A question for the "old timers"

[nevermind]

Sorry,not a reference to age,just meaning the ones who were around during the start of this board and the CM game itself.I was reading through the old archives back to '99 and '00(gaining very useful info),and having played the end product of CMBO,i was amazed to read that at one time BTS wasnt going to have dead bodies,or any representation of casualties.Now i know from reading those posts that this poor dead horse has been beaten more times than a red headed step child ,but i was curious to the evoulution of this.It is a very hard subject to follow(as it spans the years,and is under many different subject titles,and etc.),and i couldnt find any search results that told how it came to pass that BTS changed their minds.Dont get me wrong,im not asking for more animation of any sort,(the game is close enough to perfect as is)i was just pulled in by the disscussions,and wanted to see the conclusion.In an attempt to avoid any potential future debates about this(if there are any),feel free to close/lock/delete this question,and e-mail me the response if need be.Thank You for your response!hunter77@bellsouth.net

Two additional questions:(open to anyone)

1)If a .50 cal hmg can kill a HT,then why when you target it with either a vehicle mounted,or a .50 cal team,doesnt it show a hit % or a kill message(good,ok,none etc.)

2)The same for a mortar.We'll say a 60mm mortar for example.No%,no kill message.

Both just give a nice light blue line when told to target them.

[ February 09, 2003, 06:37 AM: Message edited by: Ares_the_Great ]

[Ynori Erup]

As for your last two questions, I figure that there is a lot less certainty- not to say that the crews don't aim, but my (somewhat limited) understanding of these weapons is that a tank or AT gun crew is going to have a better idea of what's a successful single shot than a heavy machine gunner peppering a halftrack with smaller rounds, and even moreso than a mortar team. In my experience, killing HTs with .50 happens rather often, less often with mortar fire, but neither weapon has anything like the success rate of the heavier weapons against HTs.

[109 Gustav]

The bodies are in place because people wanted to see something instead of just having units vanish into thin air. It also allows you to see a unit's total number of kills at the end of the game, since without the body there is nothing to click on.

[tar]

Two additional questions:(open to anyone)

1)If a .50 cal hmg can kill a HT,then why when you target it with either a vehicle mounted,or a .50 cal team,doesnt it show a hit % or a kill message(good,ok,none etc.)

My take on this is that machine guns are considered small arms (even .50 caliber!), and not anti-tank weapons. Only the anti-tank weapons get the hit% and kill message. Small arms, even if they can penetrate the armor don't get such a message.

2)The same for a mortar.We'll say a 60mm mortar for example.No%,no kill message.

Both just give a nice light blue line when told to target them.

This is a bit clearer. That is because mortars aren't direct fire weapons. They don't shoot directly at the HT, but loft a shell, which must then land inside the vehicle in order to knock it out. The chance of a mortar shell landing in any particular place is never shown to you, so again you don't get any such messages.

The bottom line is that small arms, direct-fire artillery and indirect-fire artillery each use a different method of conducting combat. Only the direct-fire artillery gets the hit% and kill messages.

[nevermind]

Thanks to all for the response.I now understand and agree with the statement about the .50 cal.

However,dealing with the mortar,(and this ecspecially goes to Tom Russ)in the event that you have two HT's perched atop a hill,in perfect line of sight,but one is maybe 200-300m closer than the other,and neither is moving.When targeting with a mortar(which from playing and reading AAR's/posts of others who played "Last Defense" is often done)shouldnt the mortar have an "optimal" range?I think its varying range is 100m-1000+m(?).Now i know nothing of ballistics,or mortars at all for that matter,but its seems that at its furthest and nearest range it would be the least accurate.In a battle with alot of turns you can run out of mortar rounds quickly,and i know it would be very minute,but if it said i had a 1% chance of hitting HT at 150m and a 2% chance(due to my optimal range theory)of hitting HT at 450m,well i would of course go with the better percentage.This is probably very much like crying over the milk spilt on the floor,but its mainly out of curiosity.I know the mortar was an indirect fire weapon,and mainly a suppression weapon.I also believe it is one of the weapons in the game that is the least used,and the most used incorrectly/least used correctly(lol).(ehh,i hate grammar,but you get my point,i hope )

If anyone out there knows if WWII mortar teams were permitted/instructed to fire on HT's(ecspecially non moving ones) this would clear up alot of my questions.

