Range doubling

[Felix Nephthys]

Kiwi, I feel like it's the hexes themselves and the time abstract in the game (approximately 3 minutes per turn) that is tripping you up. It honestly makes me wonder if a hex based wargame is giving you more headaches than enjoyment. For me, when I play the game I don't really see a turn as 3 minutes of game time, in my mind it's just another turn. As for hexes, when I play I have the game set to show my ranges in terms of numbers of hexes, not meters or yards, so it's a lot less of a factor for me than it is for you. Maybe a game like the Combat Mission series would give you more enjoyment than the hex based format that Steel Panthers has.

[Kiwikkiwik]

Hi Felix have you tried to play one of the scenarios with the range doubled?

[Ts4EVER]

As someone whose latest scenarios all had 1:1 maps, I am against this!

[Felix Nephthys]

Originally Posted by Kiwikkiwik

Hi Felix have you tried to play one of the scenarios with the range doubled?

No, I have not, because I'm satisfied with the way it is now. As for your idea, it's fine if that's how you like to play the game, the tools are there for you to modify it, what I'm opposed to is that you want the game changed to your way for everyone.

[Kiwikkiwik]

Ts4EVER thank you for your scenarios and work. I see your problem, Perhaps if you played the modded scenarios I supplied, you will see how the game plays much better, maybe you might agree this is a worthwhile though personally painfull change. If people are happy to play with units having half the shots they should per turn, maybe they won't mind or notice some half size maps either, but I am genuinely sorry to be suggesting a change that spoils your artwork. On the bonus side a 25m hex means you will be able to create a much more detailed and so much more accurate map.

Felix the tools are not there for me to Mod the game the excell import function has been removed from mobhack. Only an insane person would go into every OOB and change every range, item by Item. It's at least 25000 clicks and error prone.

Felix in the game -any- target that travels any distance attracts only half the fire it should from any given shooter. Hexes or meters. Put another way -all- units only get half the shots they should per turn.
Those are facts, no one has disputed them.
So you really don't think it's worthwhile trying one of the scenarios I supplied?
Recently DRG posted an essay on infantry unit frontages. From memory he said they normally have a frontage of about 25m. So to get this frontage you have to put two squads in one hex which gives anyone shooting at one of them a suppression bonus on the other.
If you double the ranges the hexes are now 25m so you can put the two infantry squads next to each other and they get the same coverage as before. But don't suffer the -unwanted- extra suppression issue. Same for small artillery suppression effects.

There are any number of other examples of how game "problems" are fixed if you increase the resolution this way. The 50m hex resolution is too coarse. The extra resolution 25m hexes gives greatly improves game play, because that is the size/scale that properly matches the units in the game. It is after all a tactical game.
Please try the sample modded scenarios I supplied, please have an open mind on this.

[Felix Nephthys]

Originally Posted by Kiwikkiwik

Ts4EVER thank you for your scenarios and work. I see your problem, Perhaps if you played the modded scenarios I supplied, you will see how the game plays much better, maybe you might agree this is a worthwhile though personally painfull change. If people are happy to play with units having half the shots they should per turn, maybe they won't mind or notice some half size maps either, but I am genuinely sorry to be suggesting a change that spoils your artwork. On the bonus side a 25m hex means you will be able to create a much more detailed and so much more accurate map.

Felix the tools are not there for me to Mod the game the excell import function has been removed from mobhack. Only an insane person would go into every OOB and change every range, item by Item. It's at least 25000 clicks and error prone.

Felix in the game -any- target that travels any distance attracts only half the fire it should from any given shooter. Hexes or meters. Put another way -all- units only get half the shots they should per turn.
Those are facts, no one has disputed them.
So you really don't think it's worthwhile trying one of the scenarios I supplied?
Recently DRG posted an essay on infantry unit frontages. From memory he said they normally have a frontage of about 25m. So to get this frontage you have to put two squads in one hex which gives anyone shooting at one of them a suppression bonus on the other.
If you double the ranges the hexes are now 25m so you can put the two infantry squads next to each other and they get the same coverage as before. But don't suffer the -unwanted- extra suppression issue. Same for small artillery suppression effects.

There are any number of other examples of how game "problems" are fixed if you increase the resolution this way. The 50m hex resolution is too coarse. The extra resolution 25m hexes gives greatly improves game play, because that is the size/scale that properly matches the units in the game. It is after all a tactical game.
Please try the sample modded scenarios I supplied, please have an open mind on this.

Ok, I don't know what this import function is so you'll have to enlighten me. However, let me just see if I can drive down to the bedrock of what you are wanting to accomplish (let me know if I'm in error).

1. You want all weapon ranges in the game doubled and yet you don't want the maps sizes doubled as well to match the increased ranges. Why?

2. You want to dramatically increase the rate of fire for all weapons.

3. You also want to slow movement even further for units.

Taken together I would say that those changes would give a significant advantage to any defending units and I wonder if that may be part of your reasoning for wanting these changes. Is it perhaps making up for some kind of tactical deficiency? It is already easy to increase the lethality of your own weapons while making it easier to cause destruction to an enemy force by using the options in the preferences.

