead ones as just figures. Los Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Michael emrys Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 There's one more visual clue if, like me, you play with bases on. Dead men don't have bases. You may quote me. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MH Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 Pools of BLOOD?! No really...this is a joke - right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disaster@work Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 We'll petition the makers to write a plugin for Kingpin / SOF so we can see the men writhing around in their own entrails or missing heads and the like. Half seriously: what I really wanted to see last night after I was chasing down fleeing Yank infantry with my flamethrower tanks was charred corpses. That's just a skin issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpinard Posted July 21, 2000 Author Share Posted July 21, 2000 Why would this be a joke? If you had an incredible victory and took out over 300 infantry troops, and then removed them from the field (or continued to have no decent OOF BMP's - Guess it wouldn't look like you accomplished much huh? Anyways this is about realism, and on the battlefield, and following a battle there is blood. Geez, if there are different .bmp files for dead chracters I'll just add a splash of red to them myself. There sure are a lot of angry people on this board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpinard Posted July 21, 2000 Author Share Posted July 21, 2000 I wasn't asking for anything grizzly, far from it. Just some red on thei uniforms to signify they are out of action. Otherwise it's like one of those stupid tv shows where everyone shoots, but no one ever bleeds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disaster@work Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jpinard: I wasn't asking for anything grizzly, far from it. Just some red on thei uniforms to signify they are out of action.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Blood is ok. But furry skins are out of the question! <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Otherwise it's like one of those stupid tv shows where everyone shoots, but no one ever bleeds.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> When I was really young my mom used to tell me that the people who fell down after the guns were fired at them weren't dead, they were just so shocked at the sound that they fell unconscious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorak Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 jpinard. BTS has said that there will be no blood. For those of us from the beta demo days, there wasn't even bodies. The bodies were put in more for reference, so you can check the status of your "eliminated" units and see kill stats ect.. They weren't ment to be battle field candy. If you play with bases on there really isn't a problem getting them confused. It also helps playing because when the base dissapears you know without having to zoom also. I also believe that the bodies use the exact same .bmp file as live bodies do. The unit is just shown face up. So if you bloody your graphics, you will just end up with something that looks like "night of the living dead". Lorak ------------------ "someone you trust is one of us"..........the illuminati * http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/combatmissionclub Lorak's FTX for CM <--Proud member of the Combat Mission Webring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disaster@work Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lorak: jpinard. I also believe that the bodies use the exact same .bmp file as live bodies do. The unit is just shown face up. So if you bloody your graphics, you will just end up with something that looks like "night of the living dead". <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Mmmmm... zombie German soldiers marching through fog at your trenches. You shoot but you can't take them down. Your men flee in terror. Sounds like "Weird War Tales". Awesome! We should make a Phantom Tank mod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorak Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 LOL Disaster, So who is doing the "Ghost Tank" and "sgt. Rock" scenarios? Lorak ------------------ "someone you trust is one of us"..........the illuminati * http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/combatmissionclub Lorak's FTX for CM <--Proud member of the Combat Mission Webring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hnh3_cm Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 I'd dearly love to see a Dinosaur vs Army Men version of CM. Combat Mission: Beyond Time, perhaps . Those were always my favorite comic books. Ahhh...memories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 Originally posted by jpinard: Geez, if there are different .bmp files for dead chracters I'll just add a splash of red to them myself. There are and you can. I believe others have. There sure are a lot of angry people on this board. No, there aren't, but that's the second time you've said that. Look, just because everyone doesn't immediately like your idea doesn't mean they're angry. It's a discussion board... they're discussing. And kidding around. You got several solutions to your actual problem in the first 3 posts. Some people will make little inside jokes because these things have come up before (as a lot of the more obvious things have in 70000 posts), but they're not attacking you personally. Really. See? Who's afraid of old Peng? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eridani Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 Wow, its the topic that keeps on giving even AFTER its solved... jpinard, this is one where you REALLY should do a search for dead bodies... this topic has been covered in depth, over and over, again and again from one end of the earth to the other. There was some controversy over weather or not dead bodies would even be in the game (HUGE understatement). BTS made it clear that there would be no blood. They made it impossible to hack the textures to make blood... this is something set in stone. Respectfully, this is also something that could have been found out very easily on your own. I believe the problem some of us "veterans" as you call us have isn't the new faces and people, its the people who have been around for a few days and are buys telling us how this is wrong or that isnt' modeled right... in almost all cases this stuff has been discussed before and there IS a reason for most of it. Believe it or not, if you can think of