What Should Be in the Patch?

[Midnight Warrior]

1) Enable use of the mouse wheel configurable to either change view, zoom in, or tilt camera)

Or how about use the mouse wheel to act like the + and - keys so that one can step between one's units without having to use the keyboard. One notch forward on the mouse key would be like hitting the + key; one notch back would be like hitting the - key.

(Alternatively it could be implemented so that one could program the mouse wheel to do one of several functions to suit their taste).

[russellmz]

Originally posted by Peterk:

OK, this is a really wimpy request and I don't know if anyone else does this. I typically play with full trees on the screen and like latching on to a unit and dropping down to Level-1 or 2 whenever something really cool happens during a movie. Problem is, when that cool happening occurs in a forest, dropping down to 1 or 2 typically just gets you branches and tree-trunks in your face and you can't really see the squad or gun that you locked on to. So then I hit shift-T 3 or 4 times to zap the trees so I can see the unit, then after the cool happening is done I zoom out again and hit shift-T 3-4 times again to put the trees back to full. I've often wished there would just be a quick "Get Rid Of Trees" hot-key available to temporarily zap them for the purposes of getting close to something cool happening deep in the bowels of a forested region and then returning them back to the modelling preference afterwards.

I'm sure if I was the programmer of the game and someone asked me for this I would decide that it doesn't really fit and it's kind of ackward having 2 commands dealing with trees and I wouldn't do it. But what the hell - can't hurt to ask.

isn't there a shutoff all play aids hotkey? shift-q or something? look in the hotkey list i am sure it is there.

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by russellmz:

isn't there a shutoff all play aids hotkey? shift-q or something? look in the hotkey list i am sure it is there.

Yeah, but trees aren't play aids I'll tell you, it's cool to use Shift-Q to turn off the play aids but it really feels disconcerting.

What I would absolutely LOVE is to have two states, Movie State and Plotting State. Its great to have as much on as possible (trees, doodads, sounds, etc) during the movie, but can make plotting a turn impractical. If my settings during plotting were saved for plotting and my settings during movie playback were saved for movie playback, well I'd be thrilled

And even if the above isn't going to happen (but I think it would be spectacular), it would be nice for the sound to be turned off during turn calculation/AI plotting and then reset for the movie. Except in cases of very few units or no units in LOS, turning off the sound has a noticeable impact upon the speed of calculation. I've mentioned this a couple of times, but I figured I'd throw it out there again. It gets important for those of us with slower computers And if nothing else, it means on those long turn calcs with lots of armor I wouldn't be driven mad by the rumbling of dozens of idling engines.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Cameroon:

...it would be nice for the sound to be turned off during turn calculation/AI plotting and then reset for the movie.

You can do this on a Mac, which has a mute button on the keyboard as well as volume controls. I use it frequently in this context, not because I have observed any difference in plotting time with the sound off (though I will look for that now that you have mentioned it), but because I always play with music on my radio and I like to be able to hear it when the movie is not playing.

Michael

[Tero]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

are you saying they are not in ? :eek:

At least not in the version I have.

Check out for example the availability chart XXX has made.

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Cameroon:

...it would be nice for the sound to be turned off during turn calculation/AI plotting and then reset for the movie.

You can do this on a Mac, which has a mute button on the keyboard as well as volume controls. I use it frequently in this context, not because I have observed any difference in plotting time with the sound off (though I will look for that now that you have mentioned it), but because I always play with music on my radio and I like to be able to hear it when the movie is not playing.

Michael</font>

[Battlefront.com]

hehe... if we tried to put in even just the suggestions which we agree with and are practical, I see several months worth of work. Er... forgive me for saying it bluntly... it ain't gunna happen

Every day spent adding chrome and doodad features to CMBB is one day delay starting on the engine rewrite. And since the engine is being rewritten, that is one day that will not carry forward to the next game (unlike stuff done for CMBO patches which carried to CMBB).

Many of the suggestions I have seen in the past couple of pages are rather huge, like AI vs AI, partial auto purchase, new ways of displaying info, etc. Others are just impractical, like adding another dozen hotkey options for display/environmental elements (the keyboard is nearly maxed out already!).

What we are doing is concentrating on first fixing things that need to be fixed. Thankfully, that list is really quite short. Note that nearly all the suggestions in this lengthy thread are feature tweaks/wishes. And that is a good thing from our perspective

The patch should be ready quite soon. The list of things that are going into the 1.01 patch is pretty much not changing from now on. The 1.02 patch will contain a few more tweaks and fixes, but that will (hopefully) be the last patch. Then it is on to the rewrite!!

Steve

[Cougar_DK]

Hi I would like a way to save the replays so they could be played like a movie showing the full battle with no fog-of-war.

Could it be done?

Cheers

Mark "DarkAngel" Jensen

Denmark

[Broken]

There seems to be a bug in the spotting of trenches. Trenches are spotted as soon as they are in LOS at under 200m, even in woods or pines. For foxholes, the spotting distance in woods or pines is about 15m. So trenches are spottable from 13x farther away than foxholes? Imagine trying to spot a slit trench two football fields away that is 20m (65 ft) deep in woods. This looks to be a bug, since the manual states that trenches offer even better concealment than foxholes.

[Keith]

The thing I would like to have changed is the behavior of the tactical AI whenever a targeted unit is supressed and "disappears" to be replaced by a national symbol (star or cross). If this occurs the firing unit ceases firing and switches targets. The problem is if the target is an AT gun, for example, then by ceasing to at least target the foxhole where the gun is emplaced allows the AT gun crew to recover and zap your tank. What I usually do to compensate is the following turn I Area target the emplacement. But this behavior occurs frequently and is quite annoying.

