Big announcement... Battlefront is now Slitherine

[Vacillator]

5 hours ago, Bannon said:

Besides, I need practice to get ready for @Vacillator when he has the time for a battle.

no practice required my friend.  What title were we thinking of?  A WW2 one I think?

[Bannon]

I believe we were discussing Cold War.

[Redwolf]

21 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

Perhaps they're using Python? That seemed to be the popular one a couple years ago when I last checked. It's an admittedly pretty elegant language (generally takes fewer steps to do more complex things). But the total lack of semicolons just feels very wrong.

Python is extremely slow, though. Unless you only use it as glue to connect C code modules (like they do in many machine learning frameworks).

And interfacing C# and Python will be no fun at all since you have to go through a C layer.

[Redwolf]

[double post due to forum latency]

Edited October 12 by Redwolf

[Bannon]

I wonder how many current, former, aspiring, and/or hobbyist programmers are following this thread.

[Redwolf]

[double post due to forum latency]

Edited October 12 by Redwolf

[OldSarge]

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

I wonder how many current, former, aspiring, and/or hobbyist programmers are following this thread.

I suspect that there are plenty of us lurking about on this forum.

[Dynaman216]

3 hours ago, Redwolf said:

 

And interfacing C# and Python will be no fun at all since you have to go through a C layer.

IronPython would not need this - it is compiled into the DotNet framework like C#.  At least when done outside of Unity, with Unity's C# implementation (and possibly due to cross platform considerations) it may not be possible.

[Shady_Side]

Reading a lot about future CM engine and graphics and  other computer code thingy's I don't really understand. My two cents is this I doubt CM has ever had a customer because of it's slick looking graphics. All the guys buying games based on that are never going to play CM much less spend 60 bucks on a copy of any title in the first place. Here is my wish list in order of my preference. Make it more user friendly. By that I mean reduce the amount of clicks needed for some simple routine actions. An example would be getting a  whole company to grab extra ammo in deployment or at least a whole platoon at a time instead of squad by squad team by team. Give us a follow me command to make traffic management in the early stages less fidgety. In the early stages most of the time a player does not have to be very exact with their first moves with infantry and vehicles. Give us a reinforcement option for quick battles. Give us any other feature y'all smart guys think of to make the game more user friendly, meaning less repetitive clicking. Give us a shoot and scoot function for both anti-tank dismounts and for vehicles. Give us huge maps that don't lag.. Give us smarter AI for single player and Tac AI.... Then after all that is done....... if there is still any room left for improvements and updates... then give us better graphics....  But most of all do all in your power to keep the core of CM the way it is and don't let anybody make a bastardized CM/C.O.D. game in an attempt to reach a larger market...

[chuckdyke]

23 minutes ago, Shady_Side said:

Give us a shoot and scoot function

Other graphic programs solve that problem example Photoshop among others. Record a sequence and save it as an action. In our game all you need to do click on a different unit and assign the action. Now you are at it, have a movement order in which fast means road travel only. Quick would mean open terrain, Move would be marching, or convoy and Hunt would be stealth. Easier if you make your own in actions. 

[Dynaman216]

27 minutes ago, Shady_Side said:

Reading a lot about future CM engine and graphics and  other computer code thingy's I don't really understand. My two cents is this I doubt CM has ever had a customer because of it's slick looking graphics. 

Yes and no.  Yes the graphics are not the main selling point for CM but no the graphics can not be ignored and do need to be upgraded to be competitive - even in the niche that CM has carved out for itself.  It does not have to be AAA quality but it does need updating.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Dynaman216 said:

Yes and no.  Yes the graphics are not the main selling point for CM but no the graphics can not be ignored and do need to be upgraded to be competitive - even in the niche that CM has carved out for itself.  It does not have to be AAA quality but it does need updating.

Exactly that.  There's no way, none, that CM will branch out beyond its niche without stellar graphics.  The gameplay doesn't sell itself, however is needed to keep people's attention.  Put another way, come for the graphics and stay for the game.

Also, I don't agree that CM fans don't care about the graphics.  I've been hearing since 2007 how people are playing CM *despite* the graphics.  And as graphics have advanced, the calls for improvements have increased.  Whether it's purely complaints about how X computer with Y resources can't get Z framerate or criticism of specific elements (like shadows), we'd be fools to not pay attention.  I mean, cripes, if we said CM3 was nothing more than CM2's engine with some gameplay improvements, I think we'd be dead as a doornail.

So yes, I agree fully that the gameplay elements that made CM2 great need to be retained and improved for us to have a great game.  And a great game is what we already already have after many years of working on CM3.  I'm sure what we have already made will definitely be greeted with many cheers from the CM2 faithful.

