So many questions but above all how is the Scenario editor?

[Kanov_Slitherine]

Feels so good hearing news of a truly revamped version of this old favorite of mine! I hope we get to see much more improvements and a few surprises. I have a lot of questions as I think many of other fans have, we could have a thread to discuss them, mine are:

-Is this game using the same type of data as the old ones and even the re-releases?
-will it be mod friendly?
-Is the infantry survivability a focus? we have to remember that infantry started dropping like flies since CC3 all the way to the current games.
-Are we going to get an ultimate Close Combat game? that is, a CC game where all the features scattered through all the versions are combined into one final ultimate version? Like:

-From CC2: Inmersive campaign, wonderful electronic Manual/Help application, best infantry combat of all the series, great battle maker.
-From CC3: Upgradable units, weather affecting vehicles, promotion, Having a unit with your name to command the troops, improved battle maker, now with the option to build operations based on points and year.
-From CC4: I think we can see that we are getting a strategic map, not much else was new in CC4 except Forcepools and how attrition affected the number of available troops.
-From CC5: same as above minus forcepool attrition since every BG had its own forcepool which was a step backwards imo.
-From CCM: The huge maps, Mount/unmount vehicles, in-game dig of trenches.
-From CCRAF/AT/MT: The huge variation of soldier designations (spotter, squad leader, team leader etc ) that in game I don't think it did much but it provided more flavor. Also three skins for the Vehicles and troops depending on weather. Real multiplayer allowing for 3v3 battles.
-From LSA: BG now can "jump" over friendly battlegroups, Static BG's, Can annex units of battlegroups.

-I'm still seeing the same explosions in the screenshots used since CC4 are we not getting new ones?
-Noticed really close encounters between armor, I hope is just for the screenshot and nothing to worry about.
-Are the tanks 3D, 2D? do they tilt? do they have engine sounds?
-How is the Scenario Editor in this one? I don't know why atomic dropped the easy to use highly customizable scenario editor based in points from CC2/CC3 it is the BEST way of making scenarios for multiplayer. Having fixed forces sucks for single battles in multi, not all people like to play long campaigns where the current Battle group design and Forcepool shines, some just want to have a quick battle where you can choose your force as well as the enemy not replay over the same map with the same entry points against the same selection of troops. I want to have my mixed force of SS, Heer and FJ troops, inexperienced and veterans against an equally mixed force.

Any more bits of info you guys would like to add I think everyone will appreciate it.

[Wodin]

I noticed the lack of Infantry survivability and I was surprised as I always remember the series being good for keeping Inf alive, thats what made it so damn good. I thought maybe I was remembering wrong, obviously not.

[SteveMcClaire]

Kanov,

The game data will be substantialy the same as the previous releases, and will be just as easy to mod. We'll provide information where things have changed and likely some new tools as well. Moving over data from an existing mod probably won't be that difficult. The UI for Panthers in the Fog is getting a significant overhaul, however, so there will be some work moving UI-related mods to the new version.

Infantry survivability is something we'll revisit. We get a lot of feedback about these sorts of issues and it's a tough balance to get exactly right -- a lot of people thought the original CC2 went too far towards the survivability side, for example.

Panthers in the Fog won't be combining all the features of all previous CC games, sorry. This is a neat idea and one I've pitched before - a sort of grand "Close Combat Campaign Construction Kit" that supports everything we can put in it. Panthers in the Fog will have some new features that are specific for the game's setting, and will support many of the previous features from the Matrix Games releases Wacht am Rhein, The Longest Day, and Last Stand Arnhem.

Yes, we do plan to update the explosions and other effects before release.

I think what you're seeing regarding the armor engagements is just what is needed to make a nice screenshot that isn't too big. Armor can engage at realistic ranges (though the maps usually aren't really big enough for long range armor duels in CC).

