The Upcoming Changes to the Mech.exe

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: soldier

How many times have you dropped smoke when someone fired at you instead of withdrawing or trying to find some real cover ? I do it all the time and it's too easy.

Yes, I have used this trick, too. Great for covering a retrograde movement (Marines don't retreat, dammit! [;)] ) or calling up reinforcements (yeah, that's it [:D]). However, given the way the game engine handles smoke, this is essentially a cheat. So, I'll stop using it, period. In solo play, smoke is yet another tool to try to give the AI some advantage.

Dependent on the weather, smoke DOES clear, so this momentary "impenetrable shield" shouldn't cause THAT much teeth-gnashing. You KNOW where the bad guys are, so drop some mortar rounds on them.

[soldier]

No teeth knashing here [:D], just pushing for code change and hoping to get the best of both worlds (WAW/WW2). I tend to be a bit verbose at times.
SP is still my favourite game

[VikingNo2]

Just discussing I wil try the area fire thing you are talking about, I do wish that smoke shoots counted and a shot just as in MBT. I hear what you saying about the steel wall of smoke but if smoke was counted as a shot then if think you would not see what your talking about as much

[sabrejack]

Sometimes the reason you need to drop multiple smoke grenades relates to height. I think (but am not 100% sure) if the other unit is on a higher elevation you need 2 (or more) smoke grenades (from an infantry unit) to block LOS.

Also, if a unit runs into trouble, drops smoke and retreats one hex from something with a big gun (like a SU152 or big SP gun), 'z' firing into the smoke hex can still cause casualties, and possibly reflects 'random' fire without actually being able to see the enemy.

We can argue about the realism of one unit being able to block an entire 50 yard hex with smoke, but then firing into it with small arms would be equally difficult to actually hit anything... dropping mortar shells or firing big guns into the area can be quite effective (at least against infantry).

[Colonel von Blitz]

Just popped into my mind, how about getting the SP1 feature back, where it was possible to destroy AT and Infantry Guns in a single (although lucky) shot? Sometimes it's just so frustrating to sit near enemy gun and pick off crewmen one by one, when you know that in real life you would probably take that gun out with a single, well-placed, HE round.

Of course, sometimes a lucky shot from 1000 metres away would also spice things up a bit [:)]

-Colonel-

[soldier]

Just popped into my mind, how about getting the SP1 feature back, where it was possible to destroy AT and Infantry Guns in a single (although lucky) shot? Sometimes it's just so frustrating to sit near enemy gun and pick off crewmen one by one, when you know that in real life you would probably take that gun out with a single, well-placed, HE round.

I think this is a good call. I have seen photos (during 44) of german AT guns with wheels blown off and others that have obviously been wrecked by a well placed shot. It seems more realistic to me that a field gun could be destroyed if it took a direct hit from a big enough shell, after all thats why armour was invented and tanks can die in one hit

[KG Erwin]

(I just can't stay away!)

My personal OOBs have increased the crew sizes for some guns and MGs, so it IS more likely that the crew is forced to abandon its weapon. However, this change also makes it less likely that one shot can kill off the gun crew, UNLESS it's a well-placed round of heavy arty.

In real life, American MGs had a crew of 6 guys, which included a few riflemen/submachine gunners. The 37mm ATGs had a crew of five.

[ruxius]

very good to hear about a new improvement ...
but
pleeeeeease can we also hope for a SAVE BUTTON within the REPAIR MENU ?
it's a must when playing with a friend !!!

please [&o]
please [&o]
please [&o]
please, if you could put a save button for megacampaign won't you put another one inside that menu for the 8.5 release ?

[TerribleIvan]

Hello, does anyone have an idea what in timeframe will 8.5 come out? Weeks? Months?

Thanks!

[Alby]

sorry No idea yet...
Mike is still working on the Experience / Morale ratings thingy.

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: sabrejack

Sometimes the reason you need to drop multiple smoke grenades relates to height. I think (but am not 100% sure) if the other unit is on a higher elevation you need 2 (or more) smoke grenades (from an infantry unit) to block LOS.

