[platoon_michael]

What’s New..............

(From the Manual)

For those familiar with the Close Combat series of games, you will notice some significant
changes to the look and feel of this release!

»» The game’s graphics have been modernized, and take
greater advantage of video hardware for better performance,
as well as using full 32-bit color graphics.

»» The User Interface has been extensively redesigned to give the game an all-new
look and feel, while still retaining the core strengths of the Close Combat series.

»» The new Multi-player lobby, match-making forum, and connection system
makes finding opponents easier and allows you to play online without
having to manage incoming connections through your firewall or router.

»» The new Battle Group system simplifies the way you select
units while presenting a more realistic representation
of the historical military units involved.

»» The game now tracks and saves the statistics of every soldier in
a Battle Group. A team’s experience and victories are no longer
lost if you return a team to the Battle Group’s Force Pool.

»» The Strategic Layer now has an animated play-back of the main
events of each strategic turn, letting you see what happened,
as it happened. The new Strategic Message Monitor lets
you review these events and focus on their location.

»» Strategic High Ground adds a new wrinkle to spotting
enemy Battle Groups on the strategic map, letting the side
controlling the high ground see and spot farther.

»» Strategic air and artillery interdiction allow you to use strategic support assets
to try and prevent enemy Battle Groups from moving on the Strategic Map.

»» At the tactical level, you can transport infantry or mount guns on vehicles.

»» Tactical use of mortars has been changed to make their
response time and targeting more realistic.

[davidssfx]

also:
- turrets have their own shadows
-vehicle crews flee their abandoned vehicle (when hit), to try and live another day ... instead of hiding close by the wreck.

[Schmal_Turm]

Many people have complained about the AI not being very aggressive. I tend to agree with them on that. However, I have noticed that when I am a little reluctant to take a chance on getting one of my panzers destroyed by getting too aggressive myself I find that I can expect the AI to make the enemy tanks move out of their hidden positions thus exposing them to my first shot and a likely kill. If the tank had remained in place I might had lost one of my tanks instead. So as far as the AI being not aggressive enough, it all depends on your point of view.

I have also noticed that in order for me to get a tank to turn so the front is in the line of fire I need to get the tank to actually move, otherwise they just tend to turn the turret. The older versions of CC used to turn the entire tank before they fired the first shot which could be a life or death decision which I can't even imagine was a wise move when you are in a fire fight. One thing I did find out though with the older versions CC was that if you missed with the first shot of an AT gun you most likely would not get another chance.

[mooxe]

I played this today for the first time.

First impression..


1. The fog effect is ridiculous. Its basically a filter placed over the map. There is some texture to it and as you scroll around the map you can see how the filter is applied to your screen and not the map. How do I turn this off again?

2. The flare effect improved. Its now not a perfect circle of light. The edges transition better. I find it a mostly useless effect though. You may or may not see a unit for a short amount of time.

3. The team monitor has been moved from the bottom to the upper left. I can't see the reasoning behind it. You can drag it to the right of the screen which couple it with the team monitor and game messages.

4. Tracers move quicker, which seems better. However, clicking on a unit and seeing the indication on which waypoint its going to is hard to tell now. The indicator flashes by as fast as a tracer.

5. Vehicle and map 32bit graphics upgrade look good. The soldiers however look like the old ones and don't quite match I find.

6. Artillery and tank explosions looks like its exploding in the air.

7. When you hover your move order button to where you want the troops to go you are shown where each troop will end up going.

8. Mortar now take about 25 seconds to aim. If you adjust your aim by any amount they take 25 more seconds to aim again.

9. You can use more than 15 teams now, around 20 or so.

10. Spotted units that disappear leave a marker on the battlefield at their last known location.

11. Maps scroll nicely. LOS lines move nicely to.

12. Maps are generally large sized.


So from my quick look there are a few nice addons like points 7 and 10. Overall it seems like more of a graphics upgrade than anything else. Lots of the graphics have been rearranged as well. Don't think I will look any deeper into the game, but I'll keep it installed to test any mods that may come out for it.

[Pzt_Kanov]

The latest patch introduced an option in the game's option menu to disable the fog graphic effect although it's in-game effects do stay (units are harder to see than at night)

You can "blind" enemy troops with the flare. Units inside the flare radius supposedly have a harder time spotting units outside it.

Give the GC a go. I find it is really hard as the germans.

[Stwa]

Hey mooxe,

My interest in PitF are possibly the maps. I learned from Steve and Mafi, that you can downscale the maps 62.5 percent and not have to re-code them. The elements would be 10 pixels square instead of PitFs 16 pixels square.

So, it might be possible to port PitF to TLD. Something I would be very willing to do.

But without a TLD port. I might be interested in downscaled PitF maps for use with CCMT.

So, I have been wondering how to get maybe one nice sized PitF map, so I can test the downscale using 5CC.

[mooxe]

Found the fog off option. You have to edit the stock scenarios and change weather to all clear. I suppose the TXT file is another way.

[Stwa]

OK,

No problem.  

[mooxe]

Yeah noticed the larger squares you were talking about. Don't like em!

[Tejszd]

[Stwa]

Removing the fog from the scenarios removes the impact, with the new patch you cam remove just the layer like removing trees.... -Tejszd

I predicted this would happen.    

Turning Off the Fog

[johnsilver]

[dj]