More Constructive Crtiticism

[Turret]

For barrel-launched ATGM, for example, the Russian varieties, would it be better to represent these by using the SAME weapon slot as the cannon? What I mean, is remove the ATGM slot, and adjust the gun's HEAT values, along with the accuracy, to approximate the weapon/ATGM?

What I emphasize here is approximate the weapons characteristics, rather than simulate, potentially in an erroneous way, simulation wise, but the spirit of the game would still be represented in this way, the game being what it is.

(BTW, I've been playing this game since the original Steel Panthers)

[Mobhack]

And that is one of those things that has been there since SP2, since an ATGM is a weapon, and a cannon is too - but there is no such thing as an ATGM round for a cannon. Cannons have AP, sabot and HEAT.

So in the SP universe each is a distinct weapon and so has a separate weapon slot.

And that is not going to change since its part of the basic SSI Steel Panthers game architecture. Which was designed in the days of DOS and when machines were lucky to have 1MB of RAM (which is likely why things were done the way they were with so many fields being re-used for several things).

And the players know this and happily get by with the SSI method of representing tube launched ATGM. As you can tell from the sheer lack of posts from people clamouring for cannon ATGM rounds to be handled as an ammo type.

Changing the architecture requires a new game engine. Which means a new game.

Andy

[RightDeve]

well you obviously didn't think about particular "missile" characteristics in-game: missile animation, missile sound, accuracy, evasion, EW, top-attack, etc. how would you represent those things if the missile is replaced with standard main gun ammo?

it seems what you want is to sacrifice huge realism for some small irrelevant realism that nobody cares about.

maybe next thread you're going to complain about turn based nature of the game? remember, in this game, some minor realism has to be sacrificed in order to achieve higher realistic results.

can you imagine controlling battalion even brigade formation in real time constraints? the result would be mind-bogglingly UN-realistic since each unit would wander around aimlessly, or not really doing anything while fired at, only because you don't have the time to control that unit perfectly. while in SP, each unit has your fingerprint of control, they're doing things realistically because they're controlled by a human brain, EVERY unit.

cheers!

[dmnt]

NOTE: I am a software developer - but I'm not and never have been writing any code for this game as far as I know.

This idea should have been presented when the developers originally started to develop the game. It's been enhanced and hacked until it was stretched to the limits. Nobody ever thought of ATGM missiles thru the barrel and no HEAT ammo for 2nd, 3rd or 4th weapon. Some of these have been corrected using the special values (such as 222 for AP penetration to look up corresponding HEAT value etc.) Enormous task done bit by bit and a lot of things could've been written otherwise in the beginning. But like Don said, this was written when 1MB was considered a lot of memory to have and thanks to the PC design, not even that was actually available but 640 kB was it.

It retrospect there's a lot of things that could've been written otherwise. But like in any software project, in the end it looks like this:
http://www.bonkersworld.net/images/2...e_of_a_swe.png

[Suhiir]

Maybe instead of suggesting changes try asking why something works the way it does first?
Often there's a very good reason (due to game engine limitations) why things work as they do.