Quote:
Originally Posted by DRG
Not nerfed......it HAD BEEN nerfed up until this release and the reason it stayed that way so long is neither Andy nor I use it much, if at all, and never to the extreme players had been complaining some PMEM opponents used it and certainly not as SOP gameplay to the extent it would appear it had been used by some players. The most I have ever used it was playing a scenario where I had no arty and a horde of attackers to deal with and I only played that scenario AFTER we had made the change to the code to bring Z-Fire back to what it was intended to do.
Once we started digging into the complaint that it was being used as a short-cut cheat to circumvent the arty countdown that's when Andy realized, and I confirmed, it could reach into places beyond the original intent of Z-fire which was to lay down a fire to the limit of your range but NOT through objects or terrain that would normally block fire so now if the visibility is 1 but your MMG has a range of 24 you can Z-fire out to 24 hexes IF there is nothing blocking those 24 hexes so not though/over terrain that would have blocked LOS if the visibility had been 24 which was the original intent of the feature so this change corrected a problem that had existed for a number of years.
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I'm still amazed to see the constant gripes against the Z-fire in PBEM. i must admit it did annoy me a bit in the past specifically and exclusively when an opponent uses Z-fire for recon, which is somewhat unorthodox but as history has shown anything can go on the battlefield from flinging corpses heads, dead animals, flaming pigs, greek fire, whatever means to disrupt opposing force. I myself use it sometimes against suspected hexes from which receiving hidden fire in order to attempt to 'reveal' enemy unit, and also sometimes thru enemy popped or artillery layed screening smoke stacks blocking my units LOS. Whatever the reasons are in favor or against Z fire in the game engine thru the years ever since the 90s in Steel Panthers 1 & 2, i think it should not be removed entirely.