2018 SPMBT Upgrade Patch

[RightDeve]

Very excited, but haven't got time to install & test it right now.

After this patch, I'm planning to do an extended-combat campaign, with story-like AARs (complete with screenshots, diagrams, and digital painting of battle scenes to help tell the story).

The idea is to command a platoon mech infantry, and as the war goes on he will command subsequently larger formation, company, and then battalion, regiment even. A single day is divided into 4 or 6 battles, with sunshine and weather changing. A single battle could either be very long, thus no time in-between battles (for abstracted non-combat activities like patrols, stand-off shooting, rest in rear, digging in, etc etc). Or battle could be very short, for example to reflect the higher command's intent to capture objective quickly, thus there is in-between time. Supply status will be manually calculated each turn, for example if the random-number-generator (RNG) says NO SUPPLY, weapons have half the normal ammunition count or even lower to none if NO SUPPLY continues for a long time. Vehicles will get lower movements to reflect fuel conservation, etc etc. Isolated/pocketed status will be determined from either RNG or if the rear victory hex is taken by enemy. If the RNG says the troops must fight continually for many days without rest in rear, morale and troop quality will break down; ditto if the troops are isolated, morale suddenly goes lower. Men and equipment might become non-combat casualties due to extreme weather (for example some tanks might be immobilized due to the gasoline fuel being frozen, or some random damage to the Optics or EW, ERA, CIWS equipments). Combat casualties, damage, and experience will carry over and improve, etc. Radio & signal jamming can be simulated at the beginning of each battle, by removing units radios or lower their Rout/Rally rating. And all other things I haven't thought of.

All this is possible by using the D-key while doing Scenario Editing, also the trick of saved-game-turned-scenario, and the Preferences screen, and the User-Campaign string mechanism. Random AI force-pick and deployment could be done using Battle Generator which is then turned into a Scenario. Some automated calculation off-game can be done with my meagre programming skill. But all this will for sure take a huge amount of patience and perseverance, but I hope it'll be very much worth it for anybody visiting the forum and reading the stories.

But for now, it's just in my head, still formulating the abstract operational-rules.

Cheers!

[Suhiir]

Looking good!

Some nice new icons and pictures.

[Warhero]

Thank you very much about great patches Don&Andy

Warhero

[lukerduker123]

Woah, North Korea has a new tank? Shoot, here I was thinking I could continue to curb-stomp them as America in a 2018 invasion. Ah well, I'll just be wiping my tears with the new Abrams with a freakin' TROPHY system!

For real, this patch was all full of surprises. An Abrams with TROPHY, a Dragoon company, and a bunch of other things I've yet to even notice! Thanks for this. This has gotta' be the best patch yet!

[DRG]

Due to the massive re-organization of the Portuguese OOB Scenhack missed that all the M60's in Scenario 291 had been replaced by an M88A1 Hercules and Scenhack happily reported there were no problems in that scenario and since I do NOT have time go through every scenario in two games manually every release I rely on Scenhack to spot things like this only it's not set up to spot something like this so it let this little oopsie through

There will NOT be a new patch issued for something this minor but for anyone wanting to play scenario 291 at some point this fixes the problem for now and it has gone into next years patch folder as well

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

I went into the "MOBHACK OOB EDITOR" checked the "USA OOB" and searched for the "B-2" bomber to see if the EW ratings were increased or not (Still the same but, that's fine!!) and instead of the B-2 bomber coming up I got the B-26 MAURDER specifically and in sequence by hitting the ENTER key the following UNITS came up under the B-2 search, in order as follows...132 B-26, 154 B-26K, 355 B-2, 853 B-26, 865 B-26K, 879 B-26, 881 B-26K, 947-949 B-2 and 959 B-29. Again all of this under search for the B-2. Don't know if this is an isolated issue but, I've never seen this happen before.

Over emphasing dialog because I have to ready for work!! No issues in downloading the patch encountered, it was smooth. Also all patches verified prior to download for each of my CD versions of the game. Again NEVER saw anything like this before.

HAVE TO GO!

Regards,
Pat

[scorpio_rocks]

That is how search has always worked (and how it should!)
ie searching for "Cent" in the british OoB will find all Marks of centurions, AVRE, etc

[Mobhack]

Mobhack searches for a partial string, as explained in Mobhack help somewhere.

Thus "B-2" as a search sub-string will find instances of:
B-2
B-26 Marauder
B-29

etc

[DRG]

Originally Posted by FASTBOAT TOUGH

I went into the "MOBHACK OOB EDITOR" checked the "USA OOB" and searched for the "B-2" bomber to see if the EW ratings were increased or not (Still the same but, that's fine!!) and instead of the B-2 bomber coming up I got the B-26 MAURDER specifically and in sequence by hitting the ENTER key the following UNITS came up under the B-2 search, in order as follows...132 B-26, 154 B-26K, 355 B-2, 853 B-26, 865 B-26K, 879 B-26, 881 B-26K, 947-949 B-2 and 959 B-29. Again all of this under search for the B-2. Don't know if this is an isolated issue but, I've never seen this happen before.

Over emphasing dialog because I have to ready for work!! No issues in downloading the patch encountered, it was smooth. Also all patches verified prior to download for each of my CD versions of the game. Again NEVER saw anything like this before.

HAVE TO GO!

Regards,
Pat

maybe next time don't try something new just before you go out the door??

[shahadi]

Thanks for keeping the game alive and well. It has come a long way since SSI publications. May, I suggest the inclusion of a readme text file in the patch zip file giving installation best practices.

I tried to save scenario #265 as "265 Afghan Wars - A01 Ambush 09/06", but the window only accepted "265 Afghan Wars - A01 Ambush 09/". It appears two characters are lost in the latest patch.

Are my game settings producing the resulting mini-map view?

Map size is 20x20