JeffreyAJohnson Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 I'm playing a PBEM quick battle game as a Canadian attacker. My Sherman tank was simply "abandoned" when it was near an anti-tank minefield. It was also under panzer-shrek fire at the time, but I believe it missed the tank (and possibly hit the minefield). I also just had a White Scout Car get "eliminated" through mysterious means (also near this mine field). I can understand (and usually see) what "upper hull penetrated" means, like from an AT gun hit, but I don't know why these two vehicles were taken out. In the first instance, I think the tank might have been within 10m of the mine marker sign, but the scout car was (half a road + a house width + half a road) distance from the mine marker. It would help to: - See the grey minefield area extend the entire area of the minefield (or maybe just add a grey rectangle/square around the mine field perimeter) - Know what "abandoned" means for a vehicle - Know what "eliminated" means for a vehicle Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffreyAJohnson Posted March 16, 2001 Author Share Posted March 16, 2001 Oh yeah! The AT mines were in the center of a road. I told the tank to move to a spot on the road on the other side of the minefield. I thought the TACAI was supposed to move the tank around the minefield for me (?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogface Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 Originally posted by JeffreyAJohnson: Oh yeah! The AT mines were in the center of a road. I told the tank to move to a spot on the road on the other side of the minefield. I thought the TACAI was supposed to move the tank around the minefield for me (?). hahahaahahahha oh god that kills me ps abandoned = crew scared hurt, run away from vehicle crew may come back if operation. eleminated = vehicle damaged beyond repair no hope of recovery any time soon [This message has been edited by Dogface (edited 03-15-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 You can see the full extent of friendly mine areas but enemy mines, once discovered, only show the center of the area. This is part of the fog of war. Just because a mine field has been discovered doesn't mean that you will automatically know every corner of the minefield. It would take some time (beyond the scope of a battle) to have combat engineers use mine detectors to find out the exact or rough dimentions of a mine field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 You can see the full extent of friendly mine areas but enemy mines, once discovered, only show the center of the area. This is part of the fog of war. Just because a mine field has been discovered doesn't mean that you will automatically know every corner of the minefield. It would take some time (beyond the scope of a battle) to have combat engineers use mine detectors to find out the exact or rough dimentions of a mine field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasper Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 If the enemy had your best interests in mind he wouldn't shoot bullets at you. Sounds like you (now) respect minefields, and are probably starting to get some ideas how you might use them yourself. And sounds like you've learned a little about trusting the AI to bail you out of bad decisions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffreyAJohnson Posted March 16, 2001 Author Share Posted March 16, 2001 Originally posted by Dogface: abandoned = crew scared hurt, run away from vehicle crew may come back if operation. Nope, the crew doesn't want anything to do with that tank anymore (it hasn't been shot up and isn't burning or anything). Is there a "re-crew" command I need to give them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffreyAJohnson Posted March 16, 2001 Author Share Posted March 16, 2001 Originally posted by Jasper: Sounds like you (now) respect minefields, .... And sounds like you've learned a little about trusting the AI to bail you out of bad decisions. I respected minefields before. I also respected the competency of the CM manual author(s) when they asserted that units would route themselves around known minefields automatically. Why was it a "bad decision" for me to try to move my tank from point A on one side of a minefield to point B on the other side ? That's where it needed to be. I was relying on the program's documentation to be correct -- was that a "bad decision" ? Less pompousness in future replies would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juardis Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 Originally posted by JeffreyAJohnson: Nope, the crew doesn't want anything to do with that tank anymore (it hasn't been shot up and isn't burning or anything). Is there a "re-crew" command I need to give them? He said "Operation". Operations are mutliple battles strung together. If you're playing a scenario or QB, that is considered a single battle and your crew will not get back in the tank. In operations, there is down time between battles during which time your crew MIGHT get back in the tank (or get a new one). ------------------ Jeff Abbott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Aitken Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 Keep in mind that if you're not sure what killed your vehicles, it probably wasn't a mine. Mine detonations appear as an explosion under your vehicle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffreyAJohnson Posted March 16, 2001 Author Share Posted March 16, 2001 Originally posted by Pak40: You can see the full extent of