Added possiblity of capturing equipment!!!

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

Added possiblity of capturing equipment!!!

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> Added possiblity of capturing equipment!!!

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

Added possiblity of capturing equipment!!! - 1/18/2001 12:38:00 AM

OffWhite Tiger

Posts: 7
Joined: 10/2/2000
From: Irving,Texas,USA
Status: offline

is there a way you could use abandoned enemy equipment like At guns or tanks. If not will that possibly be in an upgrade.

_____________________________

Post #: 1

- 1/18/2001 1:12:00 AM

Grumble

Posts: 471
Joined: 5/23/2000
From: Omaha, NE, USA
Status: offline

I would say not in the scale of the game. In the "real world", takes time to figure out how to safely operate the other guy's equipment (small arms excepted). Equipment like this is usually sent to the rear for mod's, like replacing radios MGs etc and issuing TOs for the equipment. The operations challenges aside, such equipment is much more valuable for intelligence exploitation; intel guys would be all over guns/AFVs for testing.

_____________________________

"...these go up to eleven."
Nigel Tufnel

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 2

- 1/18/2001 2:35:00 AM

Wild Bill

Posts: 6821
Joined: 4/7/2000
From: Smyrna, Ga, 30080
Status: offline

Grumble you answered well. That is our thinking on the subject, even though I like the idea. In the scenario Roadblock, at the SPWAW support sites, I designed a scenario with US paras using Italian anti-tank guns on Sicily. We have a number of scenarios with captured enemy equipment in use, and a provision for just that is in the OOBs, but changing over in the middle of a battle just did not seem realistic. Wild Bill ------------------ In Arduis Fidelis Wild Bill Wilder Coordinator, Scenario Design Matrix Games

_____________________________

In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Independent Game Consultant

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 3

- 1/18/2001 7:20:00 AM

BA Evans

Posts: 250
Joined: 5/25/2000
From: USA
Status: offline

When you are purchasing your units, use the 'Nation' button. This allows you to buy equipment from any nation. BA Evans

_____________________________

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 4

- 1/18/2001 12:17:00 PM

rfox

Posts: 43
Joined: 1/14/2001
From: Chicago, IL
Status: offline

BA Evans: What?!? I hadn't tried this yet in a long campaign, but having tried it, I'm not sure why this possibility exists. I started a mock '41 East Front campaign as the Germans in order to see what equipment was available to me. Of course, the German TO&E is limited chronologically and that makes sense. However, why would I be able to purchase a Chinese MMG squad, let alone an entire company of American Shermans for my German Kampfgruppe? I love this game, so this isn't intended as a criticism. I'm sure the designers intend for us to use restraint with this sort of thing if we want to maintain any sense of historical accuracy, but why is this even possible? Grumble makes a good point regarding the scope of any given battle. Even long scenarios are the equivalent of perhaps 1 to 1 1/2 hours real time. I'm sure the battle weary soldiers would be too occupied with the enemy to consider hopping into an unfamiliar enemy AFV. First, they would probably need to be an experienced crew with their own AFV equipment and secondly, they would probably have to be educated in enemy AFV technology. How many of those types of soldiers would be in any given battle (with time to spare)? However, it would be nice to have a way to incorporate captured equipment into future battles. I'm sure that would be too difficult to incorporate into SP:WAW at this late date. The ability to "purchase" equipment from any nation in the game and incorporate it into your battlegroup still seems odd to me. Can any of the developers or others in the know comment on this? ------------------ ------------- Rob

_____________________________

Rob

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 5

- 1/18/2001 12:40:00 PM

USMCGrunt

Posts: 174
Joined: 1/17/2001
From: Yarmouth, ME, US
Status: offline

One ability I'd love to see in this vein is for troops to seize and use equipment during a scenario. If for instance, a squad assaults an antitank gun and kills the crew, let them use the gun. I realize that training on weapons systems can be quite detailed at times, but I haven't seen a cannon yet that can't at least be used to a limited capacity by an untrained group, or a group with a similar speciality. ------------------ USMCGrunt -When it absolutely, positively, has to be destroyed overnight.

