12Bravo Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 "Not all vehicles can crush obsacles - wheeled vehicles can't (with the exception of Sdkfz 232 8-rad)." Actually, the smallest wheeled armored vehicle in the game can crush trees. Check out this video I made from the latest version of TOW: http://doubleveteran.com/militarysims/TOW/TOWwheeledVehicleTest.avi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneaksie Posted September 28, 2007 Author Share Posted September 28, 2007 Yep, we found this bug:) Will be fixed in patch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gcoat Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 Sneaksie, W.r.t Vista support": Okay. I understand this WinXP decision, but was wondering about latest Vista developments. W.r.t. "Running down trees": I'm not sure if this is the right way because it leads to, among many other things, some very unrealistic and very illogical situations like panzers crushing every tree along a road just to get from A to B. I understand tanks sometimes need to crush trees when they're in immediate danger or plan a surprise attack (i.e. a high threat level), but when they only maneuver and are not in immediate danger (e.g. pre-combat) they usually avoid these obstacles whenever they can cause it slows them down, draws unnecessary attention, and above all, could damage their costly vehicles. I understand this will not be easy, but are you still considering better and smarter ways to handle this in ToW? Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12Bravo Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 "Yep, we found this bug:) Will be fixed in patch" Excellent....thnx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneaksie Posted September 29, 2007 Author Share Posted September 29, 2007 Gcoat It's not really a decision, simply TOW was developed for WinXP as many other games. Currently game usually works in Vista (if there are suitable drivers installed), but mission editor doesn't work due to incompatibility in it's libraries. Of course it may be made compatible by rewriting them, but this will require up to month time which currently we don't have:) We plan to improve vehicle pathfinding behavior in addon, but, as you can see, each way has it's problems. Currently, if we set their behavior to drive around trees as armored cars do, they will start to turn and expose their weaker sides to the enemy, which i'm sure everybody will not be happy with:) It's a pity, because non-aggressive movement mode took much time to develop (driving along roads priority, avoiding obstacles, etc.) and currently is not being used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manx Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 Sneaksie, Any plans to improve the appearance of movement and waypoint markers? I think the way CMBx1 represented these looked good with solid lines drawn to show paths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmayer Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 End of the Month is about here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markus86 Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 Maybe you just listen better ... Sneaksie explained before that they, 1C (Developper and publisher for eastern europe), will finish it end of this month. BUT this has nothing to do with us!!! Battlefront is the publisher for western countries, so we will get the patch when battlefront decides to release it. Maybe even never? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapaho Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 Maybe thats why we post on here ... to get BFC to respond to when the patch is released or when the video competition winner is announced? Your post comes across quite rude. As english isnt everyones first language its not unusual for people to type something they dont mean or people to read something typed that wasnt meant - but you post with the capitilisation and triple exclamations implies your annoyd - why? Information seems to be at a premium on here - I would understand if it was the case that there was nothing to report (from BFC), but that isnt the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markus86 Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 I'm not annoyed, it was just ment informative. not more, not less. bfc seems not very interested in communicating with us. as you say they could (addon, patch). one more mystery around this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gcoat Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 Sneaksie, "We plan to improve vehicle path finding behavior in addon, but, as you can see, each way has it's problems." Waiting for patch/addon, but good to hear it will be improved "Currently, if we set their behavior to drive around trees as armored cars do, they will start to turn and expose their weaker sides to the enemy, which i'm sure everybody will not be happy with:) It's a pity, because non-aggressive movement mode took much time to develop (driving along roads priority, avoiding obstacles, etc.) and currently is not being used." I certainly would have liked to seen this kind of mode in ToW A pre-combat/non-aggressive would have been a good choice I think, even if it slows things down. My, maybe too simple view on AI is that, e.g. if a unit's threat level is low, there's no need to run down trees and crush buildings. In real life they usually avoided these kind of things 'cause it could damage their precious vehicles By crushing trees and houses you'll destroy potential camouflage for yourself and others and only draw unnecessary attention on an already dangerous playground. Besides that, armoured vehicles can usually drive much faster on roads than cross country Likewise, I can imagine if a unit's threat level is high (imminent danger, enemy in sight/near), a more aggressive mode kicks in which prefers other capabilities (e.g. always rotate to enemy, crawl, shoot and scoot, reverse as much as possible thus avoiding showing weaker sides etc, etc). Key is of course, to determine if a unit has a high threat level or not. I'm not sure if such behavior is modeled in ToW and is possible with current pc's. Anyway, a small suggestion w.r.t. path finding. In case path finding is changed in future versions, I would also like to see the path they'd use if I point them to go somewhere (e.g. orange line showing the planned route) and show no-go areas (e.g. ravine, thus using alternate route). Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmayer Posted September 30, 2007 Share Posted September 30, 2007 It seems, that, I am Confused? I like the rest of you here have posted on what I beilieve to be the BFC Forums? I found out a short time ago that Sneaksie was from 1C. Now we are being told that Battlefront is holding the patch for some reason and that 1C has nothing to do with it? Can this be the proverbial "Run-A-Round", passing the buck sort of thing? I seem to remember when I pre-ordered my ToW online it took a week or so past the pre-paid date to get the online d/l. Can this be that very same kind of thing? All I am asking is please tell me, us ,everyone just when the patch or better yet IF the patch for multi and fixes for the game will be coming out anytime soon. I am not upset as of yet but I will say that if I get the "Slight of Hand" treatment on this issue I will never buy another game from Battlefront again. I must say by the way I have perchased two of the ToW games and have the full combat missions series and a few more of battlefronts game releases. I also have others waiting to buy ToW and they are getting very sceptical towards me that you are not going to care about ToW now that you have shipped it out. I will be waiting for your reply. Thank you for hearing me out and hope it means something to whom ever it concerns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneaksie Posted September 30, 2007 Author Share Posted September 30, 2007 Wait, guys, i didn't say that BFC is 'holding' the patch. What i meant is that BFC will decide when it will be available, probably based on result of it's testing, that's why i can't answer your question about patch release date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeboy Posted September 30, 2007 Share Posted September 30, 2007 I am sure that if the patch is ok, then we wil lsee ti soopn, again bfc has nothing to gain by frustrating us, and everything to gain by supportingthis product to its full extent! Sneaksie, will the add on , in your opinion, be readdy this year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FinnN Posted September 30, 2007 Share Posted September 30, 2007 Talking about trees I think it'd be great if when a tree or bush gets crushed it turns into some 'rough ground' - this could be represented with a lower version of the existing bush graphics. It'd be even better if something more detailed were possible (eg tree trunk acting like a small wall for use as cover and the canopy behaving like a bush) but just something simple would be better than the tree simply vanishing as it does now. Have fun Finn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeboy Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 Sneaksie will tyhe add on come out in 2007? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneaksie Posted October 1, 2007 Author Share Posted October 1, 2007 Pathfinding =============================== Drawing a line showing path chosen by unit is a interesting idea, but problem is that path calculated at first after issuing order is very crude and approximated, thus it will not help you (it will show very ineffective way to the target, which then will be improved dynamically). Keeping fallen trees on battlefield =============================== We do want to implement that, but it will be planned if certain decisions concerning entire tree system will be made (it depends on many factors). More news on this issue may be available on next week. Beta version of the MP patch is ready, but it will be play-tested and most probably further improved in ~2 weeks time while BFC will decide what will be included in it (as soon as BFC says 'OK' it will be released). It's not neccessary bad, because we'll try to include some new fixes and features into it. As soon i'll have new infromation, i'll tell you. Addon at first was scheduled to be ready before the end of the year, but the decision was made to fully support and improve current version of the game. Because of that (making this patch and most probably another ones after it) addon release, i'm afraid, will be delayed by 1-2 months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeboy Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 thanks.. great news, hope we see some new features in a patch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmayer Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 Thank you for the info Sneaksie, My trust is somewhat restored in BFC again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
War RaVeN Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 Looking forward to this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markus86 Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 I would prefer an earlier addon than another patch. well then I have to wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeboy Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 I was playing my favorite modded battle and had a thouhgt of what seemeingly would be both an invaluable sighting tool very realistic and not tooo hard to add. That would be a key which shows sighted areas , and thus non sighted areas for a particular unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reichenberg Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 Freeboy, while I think too that it would be a very helpful tool to understand ToW and play it succesfully, I do not know if it is that easy to implement. I assume you talk of something like in the old Steel Panthers series. After choosing one of your units and selecting the visibility tool you could see each hex on the whole map either lit (visible to that unit) or greyed out (invisible for that unit). With SP it was relativly easy. You had a relativly 'static' battlefield. Fixed levels of elevation (I can not remember the amount of heigth levels off by heart), trees and houses. And with the limited number of hexes you had a limited number of calculations. Now looking at ToW the combination of spots to look from and spots to look at is waaaay higher. The way I understood the LoS/LoF tool in ToW is that it is not doing this map based calculation, but instead doing a 'peer to peer' calculation. It is just checked between the units on the battlefield if there are obstacles in the LoS/LoF - and how much these obstacles reduce the LoS (similar to the LoS tool in CM with the 'real' line changing its colour). The info from that calculation you get already in ToW with 'full' or with 'greyed out' unit icons. Therefore I hope a LoS tool similar to the one in CM will be possible in ToW and will be implemented soon. Please correct me if my statements above are wrong because this is how I THINK it works.... Uwe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneaksie Posted October 7, 2007 Author Share Posted October 7, 2007 LOS will be shown by color-coded 'fire' line like in CC series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nachinus Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 Great! That's a much needed improvement!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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