ATF is awsome... more scenarios out there?

[Spleen]

If you knew how long I have been waiting on a game like this... Literally twenty plus years.

What amazes me is there are people out there who still insist that hexes and "you move I move" is "realistic" . wow.

Great game.

Now. If we could adabt the entire paradigm to a 3d world!!!!! The ultimate war sim.

Sorry, I know thats a huge undertaking but when your 1/2 way to Nirvana, you are crazy not to push for the whole enchilada.

I notice there are only 3 scenarios in the archive.. Anyone know where to get more good scenarios? Thanks.

 

[Deltapooh]

All the scenarios I created (I believe those are the only one's available in the scenario database) were for Brigade Combat Team: Commander (BCTC). I do have one scenario complete (Battle of 73 Easting 1) and a second (Crumbling Sand Castle) in the works. 73 Easting would be out now if I'd been a little less concerned with realism. Everytime I started the scenario, the enemy units would just become visible. I pushed the LD back and now just need to complete the OPORD (The part of scenario building I hate). I plan on making two additional scenarios after that.

Next month, Capt. Proctor is hoping to release the v1.02 patch for ATF. This will include one or two new scenarios, and power tools for scenario building, along with some fixes for the game.

I'll have 73 Easting out in by the weekend. So check back. The others should follow as life allows.

 

[Pat Proctor]

Thanks for the Kudos. When I started working on BCT: Brigade Combat Team, many years ago, I thought I was the only guy out there who was fed up with the lack of realism in other, "mainstream" wargames. I have been thrilled to find so many like-minded individuals out there. It really is a huge community.

A lot of the elements that you are probably still looking for will be included in Air Assault Task Force. It will be a lot more infantry-centric simulation.

But the addition of the database editor next month, WILL give you a lot of flexibility to do the same things.

DP,

I may have a little bit of bad news for you. The v 1.02 upgrade will not include the two new scenarios. The new scenarios and maps, for a lot of reasons too complicated to explain, will be released simultaneously with the scenario builder help, which is a couple more months away. Sorry.

 

[Deltapooh]

It's not a big lost. The database editor is more important than the scenarios. I would like to add and change vehicle some things. I also like the map builder ideal. Even if the process is difficult. The zeal to taylor the ATF will push us to work through problems.

I learned some things about the scenario editor simply by opening up stock scenarios and trying to see how they behaved.

BTW: What editing program did you use to create the vehicle images in ATF. I have Adobe Photoshop 6.

 

[Gary Owen]

Originally posted by Spleen
Great game.

Now. If we could adabt the entire paradigm to a 3d world!!!!! The ultimate war sim.

BCT and ATF are both excellent games/simulators. But if you are interested in armored combat simulation, you should also take a look at Steel Beasts. ATF has an incredible depth of detail, especially at the brigade level, and Steel Beasts is similarly detailed in its own way at battalion to company level. In my opinion, the games complement each other nicely. While the artillery model in ATF is extremely detailed, calls for fire are abstracted and simplified in SB. However, in SB the ballistics of every tank round are computed as accurately as possible given unclassified data, while (if I understand correctly) ATF abstracts this information.

SB's graphics are dated. But the developers are working on a sequel with an improved graphics engine. As a member of the scenario developement team for the sequel, I've seen the new graphics engine and some of the new features. As an old cavalryman and Bradley gunner, sometimes I find the new engine doing things that I think look just beautiful. For instance, firing a TOW at a T-80, tracking it, and then watching the tank's turret pop into air, gets me all warm and fuzzy inside.

SB does not have the complexity that ATF does; it does not attempt to model aviation, for example. But it's still a damn fine wargame.

 

[amrcg]

AATF vs ATF

Originally posted by CPT Proctor
A lot of the elements that you are probably still looking for will be included in Air Assault Task Force. It will be a lot more infantry-centric simulation.

Do you means that Air Assault Task Force will not replace ATF?

Cheers,
Antonio

 

[Spleen]

Steel beasts does look good. The problem is, I cannot get by the poor graphics.

Steel beasts 2 is on my list. Updated 3d engine.

 

[Pat Proctor]

DP,

We use a number of tools, including Paint Shop Pro 7, MS Image Composer (ships with FP2000), and good old MS Paint. The key you need in any image tool is the ability to rotate images at exact angles WITHOUT blending (most tools will do pixel blending and mix up your pink alpha colors with your image. If you don't have this capability then you have to go back by hand and take out all of the "off-pink" pixels after rotating 35 images. It is a pain in the ass.

Gary Owen,

Are they going to have the M1A2, M1A2 Sep, and M2A2 in this next release? That was really, for me, the big drawback to an otherwise outstanding first title.