Vehicles will appear to tilt (though at a limited range of visible angles.) No decision of vehicle engine sounds as of yet -- If we can do it in a way that won't be annoying to listen to I'd really like to add them, though.

The current plan for the Scenario Editor is that it will be substantially the same as Last Stand Arnhem -- more campaign / operation oriented and not as flexible for single battles as the original CC2/3 editor. This sort of thing will probably have to wait for the following release, when we have more freedom to re-design the Scenario Editor from the ground up.

[GaryChildress]

The three key features to any good game = modability, modability and modability.

[Kanov_Slitherine]

Thanks for the post Steve.

The game data will be substantialy the same as the previous releases, and will be just as easy to mod. We'll provide information where things have changed and likely some new tools as well. Moving over data from an existing mod probably won't be that difficult. The UI for Panthers in the Fog is getting a significant overhaul, however, so there will be some work moving UI-related mods to the new version.

Great, this is fantastic news one one hand since the learning curve for modding this game will not be as steep, and as always tools from the makers themselves are always welcomed. On the other hand:

-Are we getting the same limits in the number of soldiers, teams, weapons etc?
-Are the hardcoded parts in the data still there? just as an example, you can't move artillery/mortar barrage/flammable object explosion from their place since it crashes, you can't modify the grenades either even thought they have no data, only the names are used.

Infantry survivability is something we'll revisit. We get a lot of feedback about these sorts of issues and it's a tough balance to get exactly right -- a lot of people thought the original CC2 went too far towards the survivability side, for example.

That you guys are looking into it is also great news.

I'll concede that I'm a bit biased towards CC2 since is my favorite but from an impartial point of view you're right, the infantry in CC2 was actually quite hard to kill which is why I liked it, forced you to maneuver since the best way to kill infantry with infantry was with assaults. In subsequent CC it is not uncommon to kill infantry positioned on a house other side of the street with MG's or rifles alone, even at great distances. Of course there's always the mods.

Panthers in the Fog won't be combining all the features of all previous CC games, sorry

A bit disappointed here actually, I think you guys are missing great opportunities with this. I realize is easy for me to say this from here, with out knowing all the work that must be required to get all the features we know about from different Close Combat versions into one final iteration but can't help it, sorry.

Can we at least get the winter flag/attribute/feature working properly again? tanks not equipped for winter should get immobilized, and tanks equipped for winter should change cammo if the graphic is available. This is for mods of course since I realize the weather for the game setting is summer. it has only worked properly in CC3, was disabled in CC5 altogether, re-instated in re-releases but with out the penalty for vehicles not equipped, got upgraded with CCMT by having 3 different skins/cammo depending on weather.

Yes, we do plan to update the explosions and other effects before release.

Excellent! can't wait to see that.

Vehicles will appear to tilt (though at a limited range of visible angles.) No decision of vehicle engine sounds as of yet -- If we can do it in a way that won't be annoying to listen to I'd really like to add them, though.

Great! I hope there's a way, maybe have a separate sound file that has 5 to 10 different motion sound for every type of vehicle (light, medium, heavy, AC, HT) that get cycled like the background sounds currently but activated when the vehicle gets issued a movement order. Having just one sound per tank would get annoying I agree, maybe the idle sound could be the same per type of vehicle. Just an idea.

The current plan for the Scenario Editor is that it will be substantially the same as Last Stand Arnhem -- more campaign / operation oriented and not as flexible for single battles as the original CC2/3 editor. This sort of thing will probably have to wait for the following release, when we have more freedom to re-design the Scenario Editor from the ground up.

I don't own LSA but I think is the same BG vs BG since CC4 only you get to use points, is that correct?. Can't we at least have 1 BG per side with all the units of said side in them for multiplayer only? that way we can choose them but set the points and we can buy whatever we want! only thing missing would be free deploy editor.

Misc:
-Waving flags? waving trees? Mafi discovered that you can have moving trees in CC2.
-Will there be more order in the way files/data are organized?
-Night turns, y/n? if yes, are they improved?
-Any new tactical battlefield mechanic/feature that you guys are going to implement?