[SuperSulo]

Tweak/Gameplay suggestion:

Scale the tracers. I'm serious, I can't see them past view 2. Maybe it's my gfxcard (gf3 ti500), my monitor (17" right now) or my soddy eyes, but I can't see those little buggers.

[Bone_Vulture]

Company/Platoon HQ AI! That's my problem. It seems that whenever I've set an infantry platoon hiding in hard cover to lay an ambush, what happens is that the HQ team will suddenly unhide, and open fire on the incoming hostile troops, while the rest of the platoon remain quiet.

Result: every single enemy unit with a sufficient LOS opens fire on the idiotic HQ team, usually routing/killing it within seconds. The rest of the platoon remains hidden, is left without command, and gets smashed by the horde of enemies. Fix it, please!

Either decrease the ambush radius of the HQ team, or increase the radius for other teams.

[Bruno Weiss]

...and dancing girls.

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

Company/Platoon HQ AI! That's my problem. It seems that whenever I've set an infantry platoon hiding in hard cover to lay an ambush, what happens is that the HQ team will suddenly unhide, and open fire on the incoming hostile troops, while the rest of the platoon remain quiet.

Result: every single enemy unit with a sufficient LOS opens fire on the idiotic HQ team, usually routing/killing it within seconds. The rest of the platoon remains hidden, is left without command, and gets smashed by the horde of enemies. Fix it, please!

Either decrease the ambush radius of the HQ team, or increase the radius for other teams.

Use a cover arc man That's one of the reasons they are there, after all.

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by Cameroon:

Use a cover arc man That's one of the reasons they are there, after all.

Ok, sounds reasonable, although I'd still like a "Stay the hell down 'til you're shot at" command.

[ October 10, 2002, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Bone_Vulture ]

[Holman]

Any chance of increasing the size of the doodads for rocky terrain? Even with doodads at maximum density, I can't tell rocky areas from clear grass at map levels above 3 (and at 3 I have to squint).

[MrSpkr]

How about incorporating CM OneClick into the program so PBEMers can click one button within the game to load an email file and automatically enter the password, then one button that will open up an email with the file as an automatic attachment (with a .zip option) and allow you to enter a short taunt, then mail it off to your opponent.

Steve

[Cpl Carrot]

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is changing the bomb weights from lbs to kg's as they should be.

Cpl Carrot

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Cameroon:

Use a cover arc man That's one of the reasons they are there, after all.

Ok, sounds reasonable, although I'd still like a "Stay the hell down 'til you're shot at" command. </font>

[aka_tom_w]

from this thread

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=001939

Even in EFOW should sound contacts be able to identify the type of weapon being fired???

I think this is a GREAT point:

kdavis

Member

Member # 10218

posted October 11, 2002 02:23 AM

In the same scenario, I received immediate sound contacts on 37mm PAKs after they had fired only one

shot. The locations were a bit off, and I only got "AT Gun?" indicated on the contact, but at least I had

an idea of where the fire was coming from and could react accordingly. I've had the same problem with

mortars firing repeatedly within 100m of my troops, but only being identified by an "Infantry?" sound

contact. I can sure as hell hear the mortars firing, but apparently my guys think that might actually be

a sub-machinegun making that sound. Oh well, its a trivial concern, but it does strike me as a bit

unrealistic. Just play a few rounds of America's Army: Operations and watch how quickly you learn to

distinguish between the sounds of the different weapons firing. Hell, soldiers in WWI learned to tell the

size and direction of incoming rounds just by their sound. Being able to distinguish between the

sounds of rifles, machineguns, mortars and AT rifles seems like nothing in comparison. Granted, I only

play in EFOW, so I'm not sure how sound contacts are handled in lesser FOW. I'm too in love with how

visual spotting is realistically handled in EFOW to stop using it, I just wish sound contacts could provide

more realistic information.

--------------------

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by MrSpkr:

How about incorporating CM OneClick into the program so PBEMers can click one button within the game to load an email file and automatically enter the password, then one button that will open up an email with the file as an automatic attachment (with a .zip option) and allow you to enter a short taunt, then mail it off to your opponent.

Steve

I second this great idea.

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Why aren't you placing your HQs where they don't have an LOS to the enemy units anyway? I usually do that just to keep them alive. If your troops are in some woods, put the HQ further back into the woods to where he will be out of sight to the enemy but still have his troops in command. The same principle applies in other terrain.

The firepower of a command group is usually trivial to a firefight. Their purpose is to add their bonuses to the effectiveness of the squads.

Michael

>DUH<

I always place the HQ team behind the platoon, to a maximum distance and cover that still allows command contact. Today, I was playind defense as Axis, and a Company HQ located in a foxhole suddenly decided not to hide anymore and opened fire at soviet infantry at a length of 120 meters. It hadn't been spotted or fired upon. If this isn't a bug, it's troop AI gone nuts. :mad:

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

Today, I was playind defense as Axis, and a Company HQ located in a foxhole suddenly decided not to hide anymore and opened fire at soviet infantry at a length of 120 meters. It hadn't been spotted or fired upon. If this isn't a bug, it's troop AI gone nuts. :mad:

One question: Can you tell us what experience level the HQ was? Anything else noteworthy about it? I'm also wondering if it didn't go fanatic, but there's no way to determine that.

Michael

[Vanir Ausf B]

Option of selecting random division type in QBs without having to select random nationality.

[Bruno Weiss]

Dunno if this was mentioned, I ain't reading six pages of stuff and who knows how many other posts. But it'd sure be nice if at least vehicle units would fire back when hiding and using a v-arc when fired on. I got a T-34 hiding, using a v-arc, and an enemy light tank just outside that arc was pinging shells off the T-34 like tennis balls and the Russian just sat there.