Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2003 12:11 am
gmenfan: Understand, that I don't know all that encompasses CL in the 1st place, so given that I will go back to the most pertinent substitute, that being SPWAW. I'll try to explain here.
Let's say the enemy is in his phase. In this portion of SPWAW it cannot be paused, and of course no circling with some graphic is possible, but both would be handy in the following instance. Suddenly hidden fire is encountered, coming three hexes due east and one hex north, of the tank furtherest east of your force. The problem is, I can see, particularly with such local fighting, what hex it comes from without seeing the enemy unit itself, but the game won't allow me to pause to write down what detail I can gather from that. Without the pause, even if I have enough time to record that first hidden position, I will miss any other events ongoing, including any more hidden positions that revealed fire coming from it. Another problem is that if I'm operating with memory, which is often the case, I cannot take much advantage of it, because for one thing there may be so many battles that I forget it. 3 hexes east and 1 north of what tank now, etc.?
The need for an e-pen is the most extravagant, but it can still be accomplished with a enemy battle phase pause, alongside the mouse revealing, while in that mode, just what the coordinates of each hex are, and what the known units id is. In current SPWAW, during the enemy phase, your estimation of trying to remember where one hidden fire was, may be difficult enough, but the fact that such mouse movement during that phase makes id'ing things all but impossible, as there's no hex or unit data as there is in the player phase.
This all comes down to what the author envisioned the hidden fire was supposed to promote, and perhaps even so, CL may want to take some different approach. My thinking is that the hexes show fire coming from them, so you'll maybe put bombardment to the hex to flush out the hidden state. As the game is programmed, that's fine and good when you just ran into the first enemy fire of any sort, but when the game progresses it's well nigh useless. IOW, if the force is supposed to take advantage of hidden fire, and it's not just some not very well thought out graphical nuance, then the force should be able to react to each and every instance of it, and it cannot.
With an e-pen, and a pause, the player could pause the battle when he sees fire from a hidden hex (and truly some will remain hidden due to the map not being viewed at a far away enough level) and circle it so that he can take advantage of his troops spotting the hex with the hidden fire. The other alternative would be a pause which will identify all hex coordinates. Now that I think of it, hex coordinates would be all that is necessary to pull this off, and of course a pause.
If one the other hand, SP was made without the user intended to take advantage of the hidden fire coming from hexes, and indeed CL wants that, then there is no point in showing the graphic of fire emitting from a 'definite' hex. Even so, you can see how the user would want some manner of flagging what's goin on that the game will not allow him to keep up with. Perhaps CL covers this by making a square of four hexes together and placing a question mark there, for one to guess which one it came from, or even the same treatment for just one hex, which of course would solve a lot. Even if that is so, if I were watching and saw hex 49,49 fire out HMG fire, as opposed to 49,54 having ATG fire, I would still want to have some means of remembering just which hex put out what. If one wishes to say that battle doesn't allow one to distinguish between types of fire very successfully, if at all, and I don't know that, from individual hexes, then there's no point in much of any identifying of enemy fire is there?
I am curious, because it is something of a sizeable hole in the SP series to see fire coming from a hex and then be not be able, except in very isolated instances, of being able to track it down and use it.
Let's say the enemy is in his phase. In this portion of SPWAW it cannot be paused, and of course no circling with some graphic is possible, but both would be handy in the following instance. Suddenly hidden fire is encountered, coming three hexes due east and one hex north, of the tank furtherest east of your force. The problem is, I can see, particularly with such local fighting, what hex it comes from without seeing the enemy unit itself, but the game won't allow me to pause to write down what detail I can gather from that. Without the pause, even if I have enough time to record that first hidden position, I will miss any other events ongoing, including any more hidden positions that revealed fire coming from it. Another problem is that if I'm operating with memory, which is often the case, I cannot take much advantage of it, because for one thing there may be so many battles that I forget it. 3 hexes east and 1 north of what tank now, etc.?
The need for an e-pen is the most extravagant, but it can still be accomplished with a enemy battle phase pause, alongside the mouse revealing, while in that mode, just what the coordinates of each hex are, and what the known units id is. In current SPWAW, during the enemy phase, your estimation of trying to remember where one hidden fire was, may be difficult enough, but the fact that such mouse movement during that phase makes id'ing things all but impossible, as there's no hex or unit data as there is in the player phase.
This all comes down to what the author envisioned the hidden fire was supposed to promote, and perhaps even so, CL may want to take some different approach. My thinking is that the hexes show fire coming from them, so you'll maybe put bombardment to the hex to flush out the hidden state. As the game is programmed, that's fine and good when you just ran into the first enemy fire of any sort, but when the game progresses it's well nigh useless. IOW, if the force is supposed to take advantage of hidden fire, and it's not just some not very well thought out graphical nuance, then the force should be able to react to each and every instance of it, and it cannot.
With an e-pen, and a pause, the player could pause the battle when he sees fire from a hidden hex (and truly some will remain hidden due to the map not being viewed at a far away enough level) and circle it so that he can take advantage of his troops spotting the hex with the hidden fire. The other alternative would be a pause which will identify all hex coordinates. Now that I think of it, hex coordinates would be all that is necessary to pull this off, and of course a pause.
If one the other hand, SP was made without the user intended to take advantage of the hidden fire coming from hexes, and indeed CL wants that, then there is no point in showing the graphic of fire emitting from a 'definite' hex. Even so, you can see how the user would want some manner of flagging what's goin on that the game will not allow him to keep up with. Perhaps CL covers this by making a square of four hexes together and placing a question mark there, for one to guess which one it came from, or even the same treatment for just one hex, which of course would solve a lot. Even if that is so, if I were watching and saw hex 49,49 fire out HMG fire, as opposed to 49,54 having ATG fire, I would still want to have some means of remembering just which hex put out what. If one wishes to say that battle doesn't allow one to distinguish between types of fire very successfully, if at all, and I don't know that, from individual hexes, then there's no point in much of any identifying of enemy fire is there?
I am curious, because it is something of a sizeable hole in the SP series to see fire coming from a hex and then be not be able, except in very isolated instances, of being able to track it down and use it.
