Bug or Feature???

Jon Grasham · Post by **Jon Grasham** » Sat May 13, 2000 6:21 am

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
The 100 formation - 400 unit limit is total for the game. We are working on doubling that (and the max map size).

Got it! thanks!

jones · Post by **jones** » Sat May 13, 2000 10:00 am

Hi,

Wow, what a great game! I haven't been able to stop playing for while now <g>. THANKS!!

First the bugs (were/are SP bugs ?):
Units sometimes fire damaged/destroyed weapons during reaction phase.

Once a mortar unit is in "out of c3" state and I visit the Bombardment screen, sometimes that unit is never available again for i/d fire assignments ("out of range").

Feature request:
I'm haven't figured out how to turn off VCR replays (for playing against the AI) and NUMEROUS times I have mistakenly hit V instead of F. Now that AI turns can run to 10-15 minutes I'd sure appreciate a "View Replay (y/n)" prompt when plyr hits v <g>

Again thanks for an excellent game!

-d

jmo1 · Post by **jmo1** » Sun May 14, 2000 11:52 pm

I have played couple games Germany vs Poland. and Germany vs France I have noticed also that Polish bunker looks like immobilized half truck in game. PzKpfw-II's long 20 mm (20L55?) gun sounds like Apache's automatic cannon in SP2. I found that it's really hard to kill Polish 7-TP or German PzKpfw-38t with 37mm gun. I have tried kill Polish and German tanks even from one hex distance (from front, side and back)... I got hit after hit, but tanks usually survive, and takes some damage or will be destroyed too rarely. I have used 100% for tank toughness.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Mon May 15, 2000 1:35 am

I will double check the unit data. in going over teh OOBs. Assigning unit values can be as much art as science and what "looks" like it should work based on crunching some numbers to represent complex arrangements of plates, sometimes goes astray:-)

THe angles you shoot at are critical and you can be "too close" to units on hills because of teh angles. We ried to address some of teh problems with the "plataeu effect" ie tanks are always parallel to the ground, even on slopes...the "bottom hit" represents the exposure to get the gun depressed far enough...

Fred · Post by **Fred** » Mon May 15, 2000 3:17 am

Paul,

I too have seen some very strange high armor ratings in the pop-up descriptions while playing against the polish in 1939.
Stuff like "34 pen vs. 366 armor, no effect"...against a polish light tank. It happens often that these values appear, e.g my PzIII on a hill and the polish tank some 6 hexes away on flat terrain.
First shot gave a "believable" result of "34 vs. 40 armor", second shot "34 vs. 246 armor" etc.
Looks like an inconsistency in the armor/slope algorithm?

Fred

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Mon May 15, 2000 5:52 am

In general what you are seeing is the effect of VERY acute angles. Take a pencil for instance, if you measure across it its narrow, but as you angle it the path through "the wood" gets bigger and bigger. Becasue teh round starts to rotate as it digs in, and teh mechanics of penetration, the "effective" thickness is even greater than the "geometric" thickness.

Now together with this is the fact that the rotation of the round on contact often results in the shell deflecting, so the probability of ricochet is related to the angle and T/D ratio.

The large numbers in the box are these "effective" armor values when the angle is efspecially acute. More often than not, they will casue ricochets!

The routines have been heavily tested and in general are very good. I will look at the case of bottom hits up hill, to see if there may be a bug in how the angle is calculated... For all other cases I'm pretty darn certain that the routine is working as intended!

pvi215 · Post by **pvi215** » Mon May 15, 2000 7:04 am

I have also noticed the rather absurd armor thicknesses given the 7-TP. Consistant calculated effective armor thickness in the 300-400mm range for a vehicle with a maximum frontal armor of 40mm is not creditable. Maybe the 7-TP pioneered the use of Chobham with DU mesh.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Mon May 15, 2000 7:27 am

Depends on the angle. The generally accepted "effective" thickness of armor as it varys with angle is base/cos^1.6. In the game the 1.6 is varied with T/D.

40/cos(75)^1.6 = 347mm At that acuteness, the odds are high the round will never "bite" and will ricochet. APCR is even worse using an exponent 2.2!

If you think that is not credible, than you may want to write R.M. Ogorkiewicz, who offers the relationship in both his works on the subject of tank design. He is on eof the most respected theorists on an tank design around! His 2 volume reference on Tank Design for Jane's is considered by many the standard reference work.

