Some suggestions for V4.5 or V 5.0

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » Sat Nov 11, 2000 9:06 pm

There are a few quibbles with SP WAW I have (or at least the v3.0) I have...

1.) Confusing Encyclopedia

a.) the unit pictures are TOO small! The picture sizes are unchanged at 160x80 despite the DOUBLING of screen resolution from 640x480 to 800x600! This means people like me with "14 monitors have to squint to make out the unit pictures. Let me demonstrate:

Ju 87 Picture In SP_WAW

A proposed image size: 300x260

Which would you rather see in the encyclopedia? There's plenty of screen real estate to do this, or at least in the 'Unit Details' screen.

No text descriptions of units: In the SP WAW directory, a folder is named "ENCYCLOPEDIA" or somesuch, and inside are text files with unit descriptions, yet the game engine does not call on them!

Insufficient zoom levels: As stated before, those of us with 14" monitors find it hard to see the icons of units in their full glory when they're roughly half the size they were in the original Steel Panthers. A fifth zoom level would fix this.

Of course, I could just buy a 19" monitor, but I have no money with which to do so....

[This message has been edited by MKSheppard (edited November 11, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by MKSheppard (edited November 11, 2000).]

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » Sat Nov 11, 2000 9:30 pm

A few more ideas:

"Composite" ratings: have the program put together a unit's stats to get a composite average of a few things:

Defense: (Armor thickness, angle, etc
Hard Attack: (attacking Tanks, bunkers,etc)
Soft Attack: (attacking Infantry, Houses)

Display it as percentage compared to say, the Panther.

Say....

Sherman: 38% Defense
30% Hard attack
40% soft

There's enough screen real estate to add this in the encyclopedia. What it would do is allow relative neophytes to jump in and pick the right units without having to pore through masses of stats, and also would help provide a rough rule of thumb to help people who can't recite by heart the armor thickness and penetration ratings of WWII armored vehicles.

Comments?

While it might be easy to deride the unwashed masses, remember that a big part of Steel Panther I's success was because it was relatively easy to play the first time you loaded it up without reading the manual.

Pave · Post by **Pave** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 12:42 am

- Ice cover on water in winter. Could carry
light vehicles. Could be braken with arty, etc.
- Optional weight limit on bridges. Tiger could cross a stone bridge, but not a wooden one.
- Add a bridge type for trail (logs over a river etc.). Could carry only men, mules and horses.
- Off board artillery should be able to move and avoid counter battery fire.
- Some sort of an recon system. Now you cannot know anything about the enemy in advance. This is not handled very realisticly at the moment. Any ideas?
- Computer controlled civilians? If you kill too many of them, you'll be in trouble!

- Get points for captured ordnance?
- Maybe more units could be placed in OOBs (now the limit is 255 I guess), because German for example miss some units (aircraft mostly).
- Different camouflage for summer, winter and desert. Maybe this could be done by changing some of the icon colors in the code and no separate icons would be needed.
- How about sound observations? Now a tank column might pass you 100 metres(~100yards) away and you hear nothing. This could be shown by putting the red hex edge where the sound source is roughly located and playing the sound. Of course there has to be your unit nearby.
- Fix the F1 key in save game screen. Now it usually doesn't update the turn number/time automaticly and I have to write the whole line myself (because even the F1 doesn't work!).

[This message has been edited by Pave (edited November 11, 2000).]

Tortfeasor · Post by **Tortfeasor** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 1:13 am

It would be great if it was posible to play all replays as a long movie, when the war have ended.
Just press a button if you wanto save all off them.
Even if it takes a lot of space in the hard drive.
It would be good to se the tactic difrenses bewen both players.

Fuerte · Post by **Fuerte** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 1:16 am

The bigger picture and all other suggestions would be very nice, but they won't happen in this game. I only hope that Matrix fixes the PBEM replay bug... all other new features should be in the next commercial game. They have to make money after all.

We (World War II strategy game players) have so many good games at the moment to choose from:

1) Combat Mission
2) Close Combat 5
3) Panzer General III Scorched Earth

I am just waiting for the PBEM bug to be fixed, meanwhile I'm playing Combat Mission and wondering if I should get the other two games. CC5 demo looked good, I have not played any of the previous versions.

