Thomm Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 Check out this site containing particle effects for Panzer Elite and a lot of photographs of explosions/dust/dirt/muzzle flashes ... http://dreamwater.net/cotton/ The next step of graphical realism in CM is tons of dust and smoke, in my humble opinion! This site is a good source for that! Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 Well.. CM already has particle effects - look at artillery explosions. Engine exhaust and dust seem like nice eye candy, but not terribly necessary. And I definately prefer the "shockwave" effect of guns firing and artillery impacting to the smokey fountains in PE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrene Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 The particle effects are nice, but the rest of the game looks kind of cruddy when compared to CM with mods. Those buildings and trees look like crap. Gyrene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattias Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 Gyrene, Panzer Elite is older than CM and though it may look a bit stale in the screen shots I personally felt the environment to be much more "alive and real" when in the game than that in CM. CM is much more my kind of game but Panzer Elite has a thing or two to show for it.. M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrene Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 Mattias, is Panzer Elite more of a simulator (I.e. driving sim?) Gyrene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattias Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 Exactly, it is a tank simulator. You man one of the positions in a tank and/or command a platoon (at least?) of tanks. Realistic (if a bit on the useless side as I remember) interiors and very much "alive" exteriors. There are a lot of things to be said about it but in the end it comes down to being a very ambitious and, actually, quite good piece of software. Ably supported by a sizable mod community. It has been a while since I played it last but I know there has been a lot of very good mods produced since then. M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offtaskagain Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 The game gets most of the stuff right, but the armor penetration model sucks. IIRC it uses a guns armor penetration at 30 degree slope. It doesn't account for armor slope at all. Therefore the 76mm gunned Shermans can kill Panthers through the glacis plate, but not Tigers. I have put no less than 10 rounds (verified in the AAR that all hit) from a Panther straight into a Stuart at 200m and the son of a bitch kept on firing! Same thing with Tigers and KTs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted December 11, 2001 Share Posted December 11, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by panzerwerfer42: The game gets most of the stuff right, but the armor penetration model sucks. IIRC it uses a guns armor penetration at 30 degree slope. It doesn't account for armor slope at all. Therefore the 76mm gunned Shermans can kill Panthers through the glacis plate, but not Tigers. I have put no less than 10 rounds (verified in the AAR that all hit) from a Panther straight into a Stuart at 200m and the son of a bitch kept on firing! Same thing with Tigers and KTs.<hr></blockquote> Thats sort of a shame! I'm on a Mac so I have never played the game, but since it was "supposed" ot be a WWII tank simulator I would have expected it to have a VERY precise armour penetration model. I had assumed it was superior to to CMBO's armour penetration model because it was a tank sim from WWII, I'm happy, but somehow disappointed to learn I was mistaken to think PE had a more accurate armour penetration model than CMBO. Thanks for the update. -tom w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt Steiner Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 Hi all Those telegraph poles in PzElite are a nice touch which 'busy-up' the field of view I was considering getting the re-released PzElite (whilst awaiting CMBB) but the info on the penetration model is tad off-putting Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Johnson-- Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 Stuarts never gave my Tigers or Panthers much trouble. And I probably put well over 2000 hours into that game. Considering the other pitiful attempts at WW2 tank sims, PE is still on top. And for only 20 bucks the new rerelease should be well worth it. Anyone remember IPanzer-44. Now that was sad. And with all the mods there is like 100 or more tanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PJungnitsch Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>And with all the mods there is like 100 or more tanks.<hr></blockquote> Including some heavy iron, Maus and E100: [ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Paul Jungnitsch ]</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JunoReactor Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 About that inaccuracy (of armor slopes not being modelled) - if all shots hit at a fixed angle, I dont see how this problem cannot be easily solved by making the armor values relative to that angle - i.e, Panther's glacis would be 120mm@30 degrees (or whatever) while Tiger's front armor would be 70mm@30... Thus, the only inaccuracy I can think of (I am not even close to being a grog) is the height differences between the shooter and defender. Oh, and the increase of angle when the shot is coming from an off angle to left or right. Err... Still, reasonably accurate... I am assuming that this is already done - is it not? I am asking because I was considering the game as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offtaskagain Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mr. Johnson-<THC>-: Stuarts never gave my Tigers or Panthers much trouble. <hr></blockquote> It's not that they kill my Panther, it's that my Panther can't kill them. In the regular battles they didn't really seem to be too much of a problem. However when I play the instant action is when they get uber armor status. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 Mmmm.. E-100s and Mauses would be fun to play with. I don't suppose there are any other E-series tanks (E-1000 anyone???). Also, if I remember PE right, there was no East Front version. Has this been rectified with mods? I only played maybe 50-100 hours on my roommate's computer two years ago.. I remember it was a fun game, but a bit frustrating at times. Where can I get the re-released version, if BTS doesn't mind my asking everyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nowotny Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 fytinghellfish-there is an ostfront mod now, I think it's shipping with the updated panzer elite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offtaskagain Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by fytinghellfish: I only played maybe 50-100 hours on my roommate's computer two years ago.. I remember it was a fun game, but a bit frustrating at times. Where can I get the re-released version, if BTS doesn't mind my asking everyone?