More of my *****ing...

[Larry Reese]

LOL, MS Word crashed and I lost some 20+ pages of book I am writing. And, of course, despite Autosave being on, the material is not actually backed up. Also, beware that auto-save does not save any files prior to a scheduled reboot (such as when auto-updates is turned on for the OS). So, if the system downloads an update, counts down 4 hours or whatever after warning the user (there or not) that the reboot will occur, it will do so without saving the current state of any document. This annoys me.

I'd also like to once again plead the case for having blocks taken into account by the autopath. This seems a simplistic failing that could turn off relatively new players.

I'd also like to offer up that German armored cars are too powerful as AAA units. None of these units have the dedicated 360 yaw and easily pitchable mount that dedicated and effective AAA units of all sides had. More over they had very limited ready-use ammo supplies and were impossible to crew by more than one person (which dedicated AAA vehicles were always assigned). While they have some AAA ability, I am unaware of any aircraft actually downed by these vehicles and feel they should be reduced somewhat in their AAA performance. If we're going to allow this type of AAA rating, why not allow it for British trucks that mounted a AAA MG on the cab?

And lastly, once again I'd like to say I think allowing a single platoon of engineers to carry enough smoke bombs to completely obscure a 200-250 meter line, essentially forever, is unrealistic. Give each engineer one or even two smoke rounds, and force the militaries of all sides to rely on what was, at the scale and time period we're using, the only effective smoke delivery system - tube artillery (though the Russians got really good at using air dropped smoke as well, particularly for river crossings).

Oh, and one more time, we need to revamp the whole artillery system. We cannot do barrages, which is silly. For example, infantry can walk up to a wall of enemy artillery, targeted on the same hex, every turn, and just walk through on their own turn when it lifts. We need to allow high rate of fire weapons, in sufficient numbers, the ability to lay persistent barrages in my opinion. Any side trying to enter the beaten zone should have to pass a morale check to make the move and then suffer an attack from the artillery.

Just my two cents dudes...

LR

PS - designers, please be mindful of placing motorized officers with infantry in terrain (hills, elevation changes, swamps, etc...) where vehicular movement is heavily restricted, or impossible. It seems to make sense that in these areas it would be more effective to put the guy on foot, since it's the only way he can keep up with the troops.

[Ashcloud]

LOL, MS Word crashed and I lost some 20+ pages of book I am writing. And, of course, despite Autosave being on, the material is not actually backed up. Also, beware that auto-save does not save any files prior to a scheduled reboot (such as when auto-updates is turned on for the OS). So, if the system downloads an update, counts down 4 hours or whatever after warning the user (there or not) that the reboot will occur, it will do so without saving the current state of any document. This annoys me.

I'd also like to once again plead the case for having blocks taken into account by the autopath. This seems a simplistic failing that could turn off relatively new players.

I'd also like to offer up that German armored cars are too powerful as AAA units. None of these units have the dedicated 360 yaw and easily pitchable mount that dedicated and effective AAA units of all sides had. More over they had very limited ready-use ammo supplies and were impossible to crew by more than one person (which dedicated AAA vehicles were always assigned). While they have some AAA ability, I am unaware of any aircraft actually downed by these vehicles and feel they should be reduced somewhat in their AAA performance. If we're going to allow this type of AAA rating, why not allow it for British trucks that mounted a AAA MG on the cab?

And lastly, once again I'd like to say I think allowing a single platoon of engineers to carry enough smoke bombs to completely obscure a 200-250 meter line, essentially forever, is unrealistic. Give each engineer one or even two smoke rounds, and force the militaries of all sides to rely on what was, at the scale and time period we're using, the only effective smoke delivery system - tube artillery (though the Russians got really good at using air dropped smoke as well, particularly for river crossings).

