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Long shot tool-tip feature request


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Yeah, I know; tool-tips are on the "it'd be nice to put in once we have time" list. I'm not beating that dead horse. BUT, if tool-tips ever do get a chance to percolate up to the top of the list I'd like to see one more tool-tip (in addition to all the others suggested);

Give me a menu about how to use the weapon, including limitations. This would be a few lines long.

Why? Well, a couple of reasons spring to mind. It took me while to find out that the recce humvee is worthless unless it's OPEN UPed. A tool-tip hovering over the humvee image should include, "... and it's primary function of recce/spotting is dependent on the crew being opened up. If they are buttoned, they are functionally identical to any regular Humvee." Or something. Dress it up, but put the information there so a non-grog has a chance.

Despite my familiarity with some of these things, I totally forgot to open up my TOW Hummer (whatever). They went up to a hill, had LOS to enemy vehicles, had a TARGET line (which I put there), but they never fired. My bad; after they were a burning wreck I remembered that they may've needed to be OPEN UPed. Next time, guys.

Obviously this could be expanded to every other crew-served weapon and vehicle. Breakdown/deploy limits; Bradley TOW's needing to be stationary; number of smoke discharges; etc., etc.

Thanks,

Ken

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c3k,

While I agree with you a little, this is usually covered in the manaul or a tutorial so maybe this is a better place for this. When you actully play the game it is "Live" and for the sake of immersion pop up boxes saying...

You have 3 JAVs left with a 34% chance of taking out that tank to the front and 0% chance of taking out that BMP that has 100% chance of killing you next round. It is recommended that you "Hide" in the foxhole which will give you 20% chance of surviving both the tank and the BMP but only 1% chance of surviving the 105mm rounds landing in your AO in the next 32 seconds.

..would detract from the game. Obviously I am not bashing you or your idea but showing an extreme example that what you are asking for is very similar to people asking for to hit probabilities and the like.

A lot of this game is learned by practicing and reading and studying. Even after 4 years of service I still ask a lot of questions and read these htreads to understand what I am doing wrong.

That is part of what I like. You fire 40mm or a LAW at a T-62 and after awhile you realize that it is not bad luck your men died. Trial by fire is one of the best parts of this game....

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c3k,

You have 3 JAVs left with a 34% chance of taking out that tank to the front and 0% chance of taking out that BMP that has 100% chance of killing you next round. It is recommended that you "Hide" in the foxhole which will give you 20% chance of surviving both the tank and the BMP but only 1% chance of surviving the 105mm rounds landing in your AO in the next 32 seconds.

That part is waaaaaay beyond what I suggested. I'd just like to know HOW to use some of these weapons. Bradley "TOW: Vehicle must be stopped for 15 seconds before weapon can be fired. Vehicle must not move before missile reaches target." is far different than that little part I just quoted.

Sure, you CAN learn all this stuff. But, usually the manual doesn't tell you, and finding out you totally misused a weapon system in-game means you probably didn't do as well as you could've. This can drive non-grogs away.

This game simulates sooo much and has sooo much detail (friggin' accuracy based on TYPE of scope?) that a newb has no chance when they hit that learning curve. More like an upward learning cliff.

Just my .02.

Regards,

Ken

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For what its worth, I played the first couple of hours of this game constantly alt-tabbing to wikipedia. I was loving the way that I didn't need a manual, I just looked up the real world data. Most of the fun in a game for me is learning the system and how to best use my units and Shock force has now got me so much more interested in the military than I was because of this.

I think lack of information might drive some of the non grogs away but I don't think tooltips are the way to go. A tutorial campaign which eases the player in slowly might be better.

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I think lack of information might drive some of the non grogs away but I don't think tooltips are the way to go. A tutorial campaign which eases the player in slowly might be better.

Agreed on that....

c3k,

Thanks for taking my snipe with a grain of salt. I laughed at your answer. I think some research with a better tutorial would be good.

I agree with what you are saying but some of the AI helps you out. They fire the most appropriate rounds for you and give you a grey line when what you are asking is out of the question.

It would be cool if scenarios could have text pop ups on the screen. If this was the case, you could get some good walk-throughs. As is there are some good AARs out there. Some of these I read to understand things better.

