Artillery smoke question

[DRG]

Currently the game allows all calibres of artillery to have a few smoke shells each. This is, however, not entirly accurate. Large calibre guns do not have smoke shells.

There has been a suggestion made on the WW2 forum that we restrict smoke to guns that actually had smoke shells issued. However, the GAME REALITY we have to deal with is allowing each individual gun to be flagged as or not having smoke available is simply not going to happen. What we could do is restrict smoke to a specific range of shell war head sizes so only the "field artillery" gets the smoke shells.

So here's a poll. We would appreciate as many people as possible "voting" on this as soon as possible.

Thanks

Don

[Pats]

Couldn't you have it added optional with an on/off button?

[JaM]

i think it is great idea! That way there will be a reason to buy those guns to provide smoke screen..

[DRG]

The thing is, the guns that "Historically" provide the smoke screens are generally the guns people buy when they want to make smoke screens anyway. I cannot imagine anyone buys 203mm arty just to lay smoke.

There was no change for 3.5 because there was no time to do the proper amount of necessary research on how smoke is used and by what guns / rockets / mortars post WW2. There will , however be a change made to winSPWW2 because the information was more easily found so we'll see how that change is accepted. If you look at the number of people who have viewed this question and compare it to the number of people who have voted to express their view the conclusion is this isn't really much of an issue one way or the other but we'll see how the WW2 change is accepted ( or not ) over the summer.

As to adding ON/OFF switch to preferences I can tell you that it's far. FAR easier said than done and must be made to work not only for regular games but also secure PBEM so that both sides are treated equally and that requires "creative" programming. It's not just 5 lines of code that would need to be added to make that work. More like 100x that. Just to put it in perspecitve WinSPMBT now contains 13299383 lines of code ( thirteen million 2 hundred and ninety nine thousand, three hundred and eighty three lines of code )

Don

[Pats]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

tat's a lot

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[thatguy96]

By restricting smoke to "field artillery" class do you mean that tanks, mortars, and the like will no longer have smoke ammo allowed in their classes?

[Pats]

(I think) it's only the Artillery...!

[DRG]

Artillery class = artillery, Mortars and rockets. Tanks would not be touched but it's only time before somebody starts complaining that the tanks that get smoke rounds start of with a total number of shells more than it would be possible to load into the tank. However, at some point everyones going to have to remember this is a game and with any game there are compromises made to playability and this is one of them.

Don

[thatguy96]

...but it's only time before somebody starts complaining...


Yup, as you've said before many times there are certain things that will cause people to complain every time a change is made either way.

I just wanted clarification on exactly what the restrictions would be affecting, because I found myself confused on whether it was the unit class or weapon we were talking about. You can only restrict smoke based on unit class right?

[DRG]

In this case the change for WW2 is tied to unit class and warhead size so it's actually a bit of both.

Don

[Veitikka]

DRG said:
It's not just 5 lines of code that would need to be added to make that work. More like 100x that. Just to put it in perspecitve WinSPMBT now contains 13299383 lines of code ( thirteen million 2 hundred and ninety nine thousand, three hundred and eighty three lines of code )

Don



Wow, how WinSP source can be that large? That's like some operating system source. How long SP has been in development, 15 years?

There must be lots of comments http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DRG]

The count was of lines of CODE, not comments. This is not a simple game

Don

[PatG]

Keep it for all. I qualified on 81mm mortar. Firing smoke was one of the mortar platoon's tasks.

[DRG]

NOBODY is suggesting 81mm Mortars shouldn't be able to fire smoke.

Don

[Pazam]

When artillery fires a smoke round, how many rounds of gameplay does it remain for? Ie. If I create a barrage of smoke as part of my openning turn, does that smoke last for the entire game or a limited time?

[Pats]

If I'm not wrong it depends on the weather condition etc. but definetly not for the whole game... more or less 1-3 rounds.

[pdoktar]

Only a limited time, maybe 2-5 turns, depending on caliber of the shell, to my recollection.

[Pazam]

Thanks!

[kevineduguay1]

How about guns larger than 105mm and hoitzers 155mm and less can fire smoke?

All but the biggest of mortars (81mm and up) should be able to fire smoke.