something in a few days, its probably been thought of and debated already by the people who have been watching and talking about this game for over a year. all we ask is that you check out whats been said before adding your own two cents and as for blood. do a search on dead bodies, and get ready for some interesting reading material... and all of your questions on this matter will be answered. -EridanMan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holdit Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 From playing the demo only, it seems that the difference is that crawling men are lying face down and dead men are lying face up. Not too difficult to get that hang of, surely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 The base trick can be helpful. M. Seanachai-the-Canuck-hugger and I had a little meeting engagement within a meeting engagement (CE) where 2 rifle companies met head on in deep woods, and there was neither yielding nor maneuver. The resulting carnage could only be sorted out in view 5 with tree coverage reduced and bases on. The line of gray and khaki bodies and unit remnants looked more like Antietam than WWII. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darwin Posted July 21, 2000 Share Posted July 21, 2000 Here I thought this thread would be comparing dead guys to crawling guys in their effectiveness. A note on such, don't crawl when under direct assault... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seanachai Posted July 22, 2000 Share Posted July 22, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV: The base trick can be helpful. M. Seanachai-the-Canuck-hugger and I had a little meeting engagement within a meeting engagement (CE) where 2 rifle companies met head on in deep woods, and there was neither yielding nor maneuver. The resulting carnage could only be sorted out in view 5 with tree coverage reduced and bases on. The line of gray and khaki bodies and unit remnants looked more like Antietam than WWII.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Too true. Every time I opened up the PBEM file, I immediately hit 'trees off'. There was no good way to sort out the quick from the dead, otherwise. I finally surrendered, weeping, and assured my digital buddies we'd all meet again in the Big Beerstube in the Sky... ------------------ After witnessing exceptional bravery from his Celtic mercenaries, Alexander the Great called them to him and asked if there was anything they feared. They told him nothing, except that the sky might fall on their heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawyer Posted July 22, 2000 Share Posted July 22, 2000 As someone new to CM who is dedicated to learning the game and enjoying it, I thought the original question was a good one. Identifying dead squads among the living is a constant detail monitoring issue that could use some improvement. The suggested fixes to the original question do not directly deal with the issue of dead soldiers being clearly marked. For example, I don't like to use the color bases because it ruins the feel of the battle scene. I've spent a long time on the EAW forum at Combat.sim. There is generally an enthusiastic rush of help for newbies on any EAW subject, even though many forum members have been playing EAW for 2 years or more and have been through it before. This welcoming attitude works and keeps bringing new players into the community. I like the helpful tone of the CM forum overall, but not this thread. I hope people who followed development of CM would welcome newbies who will make the larger market that expands CM in popularity. If you want new people to get into and support CM, it's not real helpful to admonish them to search the thousands of entries on the forum for an answer. If you don't want to help, leave it for someone who will. I have been pleased to receive fast and helpful responses to my questions. I hope it stays that way for other new players who want to contribute. A little red to mark dead squads seems like a useful game suggestion. I hope BTS considers it for the next patch. ------------------ Res ipsa loquitur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPeng Posted July 22, 2000 Share Posted July 22, 2000 habeas corpus OK so really now. are we going to talk about the quick and the dead again? that would be fun. who likes to see limbs fly? a little red to signify blood? maybe exploding heads? oh please oh please oh please why cant there be ooey gooey guts? if its a cpu hit thing you can just use xyz code and make it really easily. Actually i think it is tasteless to have even the remotest hint that anyone dies died or has diedened or will have been dead or might be have gotten kilt or could be pushing up daisies. HEY NOW! instead of the facing up bodies, WHY DONT WE JUST HAVE A SINGLE DAISY SPROUT TO SIGNIFY PURITY, PEACE AND KILL STATS? that just might do the trick. little crosses with helmets was dismissed as silly, goofy, ridiculous and other less charitable things.... I have no trouble seeing anything in battle when I zoom in close enough to see the horror left in the dead's eyes. you can see the eyes of the dead because they are the only little bastards up-facing while the living and extremely frightened are kissin mamma earth: face down. OK so I guess we can just call this post One (1) EXTREMELY ECCENTRIC vote for what appears to be a reasonable, effective, useful, unambiguous and yet not gorey or unpleasant compromise to an horribly contentious, drawn out, often vicious debate over how to handle the dead in CM. Well done Steve and Charles. those wot don't like how the dead have been portrayed in the game really can benfit from a search. Why hack the code on your own for some measly red spots? Lawyer: I respect your post, and your opinion. However, I must disagree about the dead being clearly marked. The dead lie face up. A zoom in on the field of battle will clearly show it. Like you, I don't play with bases on. It looks terrible to me. But I know my dead guys when I see em (Berli makes sure that I have plenty to look at) I have only been on board since late November, but I have seen how nasty this board can really get. I think the first few responses to this thread were well said and helpful for achieving the desired result: which I think was telling the difference between what was alive and what was dead. This certainly took a turn for the worse when I chose to post, but that can't be helped. [{(Hell, there is a thread that got closed today because there was a*CHANCE* that I might post to it) DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT MY DIGRESSION HAS DIGRESSSED AGAIN!!!