Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
Why can't ralph left justify the Unit info?

I'm sure he can, and I would also expect to see the scenario briefing left justified in the next update. That's just a guess of course.

The News Strings, Unit and Formation names are justified by the scenario designer.

Regards, RhinoBones

ORIGINAL: rhinobones
I'm sure he can, and I would also expect to see the scenario briefing left justified in the next update. That's just a guess of course.

That'd be neat indeed. Even better, let the designer have the ability to insert some very simple formatting code: various justifications, italics, bold etc.

The News Strings, Unit and Formation names are justified by the scenario designer.

By adding extra typographic spaces after the news string isn't it?

Cheers,
Marc

ORIGINAL: Nemo69
By adding extra typographic spaces after the news string isn't it?

Exactly. But now Larry knows too!

Also, been playing around with events for your alternative deployment problem. Not quite done, but close. Can send you the "in work" version if you want.

Your address is TOAW@ . . . . . . right?

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

ORIGINAL: Nemo69
By adding extra typographic spaces after the news string isn't it?

Exactly. But now Larry knows too!

Damn [:D]

Also, been playing around with events for your alternative deployment problem. Not quite done, but close. Can send you the "in work" version if you want.

Thanks a lot, that's excellent. Please send away, by all means.

Your address is TOAW@ . . . . . . right?

Indeed [8D]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

The 'D' Key

I would pay money if this key ONLY dug the unit in and DID NOT ADVANCE to the next "available" unit. This would save me vast time on every single turn.

Binding a single key to two actions is assuming that players manipulate their units in a certain way, which obviously some of us don't. If you want to string multiple actions together then please provide us with a complete macro language [;)]

And the same goes for the 'T' Key.


Something else (although not directly related to the interface): When attacking and the attacked unit retreats before combat it would be nice to be able to get an option that lets me choose if the attacking unit is supposed to advance or if it was only making a limited attack.

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

As for being a pain, just what are you intending to do, blow up everything on the map? Don't you want to keep a few things around for your own use? Get real, the only things that would be blown would be those military assets that are in immediate danger of being captured.

Right. Now, imagine having to do this in a Barbarossa type situation. There are literally hundred of candidate hexes every turn.

You know, there's only so many engineer units around that can do the type of demolition I'm proposing and they are not going to be blowing up every hex on every turn!

Actually, damaging railroads is pretty easy. I believe during the American Civil War, raiders would pile up the sleepers and set fire to them, using the heat to soften the rails, then bend them around the nearest tree. Voila: a wrecked rail line. A couple of hours work for a platoon.

If that's too much work, the Boers would just stick big rocks, or packs of explosives on the rail line. I'm sure 75mm shells would do the trick. All this will have to be removed by the enemy before using the railroad.

ORIGINAL: ezjax

1. Is it possible to have the text align left for each of these blocks (Formation, Location, Unit Info) instead of center.

I think this could be done by editting the .dll files which contain this text (also an opportunity to make those units mechanised instead of "mechanized") and adding spaces so the strings are all the same length, just the same as Rhinobones suggests doing for the other text strings.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Actually, damaging railroads is pretty easy. I believe during the American Civil War, raiders would pile up the sleepers and set fire to them, using the heat to soften the rails, then bend them around the nearest tree.

Are you quoting from an old John Wayne movie?

The people who enjoy scenarios such as Barbarossa love fiddling with thousands of units making many more thousands of actions. I think they would enjoy blowing up some airfields, ports, roads and rails. This is the primary reason why I would only have engineers performing demolition, thereby, capping the number of units available to perform such tasks.

Regards, RhinoBones

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Are you quoting from an old John Wayne movie?

No- but I suppose it's possible that's the original source of what I reported. The bending of the rail lines might not work in reality, but burning the sleepers and moving or burying the rails would certainly be doable.

The people who enjoy scenarios such as Barbarossa love fiddling with thousands of units making many more thousands of actions. I think they would enjoy blowing up some airfields, ports, roads and rails.