Oh, and one more time, we need to revamp the whole artillery system. We cannot do barrages, which is silly. For example, infantry can walk up to a wall of enemy artillery, targeted on the same hex, every turn, and just walk through on their own turn when it lifts. We need to allow high rate of fire weapons, in sufficient numbers, the ability to lay persistent barrages in my opinion. Any side trying to enter the beaten zone should have to pass a morale check to make the move and then suffer an attack from the artillery.

Just my two cents dudes...

LR

PS - designers, please be mindful of placing motorized officers with infantry in terrain (hills, elevation changes, swamps, etc...) where vehicular movement is heavily restricted, or impossible. It seems to make sense that in these areas it would be more effective to put the guy on foot, since it's the only way he can keep up with the troops.

Good points all, I agree completely and hope the powers that be take notice - artillery barrages would up the realism dramatically.

Sorry for your loss Larry, I also fail to backup often enough and have paid similar prices.

Ashley

[Herr Straße Laufer]

LOL, MS Word crashed

I know how that feels! Sorry man. :(

I'd also like to offer up that German armored cars are too powerful as AAA units. None of these units have the dedicated 360 yaw and easily pitchable mount that dedicated and effective AAA units of all sides had. More over they had very limited ready-use ammo supplies and were impossible to crew by more than one person (which dedicated AAA vehicles were always assigned). While they have some AAA ability, I am unaware of any aircraft actually downed by these vehicles and feel they should be reduced somewhat in their AAA performance. If we're going to allow this type of AAA rating, why not allow it for British trucks that mounted a AAA MG on the cab?

Not only British but some American and the American Scout cars and Halftracks that had 50 cals mounted in the cabs precisely for the AAA role. Not to mention the 50 cals mounted on American armor and SpAT?

Give each engineer one or even two smoke rounds, and force the militaries of all sides to rely on what was, at the scale and time period we're using, the only effective smoke delivery system - tube artillery (though the Russians got really good at using air dropped smoke as well, particularly for river crossings).

Logical. I agree.

Oh, and one more time, we need to revamp the whole artillery system. We cannot do barrages, which is silly. For example, infantry can walk up to a wall of enemy artillery, targeted on the same hex, every turn, and just walk through on their own turn when it lifts. We need to allow high rate of fire weapons, in sufficient numbers, the ability to lay persistent barrages in my opinion. Any side trying to enter the beaten zone should have to pass a morale check to make the move and then suffer an attack from the artillery.

We asked for that years ago? I forget what the response was, on if it was doable.

PS - designers, please be mindful of placing motorized officers with infantry in terrain (hills, elevation changes, swamps, etc...) where vehicular movement is heavily restricted, or impossible. It seems to make sense that in these areas it would be more effective to put the guy on foot, since it's the only way he can keep up with the troops.

90% of the "irks" in the game can be eliminated by designers looking a small things?
A foot borne leader can have separate cars or Ht's assigned to them, if the designer wants mobility later on?
I also think that designers need to be mindful of transports, mostly soft trucks, being put into the front lines because they are part of the OOB. SOP would have trucks miles behind their front line units? Especially in those scenarios where roads are limited. :eek1:

Good points!



HSL

[Scud]

Well I can give you a little "Word" advice.

20 pages of work without saving is asking for trouple. Get in the "control-S" habit. You should automatically be doing it every 5 minutes, but it takes time before you start doing it without thinking. Also, a good easy way for offline document backups is dropbox.com, check it out. There's a video tutorial right on the home page. Today Word bombs, tomorrow the hard drive.

So, what's the book?

Dave

[Dragoon]

I agree with the suggestion of limited smoke for engineers.Or maybe their smoke not as thick as artillery smoke.Also think when they are un supplied their abilities should be reduced, blowing bridges etc (maybe it does affect blowing bridges already not sure or maybe thats disruption)....Didnt certain tank units have smoke canisters on the turret to give themselfs a bit of cover?If so would be nice if they could have a smoke bomb.I'm sure that issue was raised before.

Cheers

Dragoon

[junk2drive]

I use a hotmail account for email and it has access to MS Office online. You could do your work and save on the cloud then save as... whatever you are using I think.