But too soon to say much more than that

Steve

[Silentkilarz]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Exactly that.  There's no way, none, that CM will branch out beyond its niche without stellar graphics.  The gameplay doesn't sell itself, however is needed to keep people's attention.  Put another way, come for the graphics and stay for the game.

Excuse me while I load up another Road to Mortain campaign.....

[CarlXII]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

  And a great game is what we already already have after many years of working on CM3.  I'm sure what we have already made will definitely be greeted with many cheers from the CM2 faithful.

The best few words i have read on this forum for quite some time ! 

[SlowMotion]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Exactly that.  There's no way, none, that CM will branch out beyond its niche without stellar graphics.  The gameplay doesn't sell itself, however is needed to keep people's attention.  Put another way, come for the graphics and stay for the game.

Also, I don't agree that CM fans don't care about the graphics.  I've been hearing since 2007 how people are playing CM *despite* the graphics.  And as graphics have advanced, the calls for improvements have increased.  Whether it's purely complaints about how X computer with Y resources can't get Z framerate or criticism of specific elements (like shadows), we'd be fools to not pay attention.  I mean, cripes, if we said CM3 was nothing more than CM2's engine with some gameplay improvements, I think we'd be dead as a doornail.

I think improving graphics is not just making higher resolution look to things like uniforms or vehicles. It could also be adding new kind of animations to some situations like what happens when a vehicle is hit with anti tank weapon. Sometimes this could cause immediate explosion, sometime a smaller fire which grows and might cause an explosion later. Also a vehicle might stop immediately after being hit, but it might also start burning yet still continue moving some random amount before stopping. I think this kind of alternatives where things don't always happen the same way add much to game play, because it's more difficult to guess how things develop.  

One very good example of these in current CM engine is the secondary explosions of tanks that may happen sometime later after a tank/vehicle has been destroyed. The explosion can cause damage to equipment or soldiers nearby.

[callada]

Whatever happens, I'd be thrilled if the UI's performance was decoupled from the game/world renderer's performance.  Meaning we could maintain 60fps or whatever in the UI regardless of how the "stuff that is going on" is chugging.

[Jotte]

So, will Space Lobsters be a preorder bonus for CM3 then?

[Artkin]

The amount of visible icons on a screen crushes fps. Try it - play with a lot of troops on a blank map on the Iron difficulty. Select a unit (You will only see the formations it sees) and the fps will run super smooth. Unselect the unit and you'll see the entire map again, and fps will reduce. The effect can be dramatic. 

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, callada said:

Whatever happens, I'd be thrilled if the UI's performance was decoupled from the game/world renderer's performance.  Meaning we could maintain 60fps or whatever in the UI regardless of how the "stuff that is going on" is chugging.

The reasons for the hardcoded UI sizing in CM2 is a direct result of OpenGL not supporting a 3D environment with "detached" interactive UI.  As anybody who works with APIs know, it's difficult (at best) to make it do something it wasn't designed for.  Back when CM2 started it wasn't such a big deal because for most people it was impractical to play at a higher resolution (larger screen) because the framerate would suck.  But as cards and computers got better that changed, but the difficulty of supporting separate UI did not.  Which is why CM2 stayed as it was.

Unity doesn't have that sort of restrictions because it was made after the computing resources and game designs had progressed.  CM3 is based on Unity, so you can all follow that logic train to a positive conclusion

Steve

[chuckdyke]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

to make it do something it wasn't designed for. 

No point rubbishing something if you can't do it better. Mius Front has better graphics but that is where it stops. I look forward on a more modern Combat Mission games. As long as you don't compromise on the 'Soft Factors'. Possibly integrate with Xbox Recording which comes with Windows.

[BornGinger]

I thought that General Discussions already had a thread where people mention all that they would like to see in CM3. But maybe two is better than only one?

[Battlefront.com]

I'm not aware of a CM3 feature request thread, but that's OK because this whole Forum is basically one big request list   In any case, I'm not commenting on specific features requests because it sets expectations.

Steve

[Warts 'n' all]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 CM3 

I hated Charlie Monarch 1, to think that we have reached Charlie Monarch 3 makes my blood boil. Sorry, I'm getting abbreviations muddled up.

[Dynaman216]

I'm interested to see how much more (hopefully more) productive the team can be since they no longer need to write lower level graphics routines, Unity takes care of that for them.  Though sometimes a higher level engine can be a curse as well as a blessing when some D*MN routine does not work as advertised.

[Badger73]

On 10/12/2024 at 10:24 PM, Silentkilarz said:

Excuse me while I load up another Road to Mortain campaign.....

I'd like to play that!  Where could I find this "Road to Mortain" campaign?

Or did you mean to say "Road to Montebourg" instead?