Editing waypoints

[Beeper]

A bit embarrassing this

I have been plying CMBO and CMBB for some time now but it wasn’t until today that I found out that you can not only change the location of the plotted waypoints but the orders as well.

First of all, why hasn’t anyone told me before, and second, is there a use for this?

[Nekander]

1) I'm really sorry..

2) I have found them useful in some situations (won't help me much though, I loose every single one of my PBEMs..).

-Nekander

[ March 22, 2003, 04:35 PM: Message edited by: Nekander ]

[Slappy]

1. I don't know either. I hate to say it but read the manual.

2. It's very useful. Let's say you have some infantry crossing open ground at a move when they come under long range fire. You can immediately switch the move order to advance. The troops will move faster and be more resistent to the fire. I often switch fast and hunt orders on vehicles.

There are many more uses for this, but you'll see them fast enough if you know that this exists.

[Mortar Man]

Geez, I'm in the same boat as Beeper. I've had CM for about 4 months and never knew about this feature until raised by this very thread!

Many thanks for raising the point. I think its time for me to "RTFM" to see if there's anything else I've missed out on

[lcm1947]

I just heard about this feature recently myself and I have read the manual "sort of anyway" years ago. I however have misplaced it and or my wife destroyed it :mad: . Could someone explain what all is involved here if it wouldn't require too much typing on your part. I would really really like to use it.

[tar]

Select the waypoint in question.

Type the keyboard shortcut. You can probably also do a regular order as well.

[lcm1947]

Thanks Tar for the reply but - What? I don't get it. Could you spell it out a little better. There might be slow people that don't have a clue what you just said.

[tar]

You said to spare the typing.

OK, in a bit more detail.

Select a unit with movement orders. You will see one or more waypoints.

Click on one of those waypoints. It will now be selected instead of the unit.

Type one of the movement shortcuts, or activate the menu and select a different movement order. (I'm pretty sure you can activate the menu in the normal way, but I don't have my OS 9 machine booted up at the moment so I can't check).

That's it. You've changed the movement order. You can change any of the waypoint movement types, including the one you are going towards.

[walpurgis nacht]

1) yes it's in the manual . . . but there's no reason to be trite about reading it in general, because .09% of what you need to know to be good at cmbb is in the manual.

Editing waypoints/movement orders is one of the most important fine-tuning elements in the game.

Let's say you're playing an ME. Your movement orders on the first turn tend to be longer and more elaborate than later in the game. And these movement orders can take 2-5 full turns before your units reach their endpoint. Thing is, you gather intel while you move (spot enemy troops/armor, etc.), so you want to be able to reshape your forward movement where necessary to give you the best tactical options to react to what is thrown at you in a fluid manner. That's where editing movement orders becomes an essential technique. You don't want to have to "stop" every time there is a problem . . .you want to try to "adjust" every time there is a problem. "pulling" a waypoint a distace even as little as 5 meters can often keep you out of newly discovered enemy LOS.

Another thing, there are almost no units . . .on defense or offense, that you should not assign movement orders to EVERY SINGLE TURN. You are not going to actually move all these units every turn, you are just going to prepare them to move immediatly when the next turn begins. Use the pause function, and set the time so that the unit will be ready at the very beginning of the next turn (i.e. 63 second delay) to move. Most of the time, you will just cancel the move and reset it every turn because you don't want to move. But sometimes opportunities pop up really quickly, and if you happen to have the right movement order "locked and loaded" . . . you can release it instantly the next turn. Very useful.

Take an MG42 deployed in the forward end of a small patch of woods on a hill. There is no reason why every turn you should not give him the movement order to "sneak" to the back of the patch (with 60+ sec delay). This is in case the enemy opens up on the MG42 with unexpected HE from a newly positioned AFV (or whatever). You then have a "sneak" retreat locked, loaded, and ready to go immediatly the next turn.

Or how about assualting armor with pioneers? Go absolutly nuts and choose ridiculous movement orders for them. You never know where that armor may move the next turn . . .so be daring in your choices . . . .you're likely just going to cancel and reset the orders next turn anyway . . .but if he moves that tank into just the right spot. Bam!

Hope this helps

[lcm1947]

Thanks Tar for that somewhat better reply. I think everybody even the thick heads should now be able to understand it, I of course got it right off . Now where did I place that manual. :confused: :mad: Oh and Walpurgis good examples thank you also.

[Frunze]

Or you can right-click on the waypoint, and the menu will come up.

[lcm1947]

Well Ok that sounds easy enough. Thank you kindly Frunze.

[lcm1947]

Another quesion on this subject. Let's say you have two way points from a previous turn and you want to delete the second way point leaving the first one is there a command or hotkey to do this? I sure hope so. Anybody know?

[kenfedoroff]

Originally posted by lcm1947:

Another quesion on this subject. Let's say you have two way points from a previous turn and you want to delete the second way point leaving the first one is there a command or hotkey to do this? I sure hope so. Anybody know?

What happens when you hit the "backspace" key? Does it dump a way-point?

[Gen. Longstreet]

Backspace only removes the last waypoint, right ?

Manual has got to be around here somewhere.....

[lcm1947]

Yeah great! the backspace key does delete the last waypoint. That's what I needed. Thanks

Kenfedoroff for taking the time to help me on this. I thought I had tried every single key but I guess not the backspace one - of course. Thanks again this will make a big difference to my games.