enemy range report

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by EJ

Chuck,
Instead of eliminating it how about making it a pref the player can turn on or off??

The game does not have any concept of any address to messages. All messages go to all players - i.e. broadcast.

Switching off messages would screw up PBEM message replay no end.

To change the original code to use a different message to each player would need a total rewrite of the packet code, revisiting nearly every message string generation point to make a P1 and a P2 string, and/or a "broadcast" one to both players. The PBEM replay file would then fill up with double the strings P1 and P2 versions). The replay code would also need rewriting for P1, P2 and broadcast messages. Then there is the fact that the muzzle flash is shown on-map too.

All in all, too much work to do unless it was designed into he code from the git-go.

What you have with PBEM replay was a kludge that at least made PBEM possible. All fire messages were saved in a replay buffer with a note of the firer and target locations and the animation(s) to play.

Remember SP1 where you received your turn with a mass of destroyed units, but since there was no replay you had absolutely no idea how it all happened?. Probably not many folk played SP1 PBEM for that reason (and the several 100K save files were expensive to attach to email in those days!).

IIRC the initial SP2 had the same system, and it was only the later patch that introduced PBEM replay and needed you to upgrade the RAM on your 386 to a whole 4(? ) MB to do so. Lots for 1998 anyhow. One of the original drivers for sp2ww2 was the desire of Don to be able to play WW2 games with PBEM replay.

Cheers
Andy