[kineas]

If I write more than 3 lines since the last Ctrl-S I start to feel uncomfortable.

[Von Earlmann]

If I write more than 3 lines since the last Ctrl-S I start to feel uncomfortable.

Last time I wrote more than 3 lines I was in one of those chatroom thingys......would have been better to have had them not saved :-)

VE

[Dan Caviness]

Hello Larry:

You make some excellent points.
I find myself unamazed, you continue to be one of the more precise minds in this group. No small feat.

Blocks and Autopath
Yeah...really fun stuff.

Autopath seems to handle movement based on the map files, and doesn't see the changes made by the designers in the scn files?

Autopath loves to run you into previously scouted minefields to teach you humility.
I find that equally frustrating, and especially when the minefield is yours to begin with. While it may have happened from time to time I don't believe it rings true. I think you should know where your own minefields are without having LOS to them. I also believe when units found enemy minefields they left marks or signs or dead bodies or burning tanks w/dead bodies to indicate it's position...eliminating the need to rediscover it every time you accidentally run another unit that way.

Autopath being what it is, we all learn to avoid it in tough terrain, but I still space out from time to time and inevitably start inventing words when it reacquaints me with it's perverse need to send me the wrong way.

It also seems to be "getting it wrong" more and more as time goes by. Maps getting more complex? Debugging needed? When the game first came out, Autopath seemed fairly reliable with the exceptions of SCN editor mods like blocks, minefields, etc. Now it seems to lose track in complex terrain more and more and you just can't trust it in thick terrain. Select "save points to unload" and it gets even worse. For some reason when you "save points to fire" it seems to do better, and often plots or takes a more intelligent path. It's determined to save you those 35 APs...

Engineers and Smoke
Smoke is a powerful tool in the CS series. We've all ran into some of these "smoke wizards" and as usual Herr SL is on point by advising designers to add it with caution. When you look through the original scenarios, smoke is pretty rare. The Axis side usually has none or very few, and I believe quite correctly as smoke was not a large part of German operational doctrine during WWII.

Add smoke with caution, it's a game changer.

I will note that some WWII engineer units possessed smoke generators in addition to the usual smoke grenades and they did produce prodigidous amounts of smoke with very little material. Vaporized oil sprayers and burners make huge amounts.
Their use, and all smoke use, was subject to the wind direction. That isn't an issue in the game, smoke goes exactly where you need it.

Unfortunately it's use within the game can be even more effective.
Try Tarawa against a good smoke player. They can land entire Marine battalions on the island without ever suffering a casualty, and that is not accurate at all. It's ruined some good scenarios in Rising Sun once you learn the trick.

We sometimes institute ROEs asking that when you play these scenarios players have to drop smoke on the enemy hex rather than on the hexes between that block LOS. This halves their fire, but they can still shoot. Seems more realistic. No, it's not perfect, and can still go wrong when they move where you didn't think they would, but it's an attempt.

Lastly to Dragoon, many vehicles that generated smoke simply had hot plate generators adjacent the engines where they sprayed diesel oil or other fuels directly on them. Very effective for making smoke, and a practically "unlimited" supply of it.

On the artillery barrage.
It would seem what you desire would be a form of "intelligent" OP fire setting that would allow your artillery to trigger sequentially as the enemy closed?
I share your desire Larry...and would extend it to all OP fire as well...but if we manage that we'll have made the first AI that can think. You can save your APs and set your OP fire settings with your arty to blast those you want at the range you want...more or less...but you'll still have to pray the AI doesn't decide to open up on the enemy horses...and let the Panzers roll in...lol...

You can of course plot a barrage using your OP fire and walking it towards the enemy. That actually pays off from time to time, the AI seems to enjoy retreating shelled units into another hex that is bound for more indirect love.

As usual, my three cents worth...now we got a nickle invested in this thread Larry...

Regards,

Dan