BloodyBucket Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Let's start out with what I like about the compass. It looks right for the game. Not a precise image of a WWII US or German compass, but it looks good. Now, what I don't like about the compass. Damn needle should point North, no matter what direction you are "looking".AFAIK, nothing in the manual warns you about the bassackwards nature of the CMBN compass.That's a time readout in there, right? Once again, nothing in the manual...or did I miss it?Can't toggle between bassackwards "needle towards view direction" and "needle points North like the Good Lord intended for a compass" and "no compass at all".Not a precise image of a WWII US or German compass.Compass at night should have that green phosphorescent look. (Hey, since I'm nitpicking the compass....)When your in game OIC is Green, there should be a 50% chance compass will indicate a random direction.No decoder ring or whistle included. OK, I'd really settle for a compass where the needle pointed North. Is this possible? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt Schultz Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 It's not a compass. It's a view direction indicator for folks that easily lose their orientation in the game... that just happens to look like a compass. The "needle" is the compass and the compass is the needle if you want to truly nit-pick about functionality. As for locking it down so it always points North... it would probably be possible to switch the two and make them act 'normally'. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Scipio has a CMA compass mod that seems to work in all CM2 games which makes the "view" concept easier to understand. It's ironic with all the talk of realism that the game system offers very unrealistic aids like the playschool "compass for dummies", and yet argues against aids like target lines, C2 lines, and pop-up info windows on weapon capabilities. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Damn needle should point North, no matter what direction you are "looking". That's what I thought at first. But once I got used to this I found it was actually less disorienting than an actual compass would be in the circumstances. I can tell at a quick glance which way I am oriented on the map, which is after all what it's for. But if it will make others happier, I would suggest that the feature be made toggleable between the two types if that can be easily done. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I find the 'compass' nearly irrelevant. Only time I look at it is when I want to check wind direction for smokescreen purposes. Rest of the time I know what direction the enemy is in Means I don't get used to its unintuitive presentation, but it doesn't slow me down much overall. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 No decoder ring or whistle included. LOL. Dealbreaker for me, too. I'm uninstalling immediately! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyBucket Posted August 4, 2011 Author Share Posted August 4, 2011 I find the 'compass' nearly irrelevant. Only time I look at it is when I want to check wind direction for smokescreen purposes. Rest of the time I know what direction the enemy is in Means I don't get used to its unintuitive presentation, but it doesn't slow me down much overall. I confess, up until I started trying to write an after action report, I paid about as much attention to the "compass" as I do to the collection of knick-nacks that the wife has on display...I mean, I vaguely knew it was there, but other than that? Then in my write up I started to try and use phrases like "the Northernmost objective" and "East of the river" and found that the needle on the dingus doesn't point North. Yeah, no big deal, but to a guy who spent decades saying things like "See, sir (or "lad"), when you hold the map and turn until the red part of the needle goes in the little red house that the nice man who made the compass painted on there, you can clearly see that we are headed towards the impact area..." It's trivial, but it's fingernails on the blackboard of the soul trivial. I found some of the existing mods via forum search, but while I can appreciate the idea behind the Point of View eyeball mod, it looks like something that Terry Gilliam would put in the game, and makes me feel like I'm playing "Combat Mission: The Mutoscope". I'm with Erwin. A game that gets so much detail right should have a proper compass. Just venting made me feel better. It's not like I'm asking for scenario specific magnetic declination. Hey, is that possible? I guess I'll be fine with the undocumented direction indicator that looks like a compass. After all, maybe they tried to put in a virtual magnetic compass but the extra metal from all the bayonet lugs and adjustable rear sights on the M1 carbines pulled it out of whack.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 To complain about the 'compass' not working right when you're looking at the camera direction indicator is like clomplaining about your car's 'speedometer' is not working right when you're looking at the tachometer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyBucket Posted August 4, 2011 Author Share Posted August 4, 2011 Hey, it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... If on page 62 of the manual they'd put "Camera Direction Indicator with Time of Day Readout, not a compass, BloodyBucket, you dummy", then I'd be happy as a clam. Also, doing a search on "Camera Direction Indicator" you only get a relevant hit on this thread. If you search "compass" you get a few confused posts like mine. If you search "tachometer" you get a few posts for people asking for tachometers. Functioning speedometers and tachometers on vehicle instrument panels will be in CM3, I'm sure. The time for magnetic North is now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 IRL I use my tach as much as the speedometer, it seems. (Even though it's an Accord, and not my '67 Mustang of those long ago days.) But I do agree that a real "compass in the stock" like Red Ryder's BB gun would be a nice touch. Lol, I am really aging myself today. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoex Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 MikeyD, you just made things go from bad to worse for some of us, as in German we call your 'speedometer' the 'Tachometer', and your 'tachometer' the 'Drehzahlmesser'. Anyhow, +1 for a real compass. It's more inuitive IMO, and it would behave like what it looks like. Camera direction indicators are for minimaps. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoex Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I just tried something quick and dirty in GIMP for the compass. Not sure if I like the feel myself, but I thought I'd put it out there for other folks who aren't too hot about what we have in the game now. It's different, in any case. I think it might be more intuitive for some folks (including me). Check this out: The good: I switched the two images around so that the ring now turns and the 'needle' (the red arrow at the top) doesn't. This way the needle always points to the direction you are currently looking in. This feels 'more right' to me than the other way. I also don't have the problem any more that I'm never sure which end of the needle is the one that's pointing in the right direction. Plus, it seems to me that the timer is more legible under some circumstances in my version. The bad: It's smaller due to the fact that I had to switch the two images (half size in fact). Might be hard for some folks to read. Also, due to the fact that the rotation direction can't be reversed, I had to 'mirror' the directions East and West. This sounds bad at first, but personally when I look at it (while not rotating the camera) I have no problem telling which way I'm looking. 'West-North' is the same as 'North-West', after all . Last but not least, it's butt-ugly because I suck at doing graphics or art of any kind. In summary, I still really hope that BFC can make two quick adjustments to the compass thingy in some patch (at least I think they would be quick): 1. Make the two images the same base size. Would make modding easier. This would certainly be easy. 2. Give us the option to reverse the rotation direction of the rotating part. Then modders could make perfectly normal compasses with little effort. It would seem to me this should be very quick to code as well just by adding a switch to a x(-1) at the right place. No? Anyhow, let me know if any of you folks want to try it out to see if it works for you and I'll upload it. If a few folks like it, maybe someone can even make a prettier version. This is as good as it's likely to get coming from me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I had a two-part solution to this issue. 1) I got someone who can drive Photoshop to paint some Huge Floating Letters In The Sky for me - N, NW, W, SW, S SE, E and NE 2) I had the same artist change the arrow part of the indicator into an eyeball-and-view-arc icon. Together they work quite well for me 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Cool Jon. To what file do the floating letters attach? I can drive PSP, but what files does it go in? Thanks in advance. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 The background, with the hills and sky. I got tripped up by the alpha channel. Edit: backgroundS, there's four of them, plus several sets for different weather. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyBucket Posted August 4, 2011 Author Share Posted August 4, 2011 Excellent ideas on this thread. Bjorn Kjellström would approve. Hadn't thought of pasting the cardinal directions in the background. Even a fixed "rose" or a simple "N and arrow" fixed somewhere would help. While I'm wishing for the moon, I'd also like a distance scale that would slide with the zoom level, and the ability to export maps as gridded contour maps. And a pony. Mjkerner, let's leave the compass out of the stock. You'll shoot your eye out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Even a fixed "rose" or a simple "N and arrow" fixed somewhere would help. That's the idea I started from. Initially I tried using landmarks on the map, but they suffer so much from parallax as to be almost useless except when viewed from the centre of the map. Punching them out to the background fixed that completely. Initially I had thought of having 3600mil graticles in the sky, but really ... that kind of accuracy is irrelevant. I don't need to know exactly what direction I'm facing, just roughly where I'm looking. The cardinals and sub-cardinals give me that quite nicely. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 To complain about the 'compass' not working right when you're looking at the camera direction indicator is like clomplaining about your car's 'speedometer' is not working right when you're looking at the tachometer. That is a terrible and incorrect analogy. The "direction indicator" has exactly the same function and appearance as a compass but instead of using the widely understood functionality of a compass it doesn't. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoex Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 Well said, hoolaman. I might also add that the graphics for the compass supplied with the game are called 'compass arrows' and 'compass background'. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 Doh! (hand to forehead) Thanks JonS. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 no 'green' background at nite for RL... there you need to throw a tent half over your head, and light a match or ignite the lighter, or flip the switch to "ON" on your 'torch' / flashlight 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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