Thanks for reading/responding and good luck with the development!

[SteveMcClaire]

Thanks for the post Steve.
-Are we getting the same limits in the number of soldiers, teams, weapons etc?
-Are the hardcoded parts in the data still there? just as an example, you can't move artillery/mortar barrage/flammable object explosion from their place since it crashes, you can't modify the grenades either even thought they have no data, only the names are used.

At the moment those 'constant' data rows are still in weapons.txt, but they are at the very front of the file, in the first 5 rows of data. The weapon class for grenades has always been 1 (i.e. 2nd item in weapons.txt) I believe, which is unlikely to change. So you can mod grenade data now, but it is the same for both sides (and always has been).

Most of the data limits are the same. The number of soldiers per team is still 10, but the UI is being expanded to allow all 10 to be usable now (instead of 7-8 previously).

Can we at least get the winter flag/attribute/feature working properly again? tanks not equipped for winter should get immobilized, and tanks equipped for winter should change cammo if the graphic is available. This is for mods of course since I realize the weather for the game setting is summer. it has only worked properly in CC3, was disabled in CC5 altogether, re-instated in re-releases but with out the penalty for vehicles not equipped, got upgraded with CCMT by having 3 different skins/cammo depending on weather.

I'll see about this if I have time. There's a lot to do before release though!

I don't own LSA but I think is the same BG vs BG since CC4 only you get to use points, is that correct?. Can't we at least have 1 BG per side with all the units of said side in them for multiplayer only?

The Panthers in the Fog team-selection system will be a bit different, but I'll keep that in mind. I do like the idea of an 'everything available' scenario set-up for multi-player.

-Waving flags? waving trees? Mafi discovered that you can have moving trees in CC2.

No plans for these at present, no.

-Will there be more order in the way files/data are organized?

The file organization, in terms of where they reside in the game install, will be substantially the same. Ordering of the data inside the files will be as organized as we can make it, barring last minute additions and tweaks.

-Night turns, y/n? if yes, are they improved?

Yes, night turns as in previous releases. The only 'improvement' here is that the illumination effect looks a bit nicer and aren't as big a burden on the CPU.

-Any new tactical battlefield mechanic/feature that you guys are going to implement?

There's a lot I want to do, but I don't really want to commit to what will be in the game until they're in and had survived some play testing. One thing I plan is to make the indirect fire support (including on-map mortar teams) a bit more realistic. The on-map mortar has always been a bit over-powered because it responds instantly to target orders. But this needs to be done without making it overly cumbersome for the player, too. Nobody wants to fill out a big dialog box to 'call for fire', then wait 5 minutes, and then see the rounds landing way off target.

Steve

[Kanov_Slitherine]

Very quick and complete reply Steve, thanks.

On the grenades, I was referring to rows 129 to 132 that is where the names of the Grenade weapon are stored for some bizarre reason. You can't move or modify the data of those or the game crashes.

There's a lot I want to do, but I don't really want to commit to what will be in the game until they're in and had survived some play testing.

Yes, I think this is only logical. Nobody likes an half-baked bread.

One thing I plan is to make the indirect fire support (including on-map mortar teams) a bit more realistic. The on-map mortar has always been a bit over-powered because it responds instantly to target orders. But this needs to be done without making it overly cumbersome for the player, too. Nobody wants to fill out a big dialog box to 'call for fire', then wait 5 minutes, and then see the rounds landing way off target.

I hear you, there needs to be a bit of tweak on this. As input on this subject: In one of the private versions, CC:Anti-terrorism or RAF, don't remember, there was an interface to ask for artillery using the coordinates of the map, the mini-map is accordingly divided in a Cartesian plane to input the coordinates in the GUI window that appears when you request support, any ways the request I think went to a player acting as the "commander" of the battle or something like this and he provided the requested support. Too cumbersome and implausible to implement for this game but it showed what could be done.