See Ralph's axiom about "interesting decisions".

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Are you quoting from an old John Wayne movie?

No- but I suppose it's possible that's the original source of what I reported. The bending of the rail lines might not work in reality, but burning the sleepers and moving or burying the rails would certainly be doable.

Are you referring to this:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/bowties.htm

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Actually, damaging railroads is pretty easy. I believe during the American Civil War, raiders would pile up the sleepers and set fire to them, using the heat to soften the rails, then bend them around the nearest tree.

Are you quoting from an old John Wayne movie?

Do a search on "sherman bowties". That's a fairly well documented practice of his troops on his "March to the Sea".

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Actually, damaging railroads is pretty easy. I believe during the American Civil War, raiders would pile up the sleepers and set fire to them, using the heat to soften the rails, then bend them around the nearest tree.

Are you quoting from an old John Wayne movie?

Do a search on "sherman bowties". That's a fairly well documented practice of his troops on his "March to the Sea".

I beat you by a few seconds again. [8|]

Hi,

Actually, I hope nothing really radical is done to the interface. I'm kinda used to it like it is.

However, saying that I could actually do with eliminating most of the "buttons" and showing more map. To me more map is always good.

Since all the buttons can be accessed from the drop down dialogues, all these things do is cover the map. I almost never use any of the buttons in game. There are a couple exceptions like "zoom" and "supply", but it wouldn't bother me to take out that whole section of the screen, move the unit box from the top right hand corner down to the lower left hand corner and free up the screen so you can see map from the left hand side all the way to the right hand side.

It's not worth it though.

Please, just don't put more buttons and crap that I won't use and that clutter up the screen.

My 2 centimos...

Adios!

Ray (alias Lava)

ORIGINAL: Chuck2
I beat you by a few seconds again. [8|]

Those were the 37 seconds that I spent searching for typos and deciding whether to put a link in the message. The problem with my being a pedant...[;)]

Sorry if somebody already mentioned this.

Could the expected reinforcements screen have links in so that clicking on a unit will position the cursor over the hex the unit will arrive in. It is very time consuming having to track all over the board to find the arrival positions of numerous reinforcements

ORIGINAL: mantill
Could the expected reinforcements screen have links in so that clicking on a unit will position the cursor over the hex the unit will arrive in. It is very time consuming having to track all over the board to find the arrival positions of numerous reinforcements

Excellent suggestion.......I've had experience trying to gauge where these hexes are myself and I know from my own personal experience that it's time consuming and not a little frustrating to try to find them all.

ORIGINAL: mantill

Sorry if somebody already mentioned this.

Could the expected reinforcements screen have links in so that clicking on a unit will position the cursor over the hex the unit will arrive in. It is very time consuming having to track all over the board to find the arrival positions of numerous reinforcements

Yes! That would be a big enhancement in micro management. Excellent! [&o] I think, from my amateur's point of view, this should be easy to integrate.

I'd like to have an on/off option which would highlight all selected units from a formation on the minimap aswell (by yellow blinking dots?)
This would make it a lot easier to see where the bulk of this formation is moving to, easier spot units who belong to this formation but were accidently left behind/send to the wrong direction, and generally help in keeping formations together.

ORIGINAL: mantill

Could the expected reinforcements screen have links in so that clicking on a unit will position the cursor over the hex the unit will arrive in. It is very time consuming having to track all over the board to find the arrival positions of numerous reinforcements

That would be good.

Perhaps also any reinforcements which are left over from the current turn (i.e. their arrival hex was blocked so they were shunted back to the next turn) could be marked in some way.

I would like to see another button on the PBEM replay window that would allow you to exit from the game after the replay is finished or if you need to pause it. 

I personally can't see how this would allow cheating since you would never get to the main game menu's and battlefield map.

Many times I would like to exit from the game without having to go through the trouble of saving it to another name, etc etc.  ... being able to exit after the replay would allow for Real Life to intervene OR in case I need to go cry in my beer due to an overwhelming series of attacks from my opponent.