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[Fred98]

This game system is soooo gooood - its not appropriate to play PBEM.

Online H2H is the way to go!

But if you need PBEM, go for B.I.N.



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[Arjuna]

Here's a new screen shot of the new Terrain Key popup that you get when you right click on the map. As you can see there's a lot more data provided to help you make those key planning decisions.[8D]

[pahom]

With all of this information at hand, my unit placement will resemble my dog searching for that certain spot in the yard. [:'(]

Thanks for the screen!

[Banquet]

That screenshot looks excellent!

How does the presence of a river and a track affect things? I.e, a track would usually speed movement (over open ground) and a river would usually slow movement.. I take it the 4 percents indicates infantry would only move at 4 percent of their max movement, and the 20 percent direct hit means only a 1 in 5 chance of being hit in that terrain?

[Arjuna]

Banquet,

A river will overide the track in this case as there is no crossing icon there. Foot units can cross minor rivers albeit very slowly, while mot units cannot. In some of the new COTA scenario's tracks are actually footpaths - ie they only provide a benefit to foot units, while in others that provide a movement benefit to both foot and mot units.

I take it the 4 percents indicates infantry would only move at 4 percent of their max movement, and the 20 percent direct hit means only a 1 in 5 chance of being hit in that terrain?

Yes and Yes.

[Grognard]

Re: The slope value in the terrain key popup.

Will that vary depending "only" on how close together the contour lines are? And how does slope affect foot/motorized/tracked movement and fire?

If slope effects are significant, I hope contours are a little easier to discern under woods than they are in HTTR. That's my only beef with the graphics....

Getting pretty excited about the debut. When's the beta?

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Grognard

Re: The slope value in the terrain key popup.

Will that vary depending "only" on how close together the contour lines are?

We actually build a spot height map and so we calc the clope based on the difference in hights between adjacent 100m locations. You can see this in the MapMaker.

And how does slope affect foot/motorized/tracked movement and fire?

First off we have just two major move tables - foot and motorised. Tracked units use the mot move table. Slope acts like a modifier on the terrain effects. Mot units cannot travers a location where the slope exceeds 30 deg unless there is a road and for foot units its 60 deg ( or there abouts - I don't have the code open to check this at the moment ). There is already a spot hight difference modifier for direct fire such that units firing down hill get a benefit and those firing uphill are penalised.

If slope effects are significant, I hope contours are a little easier to discern under woods than they are in HTTR. That's my only beef with the graphics....

Graphics are always a personal thing. Some like plenty of detail others prefer less clutter. The terrain graphics are all moddable so you can always play around with these to your hearts content. I'm sure there will be mod packs for these as there were for HTTR.

Getting pretty excited about the debut. When's the beta?

We're a little too exhausted at the moment to be excited. Adam Bryant, our interface programmer worked all through the night last night. Now that's dedication. [:)] It's good to know that others are excited about the release. The beta is almost done. Adam is still add the new Supply Tab to the Side Data views. It has these spiffy graphs that will look pretty flash. Then he's got to tidy up all the odds and ends witht he force data tabs. I've got to work on some mods to the weather and we hope to have time to strip out the victory messages and make these moddable. Then it will be down to debugging and playtesting the scenarios.

[Banquet]

I feel for you guys.. working through the night can't be much fun!

Quick question about chance to hit in certain terrain.. to take the example of the terrain in the screenshot above, would being 'deep' in the woods affect the chance of being hit? I imagine it would affect LOS, but if you can see something in the woods, but have to fire through a deep amount of trees, does that affect chance to hit? Or are wood complete LOS blockers, so unless you're next to a unit, you won't see it?

I can't wait to get my hand on this! [:)] But don't anyone kill themselves by overdoing it.. we can wait.. it'll be worth it [:)] *begins meditation to enter trance like state until release*

[Arjuna]

[:D]

The chance of seeing a unit in woods ( or any terrain for that matter ) is calculated in a cumulative fashion - ie we start at the observer and move along a line towards the target. At each loc along that line we determine the visibility reduction effect and deduct this from the totalProbability ( which is initialised to 100% ). Once the totalProbability drops below 0 there is no line of sight into that loc. It's a bit more complicated than that cause we also factor in blocking elevation, locs in elevation shadows etc but you get the idea. So assuming the observer and target are on the same elevation and the target is say 1000m away, then there would be roughly 10 x 100m locs. Lets say the first five were clear terrain with no visReduction but thereafeter it was another five locs of woods. If the scenario designer had set the vizReduction to say 40% for woods, then the observer would have a 60% chance of detecting a unit in the first loc of Woods, a 20% chance in the second loc of woods and no chance in the third.