Wargamers are so used to using the base/cos approximation that when they start seeing this core correct form, they cry foul!

HPS uses this sort of formulation, but I don't believe they factor T/D in - at least in the same way. I think Combat Mission does too, but I am not certain.

I'm always learning about this stuff, but in nearly 2 years researching this particular method, I stand by it, together with using angle of incidence as the primary random element. At least until I'm better educated in the theory by someone

xman44 · Post by **xman44** » Mon May 15, 2000 5:21 pm

First of all, let me congratulate the design staff of Matrix Games! This game is great and has kept me up many a night since I downloaded it. Much to the dismay of my work I might add.

However, not sure if this is a bug, but I am playing the "Eagles" campaign that was included in the download and after the "Market Garden" scenario I get a decisive victory, but after I press DONE, it dumps me out of the game completely. Now, I realize that this may be the end of the campaign, but I would like some clarification to if this is a bug or just "part of the game."

Thanks,

xman

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Mon May 15, 2000 6:55 pm

I'd like to see a feature to replay the last message. Even though I can change the delay for a pop-up message, sometimes I want to ponder them or my kids distract me and I miss it altogether

------------------
An old soldier but not yet a faded one.

jmo1 · Post by **jmo1** » Mon May 15, 2000 7:36 pm

I reported bug about sound of gun of PzKpfw 2C. I checked it again and sound was right, but there was gfx-effect of multiple explotions (like fired with automatic cannon). I have seen this bug only in Carre d As scenario.

O de B · Post by **O de B** » Mon May 15, 2000 11:42 pm

Well, i noticed some things i did not understood, but first i want to thank all Matrix Crew for this great game and all the features i love in this game : sounds, graphics, OOB, scenarios, reinforcements, combat resolution (a huge thanks for the astonishing work you did on the armor penetration system !!!!) , the '9' feature key, the colour LBMs, the opportunity fire, the possibility for HT to flee when a tank comes up close, the fact that infantry loaded on tank takes losses when the tank is hit, the way AI uses trucks, the mg efficiency well i forget a lot, the list is huge !
However, I noticed a very few strange things that may or not be bugs :

- i'm a newbie to the Command & Control system, but i think i figured it out a little. Then i tried to assign single units objectives, but the button seems to assign objective to the whole formation. I changed the option between 'Change whole formation/change this unit only' with the formation leader, but i did not seemed to work .
- there are also some very little graphics bugs (not very annoying for gameplay, but they are

)
Once in a while, the icon of a destroyed vehicle will dissapear (i had this with a german halftrack and a JS-III, at last for what i noticed 'hey, where has it gone !')
i think an other one is well known, i just recall them to be sure

- some buildings extend a little further their drawing. Perhaps that's what people call 'invisible buildings'. Well, they are not invisible, but when a multihex building extends to a hex where it seems to just occupy a small corner, i think it's clear and move my tank/HT along for cover, and crash, it's immobilized

Well, that's all. Sorry for the looong post, i couldn't stop speaking of this game

You should better rest a little now, my writing must tiring

thanks again !

StuNZ · Post by **StuNZ** » Tue May 16, 2000 12:56 am

Originally posted by O de B:
- i'm a newbie to the Command & Control system, but i think i figured it out a little. Then i tried to assign single units objectives, but the button seems to assign objective to the whole formation. I changed the option between 'Change whole formation/change this unit only' with the formation leader, but i did not seemed to work .

O de B, objectives can only be assigned to formations, not individual units - individual units of a formation may have a different objective to the rest, but this only happens either when
A) The unit is out of contact and the formation objective is changed
B) The unit is forced to retreat from it's current location
Hope that clears it up for you

.

pvi215 · Post by **pvi215** » Tue May 16, 2000 6:16 am

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
Depends on the angle. The generally accepted "effective" thickness of armor as it varys with angle is base/cos^1.6. In the game the 1.6 is varied with T/D.

40/cos(75)^1.6 = 347mm At that acuteness, the odds are high the round will never "bite" and will ricochet. APCR is even worse using an exponent 2.2!

If you think that is not credible, than you may want to write R.M. Ogorkiewicz, who offers the relationship in both his works on the subject of tank design. He is on eof the most respected theorists on an tank design around! His 2 volume reference on Tank Design for Jane's is considered by many the standard reference work.

Wargamers are so used to using the base/cos approximation that when they start seeing this core correct form, they cry foul!

HPS uses this sort of formulation, but I don't believe they factor T/D in - at least in the same way. I think Combat Mission does too, but I am not certain.

