Buildings in 8.2

[Cooper]

I find I am having the same problem with buildings in 8.2 as in the past 4 versions of SPWAW, namely that they do not immobilize vehicles at all. Neither do stone walls or bocage. Does anyone have any idea what is wrong or how this can be corrected?

[Voriax]

They do immobilize but not very often. Can't recall what version it was but earlier driving a tank into a building was 95% sure way of immobilising the tank. This obviously didn't work...for example when playing against AI it was not uncommon that most AI tanks ended up stuck. Nowadays the immob chance is maybe 5%..perhaps a tad low but it does exist.

Voriax

[Cooper]

Do you know if this is hard-coded or if it can be changed on an individual basis?

[Voriax]

I guess _if_ you have a hexeditor and know what part of the .exe to modify...so sorry, no clue how to modify this.

Voriax

[Procrustes]

I've griped about this a lot - I'm feeling that I must be pretty tiresome by this point [>:]. If there wasn't a way to keep the AI from plowing through building then I think it would have been better to simply deny AVF's from building hexes - like trucks are. It bugs me that a halftrack can rubble a stone building, and that a tank never falls through to the basement. The current implementation is awfully unrealistic and just adds to the "gamey" nature of PBEM.

I don't follow the Combat Leader forum - does anyone know what they are hoping to implement there?

[Warrior2]

ORIGINAL: Procrustes

I've griped about this a lot - I'm feeling that I must be pretty tiresome by this point [>:]. If there wasn't a way to keep the AI from plowing through building then I think it would have been better to simply deny AVF's from building hexes - like trucks are. It bugs me that a halftrack can rubble a stone building, and that a tank never falls through to the basement. The current implementation is awfully unrealistic and just adds to the "gamey" nature of PBEM.

I don't follow the Combat Leader forum - does anyone know what they are hoping to implement there?

I agree with you, it's too easy to go through stone walls, bocage & buildings. There should be more immob's, it would improve everyone's driving. [:D]

[wodin]

Also the graphics for the buildings are the worst out of everything else, some vehicle/tank graphics look a little dodgy compared to other aswell, but no were near as bad as the buildings. They are an eye sore.

I know its a little off topic but they are my only real grie about the graphics within the game.

[Cooper]

I was hoping to avoid that but it seems that it is the only option. I was able to edit streams so that vehicles couldn't cross and infantry could. I guess i will have to see what I can do with buildings.

[Cooper]

I agree that this would have been a much better choice. I don't like driving through stone buildings with a schwimmwagen, stopping only when I run out of movement points.

[Procrustes]

Wow, Cooper - I'm impressed. If you figure out how to mod AVF's out of buildings I'd be extremely interested.

Many thanks,

P.

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: Cooper

I was hoping to avoid that but it seems that it is the only option. I was able to edit streams so that vehicles couldn't cross and infantry could. I guess i will have to see what I can do with buildings.

Guess you put some "boulders" layer under the streams?[:D] Easiest method for buildings is AT obstacles![8D] Boulders and buildings layer does not work unfortunately.[:(] See my Stockheim Clash scenario for how things can be solved.[;)]

[Kevin E. Duguay]

How about placing buildings over a rough tile? At least that would slow them down and the AI wouls avoid these hexes with its vehicles.

[Cooper]

I agree Harry. But, how do you hide the AT obstacle after you place it in the hex? Can anyone design an invisible AT obstacle. After several hours of experimenting with the hex editor I find I can't get it to keep vehicles out. Where do I find that scenario? As for the stream I went into Fred's Map Editor and set 0-12
1-16
2-0
3-16
4-254
5-255
and then copied the hex values for the length of the stream. I love Fred's editor!

[Belisarius]

ORIGINAL: Cooper

I find I am having the same problem with buildings in 8.2 as in the past 4 versions of SPWAW, namely that they do not immobilize vehicles at all. Neither do stone walls or bocage. Does anyone have any idea what is wrong or how this can be corrected?

You must have been playing different versions than me. In 7.0 and 7.1, you were guaranteed to have an immobilization from a stone wall or hedge, which meant a well placed wall was just as effective as a river or mountain.

I much rather see my and my adversaries tanks careening through houses like they're made of paper than the other way. Be it unrealistic or not.

[Cooper]

Kevin
I did try that and as long as the units were not in heavy traffic it did seem to make the game a little more reticent about driving into buildings. However, since the current campaign I am playing has four different company commanders, two of whom just can't be bothered with using the shift key or moving in more than one mouse click, I am looking for some way to preserve what can at times be vital cover and concealment. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Cooper]

I've wondered about that Belisarius. I don't remember getting immobilized since 5.0. Maybe I have something set wrong, but I can't imagine what. I agree that if you have to choose between an immobilized AI and a mobile one that really isn't a choice at all. I would still like to find a way to keep the vehicles out of buildings entirely, unless they are destroyed.