Leaving aside the probability of detection, there is no further terrain benefit on the actual hit effect for fire having to trace through successive woods locations.

[Banquet]

Arjuna,

Thanks for the explanation. The LOS calcs are truly impressive. I had no idea so much had gone into it.

Can you give any info on how the direct hit and area hit figures are calculated? I take it the firing weapon isn't taken into account in this figure?

Finally, does terrain effect the hit chance in any way? I note your example of being 'deep' in wood affecting the LOS, rather than the chance to hit.. but does being in woods (or buildings, etc) affect the chance to hit at all?

I know you're a little busy here and there with the some software you're working on [:D] but I'm really interested to get an idea how it works.

cheers (remember to sleep - and eat, in between work!)

[Arjuna]

Banquet,

The hit effects are values specified by the designer in the MapMaker. You can mod these to your hearts content. They are but one of the factors that are taken into account when determining hit probabilities. See page 94 of the manual for an explanation.

And yes we're very busy right now. If you know why exiting units are miscalculating the atStartPersQty of their missionTasks let me know. [;)]


All the best,

[Ron]

First off we have just two major move tables - foot and motorised. Tracked units use the mot move table. Slope acts like a modifier on the terrain effects. Mot units cannot travers a location where the slope exceeds 30 deg unless there is a road and for foot units its 60 deg ( or there abouts - I don't have the code open to check this at the moment ). There is already a spot hight difference modifier for direct fire such that units firing down hill get a benefit and those firing uphill are penalised.

Hmm, wondering why Tracked and Motorised(wheeled) units would have the same move tables? Tracked vehicles are much more off-road capable than motorised and wouldn't be hindered by a 30 deg slope. Curious.



Ron

[Arjuna]

Ron,

Nearly all WW2 tanks and halftracks had a max gradient of 30deg.

At a tactical level tracked vehicles do have a better cross country speed. But in operational terms there is little difference. Again, this is something that we would like to differentiate in the future with separate move tables, but each move table we add increases the load on the CPU and hence slows the game down. It's a blancing act. As hardware performance increases so will the sophistication of the Game engine.

[Arjuna]

Hi all,

We put out a new build #99 last night ( after a very long day [>:] ). The manin new feature of this build is the new Supply Tab. Here are some screen dumps.

The first shows the Stacked Column graph, where each column indicates the amount of the force's projected stock requirement that will be met each day. The column is then segemented into components. Each component corresponding to the share its SEP will get of the daily total.

The second is the multi-column table where each SEP has its own column and this is useful for comparing the SEPs on any given day.

The third is the line or series graph and it shows the trend for each SEP.

Click on a column or segment or the Key and the corresponding SEP will be selected on the map and its data displayed below the graph. We will also be writing code that will open the Supply Tab and display its data when you select an SEP icon from the map.

[Arjuna]

Multi-Column Graph

[Arjuna]

Line - Series Graph

[Arjuna]

We've also added code that will change the colour of the supply line connecting a Base to its drawing units depending on its status - either open, threatened or cut. Here's a screen dump.

[iaidoka2]

This is looking really good - I never thought I would get into wargaming until I found HTTR late last year and now I can't wait for COTA.

Keep up the good work.

[Rooster]

(low whistle of admiration)

Awesome.[8D]

If you don't mind my asking, what is cutting the supply line in the image above? Is it a constriction of the supply line across the bridge? Or the proximity to enemy units?

[SeaMonkey]

This series, AA, is without a doubt the most advanced wargaming system for the PC ever devised. Imagine, the potential mechanical upgrades are awaiting the hardware that can handle it...truly cutting edge. My hat is off to the Panther gang, well done. Take a bow guys, you are most deserving.