I'm always learning about this stuff, but in nearly 2 years researching this particular method, I stand by it, together with using angle of incidence as the primary random element. At least until I'm better educated in the theory by someone

It's been a couple of decades since I openned his (Ogorkiewicz) "Design and Developement of Fighting Vehicles", but fig. IV, pg. 83, chap. 4 graphicly presents the formula you cite. Which is to say you are absolutely correct in your basic methodology. However, hits against multiple targets (all 7TPs) from different ranges and angles of engagement consistently got calculated armor thicknesses in the 300-400mm range. That, I consider odd.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Tue May 16, 2000 6:35 am

I just did a "shooting gallery" test with 10 PZ 35t against 10 7TP's at about 250-250 yrds range. The result after each had a turn was 5 7TPs dead, and 2 damaged. The highest armor result I saw was a thin flank hit at 228. Most were well within a factor of 3 of the base. 1 PZ 35 was killed, one immobed, and 2 damaged.

The best way to get a feel for the comabt system is to set up "shooting gallerys" in the editor and see how the geometry effects the outcome.

I appreciate your input, and while there is always the possiblity of a bug hidden in some situation, try some more examples and see if you still see this effect? If the target has a significant height advantage, and teh shooter is very close, with good slope, you can have large angles playing also.

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited 05-15-2000).]

crazyivan · Post by **crazyivan** » Tue May 16, 2000 7:33 am

Originally posted by Desert Fox:
I know gliders are not supposed to be guaranteed a perfect landing, but I bought 4 German gliders just to see how they worked. Well, I was really really disappointed. It was a meeting engagement vs. the computer, clear weather at 1300 hours. I set the gliders to land at on a strategic hill in no mans land. I started my turn and watched them fly with the wind. They got to the hill and just kept flying, flying, flying, right into the lines of the British battalion. They unloaded and all my troops were summarily destroyed. Now, granted I didn't expect the gliders to be right on target, but they overshot by 20 hexes, that can't be right can it?
And how come they can't carry a full squad inside? I tried to load in a FJ airborne squad and it told me they wouldn't all fit. Now that makes even less sense than the 20 hex overshoot. Next time I am buying transports.

why don't you try and use air transport instead they hold heaps and parachutings seam more accurate

crazyivan · Post by **crazyivan** » Tue May 16, 2000 7:37 am

Originally posted by Desert Fox:
I know gliders are not supposed to be guaranteed a perfect landing, but I bought 4 German gliders just to see how they worked. Well, I was really really disappointed. It was a meeting engagement vs. the computer, clear weather at 1300 hours. I set the gliders to land at on a strategic hill in no mans land. I started my turn and watched them fly with the wind. They got to the hill and just kept flying, flying, flying, right into the lines of the British battalion. They unloaded and all my troops were summarily destroyed. Now, granted I didn't expect the gliders to be right on target, but they overshot by 20 hexes, that can't be right can it?
And how come they can't carry a full squad inside? I tried to load in a FJ airborne squad and it told me they wouldn't all fit. Now that makes even less sense than the 20 hex overshoot. Next time I am buying transports.

why don't you try and use air transport instead they hold heaps and parachutings seam more accurate

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Tue May 16, 2000 10:22 pm

You need to stagger their landing zones. If you have them landing close together or one on top of the other, they may not respond.

Also, do the following;

1. Open the glider menu
2. Set direction FIRST. Always do this.
3. Set glider landing hexes
a. Not on top of each other
b. Not in a row (the glider gets confused when he sees another glider in his "slot"
c. Not in an area crowded with trees or hills. Gliders are scared of those (and they should be)

There is always a chance that a glider will overshoot the area of battle and be lost to the action. That is historically accurate. By the time they got to the battle it was over.

Hope this helps...WB

------------------
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Seth · Post by **Seth** » Tue May 16, 2000 10:35 pm

Not really much of a bug, but if you hold the mouse over the next and previous buttons in the encyclopedia, you get data on an empty fort with odd availability dates. Maybe it just doesn't know what else to show?

Sgt. Rick · Post by **Sgt. Rick** » Tue May 16, 2000 11:40 pm

Played a battle in September 1945 between US Marines and Japanese. While buying Marine artillery, go to SPA Sec or SPA Btry. You can buy the M7 105mm HMC for FREE!!!

I am pretty sure it's a defect...

Awesome game!

Rick