[RockinHarry]

If you find SPWAW buildings to be an eye sore, then you most likely did not yet see those included in the SP2WW2 game! To be fair, both games share a similar problem: Too low screen resolution (SPWAW=800x600, SP2WW2=640x480) and it´s unlikely that higher ones will ever be supported some day. Also both games have a hex scale of 50yds (45m). A SPWAW hex of 50yds has a 50 pixel resolution (in highest zoom level!). Actually not much to make any high detail crisp graphics. Thus most graphics (terrain and unit icons) are oversized to make best use of the low screen resolution. If you paint the graphics according to real scale (1yd=1 pixel), there wouldn´t be much detail left. I think the graphics as is now in SPWAW are a good compromise between proper scale and available screen resolution in highest zoom level.

[rrockw]

Just thought I'd let you know that vehicles do get stuck in buildings. My Panzer IV got stuck in one today during the fifth battle of the LC mega campaign. I'm using ver. 8.2.

Rich

[tracer]

ORIGINAL: Cooper

I agree that this would have been a much better choice. I don't like driving through stone buildings with a schwimmwagen, stopping only when I run out of movement points.

I was hoping that old bug would have been taken care of by now! Amphibs spend only 2 MP's collapsing a building
...the same as they do moving thru a 'mixed' hex! So if you don't move them 1-hex-at-a-time, its possible they may
see the 'easiest' route as the one that goes thru the building housing your 'A0' unit!

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: Cooper

I agree Harry. But, how do you hide the AT obstacle after you place it in the hex? Can anyone design an invisible AT obstacle. After several hours of experimenting with the hex editor I find I can't get it to keep vehicles out. Where do I find that scenario? As for the stream I went into Fred's Map Editor and set 0-12
1-16
2-0
3-16
4-254
5-255
and then copied the hex values for the length of the stream. I love Fred's editor!

Interesting! The very first time I see someone posting section 8 stuff! Welcome to the club Cooper. Hehe [8D] [:D]

The boulders (S8 Byte 3=16) and rough (S8 Byte 1=16) combination can well be used for the impassable creek terrain that you seek to model and I used the same for an Ardennes scenario. In this scenario I assumed the roughly ~10m wide creek to be of the sort that cuts pretty deep into the rocky underground and thus is impassable to vehicle trafic. Also it´s winter weather and terrain, thus making difficult terrain even worse.

I solely used boulders terrain type and in fact just put "wide stream" icons on top to achieve the desired effect. Worth to note, terrain height on map is between 10 to 120m!

In mentioned Stockheim Clash scenario terrain situation is a bit different. Weather is still winter (february 1945 in germany, Operation Grenade), but without snowy terrain. There´s lots of mud and soggy ground and creeks/rivers are all swollen, leaving their beds. However I tried with boulders and shallow water, but any sort of water excludes other terrain in same hex. Well..for some reason (Spoiler!) I needed "shallow water" and had to decide at last to use AT-Obstacles instead. Scenario "works" as intended and AT-obstacles when placed in "-1" or "-2" (water, mud, ect.) terrain show up as "beach obstacles" which are less disturbing to the eye than "dragon teeth".

Note: Edits as those mentioned are most of the time a tradeoff between certain terrain effects! IE the impassability of boulders terrain (disguised as impassable creeks) is traded for a vastly improved terrain defense modifier. Boulders is "Very Good" compared to "Good" for streams and "(shallow) water" even is "Poor" terrain. So in example if you want a small river/creek that foot units can cross (10 to 100m wide, but less than 1.6m/5 feet deep=shallow), but due to boggy underground vehicles can´t cross, a "boulders" layer would not work! Infantry units that cross this river/creek would be very vulnerable to enemy fire and a "boulders" terrain layer would add too much defensive benefits to these river/creek hexes! This is the assumption that I used to model the swollen creeks in "Stockheim Clash" scenario.

There´s no such fine distinction of sub terrain types in SPWAW (and SP2WW2) unfortunately.

The standard SPWAW crossable "water" features is:

"Stream/Gully": All Infantry and vehicles can pass with slightly increased breakdown probability. Terrain is no LOS hindrance (S8 Byte 8) nor does it provide "concealment" benefits (S8 Byte 6), but defense modifier for units in hex is assumed to be "Good" (hard coded).