} Ok someone help me please. I may have to go back to my old sig.] Anyway. too many people get too crazy about this whole thing. It is a game. It is in my (and many other of the poor sick bastards that post here) opinion the best computer game ever made, and when someone who has posted for months or years sees even the remotest kind of perhaps bordering on maybe being a discouraging word about a feature that was discussed until eyes bled and teeth were kicked in and poxes were placed upon houses...well some of the guys get just a little weird about it. So lets build quick battles. play the premades. zoom in if we need to tell if that poor bastard next to the woods is dead or alive. or do a shift b and then another one right away so our ground isn't littered with orange unit bases... and dammit, lets have some fun. Peng ------------------ A Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single gunshot wound to the foot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seanachai Posted July 22, 2000 Share Posted July 22, 2000 Actually, the way that I find the most enjoyable for sorting out the quick and the dead is to traverse the field calling "Here, who's with Peng?" Those who answer in the negative are mine, and those who don't answer at all are with Peng, and therefore, dead... I have only been here since May of this year, so I am, I feel a relative newcomer. I have read several of the threads on the marking of the fallen, shall we say. I'm very happy with the way that BTS chose to do it. And I'm very glad they included it, as the first version of the Demo didn't have it, and destroyed units simply disappeared. When you couldn't find them, you had to assume they were dead...unless they showed up again later, then you had to put it down to lost time episodes and alien abduction. On the other hand, I am supremely grateful to BTS for doing it the way they did. I have no interest in anything other than a discreet marker. No blood, no death sprawled mounds of terror. Not even little patches of blood. It is simply unimportant, and does nothing to enhance the game, in my opinion. I understand the concept, of course, that sometimes people have trouble distinguishing them. But c'mon, is a patch of blood on the uniform really going to be any more distinguishable than the face up, leg-crooked pose? I have to say, from my own experience, if you are only playing this game at an elevation that makes it hard to distinguish between crawling and dead guys, than you are not playing it correctly. During the game I find myself constantly shifting viewpoints. In the beginning, I tended to stay in the 3 & 4 viewpoint way to much (especially 3). I missed tons of relevant details, important clues as to what was going on with my units, and with the enemy, and had a shakier grasp of terrain than I ever realized. I found when I started using views 2 & 1 more, I was starting to do much better at the game. And, at level 2, let alone 1, there's no way you can mistake the crawling quick, or the sunbathing dead. And, on that note, may I just say: Anybody else noticed how, ummmm...'odd' a dead mortar crew looks, especially looking from the head down the length of the body...with the mortar tube still in place? You get the feeling these guys died enjoying their work too much... ------------------ After witnessing exceptional bravery from his Celtic mercenaries, Alexander the Great called them to him and asked if there was anything they feared. They told him nothing, except that the sky might fall on their heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted July 22, 2000 Share Posted July 22, 2000 Peng: the Anti-Icon.* If he did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him . Lawyer, the first few replies pointed out right away that the "pool of blood" notion isn't as helpful as it seems, demonstrated this, and suggested alternatives. Pools of blood and other gore-related topics have been discussed ad infinitum. A quick Search should reveal the precedent arguments; if you have new insights, post away. If it's gore you want, the best blood there is oozes from between the emailed lines of the stricken. Otherwise, Shift-B finds the live units. *All rights reserved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted July 22, 2000 Share Posted July 22, 2000 Mr.Peng - that was a beautiful post, it made me sniffle (could also be the cold). I fully agree on all counts, and if you want to PBEM me after my return from France, let me know. Not only will I annihilate your forces, but also tell you right afterwards what you did wrong. That's the kind of arrogant sh*t, err, great helpful guy that I am... Now as for the topic at hand. If you can not distinguish between the living and the dead, you are doing something wrong. And since you are doing it wrong, adding a small puddle of red goo won't help it. Here are some suggestions: 1. zoom in 2. circle through your troops (this is necessary to find out who took losses, who is suppressed/panicking) and yes, it tells you who is eliminated. 3. zoom in 4. listen to the battle (there are voice cues when someone gets injured). 5. zoom in 6. get new glasses 7. zoom in 8. get a hearing aid 9. zoom in 10. if you think all this is beyond you, send me a setup for a PBEM, I need ladder points and I'm going to get them from you because I will win watching my troops work, and you will lose because you don't No, that's quite alright, you don't have to thank me for bettering your CM skills, really, okay, go ahead then... Honestly, someone here must be jesting. If you can not see the difference between the dead and the living now, how is a small read spot on the same figures which you can not distinguish from their pose at the moment going to help you? I am very happy with the way BTS has chosen to implement that, and anybody raising this topic can only benefit from doing a search and reading their opinion on it. I don't see that as not welcoming, BTW. Please note that all smilies on this iBook are on grave registration detail. ------------------ Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cardinal Fang Posted July 22, 2000 Share Posted July 22, 2000 Another way to tell the living from the dead is to hit shift-g which turns on the warning labels. The dead units will have a label saying "eliminated" while the live units....well.....won't. So it seems to be that with a quick shift-b or a shift-g that little red spots for the dead units aren't necessary. In my opinion of course. WHICH IS INFALLIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry 'bout that. forgot my meds. Again. Cardinal Fang Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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