<hr></blockquote> Panzer Elite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattias Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 Hmmm.. PE special editon was released on the 29th of November, good timing on this thread.. M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted December 12, 2001 Author Share Posted December 12, 2001 Hmmm. I posted that URL to advocate the nice collection of WWII photographs, sorted by topics like muzzle flash, burning vehicles etc. I did not want to provoke an off-topic discussion about Panzer Elite. Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattias Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 The fact that the discussion didn't stay on that course is no big surprise though, seeing as PE shares a number of traits with CM and the topic was comparing the two, or at the very least looking at one in relationship to the other. Still time to "correct" the course if you want to though M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted December 12, 2001 Share Posted December 12, 2001 Slightly off topic I know, but is there a demo of the re-released version available anywhere? I couldn't find a link. PE doesn't represent infantry to the same degree as CM does it? I know it's a tank sim, but infantry are a threat aren't they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted December 12, 2001 Author Share Posted December 12, 2001 Well, lots of ideas are thrown around with respect to graphics improvements. In my opinion, the most gain could be obtained by directing rendering power to the display of dust and smoke clouds of all kinds. Case example: Empire Earth. Real time "fantasy" strategy, therefore not very appealing to me. But what caught my attention was that after the soldiers fired their rifles, the muzzle smoke hung around longer than it took the soldiers to reload and fire again and, thereby, producing another smoke cloud. The battlefield was soon filled with (rather persistentr) smoke and dust! This looked great and was definitely a better investment than a higher polygon count or shadows or real time lighting. Smoke is a good way to visualize the flow of the battle, or the path of a vehicle for example. Of course it is another topic that one would have to perform LOS checks for every particle that is produced Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMC Posted December 13, 2001 Share Posted December 13, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mr. Johnson-<THC>-: Anyone remember IPanzer-44. Now that was sad.<hr></blockquote> Oh, yes. My wife had bought me Quake II as a gift. I had played the demo and it hadn't really gotten me interested. Plus I just happened to catch the blurb in the system requirements that stated you must have the English-language version of Windows 95 to play. After I few pointless emails to Activision about those system requirements, I took it back and traded it for iPanzer 44. Oh...My...God. What a piece of crap. If you looked through their manual, it seemed like they had a decent team that wanted to make a good game, but.....they must have known they were packaging a real turd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Cotton Posted December 15, 2001 Share Posted December 15, 2001 Hello everyone, Someone emailed me about this post. Hi Philippe :0) panzerwerfer42 It doesn't use penetration set at 30 slope. The damage model is much more complex than that. I'm not the best one to explain this but here goes so bare with me. ;0) There is an invisible external box around the vehicle. When a round enters this box it travels through it until it hits a polygon of the actual model itself. When this happens a calculation as to the angle is made based on the angle of the polygon and the angle of the incoming round. The limit on this calculation may be 30 degrees. Ounce this calculation is made another calculation is made to wether the round can penetrate the armour of this part of the vehicle at this angle. This takes into account many things I'm not going to go into detail like type of armour, thickness, momentum of round ect. Ounce the round has penetrated it travels from the point of penetration along the angle that it entered through the vehicle. As it travels through the vehicle it will pass through components inside the tank damaging/destroying/ wounding/killing them. I think there are three component layers to each of the vehicles. Here is a link to the developers explanation thats been up since before the game was released a couple years ago. It has links at the bottom of the pages that take you through all the diagrams and layers. http://www.wingssimulations.com/damage/damage.html One problem you may be having is that you are shooting and penetrating but you are simply damaging the tank in the same location and not knocking it out. Damage is not accumulative in that if you shoot the transmission 10 times you'll only take out the transmission. If your experience with the game was when it was first released it did have some damage model bugs that have been fixed since. The mods have also improved upon this system. phil stanbridge The infantry are modeled. If you get close to them they will attempt to assault your tank and disable it. If you happen to have your hatch open they will quickly kill you and drop a grenade down the hatch for good measure destroying the vehicle. They also have PanzerFaust, PanzerShrecks and Bazookas that are quite affective if you get within their range. I hope that this helps clear some things up. :0) The Panzer Elite Special Edition rerelease is cheap so pick it up if you didn't get the game the first time around before it bacame impossible to get due to it's Publisher going bankrupt. I don't think anyone with an interest in WWII armour will be disappointed. :0) BTW I've added acouple new pics and screens to my website. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted December 15, 2001 Share Posted December 15, 2001 Off topic post, being moved to General Forum. Nice page there Joe. Madmatt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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