"Canal": Is in fact "shallow" water hexes and usually created by converting "stream/gully" with the ingame map editor. All Infantry and vehicles can pass with slightly increased breakdown probability. Terrain is no LOS hindrance (S8 Byte 8) nor does it provide "concealment" benefits (S8 Byte 6), but defense modifier for units in hex is assumed to be "Good" (hard coded).

Note: I´m unsure whether this is true. The game shows "Canals" as "Shallow water" and I wonder if terrain modifiers from this terrain type (sh.water) is used instead!?? (No LOS Block/Concealm, "Poor" DEfense Mod. and increased breakdown/flood out)

"Shallow Water": All Infantry and vehicles can pass with increased breakdown/flood out probability. Terrain is no LOS hindrance (S8 Byte 8) nor does it provide "concealment" benefits (S8 Byte 6) and defense modifier for units in hex is assumed to be "Poor" (hard coded).

As for now we speak of crossable stream and river terrain types, I leave similar terrain like "Mud", "swamp", ect. terrain out of the discussion.

Now to the (stone) buildings: Breakdown/Immobilization chance was considerably lowered back since V7.0 (or V6.x ?) to avoid the odd behavior of the AI smashing through buildings at every opportunity and thus immobilizing vehicles unnecessary. It also counted for player units if you not carefully plotted your units hex by hex. IMHO Matrix Games should rather have improved path finding routines instead of lowering breakdown chances! Off course it´s probably much more easy to edit couple of game variable tables, instead of rewriting whole game routines that affect many parts of the game and the AI in particular. Oh well...we have to live with it.

Back to topic: The only way to make buildings impassable for vehicle units is to place AT obstacles in the building hex. Any combination with "boulders" terrain unfortunately does not work! The game routines for "Stone Buildings" simply ignore "Boulders" terrain in the same hex when you try to move a vehicle into the hex. It´s the same with mentioned "shallow water" and "Boulders" hexes where "Boulders" is ignored as well.

AT obstacles are in fact not a "terrain" type, they are rather some sort of "unit" type that needs to be purchased in unit menues. As such, AT obstacles are noticed and handled well by the AI and personally I prefer to use them when I need "impassable" (to vehicles) terrain. Also they provide little (if at all) LOS and Cover/Concealment modifiers, thus preserving base terrain stats!

SPWAW offers two versions of AT-Obstacles, which are the same, but look different:

"Dragon Teeth" and "Beach Obstacles": "Beach" Obstacles are chosen automatically when the base terrain is "sh. water", "mud" ect., while "Dragon teeth" are usually placed on "dry" ground.

However, if "AT obstacles" is placed in building hexes to block vehicular movement, then the dragon teeth icons are placed on top of the building icons and..well, I hate how this looks! A better alternative is the beach obstacle icons which disturb the looks less IMO. As said, beach obstacles only work on mentioned terrain types (sh.water, mud ect.) and the required edits are best made in Freds Map Editor for various reasons.

I think I´ll work on a "invisible" AT-Obstacle Mod now! Done!
Here it is:

http://www.spwaw.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2372

All mentioned edits can be found in various of my older scenarios like "Ardennes 44" and "Stockheim Clash" in particular. The latter has the following map features (excerpt):

"Stone buildings" with "Beach obstacle" layer.
"Improved" Stone buildings (house to house fighting more difficult)
"A church steeple" that makes for a real good observation point.
A swollen creek with "beach obstacle" layer. (watch out for fords!)
Thick forests that you can´t enter with vehicles at most places.
Alleys & forest roads with proper line of sight.
Muddy plowed fields, to be found in (snowless) winter, autumn or early spring germany and elsewhere (assuming prolonged bad weather).
"Stone walls" and "Hedges" which beside looks are quite "different" from what you´re used to!

As said that´s just an excerpt, check out for many more details here (V8.2 version compatible):

http://www.spwaw.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2373


"Ardennes 44" scenario has the following features:

Mentioned impassable mountain creek.
Terrain with heights upto 120m (12 levels).
Steep rocky and wooded slopes that can´t be entered by vehicles, except at roads or paths.

Custom winter wooden buildings and an all new winter church. (original version had white Panthers included too!) Unfortunately the winter stuff is still not included with V8.x standard install files, but I made it available in new Mod Swapper file format.

Scenario now in testing for V8.2 OOB compatibility and available again soon.

The seperate "Winter Wooden Buildings" Mod (Mod Swapper format!) will be posted at the depot soon.


A reworked V8.2 version of "Probing Stalin Line 41" and "After Cassino 44" is following at a later time (need to see how oncoming V8.2 OOB patch is working out first) Suffice to tell, these have some "unique" features too.