Slitherine

Posted: **Sat May 08, 2010 11:08 pm**

When one looks at the bottom left of the screen during the AI’s turn, you can see numerous AI unit stats as it does its moves.

I am confused here. Is this just for testing/coding purposes, or is the user supposed to be allowed to see such things? If the latter, then this should be changed somewhat as it’s hard to see that fast most of the time.

Posted: **Mon May 10, 2010 3:22 pm**

I was going to hide it, but Iain thinks it gives a tiny amount of atmosphere I think, you kinda know what's out there, but only vaguely.

Cheers

Pip

Posted: **Mon May 10, 2010 6:35 pm**

Another issue. It would be nice to have a dossier which keeps track of units killed. Otherwise, the on-line players are going to have to manually write this stuff down to keep track of how they are doing vs their opponent.

If players are writing things down on paper it`s always a sign the GUI or game-design hasn`t been planned out too well.

Posted: **Mon May 10, 2010 6:52 pm**

I'm not sure what you mean. Why, in MP, would you need to keep track of which of your or the enemy units are dead?

Cheers

Pip

Posted: **Mon May 10, 2010 7:00 pm**

If I kill a couple pumas, infantry, etc. It is quite vital to remember this so you can gauge on what your opponent has left (specific units & how many). This is important info and has implications including giving you extended insight into FoW advantages in many cases, amoung many other benefits. I know better what units are available to counter me, where certain units can not be, etc.

Posted: **Mon May 10, 2010 8:37 pm**

Hmmm - I'm not sure where this falls. It might be a little hardcore to dedicate UI to it, but we'll discuss it here and see whether it might be something we can make useful.

Thanks

Pip

Posted: **Mon May 10, 2010 11:06 pm**

pipfromslitherine wrote:I was going to hide it, but Iain thinks it gives a tiny amount of atmosphere I think, you kinda know what's out there, but only vaguely.

Cheers

Pip

i think it's a great idea!! pity you cant see the 4 tigers flash through in operation cobra though!.. i've played it 6 times and still am sooo close! ps.. love the overrun function and close assault.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 8:34 pm**

"Hmmm - I'm not sure where this falls. It might be a little hardcore to dedicate UI to it, but we'll discuss it here and see whether it might be something we can make useful. "

@ Pip: I'm not sure why we need to have a dedicated hard-core UI to this? Just allow the start button (or whatever buttons on Nintendo you can use) to draw a new screen (or window) and list Axis & Allied units lost. That's all, you don't have to get too over-board with anything (but feel free if you want to!). The only issue I can think is some dead units I don't THINK you are supposed to know if they are dead or not. Those funny situations that happen in FoW tiles.

To be honest, I'm still not sure how things are to behave. Often when I attack cover I can hear voices, but I never see text pop up showing anything is broken or surrendered (well not usually in this case). I don't know if that's a bug that I can hear a unit is there, or that the system needs an update and should over-lay some text descriptions on those cover tiles being hit.

@ Bones, 4 Tiers in Cobra, are you SURE? I think the only scenario with 4 is the last one, which pretty much makes you want to give up the game right there, lol. Interestingly enough, I recently watched one of those WW2 military hardware shows you see on the History channel, etc regarding the Hellcat. I found it a little biased, infactual, and a little too American patriotic to take seriously so that ruined it for me, not to mention polluted what could have been a good show. Especially since they tried to convince that the HELLCAT was the #1 military hardware machine of WW2. That's right, not the Tiger which worries you so much in the Cobra scenario (sorry, the King Tiger), it's the M18 Hellcat baby! In fact, they went so much as to claim WW2 was won by the Allies due to the Hellcat, and they can even supposedly pin-point the actual battle and narrow it down to just 4 Hellcats which won the war. Now... despite there were numerous technical issues I had with that show, and it really drove me up the wall how these EXPERTS kept referring to the M18 as a TANK rather than it's proper engineering & designation as a TANK-DESTROYER.... finally they corrected themselves on this matter and stated it was officially a TANK DESTROYER.

So maybe I'd give that show a rating of 1-out-of-10 for getting at least one fact right, that the TD was actually FAST. And up that to a 2-out-of-10 for correcting themselves and getting the issue right about it being a TD instead of a tank.

But the fact remains, if there is even some small truth to what these TV-SHOWS say, then it looks like either YOU are too paranoid of King Tigers and are just playing totally wrong like some newb... or Pip has coded his unit stats totally wrong and is unfit to code any PG or ASL clone.

But to be honest, if Pip doesn't change any of the statistics at all, I won't complain as I thought they were pretty decent as is. At least at first glance.

