lack of

[wodin]

A worrying lack of new scenarios and mods or even any news about ones being worked on....looks like making them prob involves way to much work...shame...the est deitor etc was a major selling point.

[Baskaatje]

Unfortunately, I experienced a number of CTD's and till they are corrected in a new patch (I hope!), I'm unable to play and am also a bit reluctant to make new scenario's.

Bas

[tukker]

The Epsom scenarios I made are being tested as we speak. It won't be long till they're uploaded (fingers crossed)

Pieter

[FredSanford3]

I'm waiting on that xml estab editor Paul was working on before I continue with anything.

[Merv0728]

What I find off-putting is the amount of time spent trying to find reliable OOBs & T&OEs without spending a fortune on hard to source books.Seems you would have to spend so much time researching that you would never get to play the scenario.

Alan

[wodin]

Now we know why it took so long for BftB to come out...

[vj531]

or get fixed[8D]

[nicwb]

Maybe the developers (or someone) could put together a package of usable OOB's/maps as a sort of DLC ?

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Franklin Nimitz

I'm waiting on that xml estab editor Paul was working on before I continue with anything

Ditto.

Virtually everything that I'm interested in doing requires that I modify/create weapons and units. Until the developer gets its own data straightened out, I honestly don't think that there's any point in attempting to move forward as I don't want my own work voided by future patches to the existing estabs. When/If the editor that Paul described allows user-created unit and weapon data to be imported into the evolving "stock" tables, I'll go back to work.

[FredSanford3]

I don't know, it depends on how perfectionist you feel you have to be. And isn't that true for any game that has a "do it yourself" type editor? How can any game designer know of my burning desire to model the entire 1896 Anglo-Zanzibar War in squad-level detail?

ORIGINAL: Merv0728

What I find off-putting is the amount of time spent trying to find reliable OOBs & T&OEs without spending a fortune on hard to source books.Seems you would have to spend so much time researching that you would never get to play the scenario.

Alan

[Arjuna]

Re Degree of Accuracy in OOB and estab data. I truely believe that this issue is a matter of "horses for courses". I am sure most players would love to have more data content and that while a few will be very pedantic, most would rather have something that is close now rather than wait forever for something that is 100% accurate. Moreover, we have come to realise in all our research that there is often conflicting sources and a judgement call needs to be made. Further, the historical data needs to be modified to cater for the engine's modelling - eg support staff, supply vehicles and their associated weapons and equipement need to be stripped out and assigned to the respective base depot. The aim IMO is provide players with an experience of what it was like to command and fight the operational battle. They can do this equally well with a unit that has 10 MkIV tanks or one that has 9 Panther tanks.

[vandorenp]

ORIGINAL: wodin

A worrying lack of new scenarios and mods or even any news about ones being worked on.

I am working on an expansion pack with the working title "Knock on all the Doors". It supposes the 5th Pz Army was given charge of the initial assault.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

The aim IMO is provide players with an experience of what it was like to command and fight the operational battle. They can do this equally well with a unit that has 10 MkIV tanks or one that has 9 Panther tanks.

Respectfully, there are many situations in which you can't have one, accurate results, in the absence of the other, accurate data.

Example:

Crusader I/II vs Pz.III.Ausf.g

vs

Crusader I/II vs Pz.III.Ausf.h

With other factors held equal, such as morale, the Crusader will be marginally superior in the first instance. However, in the second case, the early Crusader may as well be shooting at Tigers, what with the 60mm+ of armour bolted onto the front of the "H" model, Panzer III. To the AA-engine's credit, factors like this APPEAR to play out during gameplay. I'm not privy to the internal workings of the game, but this certainly seems to be the case. Congrats in that regard. It's the "meat and potatoes" of what you've created. I'd note also that I've taken the time on other game forums to highlight this strength of your software to folks who questioned the efficacy and relevance of what you've tried to do in the course of your work. The data for individual weapons/units is the foundation upon which the whole game stands. IMHO, you've got nothing to build upon without it. I fully realize that scholarly sources can and frequently do disagree as to the particulars, but the particulars are, nonetheless, not lacking in their several merits relative to the outcomes of your games. And if your data tables contain what appear to be substantial numbers of errors regarding that which is quantifiable, it's gonna reflect in the qualitative aspect of the game, a conclusion which I find inescapable.

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

Until the developer gets its own data straightened out, I honestly don't think that there's any point in attempting to move forward as I don't want my own work voided by future patches to the existing estabs.

Am I missing something here? All reported estab issues, which in the end were superficial, were fixed for the first patch. If you are waiting in anticipation of new errors to be found, you would in theory never get a scenario out.

[PirateJock]

Is there a timeline for releasing Paul's XML editor?

I vaguely remember there were gaps in the data for some units that were not being used ... are these the ones you are talking about PoE? Or was it other entries?

