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Three more contributions to "the list"


Skybird03

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Don't know if these three have been mentioned before.

MG fire by infantry usually does not kill a tank, but can damage its sights, and a TC or gunner without main sites, really means no fun. Nevertheless, when you give a BP a conditon and a route so that the unit shouold fall back to a secp0nady position when it is under fire, tanks do not retreat as long as no missiles or tank guns are firing at them. I would like to see something like an optional command "retreat if under light fire (from MGs)", for I have seen too many tanks beeing blinded and slowoly accumulating damage althoiugh I had them in a BP from where they should retreat when getting engaged. This is especially annopying when playing a huge scenario, where you cannot have your eyes all over the place simultaneously and thus depend on conditioned routes and automatic fall-back from battle positions. But the best planning nevertheless often get screwed up from this issue as described.

An auto-retreat option in the command list on unit- and vehucle level wouldn't be bad either. That way setting up secondary BPs and attaching retreat routes leading there, could be avoided, and time could be saved. Syntax could be something like "if being under light/heavy fire for x seconds retreat in reverse on course x degree." the option could be attached to a unit or vehicle via rightclicking, and could remain active as long as as it is not deactivated. It could be supplemented wetger or not it should be valid for a reached BP only, or shall override movement orders while being in transit as well. - i assume in reality, a tank coming under critical fire would also react to it by eventually falling back a bit and evade incoming fire.

Such options are essential i think with regard to ifantry behing hidden in the bushes inside woods, where they can continue to fire at tanks with small arms - without the control logic of the tank even being aware of there presence - at least so it seems to me. Often they do not even turn the turrest at the direction of the incoming small arms fire.

Second, the battle reports down the left corner. Playing at 1280-resolution on a 19" monitor, I find the fonts to be very small, and whenever I hear "We're taking fire", I am shooting forward my head and trying to decipher the miniature symbols that are considered to be letter and numbers, red on black, which additionally hinders ciontrast and readability a bit. Adjustable font sizes are the solution. Also, in a huge scenario you may wish to react quickly to critical calls, but you fiddle around with decyphering the unit number, and then manually locate it on the map, and then zoom in and center the map, and then searhcing for the enemy unit the report eventually is referring to. It would be nice if a click on the message line auto-centres the map quickly and zooms in so that both the sending unit and the object to which it refers appear on the map (auto-scaling). This is important in huge scenarios with many units on the map, and in combat situations at very close ranges.

I think this would substantially improve ergonomy and prevent more units getting lost due to the player fighgting with the interface.

And third, for comparable reasons, a third suggestion, the artillery menu. Again, you have to deal with microscopic click spots on side bars to select an entrance from the list, and this several times - that you mis-click and do not hit the click point and the list scrolls and jumps back to the first entry, happens relatively often. I would prefer very much if these damn scrolling lists with options would not be there, but constantly shown buttons with the according option instead, as if you were hitting according keys on a panel with buttons, with the currently selected option translating into a highlightened button.

I still love SBP and play it quite a lot, but the reasons above also supply me on a regular basis with moments of frustration and anger. If I het beaten by a clever AI, or by making mistakes, I accept that, but if I loose units due to some weak features in the interface that hinder me to react as quickly as possible, it is frustrating any annoying indeed. And after 2 years and with a good HOTAS setup I am not really lacking routine to handle the sim controls. ;)

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Well, the whole "fire at AFVs with MGs" is something that would probably be changed anyway. Even though it means possibly taking out a gunsight, even as a last resort, it is not very realistic infantry behavior because it pretty much ensures the death of all those involved. With better ability to conceal themselves and maybe the ability to crawl, they should really just hide and try to sneak away when confronted with such situations.

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Exactly. I was mainly referring to the instances when they have no RPG and they just happily fire away at the tank but, it is even more frustrating when you manage to sneak up on a tank but you are just outside of RPG range when the infantry begins opening up with small arms, only to be killed shortly after. Oh well, it is a known issue for tweaking.

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Second, the battle reports down the left corner.

Something else Skybird reminded me of. Could the vocal reports also include the Company letter? Happened to me quite a bit while playing CS where there were 5 or 6 different Coys. A unit would take fire, so I would hear the report, but then have to look at the text box to see if it was one of my Coy callsigns. Would be handy to have "3/1/Alpha taking fire" then just the "3/1".

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