<img src="http://www.ssionline.com/cc5/images/scr ... leRedl.jpg" >

Don · Post by **Don** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 2:55 am

As Fuerte has stated, the Matrix gurus are only fixing bugs at this point, and maybe adding a few small new things.

It's time they work on things to bring in some much needed money, and that is what they are mainly working on.

There are many limitations in this game, and many things that could be improved, but overall these guys have made a fantastic game, especially given the fact they were working with code written by others!

Well done, Matrix!

Don

Ballan · Post by **Ballan** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 3:31 am

I think you guys are being too critical, SPWAW without doubt is the most realistic and accurate wargame available. The creation team done an excellant job, especially when you consider the game is free. Personally, I have nothing but admiration and thanks to the team.

Christophe Jaureguiberry · Sun Nov 12, 2000 7:35 am

Originally posted by Ballan:
I think you guys are being too critical, SPWAW without doubt is the most realistic and accurate wargame available. The creation team done an excellant job, especially when you consider the game is free. Personally, I have nothing but admiration and thanks to the team.

I don't think the remarks in this discussion are too critical in the sense of :"Hey, Matrix! How come you haven't implemented this and this yet?".

Posters are just stating how they would like a game we love to evolve. This is the type of advice that led to the elaboration of SPWAW in the first place, with people giving their comments on how they felt the original SP could be improved.

We are indeed admirative of the Matrix team. If these suggestions cannot be included in SPWAW v5.0, they will in the commercial game Matrix will create based on their experience with SPWAW (I'll be the first one in line to buy it). So in my opinion, these suggestions should be stated.

Regards,

Christophe

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 7:58 am

I'm getting used to SP WAW now...although I wish there was a way to turn off ALL the animations like you could in SP 1 and 2....

That said....

Throws himself down in piety

Oh, god! Please, PLEASE get rid of the artificial 250 unit limit in the OOBs!

I want this as my FO vehicle, but I don't wanna have to delete a unit to get it!

Panzerbeobachtungswagen Panther[\b]

Artillery observation vehicle with heavily modified turret mounting wooden dummy gun and ball-mounted 7.92mm MG34. 41 were converted from Panthers returned for repairs in late 1944/45. Mounted with additional observation devices and other equipment, including range-finders.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 5:30 pm

I've been editing SP_WAW to add/colorize the unit pictures. So far, I've added 34 new/improved pictures.

Uhm, Am I the only one to notice that the way LBM files are allocated amongst the units is haphazard?

The engine can (and does) support LBM files up and beyond the 7000 mark, which coincidentally is how many LBMs you'd need if you made a separate one for each of the 250 units possible in all of the 28 OOBs..

I'll wait until I can get my hands on the final version of SP_WAW before I clean up the LBM calls in the OOBs, so that ANZAC gets LBM calls 1-250, and Belgium gets calls #251-500, and so on...

Warrior · Post by **Warrior** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 5:38 pm

As far as I'm concerned, all suggestions for the game can be useful to Matrix to be incorporated in a future commercial game. (Which I can't wait to buy so I can repay a bit of the immense enjoyment I'd had with SPWaW!) I tried Close Combat, but find SPWaW a lot neater and less complicated. It may be a DOS creation, but it's pretty cool. MY suggestions would be to have the "names" of units in the purchase menus - i.e., Tiger, Panther, etc. And some of the weapon pictures aren't exactly illuminating - a MG shown as a truck? Anyway, whatever happens next, SPWaW is OK by me

Fabs · Post by **Fabs** » Sun Nov 12, 2000 6:12 pm

SPWAW is without a doubt my favourite wargame by a very long measure.

I just want to post here my old chestnut of the additional elevation levels.

I am not doing this to revive the discussion, just to make sure that it is not forgotten in no one mentions it.

Whether it comes as a future enhancement to SPWAW (unlikely) or is built into a different engine taking the SPWAW concept forward to better things is the same to me.

------------------
Fabs

Gallo Rojo · Post by **Gallo Rojo** » Mon Nov 13, 2000 6:47 pm

Originally posted by MKSheppard:
A few more ideas:

"Composite" ratings: have the program put together a unit's stats to get a composite average of a few things:

Defense: (Armor thickness, angle, etc
Hard Attack: (attacking Tanks, bunkers,etc)
Soft Attack: (attacking Infantry, Houses)

Display it as percentage compared to say, the Panther.

Say....