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

The aim IMO is provide players with an experience of what it was like to command and fight the operational battle. They can do this equally well with a unit that has 10 MkIV tanks or one that has 9 Panther tanks.

Respectfully, there are many situations in which you can't have one, accurate results, in the absence of the other, accurate data.

Example:

Crusader I/II vs Pz.III.Ausf.g

vs

Crusader I/II vs Pz.III.Ausf.h

With other factors held equal, such as morale, the Crusader will be marginally superior in the first instance. However, in the second case, the early Crusader may as well be shooting at Tigers, what with the 60mm+ of armour bolted onto the front of the "H" model, Panzer III. To the AA-engine's credit, factors like this APPEAR to play out during gameplay. I'm not privy to the internal workings of the game, but this certainly seems to be the case. Congrats in that regard. It's the "meat and potatoes" of what you've created. I'd note also that I've taken the time on other game forums to highlight this strength of your software to folks who questioned the efficacy and relevance of what you've tried to do in the course of your work. The data for individual weapons/units is the foundation upon which the whole game stands. IMHO, you've got nothing to build upon without it. I fully realize that scholarly sources can and frequently do disagree as to the particulars, but the particulars are, nonetheless, not lacking in their several merits relative to the outcomes of your games. And if your data tables contain what appear to be substantial numbers of errors regarding that which is quantifiable, it's gonna reflect in the qualitative aspect of the game, a conclusion which I find inescapable.

PoE,

I agree with your comments about the accuracy of data for historical scenarios. However, what I was really referring to here are hypothetical or what if scenarios. My bad. I should have stated that. But hey I'm supposed to be on holidays and should be cut a bit of slack. [;)]

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: simovitch

Am I missing something here? All reported estab issues, which in the end were superficial, were fixed for the first patch.

I find myself struggling with your comment that these items were "superficial" in nature. After what turned out to be several patches/updates (thank you for those), the CotA estabs and unit/weapon data still contain significant errors, ones that I would humbly suggest can have a significant impact of how a scenario plays out. I did my best to help document those on another forum, but there's probably a lot more there, as I was only looking at the data from a North African perspective. And, even at that, I probably missed a lot of stuff.

If you are waiting in anticipation of new errors to be found, you would in theory never get a scenario out.

There will likely never be a time when a compelling argument can't be made to alter either the estabs or unit/weapon data. Some wise-guy is always gonna come along with some new data that appears to undermine that which has already been adopted. Sometimes, he may actually be right. Were it not so, there wouldn't have been so much discussion on the Combat Mission forum as to how many bren guns equal an MG42! Ah, but isn't that the the nature of dialectics?

However, the folks who want to create/modify data for your game are in a pickle. We can generate all the content that we want, but everytime a patch is issued, we'll have to feret out the changes to the "stock" unit/weapon/estab data that you made, and modify our own unit/weapon/data as a result. This doesn't have to be a train wreck for the content generation community, but it could be. If Franklin Nimitz and myself exhibit considerable warmth to the idea of Paul's all-new-and-improved data editor, that's almost certainly why.

That's all. [:)]

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

I agree with your comments about the accuracy of data for historical scenarios. However, what I was really referring to here are hypothetical or what if scenarios. My bad. I should have stated that. But hey I'm supposed to be on holidays and should be cut a bit of slack. [;)]

Take all the vacation time that you want![:)]

And, I haven't been hatin' on y'all about this.[;)]

Someone started a thread that I took to be an expression of concern about the lack of activity regarding user-created content for BftB. I tried to provide him with some context and perspective as to what was going on.

Again, that's all.[:)]

But, someday, even if it's years from now, please try and develop a utility that will allow us to import user created data entries from an older estab into that which is current, your latest version.

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

I find myself struggling with your comment that these items were "superficial" in nature. After what turned out to be several patches/updates (thank you for those), the CotA estabs and unit/weapon data still contain significant errors, ones that I would humbly suggest can have a significant impact of how a scenario plays out. I did my best to help document those on another forum, but there's probably a lot more there, as I was only looking at the data from a North African perspective. And, even at that, I probably missed a lot of stuff.

I've noted those errors in COTA and have made some corrections already. In the context of the stock game they are still rather minor issues IMO. Even though I was not a part of the original COTA development team I did find errors and made several fixes to the estabs when I did the Italian vehicles for North Africa scenarios & patch. It's just a matter of running through them again and getting them out to you folks. How that will be done (including an xml file) is up to Panther/Matrix.

Many thanks to you, TMO and Goodguy for helping to check this stuff.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

But, someday, even if it's years from now, please try and develop a utility that will allow us to import user created data entries from an older estab into that which is current, your latest version.

mmm...the trouble with this is how to handle changes to the estab data formats that take place. It can be done but would require a new version of the tool each time we change the format. I'll discuss what we can do with Paul. Stay tuned.