_____________________________

USMCGrunt Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?" But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll! -Rudyard Kipling-

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 6

- 1/18/2001 1:25:00 PM

Reg

Posts: 2787
Joined: 5/26/2000
From: NSW, Australia
Status: offline

quote:

Originally posted by rfox: BA Evans: What?!? I hadn't tried this yet in a long campaign, but having tried it, I'm not sure why this possibility exists.

This feature is very handy for creating scenarios that involve allies as well as captured equipment. There are many examples of this. I can quote two instances (Western Front 1918 and New Guinea 1942) when green U.S. Infantry regiments were blooded in operations under the control of Australian Divisions. I'm sure this happenened in many other armies at many other places. The Arnhem campaign is another example of where you will need two nationalities on the same side. The ability to buy other nations units make this possible but like any powerful tool must be used with discretion or as you say, some historically questionable situations could arise. However, if you were designing one of these scenarios, I'm sure you would be glad the facility exists. Reg.

_____________________________

Cheers,
Reg.

(One day I will learn to spell - or check before posting....)
Uh oh, Firefox has a spell checker!! What excuse can I use now!!!

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 7

- 1/18/2001 2:59:00 PM

Igor

Posts: 184
Joined: 12/11/2000
Status: offline

Speaking as someone slogging through a 20 year generated campaign (PLA); a good deal of the fun is in figuring out what kind of equipment you've captured, and then creating units that use it or using the "nation" button to switch someone to that equipment. Lord knows, I've hunted down Japanese squads just to capture their 6.5mm LMGs or 50mm mortars... But if one does this (and it's mostly appropriate for minor powers); then a weather eye must be kept on whether or not you lose that gear. A dead LMG and/or mortar equipped squad should be replaced with pure rifles, lost guns with what you've normally got (if anything), lost tanks are kaput, and such like. Otherwise you wind up assuming that the enemy supply service is making house calls, which can make things rather silly...

_____________________________

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 8

- 1/18/2001 4:49:00 PM

Posts: 8
Joined: 10/13/2000
From: Sweden
Status: offline

Just a thought I had: Sometimes a crew will abandon its vehicle/gun and run away, but they can still re-crew it later on. Now, if one could separate the crew and the equipment in the editor one could leave abandoned stuff on the battlefield for the player to "find". It is possible to destroy vehicles in the editor, so why not this? So by using the "nation" button it would be possible to purchase, say a russian tank for the finnish player and then make it abandoned. The finns would then have a crew which could then capture this tank when they find it.

_____________________________

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 9

- 1/18/2001 4:54:00 PM

Don

Posts: 810
Joined: 7/12/2000
From: Elk Grove, CA (near Sacramento)
Status: offline

Another thing you can do with the "nations" button, rfox, is give one side "disguised" equipment. In "Task Force Wilder" I bought M-10's for the Germans, then wrote down every number that a Panther should have for weapons, armor, etc., and changed the M-10 numbers to those, creating "Ersatz M-10's", or Panthers that look like M-10's, which the Germans had. Any feature that gives us more flexibility is great! Don

_____________________________

Don "Sapper" Llewellyn

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 10

- 1/18/2001 5:35:00 PM

StuNZ

Posts: 49
Joined: 5/14/2000
From: Auckland, New Zealand
Status: offline

quote:

Originally posted by rfox: BA Evans: What?!? I hadn't tried this yet in a long campaign, but having tried it, I'm not sure why this possibility exists. I started a mock '41 East Front campaign as the Germans in order to see what equipment was available to me. Of course, the German TO&E is limited chronologically and that makes sense. However, why would I be able to purchase a Chinese MMG squad, let alone an entire company of American Shermans for my German Kampfgruppe? I love this game, so this isn't intended as a criticism. I'm sure the designers intend for us to use restraint with this sort of thing if we want to maintain any sense of historical accuracy, but why is this even possible? Grumble makes a good point regarding the scope of any given battle. Even long scenarios are the equivalent of perhaps 1 to 1 1/2 hours real time. I'm sure the battle weary soldiers would be too occupied with the enemy to consider hopping into an unfamiliar enemy AFV. First, they would probably need to be an experienced crew with their own AFV equipment and secondly, they would probably have to be educated in enemy AFV technology. How many of those types of soldiers would be in any given battle (with time to spare)? However, it would be nice to have a way to incorporate captured equipment into future battles. I'm sure that would be too difficult to incorporate into SP:WAW at this late date.

