A Mighty Battle just Shook the Earth

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 10:05 am

For the first time tonight, I got into a battle via TCP/IP, using SPWAW. My worthy opponent was Mr. Frank Donati, Der Oberst, who is the Playtest Coordinator for Matrix Games and the head of the Campaign Series Site on TGN, "The Battlefront."

...A worthy opponent indeed and I approached the battle with due caution.

We squared off, hooked up and got into it. It was very simple and easy. I have always shied away from TCP/IP. I won't anymore (G)!

The fight was with the tutorial battle from SPWAW, a very evenly matched battle.

What a fight! It was tight till the end of turn 15. Of course I won (G), but I didn't prance off the battlefield. I limped.

Frank is a mighty fighter and he had me puckered up till the final victory screen came up. Old Frank had my adrenaline flowing the whole time we fought.

The fog of war is excellent. I can hear enemy movement sometimes, but see nothing, unless I am in the right position. It makes for some very tense moments.

No crashes, no problems. Aircraft, OMA, all of it worked flawlessly, and we were able to write jibes and comments without incident.

This is a whole new experience for me and has revolutionized SP for me again. It just stays good and gets better!

The Victorious, but very beat up Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Rickenbacker · Post by **Rickenbacker** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 10:17 am

Sounds like fun. When do we get to try it?

I'm a little curious, though, is this form of multiplayer real-time (meaning simultaneous turns) or do you have to wait while your opponent moves?

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Rickenbacker
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rickenbacker@innocent.com

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 10:21 am

Yes, it is U-go, I-go, but with a nice new feature.

You do have an option of opportunity fire during the opponent's turn, which is a fantastic feature. YOu actually control the op fire if you want to...WB

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

O de B · Post by **O de B** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 1:11 pm

More control of Opfire ?????????
Is it scheduled to be implemented also against the A.I. ?

PR^Spanjab · Post by **PR^Spanjab** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 4:30 pm

I am looking forward to the TCP-IP implementation a great deal! I play a lot of games on the net and I am worried about 2 things.

Firstly can the game cope with one or both players getting a disconnect?

Secondly, this controlled op fire which sounds awesome, is it blatantly obvious to the on-turn player that their unit has been spotted by a pause for the other player to decide to shoot?

Keep up the supreme effort, it is appreciated muchly!

Tankhead · Post by **Tankhead** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 5:55 pm

Hey Wild Bill! Glad you enjoy yourself

This TCP/IP sounds like a lot of fun. "Like this game is not addictive enough", now to play on the internet!

Choice of opp fire this feature sure sounds good, can't wait to try it. The only game I ever played on the internet is Falcon 4 and that is a blast

Tankhead

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Rick Cloutier rcclout@telusplanet.net
Coordinator: Tankhead's SPWAW Resources
http://sites.netscape.net/rcclout

Grisha · Post by **Grisha** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 6:12 pm

Excellent!

Beetlecat · Post by **Beetlecat** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 6:12 pm

Controlled op-fire!

I thought that was a feature lost since the days of 'The Perfect General' (I & II...)

I couldn't wait to get back to work today to see what transpired over the long weekend. Good to know the wheels of progress still grind away!

-beetlecat

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 7:27 pm

PR Spanjab: Tha game already tells you when your unit has been spotted.

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 7:43 pm

It appears so, O de B. I inadvertently had it going against the AI for a minute and it seemed to work fine that way...WB

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

O de B · Post by **O de B** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 10:00 pm

Wow again Bill !
The Matrix Team is really pushing the limits of Steel Panthers towards reality !

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 10:15 pm

If the connection is lost the host saves the game and it can restart. We will be experimenting more with fault tolerance once we are sure it works well with a good connection.

The new Opfire is really great! When you move your unit pauses (and the "time" freezes) but you have no idea what saw you or where. If you quickly hit "n" it pauses just for a second... You can control how long the "defender" has to decide from like 2-10 seconds.

The defender see's a shot line form the shooter to the target and a little note to the effect of "opfire MG34 at SO Guards range 8 hexes" or the like.

You can reallygive the enemy the heebie jeebies if you keep hitting no

and he knows the "hills have eyes"

And no, there is no way to make it seamless so the moving unit doesn''t know he is being sized up...

This will be a feature you will be able to turn on off in any game type, though it is obvioulsy NOT reccommended for pbem

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Thu Jul 06, 2000 11:31 pm

Very exciting. Very exiting. I can't wait. Sounds like its time to get an ICQ opponent list running.

Tomo

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Fri Jul 07, 2000 12:16 am

Well tonight is another night of battle, but with some new twists. We'll be adding a feature (if it works) that is another something entirely new for head to head battles.

Report later, when the smoke clears!

Addictive, Tankhead? you can't imagine. I can't wait to crank this up again and blow up some more things!

WB

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Dean Robb · Post by **Dean Robb** » Fri Jul 07, 2000 8:56 pm

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
You can reallygive the enemy the heebie jeebies if you keep hitting no and he knows the "hills have eyes"

And no, there is no way to make it seamless so the moving unit doesn''t know he is being sized up...

Call it the "veteran's sixth sense" or the hairs standing up on the back of the target's neck...