Whats Coming In SPWaW v3.0 ..... Lets Talk

[David Heath]

WHAT TO EXPECT IN SPWaW v3.0:

Some are what you can expect to find in version 3.0.

A) TCP/IP Play: Multi-player TCP/IP Internet play. Anywhere from 2, 3 or 4 players can battle against each other over the Internet. Gang up in a 3 on 1 fight or 2 against 2. Gamers can set a “Gamer Timer” this will be the amount of time each player has to finish his turn. Once the time is up the turn automatically moves to the next player’s turn.

B) Time Out: During Internet game the gamers can decide how many “Time Outs” each side is to get. During your turn you may chose to use a Time Out. This will pause the game and stop your clock from running. Time Out time decided by doubling your current setting on the turn timer. This is an Internet only feature.

C) Command Intervention: During an Internet game gamers can set how many “Command Intervention” points are giving per player. Because each turn time is set before the game starts this option will allow you double whatever time you have left at the time you press the Command Intervention hot key. So if you have 2 minutes left and press the Command Intervention hot key would give you 4 minutes. This will allow you in the critical parts of the battle to extend your time when you really need it. This is an Internet only feature.

D) Op Fire Options: Players can now decided if they want to Op Fire. Whenever your unit has an option to Op Fire you will be shown what unit and weapon you will be firing and the target unit. You now press (y)es or (n)o to fire. Before you start a battle you can set how many seconds the display is shown before the Op Fire is cancel. Op Fire can be used in all game play except PBEM. If you do not want to use the feature it can also be turned off.

E) Reinforcement Request: This feature will add a new level to SPWaW. Players can now purchase reinforcements based on 20% of the points spent to make up their initial force. These reinforcements will show up 1-4 turns later on one of the reinforcement hexes. If you use this option during Internet play you must have a Time Out still available. 25% of the victory point’s award for destroying your reinforcement pool is automatically added to your opponent’s victory points. A player can request reinforcements every turn as long the player has not spent total of 20% in points over the initial force and when playing Internet play also have a time out available.

F) Voice Support: Roger Wilco and Battlecom voice support has been added allowing players on the Internet to talk to each other during game play.

G) Unit Purchase Screen Changes: Players when purchasing units will now be able to see remain flights and mines. When purchasing units the top of the screen will show formations special code values and descriptions. You will also see the unit based Experience, Morale, Rally and Leader modifiers The bottom of the screen will now show the units Maximum Penetration value and percentage chance of it having a radio.

H) Battle Generator New Options: Players can now set the game length and the starting weather conditions.

I) Preference Screen New Options: Four new options are available on the preference screen.

I1) Vehicle Breakdown – Units that travel at high speeds or over rough terrain have a chance of that unit will breaking down.

I2) Weapon Breakdown – Units weapons may breakdown when being used. If a player uses a unit a lot during Op Fire this can increase the chance of that weapon breaking down. Some weapons can be repaired during the game.

All breakdowns are also effective by a country equipment modifier that can increase and decrease the chance of breakdown. Units experience can also increase repair of a damage unit.

I3) Combat Squads – Squads now can be set to not start full TO

I4) Unit ID Tags – Units can now show their country ID while on the units

J) Mike Wood OOB Editor: The OOB editor has been enhanced.

K) Onboard Artillery units: Ammo is reduced when hit by enemy fire.

L) Dust Trail: When Vehicle moves in dry weather they now leave a dust trail.

M) Depleted Infantry Units: Will no longer fire all of its weapons.

N) OOB’s Updates: Many of the OOB’s have been reworked.

O) [MGN] Matrix Games Network: The release of SPWaW v3.0 will also be the grand opening of our Matrix Games Network. Aiding players in finding opponents online 24 hours a day. This new software add-on is client software that will connect you to the MGN network. It will auto start your game and find out your current ping rate and IP number. When you start your game it will pass the IP information to the game as well.

P) SPWaW Opponents Registry: Players will now be able to leave there information when looking for a PBEM or Internet opponent. More information will be released later.

Q) Matrix Games Wagamer HQ: League Play the way Mars intended it to be. Players can now play fast and hard to win cash and prizes. Think you’re the best well come get some.
R) Unique Battle Locations: SPWaW has expanded it unique battle locations to 665.
S) User Generated Campaigns: We completely redone the User Generated Campaigns. Players can now have over 1,000 campaigns. The new campaigns can branch to different scenarios depending on what the out come of the battle. The condition you start your next battle will now greatly depend on how you ended your last one. Designers can now determine final victory by points or victory hexes and even exiting units off the map board. Designers can write their own campaign texts for each battle land scenario results.
T) The Text Phrase Change: “Command” has been changed in several places to “Com”.