friendly mine areas but enemy mines, once discovered, only show the center of the area. This is part of the fog of war. Just because a mine field has been discovered doesn't mean that you will automatically know every corner of the minefield. It would take some time (beyond the scope of a battle) to have combat engineers use mine detectors to find out the exact or rough dimentions of a mine field. Yeah, but that's the real world. I'm talking about the game world, where the manual says minefields are exactly 20m X 20m. If they can show my minefields like that, why don't they show the enemy minefields like that. Or, do they really extend less or more than 20m X 20m. If so, then how far do they extend? If we want to be more realistic, then let's get rid of the precision range estimates (like when you do a "line of sight" or "target" command and it displays the line with "NNN meters" at the end). How do these folks know preciously, to the exact meter, how far away something is? I realize this is a game compromise, and I'm just saying that I'd like another game compromise to see the extent of enemy minefields. Also, to be realistic, which of my forces actually went out there on the battlefield and put that skull and crossbones "panzer mines" sign up in the road? Or, is this just supposed to represent an abstract marker that someone has yelled/radioed to the commander about where the minefield is. If so, then they can also mark where the approximate extent of that minefield is on the map while they're at it. Maybe when you first detect a minefield, you get a very imprecise 40x40 circle/square showing the maximum possible extent of it, and as you move units closer to it, it gets more precise, until it finally shifts itself onto a 20m X 20m area where it really is. This would be like how enemy units are first represented as "Infantry Squad?" and then more precisely identified as your units move closer to them. I also thought someone from BTS might answer me, as they sometimes do for others who post questions on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted March 16, 2001 Share Posted March 16, 2001 Originally posted by JeffreyAJohnson: I respected minefields before. I also respected the competency of the CM manual author(s) when they asserted that units would route themselves around known minefields automatically. Are you sure you told the tank to move to the other side of the minefield? Since you don't know the size of the field, maybe you told it to move what you thought was the other side of the field but in fact it was still within the field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted March 17, 2001 Share Posted March 17, 2001 Originally posted by JeffreyAJohnson: Yeah, but that's the real world. I'm talking about the game world, where the manual says minefields are exactly 20m X 20m. If they can show my minefields like that, why don't they show the enemy minefields like that. Or, do they really extend less or more than 20m X 20m. If so, then how far do they extend? If we want to be more realistic, then let's get rid of the precision range estimates (like when you do a "line of sight" or "target" command and it displays the line with "NNN meters" at the end Just because the enemy shoots at you doesn't mean that you will immediately see every one of his units and know exactly how strong and of which type each of them are. The same is said for minefields when they are discovered. The distance shown on the LOS and target lines is a totally different subject. However, I do agree that it's not 100% realistic. But, it is a common feature of all wargames to provide some basis of distance measuring for the players, wheather it's counting hexes or displayed in the LOS command. Here is an easy solution for you. It will take you about 1 minute to do this: Open the scenario editor, choose a few allied and german units including all types of mines that are available. Then go to the map builder and launch the preview mode. You will be able to move & rotate the mine. It will show you exactly how big each on is. You can measure them for future referece and next time you come across mines in a game you will know exactly how big a mine field is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted March 17, 2001 Share Posted March 17, 2001 Originally posted by Pak40: Here is an easy solution for you. It will take you about 1 minute to do this: Open the scenario editor, choose a few allied and german units including all types of mines that are available. Then go to the map builder and launch the preview mode. You will be able to move & rotate the mine. It will show you exactly how big each on is. You can measure them for future referece and next time you come across mines in a game you will know exactly how big a mine field is. Thats probably the best advice in this thread yet. you can LEARN a GREAT deal about how the game works by building a scenario or two in the map editor, its easy to learn and it can teach you alot, especially about mine field dimensions. -tom w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted March 17, 2001 Share Posted March 17, 2001 Anti-personnel minefields are 20mx20m (one tile) I believe. But those daisy-chain mines are only 10mx10m I think. Should be somewhere in the manual. If not, whoever wrote it should be shot... why you're looking at me? ------------------ "An hour has 60 minutes, each minute in action has a thousand dangers." - Karl-Heinz Gauch, CO 1st Panzerspähkompanie, 12th SS Panzerdivision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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