Thanks again for the reply Steve, much appreciated.

[SteveMcClaire]

Very quick and complete reply Steve, thanks.
On the grenades, I was referring to rows 129 to 132 that is where the names of the Grenade weapon are stored for some bizarre reason. You can't move or modify the data of those or the game crashes.

Yep -- those rows have (since Last Stand Arnhem) been removed. All the game-play specific weapon data is in the first couple of rows of the weapons data file. These were a hold-over from the original Atomic design that just hadn't been cleaned up.

[Wodin]

I thought CC2 had the best survivability out of all the games. Made for long engagements, made moral more important and jamming and all those other things happen more often as Infantry survived long enough for these things to happen. Also it felt more realistic. Infantry didn't die in droves in the War. If they died as easily as in pc games then the casualty rates would have been horrendous and everyman in Europe would have been chewed up in four years or less (I expect). 5 to 10% casualties in an attack would have been considered catastrophic as ther eis no way they'd be able to keep up the manpower of the units. Obviously if the game went with this then it woudn't be so much fun as your men wouldn't move and yet no one was being hit and it would grind to a halt, leaving the player wondering why his pixeltruppen wont push on and fight. So you have to make it more deadly but not overly so.

Edit to say Kanov seems to know his stuff, get him on team.

[Kanov_Slitherine]

Couple of more questions to ease the wait:

-Are the videos coming back? be it day by day recount as CC2 (loved them), by significant operation like CC3 or by type of battle like CC4. I always thought the games after CC3 lacked an "ending", a video telling you how things have gone for you and your men or something like that when you "complete" the game. The advice bar in CC5 saying "Campaing ended, you won!" was really underwhelming.

-Is it hard to have the effective range graphic shown in the soldier monitor to also appear in the BG selection when you select a team? OR have the max range of a weapon shown in the BG selection when you select a weapon and hear its sound.

-Are we going to see all the weapons that the squad is carrying (not just the first six types of personal weapons)? what type of ammo they fire or how much ammo they have?

-Borrowing from the excellent graphic mod, "Rank mod" for CC5, are we going to get an easy identification for the various levels of soldier attributes? from cc4 onwards the level bar was one solid color and you couldn't tell what level it was except for full or empty. In CC2 and CC3 it was easy to measure.

-In the same vein, are we going to get named medals? and an easy way to tell which is harder to get than the other?

-Are we going to be able to rest individual units before a battle?

-Any progress update? only 4 months to Q4 2012!

[manoi]

if there was not a next gen CC game after, I would be very excited by pitf. One thing that could also be done : after you campaign, the player could be able to see the stats of each BG! Medals could be described with a pop up window : that's for the next CC game!

[SteveMcClaire]

if there was not a next gen CC game after, I would be very excited by pitf. One thing that could also be done : after you campaign, the player could be able to see the stats of each BG! Medals could be described with a pop up window : that's for the next CC game!

That's a great suggestion! We'll definitely file that one away.

[Kanov_Slitherine]

Been playing Achtüng Panzer: Kharkov 1943 lately and I find some of its features worthy of borrowing be it for PitF or CC:next. Like:

-Seemless map. The operational or campaign Map is one big continuous map, divided in squares. Tactical battle occurs on a 3x3 grid with the center square being the attacked/defended square. Any unit that is inside the 3x3 grid can participate in the battle. Battle maps are huge like 2km and the borders aren't empty like Combat mission but are filled with the surrounding squares from the big operational map.

-Strategic units are platoons/companies not divisions nor regiments, which makes taking casualties a huge deal since resupplying is difficult.

