Slitherine

First, I have a confession. After first buying the game I was rather disappointed. I was going to wait for a demo, but with the positive comments I was seeing, I decided to throw caution to the wind and I purchased the game. After playing the tutorial I was rather disappointed and felt that it was a very dumbed down Steel Panthers with corny graphics. I played a couple of the North Africa scenarios and they did not do much to improve my mood. They were fun, but I could not get rid of my feelings from the tutorial. I decided to load the Normandy campaign, and I have been hooked since the first scenario. The program started to shine after that first scenario. My opinion of the graphics have changed--they actual work and make beautiful maps to play on. I loved the airborne "dropping in" on the village. I got excited when the AI counterattacked the airborne in the village. I like the sound and the animation. I don't see this game as a dumbed down Steel Panthers any more. It is not Steel Panthers, but it is its own game, with its own character and feel.

I have been messing around with the scenario editor and I realize some things that would really improve the engine and maybe take the "Lite" away from being used with Battlefield Academy is compared with other games.

1. Smoke--If it is in I have not found it. There have been a few time I would have like to used smoke.
2. Upstair floors--With buildings wiht two or more stories, it would be great if we could utilize both downstairs and upstairs. I would l love to place a sniper the steple of a church.
3. Trenches--sandbags are nice, but trenches would be better still
4. Mortars need to be able to move. Most mortars are mobile enough to reposition without transportation. That was the idea with mortar teams. Small and light enought to support the company.
5. Prohibit anti-tank teams (bazookas etc) from firing their anti-tank weapon at infantry during reaction fire. All that does is get the unit spotted and makes the infantry angry.

I am sure I will have more as I get into the engine, but these five items keep coming up in my thinking.

cbelva wrote:1. Smoke
2. Upstair floors
3. Trenches
4. Mortars need to be able to move.
5. Prohibit anti-tank teams (bazookas etc) from firing their anti-tank weapon at infantry during reaction fire. All that does is get the unit spotted and makes the infantry angry.

1- There is at the moment no"smoke", but could be added through modding!
2- No Upstair floors!
3-Trenches! Good suggestion! Never read before! Why not? I think, it could be also added! But wait for an answer from Slitherine!
4-You can easily change a data in an excel file, so that they can move!
5-It's also possible! and I agree, was also my suggestion!

Smoke would be a welcome addition, agreed. I already modded files to allow the mortar teams to move.

One thing that I miss is not in game play itself but key commands ... I desperately want a key that I can cycle through to the next/previous unit to select them.

TAB key is short cut key for the next unit!

2- No Upstair floors!

Is this a hard NO! or is it something that could be coded eventually into the game?

By the way, someone needs to create a mod of a jeep.

pomakli wrote:TAB key is short cut key for the next unit!

D'oh! My bad.

Height for buildings is mentioned/discussed here.

viewtopic.php?t=17688

It appears if could be done with some tinkering.

I agree with you on point 4... I think the AT guns should be the ONLY units that require trucks to move.

Even MG's cannot move by itself. Quite annoying. But I've learnied to live with it.

If the MG and Mortar teams can't run, at least they should walk (Move).

Ok, I am either really dumb or confused (don't answer that!) I checked the Squad.csv file and the mortar's AP, speed, and movement costs are the same as Infantry. I also checked the terrain.txt file and in several cases, the artillery's (of which mortars are classified as) and infantry's movement values are the same.

So, what am I missing? What value in what file is prohibiting mortars from moving?

Thanks for any help in this.

childress wrote:If the MG and Mortar teams can't run, at least they should walk (Move).

I agree. They should move at a third of normal infantry speed, or a half.

jomni wrote:Even MG's cannot move by itself. Quite annoying. But I've learnied to live with it.

You can chance it easily, in the scripts for your own scenarios!

In the Data file open the "squads" excel csv.- sheet!

Chance the "type" form "artillery" to "infantry"; that's it!

So your MG and mortars can walk!

But, don't forget, to chance the attack values of your mortars, because the ones, who could be transported, were the non-heavy mortars!

insidius wrote:They should move at a third of normal infantry speed, or a half.

Yes! You are right!

Then open the same file (see above message!) and chance their "AP" value, because the infantry carriying mortars can't walk so far, like the other ones!

cbelva wrote:I checked the Squad.csv file and the mortar's AP, speed, and movement costs are the same as Infantry. I also checked the terrain.txt file and in several cases, the artillery's (of which mortars are classified as) and infantry's movement values are the same. What value in what file is prohibiting mortars from moving?

Upps!

Sorry, without reading your message, I answered the questions above!

"Type" is the answer!

A replay the replay would be great - or slow it down - I sometimes miss some of the action.

Thanks guys. But, why are arty prohibited. If you look in the terrain.txt file, it has values listed for moving through terrain that is very similar to inf in certain terrain type (like clear terrain). Arty is definitely prohibited from other terrain in the terrain.txt file. I just like to understand how things work gether.

The movement and placement scripts have special cases for artillery because we want to allow them to be on tiles (which is all based around the terrain values) but not to be able to move themselves.

You can of course tweak the squads file and scripts to alter this, just be sure to NEVER alter files in your main install as it can lead to problems with MP games and if any game data gets updated.

Cheers

Pip

I think Minefields would be a great addition. I used to get a great in feeling in Combat Mission when putting these in the right place to thwart an attack.

Melnibone wrote:I think Minefields would be a great addition.

I mentioned that in an another message.

Ian's answer was:

"It could be done with scripting but pretty special case and specific. We'd probably need to add some feature to make this easier to do but not for now"

I think, it will be (and IMO must be, in a WW2 game!) done!

and barbed wire too!