The Upcoming Changes to the Mech.exe

[KG Erwin]

SPWaW is a "legacy" game, and further changes will be done by the players.  We are fortunate in that programmer Michael Wood tweaked the game for 8.403, and contributed to the "enhanced" version.  I do not foresee any major rewrites, so the game , apart from OOB changes, is what it is.
 
As for the "smoke shield", hell, I just don't use it.  Yeah, let the AI employ it, as it needs all the help it can get. There are several "house rules" that can be employed, and this helps even out the game. Arty effectiveness set to 120% is a good one.   

[Arctic Blast]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

Although I am impressed with enhanced, it seems a crying shame not to farm out this game as open source with some suitable not for profit license agreement so that some of the problems could be ironed out. Something like that might actually increase the chance that such things as Mega Campaigns would be more popular from Matrix's point of view and might even spin off some good titles for Matrix to benefit from as budding developers learn some lessons from the code. It is hard to see how an open source approach would be damaging given the age of the title.

Keep in mind that, so far as I know, Matrix does not 100% OWN the Steel Panthers game code, so it's not just up to them to make it open source, but also up to whoever does have ownership rights of SSI's back catalogue.

[chopper66]

Ah, yes, I'm not exactly sure who owns those rights but was living in hope.

[tracer]

Of course for PBEM and generated battles you're stuck with the 'default' smoke loadout, but when designing a scenario you can easily reduce or even eliminate it. In AI-defend battles I normally remove all smoke ammo for the defenders to prevent them from popping it while retreating, which more often than not only aids the attacker.

[chopper66]

I am one of those who likes the linked campaign, and even name unit leaders (sad I know).

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

I am one of those who likes the linked campaign, and even name unit leaders (sad I know).

I like campaigns as well
[:)]

[chopper66]

As a somewhat weathered grognard, I would go as far as to say that this is my favourite all time computer game - it is certainly the game I keep coming back to. [:)]
 
 

[chopper66]

ORIGINAL: tracer
In AI-defend battles I normally remove all smoke ammo for the defenders to prevent them from popping it while retreating, which more often than not only aids the attacker.

Which bit of the editor allows for smoke to be changed? [:)] I can find morale, weapon, name, experience and so on, but not smoke. [&:]

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

ORIGINAL: tracer
In AI-defend battles I normally remove all smoke ammo for the defenders to prevent them from popping it while retreating, which more often than not only aids the attacker.

Which bit of the editor allows for smoke to be changed? [:)] I can find morale, weapon, name, experience and so on, but not smoke. [&:]

when you assign a weapon to a unit it goes thru a list of stuff...he ammo, ap, smoke, heat....

[chopper66]

Ah, thanks for that - quite a lot of effort then.

[tracer]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

Ah, thanks for that - quite a lot of effort then.

When you change/re-assign a weapon, you are prompted for an amount of each ammo type. If you enter zero for smoke (for a single weapon), it removes all smoke rounds from the unit. So long as you don't enter a positive value for smoke during any subsequent weapon changes, the unit will remain 'smoke-free'.

Yes its time-consuming ...but its all we got. [;)]

[chopper66]

I've tried to work out the structure of the save file, and with the work done by Fred I can almost write a small program that would remove smoke from all or selected units, but cannot quite get my head around the variable number of units within the file (in other words, how many unit records to read in before the next part of the file is reached).

It would be very little work for me to write the program, if I can get past this particular problem.

[A Steve Too Many]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

Which bit of the editor allows for smoke to be changed? [:)] I can find morale, weapon, name, experience and so on, but not smoke. [&:]

You can also use the World at War Game Editor. Load the scenario, select "Unit Data": There is a field for "Smoke" that you can set to zero. You will still have to go unit-by-unit to make a force-wide change, but using the Game Editor is faster than SP's own weapons/unit editor (where you will have to set the weapon type AND other ammo).

[A Steve Too Many]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

I've tried to work out the structure of the save file, and with the work done by Fred I can almost write a small program that would remove smoke from all or selected units, but cannot quite get my head around the variable number of units within the file (in other words, how many unit records to read in before the next part of the file is reached).

It would be very little work for me to write the program, if I can get past this particular problem.

Can you read the unit ID tag (A0, B0, B1, B2, ..., AB3)? Possibly you could count units that way? Or read to a blank (I think it's "--"), or if you could start reading at the "end" of the file and read back until you get to "A0" (the first unit)?

[chopper66]

I haven't been able to identify a record field that corresponds with a unit ID.