In a manual, you can'y cover everything so the Wikipedia thought is a great way to go. If the manual did cover everything, it would drive the non-grogs away as no one wants to read a book just to play.

So tutorials on various topics would be an easy fix.

Say a JAV tutorial where you maneuver to take out various tanks in different situations. it could include the tips in the operation guide before the launch.

I think this would cover what you are looking for and easy enough for guys on this board to take ownership of.

So scenarios built as tutorials.....sounds good...any ideas....

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Wikipedia is your friend. I did not know what Syrian stuff had night vision capabilities so when I came across it I checked it out. Turns out BRDM-2 has a 400m NV capable scope. Never knew cos the icons in the CMSF game does not show this when you click on the vehicle.

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Personally, I've thought that a really nice feature for CMSF would be the ability to look at the unit window, right click on one of the infantry weapons (for example AKS-74) and open up a nice weapon information panel similar to what is done in the "Total War" series. The window would open up and you would get a nice in-game 3D picture of the weapon with informational text below explaining its strengths, weaknesses, range, main purpose of the weapon etc.

You would do this with all the weapons including the AFVs.

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You had to mention Total War. I don't get to buy it until the 13th....

Empire Total War....shudder...very excited for this one....

Ok... snap out of it !!! ...

Agreed,

Now that you point that out, I like that feature of Total War and although a lot of info to put out there, I imagine the coding isn't too difficult on that one.

I find myself right clicking things in CM:SF out of habit. Who knows one day we might get lucky. I think that would solve everyone's problems.

Civilization does a fine job of this as welll....

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Unfortunately the thing that make me shudder is the patch policy for the Total War games, or rather the lack of patches policy. If they don't nail it first go round, they just say oh well and proceed to the next project. Therefore, I will never buy one of their products without perusing six months of forum info on a released game.

BFC on the other hand is amazingly persistent and helpful , So I am perfectly willing to pre-order any product of theirs that interest me.

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Dan,

+2 to the support of CM. Loyal support backed by loyal admins. Not to be a brown nose or anything but owning 100+ games over times the continued effort to listen and solve is astonishing. By the way, the Demo for Total War seems REALLY groggy which has me scared....

Meach,

You miss out on much man. Shogun was awesome and you are right, maybe they will go back and revisit this.

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I'd just like to echo this request, and as far as tooltips, I can kinda guess during the game and can look up stuff on wikipedia, but a tooltip telling me the range of the weapon I'm using would be great rather than using a basic test of what color line I get when I target the enemy.

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Bring back an improved version of the in-game window, when selecting a unit and pressing enter.

Make it with tabs:

One for stats (elaborate grog style),

one with some larger text containning background/infos/history/tips&tricks etc. (for the debutants)

...and one with the kill list (for all).

Friedefreudeeierkuchen.

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Tracking kills...

My list is of needs and wants is small....

I just want to be able to collect dogtags, ears, whatever you want to call it....

I'd love to see some kill stats per unit... in game would be awesome or at the end screen would be acceptable...

...Wikipedia can't help me with this one so it is on your shoulders CM jockies...

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On top of my interface wishlist would have to be mouse-over names for the items in a unit's inventory. I am forever forgetting what caliber/ordinance type RPGs my syrian units are carrying, and the same goes for the multitude of equipment that every American unit carries...

Tracing kills would also definitely be a nice plus.

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Speaking of long-shots....

According to a couple different sources, the long-distance sniper record (2,286m, set by Carlos Hathcock in 1967) was broken in March 2002 during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan by Corporal Rob Furlong of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry -- using a MacMillan TAC-50 .50-cal. rifle, he sniped a Taliban machine gunner from 2,430m.

With this in mind, I ran several tests using the long range version of Normal Dude's Firing Range map, with an M107-equipped three-man Army sniper team (Elite experience) atop the range tower and a Syrian reserve infantry PK team (Regular experience) about 2000m away. The sniper team was basically unable to spot the PK team, even though the Syrians were in open ground. It took moving the PK team to within 1400m for the sniper team to even spot them, and even then, the sniper team could only see the Syrians if they were moving.

It just occurred to me that perhaps a better test for determing how possible elite-sniper feats are in CMSF would be to set up a manned bunker at different ranges relative to the sniper team and see if the sniper team can even spot the bunker beyond, say, 1500m, as well as how accurate the sniper is.

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