But in the future, I do hope Pip (or any other scenario designer) doesn't get his FACTUAL data from the History or The Learning Channel tv-shows. I always use a few bookmarked sites I have with metallurgic data and listed armour measurements for various WW2 designs. It comes in handy for those accurate scenario/unit editing projects.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 9:49 pm**

You can be sure that our tech specs are a mixture of the best facts we can find, and a dash of what's needed for the gameplay (which is the REAL King (Tiger?)).

There is a change where we now show when units in cover retreat or surrender, as it was too painful trying to work out if your suppression was working

.

We'll take a look at the 'enemies killed' UI item, but I'm still not sure of its utility, and I'm loath to add more UI work, as it's actually the most time-consuming to get right and pretty.

Cheers

Pip

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 10:43 pm**

Well, if it's that hard, I suppose I can always use excel to graph my current success when ever the ladder-games start up in the near future. Though some players may drop half a game-rating notch for that.

It may seem excessive jotting down these notes per game, after all if you knock out an opponent's Panther, that may seem hard to forget. But when you're playing 10 games on at once humans can't remember details as well as Elephants (NPI) can. Most can't keep track of more than just 7 in a single game.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 11:08 pm**

Hmmm - I see what you mean. I was thinking more in single player. I guess if you are playing the same game over and you know the enemy composition.

I'll see what I can come up with.

Cheers

Pip

Posted: **Fri May 14, 2010 3:34 am**

Obsolete wrote:"Hmmm - I'm not sure where this falls. It might be a little hardcore to dedicate UI to it, but we'll discuss it here and see whether it might be something we can make useful. "

@ Pip: I'm not sure why we need to have a dedicated hard-core UI to this? Just allow the start button (or whatever buttons on Nintendo you can use) to draw a new screen (or window) and list Axis & Allied units lost. That's all, you don't have to get too over-board with anything (but feel free if you want to!). The only issue I can think is some dead units I don't THINK you are supposed to know if they are dead or not. Those funny situations that happen in FoW tiles.

To be honest, I'm still not sure how things are to behave. Often when I attack cover I can hear voices, but I never see text pop up showing anything is broken or surrendered (well not usually in this case). I don't know if that's a bug that I can hear a unit is there, or that the system needs an update and should over-lay some text descriptions on those cover tiles being hit.

@ Bones, 4 Tiers in Cobra, are you SURE? I think the only scenario with 4 is the last one
, which pretty much makes you want to give up the game right there, lol. Interestingly enough, I recently watched one of those WW2 military hardware shows you see on the History channel, etc regarding the Hellcat. I found it a little biased, infactual, and a little too American patriotic to take seriously so that ruined it for me, not to mention polluted what could have been a good show. Especially since they tried to convince that the HELLCAT was the #1 military hardware machine of WW2. That's right, not the Tiger which worries you so much in the Cobra scenario (sorry, the King Tiger), it's the M18 Hellcat baby! In fact, they went so much as to claim WW2 was won by the Allies due to the Hellcat, and they can even supposedly pin-point the actual battle and narrow it down to just 4 Hellcats which won the war. Now... despite there were numerous technical issues I had with that show, and it really drove me up the wall how these EXPERTS kept referring to the M18 as a TANK rather than it's proper engineering & designation as a TANK-DESTROYER.... finally they corrected themselves on this matter and stated it was officially a TANK DESTROYER. ..... yes i'm sure about the 4 tigers!! i've just took them all out.. and many other assorted armour including sg 111's marders and pz iv's.. ..so there was i all happy with hardly any losses, and along comes another wave and takes out all my armour first shot!! has anyone else completed this?..7 attempts !!! oooeeer! i dont think ive replied correctly to this!....sorry

So maybe I'd give that show a rating of 1-out-of-10 for getting at least one fact right, that the TD was actually FAST. And up that to a 2-out-of-10 for correcting themselves and getting the issue right about it being a TD instead of a tank.

But the fact remains, if there is even some small truth to what these TV-SHOWS say, then it looks like either YOU are too paranoid of King Tigers and are just playing totally wrong like some newb... or Pip has coded his unit stats totally wrong and is unfit to code any PG or ASL clone.

But to be honest, if Pip doesn't change any of the statistics at all, I won't complain as I thought they were pretty decent as is. At least at first glance.

But in the future, I do hope Pip (or any other scenario designer) doesn't get his FACTUAL data from the History or The Learning Channel tv-shows. I always use a few bookmarked sites I have with metallurgic data and listed armour measurements for various WW2 designs. It comes in handy for those accurate scenario/unit editing projects.

Slitherine

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Battle Mechanics & Related Issues...