skarczew - PanzerCorpsBeta-27-04-11 YAFI

[skarczew]

Yet Another First Impressions, Thoughts, Bugs, Etc

1. Yay, explosions, fire, nice . Fight is fast and starts to look really good. Though I noticed some issues:

Some effects are displaced. Examples:
- slightly too high for Wehr Inf, Slovak Inf, Polish Mnt, 7TP;
- too high for Polish Inf;
- completely displaced effect for PZL 23B Karas when it is attacking (fire is in the middle); maybe there should be effect of "bombing" for tactical bombers?

Some are wrong:
- Polish Cav, German Cav, Gebirgsjager, Pioniere, Bruckenpioniere shoot like tank ;
- some light tanks (Panzer IB, IIC, Polish TKS) shoot like they had at least 50 mm cannon imho ;

Some are missing (I think):
- explosions for fighters, tac bombers; appear only when units gets killed, I think;
- animation for anti air (polish one);

2. Buttons.
- Unit Orders - they ...do not work;
- Toggle Stats Panel, Toggle Unit List do not toggle; If I open one panel, I need to open second panel in order to hide first;

3. Misc.
- I don't like dots for normal movement and other icon for transport; was the schema from PGF bad?
- ESC for undo move do not work; instead of it it brings options menu;
- Both units: attacker and defender can be killed in a fight; is that intended?
- Hex sides (strong) look good now; Subtle version looks almost invisible in big zoom (big units) mode - maybe should be a bit less subtle ?;
- red circle showing "unit possible to be attacked" - again, I think hex version would suit game better;
- temperature of CPU still skyrockets;
- Disembark do not work for me ...I press E and the train is still there ;
- tooltips still are slow for: End Turn, Next, Prev, Air/Land, etc buttons; should appear with the same speed as for Unit Buttons;

[Razz1]

how do you adjust the hex borders?

[Rudankort]

how do you adjust the hex borders?

There is a setting in the sysmenu.

[Orchrist]

Yet Another First Impressions, Thoughts, Bugs, Etc

- Disembark do not work for me ...I press E and the train is still there ;
;

For me, I had to right click on the spot I wanted to disembark at, (after clicking the button). I hope that works for you too.

[skarczew]

Yet Another First Impressions, Thoughts, Bugs, Etc

- Disembark do not work for me ...I press E and the train is still there ;
;

For me, I had to right click on the spot I wanted to disembark at, (after clicking the button). I hope that works for you too.

Hmm works...

But ...why the E key does not simply toggle it? As a train, I can only disembark to the same location anyway :/ .
Should work like Mount / unMount.

[Kerensky]

Yet Another First Impressions, Thoughts, Bugs, Etc

1. Yay, explosions, fire, nice . Fight is fast and starts to look really good. Though I noticed some issues

omitted...

Unit animations are a very new feature, so new we're not even done with all of them yet! So expect many improvements in this area, and use this sample to base your judgment upon.
Disclaimer: Animated gif has been optimized for FIRE FOX web browser.

[Razz1]

You can only load and unload in any city.

[skarczew]

You can only load and unload in any city.

I know >.> . Here is what is strange for me:

- I can mount / unmount; works the way it is clear for me; unit changes to truck and truck changes back to unit;
- I can embark into train, but after clicking "disembark" nothing visible happens to me (choo-choo did not change back to unit);

If a given unit was in "normal" mode the same turn, it should not penalize for embarking and disembarking;
Also, question to developers and designers - when i disembark choo-choo, why not give the possibility to disembark to other adjacent hexes?

[Kerensky]

- I can embark into train, but after clicking "disembark" nothing visible happens to me (choo-choo did not change back to unit);

Because the disembark button works identically for all units that utilize it. When you disembark a transport ship, click disembark then you have to right click where you want to disembark. When you disembark a paratrooper from air transport, you still have to right click where you want to disembark after you click or hot key 'disembark'.

Train is only different because you cannot disembark to adjacent hexes, you only can disembark on the city hex the unit is stand on.

As for being able to disembark onto adjacent hexes, it's been brought up before and it may be implemented if balance permits. I don't think we want the ability to embark/disembark on any hex that happens to have rail lines running through it, but perhaps only being able to embark in a city, but being able to disembark anywhere(including adjacent hexes to this 'anywhere') won't be so unbalancing.

[skarczew]

As for being able to disembark onto adjacent hexes, it's been brought up before and it may be implemented if balance permits. I don't think we want the ability to embark/disembark on any hex that happens to have rail lines running through it, but perhaps only being able to embark in a city, but being able to disembark anywhere(including adjacent hexes to this 'anywhere') won't be so unbalancing.

