Feature requests for 2019

[PantherCub]

I do not think suppression is too high, after all, there has to be a meaningful way to use combined arms in the game without waiting for 5 turns of artillery fire.

What I do think is too deadly with artillery I the game is its effect on light armored vehicles. Half tracks and SP guns are dead meat when caught by artillery, which is one thing that makes these units much less survivable in game than in reality.

[Mobhack]

The recent fighting in the Ukraine shows what happens to light APC caught in an artillery concentration. And these modern APC are not open-topped as WW2 ones tended to be. Even T-72 are disassembled. The survivability of armoured vehicles to some extent is their ability to move out of a falling concentration, rather than stick about and get attrited.

If you think arty is too good, then you can reduce the arty effectiveness in the preferences screen.

[Imp]

As Mobhack says artillery is lethal to light vehicles in real life, look it up if anything the game could be slightly more lethal against them. Near miss will do it no need to hit it. Big artillery and tanks can get wrecked by a near miss never mind light vehicles. Check photos on the web light armour protects only from a distant strike, close strike will shred it and could even throw a light vehicle like a rag doll.

[DRG]

https://imgur.com/gallery/gIjCo

http://sill-www.army.mil/firesbullet...LL_EDITION.pdf

[PantherCub]

Thanks for the links. Interesting.

[DRG]

...we are discussing ( discussing....not committing to ) adding further damage affects to targeting and RF subsystems along with bringing back running gear ( tracks, wheels ) damage . "Track" hits were allowed in the original game but the code for it created odd situations and if ( IF ! ) we do summon the enthusiasm required to make this work it will in the next update...and if not...not. The first focus would be arty effects..if that works out maybe it might be expanded. If your billion dollar hi tech tank catches a full burst of 30mm autocannon there should be a chance that million dollar RF might be shredded... but as I said this is only at the " to discuss" phase for Andy and I when we work up the interest to start code work again.

[zovs66]

Another feature request (understand it just may not be possible, but throwing it out).

From within the game and it seems from with in ScenHack we have the following data points:

29 chars in Scenario Location Name in ScenHack in the Scenario Data dialog box
32 chars in the Scenario Name in both ScenHack and the Editor in game
32 chars in the Scenario title name in both ScenHack and the Editor in game

Here are some screen shots:

ScenHack (29 chars):



When saving a scenario (32 chars):


In the map editor (29 chars):


From within the editor (29 chars and 30 chars from two different spots):



So my first request or question is could we get more than 29/32 chars? 40, I don't know (what I am doing for my scenario creations is using the name of the scenario followed by the month/year, so Some Scenario Test Title 4/44 for example). Second question is why is it different from one to the other, more I am just curious, and guessing it has something to do with screen size or space.

I think the biggest issue I have is when I use a location that is very, very long (yes I know don't use it) then it won't show up quite correctly.

One scenario as a case in point uses: Along the Chemery-Bulson Road, France and I understand that I can just omit the 'Along the' part but I have some scenarios where it may (or may not) look cool within the game to see: Along the road, 7 kilometers SE of El Agheila, Libya and yes I also put this information in the text file as well, hence why I am using this post as enhancement request type of thing.

Anyway thanks for listening.

[Mobhack]

Changing a field means a new save game format, so every save game, scenario etc would need remastering. It also has code issues since various screens will new rewriting to allow th extra characters. And then the new long string likely wont fit into some user displays, requiring user interface rearrangement, which is one of the most tedious things to get right.

Changing namestring[30] to namestring[40] is a 2 second job in C, but that leads on to a heck of a load of consequences in an existing code base and data set. Trivial if it was done right at the games inception, but not when its existing ossified code and data.

[DRG]

The way I understand it is this:

The code reserved a space up to the limit ( lets say it's 25 for now ) and after that is more code probably unrelated to that previous code and that code expects to find the info it needs at that spot.....if we allow more text then NOT ONLY do we have to make sure every place that text string is used still fits in the old space available with the increased number of characters but MORE IMPORTANTLY...... now that code that comes afterward that expects to find code starting at a specific point......now finds the tail end of the expanded text string .......and then things go downhill from there.

We could try it as an experiment to see what goes wrong but sometimes what goes wrong doesn't show up right away. I have MANY times wished the unit name could be 16 characters instead of 15 so I have heard the reason why many times in the past 20 years

[zovs66]

Thanks fellows! I figured there were some kind of coding madness involved. If it free and easy yeah, if not I get it, many thanks.