U) Improved Prime Infantry: A prime infantry unit may now opportunity fire with the light machine gun, if the primary weapon has a range less than twelve.

V) Artillery Sounds: Artillery with a smaller warhead will now make a smaller explosion sound.

W) Artillery Message Delay: The artillery barrage message delay has been reduced to one half the message delay set in the Preferences. This should speed up artillery barrages. Also, remember that if you hold down the “f” key during the barrage for a bit, the fast artillery option will turn on.

X) River Crossing Hot Key: A hot key is now available in the main editor screen, which sets the mission to a river crossing. This will allow the infantry to be equipped with rubber boats.

Y) Pause Key: Players can now press the pause key to halt play during an Internet game. Because of the new “Time Out” and “Command Intervention” features the pause key need to be approved by your opponents and will lock the game until the pausing player releases the pause.

Z) Surrender Key: Players can now surrender when they feel their position is hopeless. This is available for all types of SPWaW games.

A1) Victory Types: Players will now have two more new types of victory options when playing a game or making a scenario. The first is called “Victory Turn”, when using this option the player only receives victory points for the turns he held the victory objective for and not for having it at the end of the game only. The second is called “Victory Exit”, when this option is used the player will have exit hexes and will receive victory points for each unit the players is able to exit off of the map.

A2) Lock Key In Editor: Scenario designers can now use a lock option to lock certain graphic images when making maps.


BUGS FIXED:

1. The thumbnail shows the location of the last unit that was fired upon, instead of the current one.

2. Fire control, gun stabilizer, range finder and radio are not repaired between battles in a Campaign.

3. The last passenger loaded into a vehicle should be displayed on the bottom right of the screen now

4. Barges and landing craft always sink after the first penetrating hit from any weapon. They should now be much more durable.

5. With some minor countries, like Nationalist Spain, the number of orders received at the beginning of a turn is unusually large.

6. When landing craft fire their weapons, they regain all their movement points.

7. Satchel charges should not kill or suppress units not in the target hex.

8. The map does not re-center on the firing unit, when the firing unit destroys the target.

9. Using the direct fire bombardment, “z” key, allows forts to rotate. Fixed. This should no longer occur.

10. During pre-battle bombardment, an extraneous “Continue” button appears on the map in Campaign missions. It should no longer appear.

11. Vehicle bottom armor is not calculated properly.

12. All units that are upgraded between battles become recon units. Now, units with no special code should not gain any and those with codes should retain their old code.

13. Molotov cocktails and anti-tank rifles cause the game to crash.

14. Command and control was not working properly on very large maps.

Please let me know what you think.

David Heath

[Jake]

First of all, I would like to thank Matrix team from an excellent game.

Chances which will be made in version 3.0 sounded great.

Some questions about coming chances:

>S) User Generated Campaigns: We completely
>redone the User Generated Campaigns.
>Players can now have over 1,000 campaigns.
>The new campaigns can branch to different
>scenarios depending on what the out come
>of the battle.

Will the upper limit on linked scenarios in user created campaigns be increased from current 10?

> N) OOB’s Updates: Many of the OOB’s have
> been reworked.

Could the maximium limit on units and weapons per oob be increased? German and some other oobs are rather full and it is difficult to fit self added units with editor there.

Some weapons are penalised by the maximium ap-penetration limit in oob's (255), is it possible to remove this limit?



[This message has been edited by Jake (edited 07-12-2000).]

[Ilja Varha]

When will the extra elevations be included? In 3.0 or newer? I would love to fight in "real" mountainous areas such as northern Italy etc.

Will 88 still fire at low flying planes? I think 88 is too big for that. It cannot change from AT to AA that fast and even if it could it turns quite slowly.

[Six-pk]

David:

Y) Pause Key: Players can now press the pause key to halt play during an Internet game.

Will this work with PBEM and against the computer?

Thx Matrix!!!
Six

[Fabio Prado]

WOW! It's too good to be true...

It's almost a whole new game!!!

Congratulations on all the MATRIX Staff!

David,(sorry, I just can't help myself) when will it be available for download?

FAP

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Fabio Prado fprado@fprado.com
Webmaster - The ARMOR Site!

[Charles22]

I have one question. David mentioned reinforcements. Am I correct to understand, that should I call for a 100 point unit reinforcement to aid me, that the enemy automatically gets 25 points to his final score?

[This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited 07-12-2000).]