Sherman: 38% Defense
30% Hard attack
40% soft

There's enough screen real estate to add this in the encyclopedia. What it would do is allow relative neophytes to jump in and pick the right units without having to pore through masses of stats, and also would help provide a rough rule of thumb to help people who can't recite by heart the armor thickness and penetration ratings of WWII armored vehicles.

Comments?

While it might be easy to deride the unwashed masses, remember that a big part of Steel Panther I's success was because it was relatively easy to play the first time you loaded it up without reading the manual.

Well... I’m not sure about this... I’m sorry if I don’t properly understand you (I’m not a native English speaker)... Are you saying that the stats should disappear and be replaced by this “composite ratings”? If this were the case It seems that SPWAW would be to much like Panzer General II or this games... I really don’t want to get another PzGeneral (we already have 3 of them, right?). I think that SPAW is sophisticated, but I really like in this way. I mean, I think that it’s still easy to play although it’s difficult to master it, and I love it in this way. If you are a AVF fan you’ll certainly know that isn’t a good idea to attack a Tiger II by the front... I agree with you that if you’re not an expert with about WWII AFV you could find yourself attacking a T-34 with a PzKw IV C, or a Tiger with a 75mm gun Sherman... but sooner or later you will learn!

On the other hand, if your idea is to add some “composite ratings” or another information comparing different tanks in the encyclopedia WITHOUT eliminate statistics... well, I think that could be fine...

I would really appreciate that the VCR problem be fixed.

Ballacraine · Post by **Ballacraine** » Mon Nov 13, 2000 11:34 pm

I am a tyro at this game & so if my suggestions are already covered in the existing coding I apologise. My comments refer to version 4.4

Currently I am playing through the defence of the motherland campaign and must agree with the gripes on victory conditions voiced on a different thread. On a delay scenario with a victory margin well in excess of 2x & holding all but one victory hexes, a flame from my commanding officer for not trying hard enough seems a little harsh!!

Suggestions:

On the 'Deploy' screen:

I think the following buttons would be useful:

1)Mission Overview : Recall text of scenario objectives for reference during deployment.

2) OOB : The ability to refer back to the resources available for deployment would be useful. If units were selectable from this it would be even better. This would prevent my usual problem of when I deposit an infantry unit in a hex with a vehicle & load them on to it I forget the unit reference I wasa up to, get confused & end up re-deploying other units away from key positions!!!! Short of this at least a text addendum to the effect of 'This unit has already been deployed. Do you wish to re-deploy?' would be most helpful.

During play of the scenario:

Ability to re-assign command of a unit.
If a unit leader is destroyed or immobilised, how about allowing units to act on their own initiative or allowing them to 'ask' to be re-assigned. I know that they fire when attacked & retreat when in low morale but mostly they just sit around like a lemon

Christophe Jaureguiberry · Tue Nov 14, 2000 2:56 am

Originally posted by Fabs:

I just want to post here my old chestnut of the additional elevation levels.

I agree and I would like to add to that suggestion: rather than have elevation buttons 1,2,3,etc... it would be nice to have an "elevation +" and an "elevation -" button.

This way, if you want an elevation 10 hill next to a ravine, you can do it. A shortcut for really high elevations can be added. Ex: Right-click on "el +" prompts the program to ask what elevation, type 12 and you got a el 12 mountain.

Regards,

Christophe

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Tue Nov 14, 2000 4:33 am

Me too, but I realize it wont happen. I would be willing to accept the associated bugs as far as the armor penetration model goes. It would only be for custom built scenarios anyways.

Tomo

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » Tue Nov 14, 2000 4:38 am

On the other hand, if your idea is to add some “composite ratings” or another information comparing different tanks in the encyclopedia WITHOUT eliminate statistics... well, I think that could be fine...

Yeah, that's the ticket. BTW, have you ever played "Iron Storm" for the Sega Saturn? It's the game Panzer General shoulda been.

For example, you can have HE-111s be equipped with a "B Bomb" to knock out cities, bridges, airfields, and seaports (Strategic bombing), 500lb bombs for tactical bombing of land units, or torpedoes for sea units.

Hell, they even have the German Guided bombs as an option in the HE-177 Greif loadout panel.

frank1970 · Post by **frank1970** » Tue Nov 14, 2000 11:28 am

Absolutely no problem to create guided bombs in SPWAW! You just have to modify a existing bomb, give it a greater range, etc... . I´ve done it yet and it worked fine.