1.02 patch for Panzer Battles Normandy - Released

[Strela]

David:

I had asked a question in another thread about disruption in terms of high losses for a unit and you replied in part:

"A lot of the conversations here are around losses vs disruptions etc, We won't be changing anything until we get some decent logging mechanisms that allow us to understand how the code handles these things.

John writes REALLY solid code, but you have to understand there are some segments that are approaching 20 years old. One example, we queried the combat report that appears when you turn the 'On Map' results off. Ricky B, Chris Haigh and I tried to reconcile the values we were calculating to what was being shown. Guess what - they didn't align. The code worked properly but the reporting didn't. We want to understand how the code works and then run a decent number of simulations to understand the range of values generated. Berto is building a logging system so we can understand how the code works, where the bugs are and then to run multiple simulations with it.

We don't want to start changing things in the depths of the code until we understand it and even then we find that tweaking values in the parameter files may give us what we're looking for. This really is a feature rich engine and we want to really understand it before making any significant changes."

So I am just wondering has the team thought about this and decided on any changes. Thanks again,

Gerry

Hi Gerry,

There have been a number of things done with this in the latest patch. Probably the most important of these is a new parameter field called 'Fatigue Factor'.

There was a whole conversation around how disruption was rarely happening due to losses. The main reason for that was that the calculation had inadvertently been changed from PzB to PzC. Essentially units were only taking two thirds of the fatigue per loss as compared to Panzer Campaigns. That's why units were more resilient than expected. The Fatigue factor allows us to match the value back to Panzer Campaigns or any other value we think appropriate.

The equivalent value to match the equation in PzC is 3.0. The first two PzB games have a 2.0 value. We have not changed them to 3.0 as none of the scenarios were tested or balanced with a 3.0 value in mind. For PzB 3 and the Demo we are planning to use 3.0. We are seeing a definite change, units are much more susceptible to disruption and breaking due to losses vs the old defense till death seen previously. You are more than welcome to change the parameter value in Normandy and Kursk and see the difference in impact.

The other thing we have been testing is adjusting the range attenuation factor. We have been using 1.1 (vs 1.5) in the desert and the impact is stark. Do NOT let an 88mm Flak see you. This is again a real possibility for a title like Kursk where there were pretty clear lines of fire. This needs deeper testing as it impacts all fire but may fix many of the issues people have complained about regarding lethality at range. One important caveat is that this impacts all fire - soft or hard (but not indirect) so it may require some revision of the actual ranges.

Finally as far as combat reporting etc, I have lots of ideas that would add real value to the system, but we have higher priority deliverable's currently. You will see more on this though in the future.

David