[slammer]

When you think you guys couldn't do more you do!! Congrats and thanks is not enough.

[Paul Vebber]

You are correct Charles! If it allows you to hold a 100pt objective, its cost effective, but you don't want to be calling for reinforcements unless you really need them! And if the enemy destroys them you can end up worse off game wise than if you didn't call for them at all.

It should be available in "several weeks" (hopefully about 3 but don't hold me to that)



[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited 07-12-2000).]

[Mac_MatrixForum]

You are just amazing! You must be having fun sending posts like this... make us drool like dogs.

Paratroopers and reinforcements were something I always thought were missing and finally you are going to have them both .
Not to mention the ultra-cool special forces.

> W) Artillery Message Delay:

Does this also affect the aircraft? Adjusting the message delays is very nice and all but there are two things that I like to watch in detail: aircraft and vehicle damage/penetration. If there would be a way to make these stay detailed even when the other delays are made shorter it would be extremely nice. Nothing big.


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Markku "Mac" Rontu

"Understanding is a three-edged sword,
your side, their side and the truth."
- Sheridan in B5

[Tankhead]

First of all a big thanks for a fantastic game and ongoing improuvement . Once the new Ver3.0 install, are we going to be able to finnish are PBEM and campaign game from the old VER.. or are we going to have to start fresh again?

Tankhead

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Rick Cloutier rcclout@telusplanet.net
Coordinator: Tankhead's SPWAW Resources
http://sites.netscape.net/rcclout

[ChrisMcDee]

I have version 2.0, will I be able to get a direct upgrade to version 3.0? This will be muck appreciated by me and everyone who doesn't fancy the idea of about 4 downloads.
Oh, and great game, before SPWAW I never liked wargames, you've opened up my eyes, keep up the good work.


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Verior Procella

[Antonius]

sounds great ! I love the part about weapon breakdown and risking immobilisation if using high speed ! The optionnal change in victory conditions sounds very interesting too

do you think that
- someday the AI will become a little more "clever" like avoiding charging known un-retreated/un-routed infantry with tanks (maybe you could make the AI treat those like buildings?), stop stacking multiple units in the same hex, etc.
- random maps will in the future include the new features (gullies, walls, etc) ?

[Larry Holt]

As I understand it, players using TCP can set a time limit on turns. Given that some poor souls have P133's and others PIII750's will it be possible to set the time limit per player? If its the same for both, the faster computer player will have more time to act while the slower one will spend more time watching his PC resolve actions.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

[Tom Proudfoot]

The timer does not run when animations or movement happens... it is only active when you are actually able to do stuff, so the slower computers aren't at any disadvantage.

Tom

[GW]

Why can't the game look as great as it plays?
The option for higher graphic resolutions or the option to at least outline the unit icons in black would sure be nice. This is such an outstanding game! It deserves better graphics.

[Kojakki]

Jake :::Will the upper limit on linked scenarios in user created campaigns be increased from current 10?:::

In 2.3 version its actually now max. 16.
Unlimited amount of scenarios sounds good?

-Kojakki

[Alby]

Originally posted by GW:
Why can't the game look as great as it plays?
The option for higher graphic resolutions or the option to at least outline the unit icons in black would sure be nice. This is such an outstanding game! It deserves better graphics.

More Zoom,More Zoom More Zoom!!....hehehehe

[Reg]

Originally posted by Mac:

> W) Artillery Message Delay:

Does this also affect the aircraft? Adjusting the message delays is very nice and all but there are two things that I like to watch in detail: aircraft and vehicle damage/penetration. If there would be a way to make these stay detailed even when the other delays are made shorter it would be extremely nice. Nothing big.

I gotta agree with this. Perhaps dismiss unwanted messages with a key press or mouse click. Shouldn't be hard to implement.

Campaign Improvements Does this also mean we won't have to juggle campaigns (copy files back and forth) any more?? Wow

Reg

[victorhauser]

Two Questions for v3.0

1. Will units that shoot down aircraft get credit for the kill?

2. Will the average visibilities be increased, bring them more into line with SP1 and SP2 rather than SP3?

[Drake666]

Strange request but I have found when you increase the vesibility above 28 that one tree hex no longer block line of site. I was wondering if you can change this becouse I just finnished a Email game with the vesibility set to 45 and I found that the armour battle was much more fun and hictoric for both sides. I was playing the USA and had one hill of a time killing panthers at this range and it was more like what I would expect for a tank battle in WWII. It ended up being the closes game I have ever played with a final score haveing a points defrince of only one.