The ability to incorporate that captured equipment is there already to an extent. The purchase screen isn't the only place with the nationality button - the upgrade screen also has it, and as far as I'm aware, while the nationality on the purchase screen gives you units crewed by that nationality, the upgrade one gives you the equipment, but leaves you with the unit's previous nationality. It is open to abuse, but then, anyone abusing it in a campaign is only really cheating themselves, so what does it matter? It does also though, allow you to have that captured KV or T34 on the east front, or to have one of the units from overcrowded OOBs that has been stashed in another countries OOB.

_____________________________

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 11

- 1/18/2001 8:24:00 PM

Cona

Posts: 137
Joined: 9/9/2000
From: Penco, Chile
Status: offline

However, it would be interesting if one of your own crews that abandoned their damaged vehicle or survived it's destruction can re-crew another vehicle of the same type during the battle. I know this could be dificult to implement. Cona.

_____________________________

"War is much too serious to be entrusted to the military." - Tallyrand

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 12

- 1/19/2001 12:20:00 AM

rfox

Posts: 43
Joined: 1/14/2001
From: Chicago, IL
Status: offline

In the campaign mode, if you start a campaign at a later date from say, June 1940 or Fall 1941, you can incorporate "captured" equipment such as T34s and such for the Germans. I assume a similar situation would be true for the other nations under which you can play a full, long campaign. These pieces of equipement, however, are already listed in the nation's TO&E for that particular time period. That seemed to me to fill the gap, from a historical perspective, for using captured equipment. The ability to add any equipment to a battlegroup for the long campaign is still a surprise to me. I can definitely see its use in designing custom scenarios (and that, by the way, is a VERY nice feature). This brings up another question. I haven't investigated this fully yet so forgive my laziness. How do you name units something other than their default name? I would like to give custom names to several of my squads/tanks/etc., but I haven't yet discovered how to do that. I thought I heard that you can do this through a text based file in the campaign directory. Any help you could offer would be appreciated. This ability to add units from any nation's TO&E to a campaign battlegroup has just added yet another layer of amazing flexibility to an already incredibly flexible system. Thanks to all of you for your replies. ------------------ ------------- Rob

_____________________________

Rob

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 13

- 1/19/2001 4:06:00 AM

StuNZ

Posts: 49
Joined: 5/14/2000
From: Auckland, New Zealand
Status: offline

quote:

Originally posted by rfox: This brings up another question. I haven't investigated this fully yet so forgive my laziness. How do you name units something other than their default name? I would like to give custom names to several of my squads/tanks/etc., but I haven't yet discovered how to do that. I thought I heard that you can do this through a text based file in the campaign directory. Any help you could offer would be appreciated.

It can be done in game - bring up the unit's detail screen either during deployment or while in game - just click on the unit name up in the left corner of the screen or leader name over to the right, and you can then rename them (in fact, have to rename them - cancelling leaves the name blank).

_____________________________

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 14

- 1/19/2001 4:23:00 AM

rfox

Posts: 43
Joined: 1/14/2001
From: Chicago, IL
Status: offline

Ah! I guess anything that is listed in green letters on the unit screen is modifiable. Thanks for the tip. I seem to learn something new every day about this game. ------------------ ------------- Rob

_____________________________

Rob

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 15

- 1/19/2001 4:39:00 AM

rexmonday

Posts: 119
Joined: 7/4/2000
Status: offline

Now here is an interesting link with some pictures the like of which you don't see very often: http://www.twenot.nl/cuckoo.htm

_____________________________

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 16

- 1/19/2001 5:31:00 AM

BlitzSS

Posts: 253
Joined: 10/24/2000
From: wasChicagoLand, now DC
Status: offline

Understanding certain limitations within the game, I’m certain that utilizing captured equipment during a game is not likely ever to happen. The bottom line is that it is a limitation of the game rather then justifying whether it was a reality or not. Hopping into an enemy tank is a lot different then turning around a bloodied MG in the streets of Stalingrad or Warsaw.

_____________________________

"Nuts"

(in reply to OffWhite Tiger)

Post #: 17

Page: [1]

All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> Added possiblity of capturing equipment!!!

Page: [1]