The last point I'd like to make, and probably the most important, is that you want these changes to be universal for ALL players, not just a mod, but you want to FORCE that on other players who DO NOT want the changes you want to make. I've said it before, if other players are out there that want this as well they should speak up and be heard. Why is it just your voice crying out in this digital wilderness?

As for squad frontages, 25 meters seems to be rather close together for me. Do you have a link back to the post you mentioned?

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Felix Nephthys

Ok, I don't know what this import function is so you'll have to enlighten me. However, let me just see if I can drive down to the bedrock of what you are wanting to accomplish (let me know if I'm in error).

The function he is referring to never made it past initial testing before SP2WW2 was first released in 1998 as it was revealed very quickly how easy it was for bad data to be put in and a lot of work on an OOB was lost and had to be redone. The button for that function was still in the MOBHack issued with the DOS games but it was deactivated and occasionally someone asked about it but was removed when we reissued MOBHack with the first Windows version. The only reference to it is in the MOBHack Help files

Dump CSV button - This dumps 3 Comma Separated Value (CSV) files for the currently loaded OB file - these can be read by such spreadsheet programs as Excel or database programs like Access. This is for internal Camo Workshop team usage, and is meant to provide a data dump for comparisons, data checking and so on. There are no guarantees that all the data fields are in there, this facility is an unsupported extra to an unsupported product!. (To answer an oft asked question - there is deliberately no CSV import, as the only method used in early versions of the editor had zero error checking. Adding Error checking would have taken too much effort. Too many folk used a spreadsheet or similar and then uploaded duff data, so this was removed, and the facility is only included for output now). It is very useful for checking consistency

So it has not been active for 22 years and in that time we have expanded the existing OOB's and introduced MBT all without ever needing it and AFAIK the section of code that ran it was removed from both games MOBHack code.

DO NOTE we are told

Only an insane person would go into every OOB and change every range, item by Item. It's at least 25000 clicks and error prone.

Yet that is exactly what we are expected to do to make this change to both SPWW2 and SPMBT not to mention all of the peripherals like the Armour Pen calc that is set up in the standard 50 meters/yards and of course the game's code for distance as well.

I can well imagine the "solution" would be for us to re-introduce the function and add error checking and that is not going to happen.

The game scale is what it is and is not going to be changed.

As for infantry unit frontages

https://balagan.info/infantry-unit-frontages-during-ww2

[Felix Nephthys]

Thank you for the link about the frontages. Well, I for one appreciate all the hard work you guys do on the game, and all that for over two decades now. I honestly don't see how any of the changes Kiwi wants would improve the game in any way, they seem to me like a step in the other direction, and since the tools are already in the game to change things such as using Mobhack and the game preferences there just doesn't seem to be any point to all of it, it's all just spinning wheels.

It's like the legendary Steel Panthers player of yore said...

"I live my life a hex at a time. Nothing else matters. Not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bull****. For that one mouse click, I'm free."

[zovs66]

100% agree with Felix on this, not interested in SP becoming a 25 meter game.

[DRG]

There are a number of flaws in this plan the most important is neither Andy nor I agree it's a viable idea and we would be the ones who have to implement it then clean up all the little messes that will rear their ugly little heads over time and since we're not interested it's not going to happen.

I had waited for one of the 6 people who have DL'd these test OOB's but unless they are preparing a detailed analysis we are well past the time someone would have said " I tried this and it works great" because it takes mere hours for things we may have missed in a normal release to be commented on so if there is someone out there giving this a thorough testing then need to speak up

As Andy has already pointed out 255 is the hard max for range in this game ( as well as capacity and armour thickness but that's not part of this issue )....it's so part of the structure of the code than any change to it would render any save game or scenario inoperable. That cannot be bumped up without moving data away from the point the game expects to find it

So... the game uses >199 as the cut off point for off map ranges and the game thinks 200 is 10,000 meters. After 200 ranges are in blocks as shown in MOBHack Help

9.5 km - 10.4km = 200
10.5 - 11.4 = 201
11.5 - 12.4 = 202
12.5 - 13.4 = 203
13.5 - 14.4 = 204

etc etc up to

63.5 - 64.4 = 255 ( maximum value allowed )

so a rifle has a range of 10 using a full-power cartridge and you could bump that to 20 ..... An L40 75mm gun on a Sherman is given an effective range of 60 max and you could bump that up to 120 and think you are on to something.

An 81mm Mortar has a range of 51... could be doubled to 102.... but a Russian 120mm mortar has a range of 120 ( 6000 m )...... double that and you are 240 and 240 would put it into the same category as a gun that could fire 48.5 - 49.4 km because after 199 the off map range abstraction starts not just as a list in a help file but hardcoded into the game.

At 9.5 km the abstraction starts and we cannot simply say that it's not 9,500m any longer for off-map it's 4,750. 9.5km is when the lowest range for an off-map gun ( we fudged it down from a strict 10,000 m ages ago and there is only one gun in the game that has that range) so the bottom line is no arty can be simply doubled if it's current range is >99 and there are 227 on the list for WW2 alone and another 1866 in MBT and there are a number of tank main guns in MBT that are >99.

This is not going to happen so anyone concerned we might be talked into it can relax and if there is anyone beyond 1 person who thinks it's a great idea we are just too blind to see........well maybe it's time for you to find another game to play