Also, if a unit runs into trouble, drops smoke and retreats one hex from something with a big gun (like a SU152 or big SP gun), 'z' firing into the smoke hex can still cause casualties, and possibly reflects 'random' fire without actually being able to see the enemy.

We can argue about the realism of one unit being able to block an entire 50 yard hex with smoke, but then firing into it with small arms would be equally difficult to actually hit anything... dropping mortar shells or firing big guns into the area can be quite effective (at least against infantry).

Consider this when it comes to the smoke isssue in SPWAW

The artificial intelligence makes smoke, when retreating, if it passes an
experience check and has some smoke. Troops sometimes do this in real war.
It would not be so important, if the game had micro-terrain and the squads
could spread out over half a hex or so, as they ran away. Open terrain
seldom looks like a pool table top, but usually cover and concealment which
allows troops to disappear behind wells, bushes, ditches, ground undulations
and the like. There is no provision for this in the game. Retreating
troops stay in the same, small clump they used for concentrated fire, when
retreating. If the game allowed troops to change from concentrated
formation to dispersed formation, it would be much more difficult for one
hand grenade or machine gun burst to kill several of them, at once.

Although a machine gun can fire through smoke, they do not, in real life, as
the machine gunner does not have the top view of a concentrated formation
that the player has. He just knows they made smoke. He does not know if
they went to ground, ran to the right or left or spread out, crawled away or
found micro-terrain cover.

The game tries to make up for the lack or micro-terrain and formation
density rules by using smoke, when retreating. Has been that way, since
Steel Panthers I and is an integral part of the game.

[KG Erwin]

Alby forgot to mention that the explanation on why smoke works the way it does came straight from Michael Wood. We thank you, Mike! [;)]

[Alby]

damn...I wanted to sound like I knew something!!
LOL
[:D]

[soldier]

Actually its very very difficult to hit troops that are retreating behind smoke with small arms fire. The area fire feature does not bring any bad elements to the SP CAMO games, in fact it reduces gamey play like driving up to the front line unloading troops and dropping smoke. Try that in MBT and your in for a rude shock.

-passengers take casualties (the only good feature of 8.4, all other changes for the worse)
-unloading near enemy draws op fire
-troops hiding behind smoke in good status are vunerable at close range to sufficient firepower.
-troops cannot reload and drive away because loading costs movement points [:)]

The feature is actually a big improvement to WW2/MBT. It is only bad in your mind because progressive change is often feared. Try MBT and you wll see

[VikingNo2]

I have been trying MBT for a while, I like that it cost shots for loading and unloading. What I don't like is infantry is very very strong, it should be named Modern Infantry Fighting instaed of MBT.

The accuracy of RPGs and Bazookas are very high.

It has some very good qualities, but it is a different engine

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: VikingNo2

I have been trying MBT for a while, I like that it cost shots for loading and unloading. What I don't like is infantry is very very strong, it should be named Modern Infantry Fighting instaed of MBT.

The accuracy of RPGs and Bazookas are very high.

It has some very good qualities, but it is a different engine

I currently have an Email game going in SPMBT and My Milans are so deadly its ridiculous...[X(]
I dont even need tanks!!

I dont remember them being so deadly in SP3
LOL [:D]

[chopper66]

Are there any plans to write further patches?

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

Are there any plans to write further patches?

'Enhanced' will be updated for 2009, as for the mech.exe.....I kinda doubt it.

[chopper66]

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.

[chopper66]

ORIGINAL: Alby

The game tries to make up for the lack or micro-terrain and formation
density rules by using smoke, when retreating. Has been that way, since
Steel Panthers I and is an integral part of the game.

Although you present a rational argument for keeping smoke, and suggest a good alternative, I cannot help but wonder why it would be such a big thing for an additional option to be added for reducing the amount of infantry smoke in game, or adjusting its longevity.

Also, I am struck by how relatively hard it is to kill 'pinned' infantry, which seems to model the situation you mention without turning to smoke (i.e. infantry first retreat and then go to cover with a pinned status).

I can handle short-lived smoke intended to provide cover, which would not need to block vision and could instead modify to hit values (a trivial coding exercise), but the large scale smoke popped by retreated units that seems to hang around for an eternity ruins things for me.