ANybody out there?

[vettim89]

Just wondering if there are people still playing this game? Not much noise on the forum

[CapnDarwin]

The forum may be quiet, but folks are still buying and playing the game. We just used it again this year for one of James Sterrett's War College training sessions at Origins. Rob and I and a handful of dedicated playtesters are working on the next game engine and making some good progress of late. Once we get a bit of help in scenario and map designs we should be able to put the new game to bed and get the second one going in short order. Both Rob and I are battling "entertaining" day job and other situations which have limitied development time and slowed progress. Such is the life of the "free" time developers. [:D]

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin

The forum may be quiet, but folks are still buying and playing the game. We just used it again this year for one of James Sterrett's War College training sessions at Origins. Rob and I and a handful of dedicated playtesters are working on the next game engine and making some good progress of late. Once we get a bit of help in scenario and map designs we should be able to put the new game to bed and get the second one going in short order. Both Rob and I are battling "entertaining" day job and other situations which have limitied development time and slowed progress. Such is the life of the "free" time developers. [:D]

Cool. Just bought the game myself. Only a couple of criticism I would voice. First is dismounted infantry are too vulnerable. Killing a BTR or M113 really does nothing to the infantry. In fact in most cases a pure APC would not even be visible to the enemy. Second is the ATGM missiles seem wrong. First the Hellfire does not seem to kill enough. It is a third generation missile that is laser guided and much faster than 1st and second generation missiles. Second, did the Sovs only have AT-4 in 1989? I thought AT-5/6 should be around by then in the A divisions at least

[Spechtmeise]

Not playing at the moment, but observing and awaiting the sequel...Now that you mention it I might fire it up again...it's really an excellent and fun game.

[CapnDarwin]

vettim89,
 
Soviets are using AT-5's in most ATGM platforms, AT-6's on front level Hinds. Depending on platform there are AT-2, AT-3, and AT-4's in the mix as well. The T-80BV and T-80U have the AT-8 and AT-11 respectively. The Hellfire and the TOW-2A are the two most powerful ATGM's in the game.
 
One question, are you patched up to 1.13? A number of combat engine changes were made mid-way through the patching and updates. That might solve the infantry issue too. In the early version of the game the Infantry was getting rolled over. Later versions of the system corrected for that.

[James Sterrett]

"We just used it again this year for one of James Sterrett's War College training sessions at Origins." And, to bolster the point that it's well worth playing, FPG has served admirably well in this role! It helps that Jim and Rob come to operate it! Equally, though, FPG's turn structure lends itself well to that style of game, *especially* as the first one people meet. The turns are long enough to punish micromanagement, but equally the length means that a longish pause for new players to collect their wits doesn't jar against the game scale overmuch. As they get better the pace can increase.

[SwampYankee68]

Capn,  Any word on the Flashpoint Germany II that you alluded to in a thread on Flashpoint Middle East?  That is what I am truly interested in seeing (Although I plan on buying FPME)

[CapnDarwin]

Swamp_Yankee,
 
Work on the game engine for both continues. Biggest slowdown has been the freetime or lack there of to work on it. Both Rob and I have and still have crazy day job schedules. Another area is manpower. We have a very nice game engine, map maker, scenario editor, campaign editor, and excel editable datafiles. What we don't have right now are a few folks to use those tools to make maps, scenarios and campaigns. Right now Rob and I are focused on debugging the whole show with the help of our core playtesters and slowly getting the last of the basic OOB data done (my job, along with testing/debug). 95% of the artwork is in and I believe we are waiting on one tile set to finish out the ME maps. Once I have OOB and the data files fully verified we can get under the hood and make the final hookups and tweaks in the combat engine. It works ok now for testing, but we have a number of items we need to dial in.
 
What I really need is enough time to make a small map and scenario and show off the game in an AAR type report to show off what we have going right now. Of course as I type this I'm in my a$$ hot home office (A/C system went teets up today) getting ready to take a road trip for work tomorrow thus killing my week. I will of course bring my trusty laptop so I can work on things in the air conditioned bliss of a hotel room. We are also talking with Erik and Co. about getting a separate forum for ME so we can start to talk and show off the goods as well.
 
Thanks for the interest and hang in there. We are. [8D]

[SwampYankee68]

Wish I could help but I'm just a lowly end user.  I can promise you my purchase $!  Thanks for the quick reply and try to stay cool!

[mb4329]

Hi Jim,
 
I just sent you an email through the board.
 
Regards,
Merrick

[CapnDarwin]

Merrick,
 
Got it. Was out of town the past 5 days. I'll reply tonight.
 
Thanks. [8D]

[Awac835]

Awesome to hear its well underway

an AAR would be very nice indeed! Pref with lots of screenshots

[sabre1]

Capn Dawrin,


How is it coming along?

Thanks.