Thanks!

Scott

[ February 10, 2003, 03:09 AM: Message edited by: Ares_the_Great ]

[lcm1947]

Ares-the-great wrote;

Sorry,not a reference to age,just meaning the ones who were around during the start of this board and the CM game itself.I was reading through the old archives back to '99 and '00(gaining very useful info),and having played the end product of CMBO,i was amazed to read that at one time BTS wasnt going to have dead bodies,or any representation of casualties.Now i know from reading those posts that this poor dead horse has been beaten more times than a red headed step child ,but i was curious to the evoulution of this.

__________________________________________________

Ares I believe that CM decided that the game did need to show some dead left on the battle field but that they felt it in poor taste to show all the blood and guts involved and that if the true count of bodies was shown it would slow the game down. A lot of people didn't have a problem with blood and guts but as you can imagine there were plenty that did. CM took the safe route as I for one can understand although I disagree with and went with the feeling of the mini-van moms or more senitive ones.

[Darryl60]

Not to mention the censors in various countries.

Personally,I can easily live without blood and gore in any game.

[Stoffel]

blood and guts werent the most important part of the story.

Far more people were concerned about the fact that these details didnt serve any real purpose for the game,but would use resources that could be used better.

[Dandelion]

Stoffel is quite right and head on nail - it was all about space limitations.

(I am, in spite of my newest membership number, an old hand here)

You will find, more than anything else I think, in those old debates the argument concerning resources. CM looks slightly primitive now, but was at the time cutting edge and extremely taxing for machines. Among the fanatics following the development (such as me) there were many who were worried that the game would require what was then extremely expensive machines. Whenever anything - anything at all - was included, there was heavy argument. Shouldnt this be left out? Put something else in? People spotted the slightest detail and brought it up. Even the dead bodies.

The focal point of this (limited resources) debate as I recall it was concerning 3D models - vehicles mainly. You will notice that there are quite a few common models left out of the game. You can surely guess what kind of debates went on concerning this

Why did BTS change their minds on corpses? I dont recall they ever telling us. I think the corpses appeared right about when the 3D models we able to run (they used to just walk, which made them "skate" when running). It cannot have been easy working at BTS at this time, in a perpetual hailstorm of mail. My guess would be that the machines developed and there were not as severe limitations on resources as it used to be.

As to the mortar and fifty - I dont recall any debate on this (but I do recall a debate on the lethality of the fifty, downfall patterns of mortar shells, the sound of mortar shells, the sound of a fifty ladidadidadi). But as you probably already know, CM leans somewhat on ASL and once upon a time leaned very heavily in that direction. The distinctions between categories of weapons do follow ASL pattern in this case. CM engine also make similar calculations as ASL, thus no "To Hit" for mortars would be natural. My guess would be it is part of this heritage.

Dandelion (i.e. Tommy)

[Dandelion]

...just for reference, ASL means Advanced Squad Leader and can reasonably be considered - as Saddam would put it - the mother of all squad level tactical simulations. But no longer the prettiest daughter

In this (board)game, mortars (and mgs) are area weapons. They fire at an area and try to achieve as much effective firepower as possible (you roll the dice). If effective enough, vehicles are automatically damaged or destroyed. Thus, there is no individual tracing of projectiles or to-hit ratios.

Most of the CM engine is ASL model. Tank to tank combat, e.g., uses to hit number and then to kill number. The projectile you see is merely decoration. There is no tracing of rounds.

That said in case you are not familiar with ASL, which struck me as a possibility after all.

Dandelion