[mosborne]

Hi:
I posted a message on mbt and someone mention checking out this forum also. Glad I did.

Walking the line between reality and simulation is not easy. Nor is drawing the line between abstraction and detailing. While reading I could see the battle between these concepts playing out.

I think all the comments are good, but some are good but harmful in the way they are proposed to be implemented. The community on this forum is pretty broad as well as the experience. Trying to translate the broad experience into code though can have some nasty side effects, one of which is to discourage newcomers with too many restrictions, tedious matters, or actions that don't make sense on initial appearance, or inability to use imagination. I think the best wisdom is as someone quoted what the most important rule was - that both sides agree.

I think that as you continue to change the code in hopes of making it better you don't end up pigeon holding everyone into the same mode. I would actually like to see more emphasis on coding what the physics permit and focus more on implementing more capability in the models. I believe that is the path to making both variants even greater. Perhaps even thought should be given to integrating the two. This would allow more resources to focus on one product as oppose to splitting it across two. I am sure they are more alike than different.

I suggest that before you code something out, you consider whether or not there is any possibility of it being done or to rephrase it - if you needed to do it, how would you do it. If you can figure out a way to do it, then don't code it out, because more than likely some one figured out how to do it in real life. Please code in more flexibility, not more restrictions.

I think a great example of flexibility added (which I was overjoyed to see) is the filter for firing, just as an example.
Reading through this thread, there were a lot of artillery features that can be added to make things work more smoothly. It would be nice to specify some artillery patterns as oppose to trying to manually fudge it.

I offer as an alternative to coding in restrictions in how the system operate is to instead add an auditing feature that would allow you to print out a step by step replay of clicks at the end of the challenge. In fact, this could even have some side benefits (more features) of allowing players to create actual tutorials, movies, etc. - flexibility. So now if you want to check cheating - its recorded on video as to who did what when. But I think a feature like this would be worth more than just checking cheating. I suspect that a lot of the coding is already in place and the technology (larger hard disk space) is at hand. People would surely pay for this option alone to save and replay some of their greatest challenges or campaigns.

Thanks for reading.