-Reserve pool of units. If you send a unit to the reserve pool they don't loose their attributes nor they get Reset. Picture all 20-30 rifle squads from a typical CC Battlegroup being unique with its own leader, same members and keeping their medals/experience/kills no matter if you sent them to the reserve pool and requisition them back again some battles later. Same way, if a unit has not been refit for casualties and is then moved to the reserve pool, they still keep missing men until you refit that unit.

-Resupplying:
-Fuel: Every unit has a determined amount needed to be at status Full. With every battle and movement the level of fuel diminishes, after each tactical turn (after all battles are fought) you're given the opportunity to refuel units that need it for the next turn, the catch is you get a limited amount of resupplies but some units require 1.5, 2 or even 2.5 and you normally receive only 5 or 4 resupplies per platoon.
-Men: There's a reserve pool of men for each platoon/company, different from the unit reserve pool, after the battles you get to decide which unit to refit with men, which unit to replace with one from the reserve pool. I think men are random and not unique. Actually I think only the leader is shown. Everything else is on a squad based deal; medals shown, kills etc are by squad not by individual.
-Ammo: same as Fuel

What do you think?

[Wodin]

In APOS though it's rewarded to the squad you can say get three Iron Crosses rewarded to said squad in one fight.

[SteveMcClaire]

Some good suggestions -- thanks for posting.

In terms of the strategic map and the abstraction between the strategic scale / battle groups and the tactical combat / teams, that is something we are tweaking every release. I'd really like to do a 1:1 version at some point, so if that's something you'd really like to see, please let us know.

Panthers in the Fog will keep the history of all your teams and soldiers, even when you remove them from your active team slots. These teams will also receive individual replacements, but that happens automatically. And like previous CC games, medals (like the Iron Cross) can be awarded to individuals if they do something suitably impressive.

[Wodin]

Steve, CC has always had the best chrome when it comes to individual soldiers, I hope that continues and is enhanced again in the new engine.

[Kanov_Slitherine]

Some good suggestions -- thanks for posting.

In terms of the strategic map and the abstraction between the strategic scale / battle groups and the tactical combat / teams, that is something we are tweaking every release. I'd really like to do a 1:1 version at some point, so if that's something you'd really like to see, please let us know.

A 1:1 unit scale would be nice but that would mean reducing the area of operation to a mere fraction of the whole operation/battle that the game is representing. I think how is handled in CC is alright, you manage a company of the represented battle group lets just adjust how replacements, reserves, refitting etc is managed. Unless you're talking about representing all the companies of every division involved in the games battle theme, it would be an enormous task just to move them around the huge strat map

Panthers in the Fog will keep the history of all your teams and soldiers, even when you remove them from your active team slots. These teams will also receive individual replacements, but that happens automatically. And like previous CC games, medals (like the Iron Cross) can be awarded to individuals if they do something suitably impressive.

Keeping track of all teams is like the best news since the announcement yet!

Thanks for responding Steve.

[SteveMcClaire]

A 1:1 unit scale would be nice but that would mean reducing the area of operation to a mere fraction of the whole operation/battle that the game is representing...

Yes, if we did that it would have to mean a change in the scope of the whole game. I don't think we could make all the maps for a company-level game with multiple divisions per side, unless we generated them automatically, and even then most people would never have time to finish a game like that at ~30 minutes per fight!

[MajVonRyan]

Panthers in the Fog will keep the history of all your teams and soldiers, even when you remove them from your active team slots. These teams will also receive individual replacements, but that happens automatically. And like previous CC games, medals (like the Iron Cross) can be awarded to individuals if they do something suitably impressive.

Sounds great, how about a video clip of a medal presentation for high awards, there must some old footage of the WW2 leaders of all the counties presenting medial somewhere - Iron Cross 1st Class with oakleaves etc

[MajVonRyan]

I would like to be able to use the scenario editor to plan and play historical battles and missions such as:

Battle of Monte Casino
First & Second Battle of El Alamein
Battle of Hurtgen Forest

Missions
Pegasus Bridge - including gliders landings & Parachute drops.
The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chariot