I have been thinking about disembark onto adjacent hexes, but only from city hex. Allowing disembark (NOT embark) to be done anywhere could also work - if the balance would permit, that is .

[adherbal]

I have been thinking about disembark onto adjacent hexes, but only from city hex. Allowing disembark (NOT embark) to be done anywhere could also work - if the balance would permit, that is

Agreed. Railroad transportation was used to move units to the frontline at the head of an offensive. But in the game the frontline is generally next to a heavily defended enemy city, and being limited to city disembarkment you still need a couple more turns to get there (cities generally aren't close together). Trains should be highly vulnerable to attack (air/ground) though, so there would be some risk involved.

It should also make units without truck transport more useful. I never liked the fact that it's so important (and easy) to motorize every unit in my army (core).

[eskimo68]

Wholeheartidely agree about trains. Ok, I'm lying, since I object to the added complexity . Some points:
- disembarking in adjacent hexes to a city would be nice (as said, cities are often at the frontline)
- disembarking anywhere would only take a fuel hit (easiest abstraction)
- attacks on trains, what was the actual damage during the war? I have to admit I have no clue whatsoever. I would imagine most of the loss was from the time delay/disarray factor than from actual men/equipment lost. Men hide well in the woods, tanks don't necessarily get destroyed, especially if it's just a strifing attack to empty ammo.

Maybe the unit would be frozen in place for 4 turns? Maybe returned to the previous city with minimum damage thus giving you the option to refit it or just throw it back into battle.

I know many of these questions might be irrelevant for now. That's why a Wiki page would have been nice (not a feasible idea). Thing is, lots of beta testers here seem to have quite a lot of experience so we will have a massive amount of ideas floating around some of which definitely will be good/fun enough to implement. Then again, might be better to make all such changes in v2.0 since this is a financial project after all.

Ok, I'll really try to comment less and play more.

[skarczew]

Wholeheartidely agree about trains. Ok, I'm lying, since I object to the added complexity . Some points:
- disembarking in adjacent hexes to a city would be nice (as said, cities are often at the frontline)
- disembarking anywhere would only take a fuel hit (easiest abstraction)
- attacks on trains, what was the actual damage during the war? I have to admit I have no clue whatsoever. I would imagine most of the loss was from the time delay/disarray factor than from actual men/equipment lost. Men hide well in the woods, tanks don't necessarily get destroyed, especially if it's just a strifing attack to empty ammo.

Easy. The trains have their own stats, like transport aircrafts - the damage can be modeled that way. As for damage, apart from direct hits the equipment could be damaged when the train derailed ...

[Razz1]

Realistically, Tanks and armored vehicles can not unload in the middle of the country.

They don't have the equipment cranes to do this.

Even if we implemented it... I'm not sure it is a good balance thing.

As far as disembarking in adjacent hexes....

I don't like it as you can send three or more units to a city location in one turn.

Now you have to wait in line, so more thinking and logistics.

If you do it with trains, you have to do it with airports.

[Rudankort]

Hi Sebastian!

1. Yay, explosions, fire, nice . Fight is fast and starts to look really good. Though I noticed some issues:

OK, at least you like them, right now it is the most important. The issues will be corrected of course, it is still work in progress.

2. Buttons.
- Unit Orders - they ...do not work;
- Toggle Stats Panel, Toggle Unit List do not toggle; If I open one panel, I need to open second panel in order to hide first;

Now, this issue really concerns me. Some further questions.
- Do I understand correctly that this issue is new, and previous build (0.93a) did not have it?
- Do you see any tooltips on the buttons which do not work?
- Small (utility buttons) work ok?
- You are using Vista, correct?

- I don't like dots for normal movement and other icon for transport; was the schema from PGF bad?

Standard complaint for color codes is that you never know from the first glance what they really mean. Also, it can be quite difficult to make colors working with different terrain. I was never happy with movement indication in sea in PGF< and for placement I even had to use icons, not color, because yellow (what I had in early versions) looks like land on top of sea.

- ESC for undo move do not work; instead of it it brings options menu;

Based on feedback from people here, this was changed in 0.94. Esc brings up menu now, as in many other games. Undo is invoked with backspace. We should correct the hotkey thread.

- Both units: attacker and defender can be killed in a fight; is that intended?

Yes, why not. If they have huge attack and zero defense, this is what you would expect from such encounter.

- Hex sides (strong) look good now; Subtle version looks almost invisible in big zoom (big units) mode - maybe should be a bit less subtle ?;

Maybe you are right.

- red circle showing "unit possible to be attacked" - again, I think hex version would suit game better;

A hex-shaped cross-hair?

- temperature of CPU still skyrockets;

I can't look into all issues at once, sorry. This one is not yet addressed.

- Disembark do not work for me ...I press E and the train is still there ;

Is this issue figured out by now, or it still exists? If it doesm just send me saved game to rudankort@rsdn.ru.

- tooltips still are slow for: End Turn, Next, Prev, Air/Land, etc buttons; should appear with the same speed as for Unit Buttons;

Thx for mentioning this, I wanted to see if (how) people like new instant tooltips before extending them to all buttons and areas.

[skarczew]

Now, this issue really concerns me. Some further questions.
- Do I understand correctly that this issue is new, and previous build (0.93a) did not have it?
- Do you see any tooltips on the buttons which do not work?
- Small (utility buttons) work ok?
- You are using Vista, correct?

I retested it today, and here are the results:
- In previous version there were some problems with buttons as well; I think I forgot to report them because the buttons usually worked (but not always); To be exact, "toggle" type buttons (utility buttons) were and are NOT working correctly - it is possible to click them one time, but it is NOT possible to click for second time; Workaround I found is that I can click other button and then get back to the original one;
Also, "Unit action" buttons sometimes worked, and sometimes they did not; I did not find the reason why they were not working, but I found workaround that made them work if they were "stuck";
- Tooltips work correctly;
- Utility buttons work correctly if they are non-toggle type; toggle-type have issues described above;
- Yup, Vista 32bit, SP2

Standard complaint for color codes is that you never know from the first glance what they really mean. Also, it can be quite difficult to make colors working with different terrain. I was never happy with movement indication in sea in PGF< and for placement I even had to use icons, not color, because yellow (what I had in early versions) looks like land on top of sea.

Then maybe it would be possible to change dots . I still need to think about it.

Based on feedback from people here, this was changed in 0.94. Esc brings up menu now, as in many other games. Undo is invoked with backspace. We should correct the hotkey thread.

This will work for me .

Yes, why not. If they have huge attack and zero defense, this is what you would expect from such encounter.

Those were two Infantry units with size of 1 .

A hex-shaped cross-hair?

I imagine something like this:

All units that are possible to be attacked would get hex shaped, bloody-coloured cross-hair with spikes. The amount of spikes can be reduced to 4, for example.

If player moves mouse over one of those units, the cross-hair would change colour to golden and the spikes start moving inward and outward.

(the picture is of course static, my GIMP skills fail )

Is this issue figured out by now, or it still exists? If it doesm just send me saved game to rudankort@rsdn.ru.

Yes, guys explained it to me that I need to move onto the same hex.
I am thinking about few small adjustments here:
- If embark has happened on the same turn, disembark should be done without losing a turn; this will protect from accidents like "I pressed 'E' by mistake";
- What about allowing to disembark units in the field? Maybe it could be possible for some types of units ...(infantry comes in mind);
- What about allowing to disembark to adjacent hexes?

Thx for mentioning this, I wanted to see if (how) people like new instant tooltips before extending them to all buttons and areas.

Thou shalt not be afraid of tooltips!

[Kerensky]

Hotkey sticky has been updated.
If you want to animate your example, you can post all the individual frames and I'll put them together into a nice animated gif for you.
(I like making animated gifs, it's a bit of a hobby)

BTW your sample looks pretty nice as a possible replacement for current combat visualization.
vs

Although I imagine there may be a problem with 2 units adjacent to each other who are both valid targets, your borders will overlap.
Something like this may become too 'red washed':

[skarczew]

I made something like this:


No spikes there, though.

Why would they have to overlap? I don't understand ya .

And as for gif, I am not skilled enough to make my own gifs with GIMP within any acceptable period of time ...maybe someone else could do it.

[skarczew]

Now, this issue really concerns me. Some further questions.
- Do I understand correctly that this issue is new, and previous build (0.93a) did not have it?
- Do you see any tooltips on the buttons which do not work?
- Small (utility buttons) work ok?
- You are using Vista, correct?

I tested out the current version on WinXP on another PC, and buttons (the same that are buggy under my Vista) worked correctly. It is not possible to change the size of windows, though (it seems it wasn't intended anyway, just I had the possibility to do it under Vista).

I wonder how does the thing run under Win 7 ...