I'm also waiting for someone to do a tank sim with dug fight positions and infantry strong points

amrcg,

The best way to put it is that Air Assault Task Force will complement one another. There will be some features unique to Air Assault Task Force, such as a detailed treatment of Urban Operations with discrete buildings, that is not present or thematically appropriate in Armored Task Force.

We haven't decided on the issue of backwords compatibility between the two games. It would be great, because it would expand the multiplayer community size by making the two games compatible, but it leaves people with the impression that they paid full price for an expansion pack, which absolutely is not the case. AATF will be a different, new game.

 

[Gary Owen]

Originally posted by CPT Proctor

Gary Owen,

Are they going to have the M1A2, M1A2 Sep, and M2A2 in this next release? That was really, for me, the big drawback to an otherwise outstanding first title.

I'm also waiting for someone to do a tank sim with dug fight positions and infantry strong points

Cap'n,

This is a post by the SB tech director, Ssnake, from the SB.com forum. (He's pretty tight-lipped and generally refuses to comment or speculate about new features or release dates.):

* We'll offer TCability for the M113 and Hummvee including cal .50.

* There'll be visible and buried mine obstacles.

* You'll get mine plow or mine roller tanks to breach a lane through an obstacle.

* We'll have dedicated desert maps which will automatically load desert camo patterns for all vehicles.

Well, I don't know if this is really that overwhelming for you to know (probably not), but I think that the mobility/countermobility features will open a new dimension for scenarios and multiplayer games. Obstacle breaching should spice things up a bit.
Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention the playable Bradley . Might make for some other interesting scenarios. Guiding the TOW is easy, but really painful for an old tanker like me, expecting instant gratification after pulling the trigger. There are still some quirks to be handeled, but yeah, it's safe to predict that one.

Fans of ATF should be able to appreciate the mineplow tanks.


As far as the M1A2 and prepared fighting positions, no announcement yet, but plenty of ppl have been asking for them.

 

[Pat Proctor]

I actually own a copy of the first Steel Beasts. The lack of mobility/countermobility and survivability positions was really the biggest detractor from an otherwise great game. That and the lack of current military equipment. The M1A1 is circa 1990. It really made the game seem dated. By far the best tank sim ever made, though.

 

[Spleen]

The big problem with armor sims is the lack of thought for infantry.. While SB 1 has infantry, it seems more a decoration than a funtioning unit. Also, why can't anyone build terrain that makes infantry as lethal as it really is?

99.9% of all sims has infantry trying to take cover on a field of green concrete.

The exception would be Americas Army which is a great game. The engine could be used to make an incredible battle sim.. (I believe it's the Unreal 2 engine... )

The Unreal Warfare engine will in my mind enable someone to make the perfect Battle simulator.. It is awsome.

 

[Pat Proctor]

The technology is not there yet to make both a great infantry sim (ala America's Army) and a great tank sim, in the same package. This, honestly, is the reason I have not thrown the ProSIM hat in the ring in the genre.

The problem is scale. The infantry sim needs detailed replication of buildings, walls, trees, buildings, and cars. The tank sim needs LOTS of space. A tank company will commonly operate in 60 square kilometers or more. In complex terrain, 2 square kilometers could eat up a whole infantry battalion.

Unreal Maps are never more than 1 km in space. I would venture to guess that they are much less.

Combat Missions gets off easy. In WWII battle spaces were much smaller. Tanks were slower and effective weapons ranges are shorter. But the AT-5 and TOW now routinely reach out and touch armor at over 3.5 km.

When computers are in the 20 gHz range and routinely include 10 gB of RAM, we may be able to start work on a sim that does both well.

 

[Spleen]

One solution I have thought about is to use seperate clients.

The infantry client is somthing along the lines of Americas Army.. The range is shorter and therefore the geometry can be greater. (ie foxholes etc) while the Armor client disregards all the little dips and valleys and only really takes into account trenches, cliffs, etc.

The assumption always has been that the infantry and armor have to use the same client.

Both Armor and infantry use the same server which manages the battlespace and interprets the results.

For example. Your commanding a Javalin platoon and you are setting up an ambush. An approaching scout platoon threatens your location and you order your men to difilade/hide. The AI directs the men in your platoon to enter hiding positions which are clearly obvious to you. IN other words, when you look at your men, they are actually in holes, depressions, etc. The server equates this much like ATF does abstract. It then passes the information to the tank client. The tank client does not model the ravines, holes and depressions because the range is greater and it simply cannot reproduce the geometry without huge computing power (20Ghz processor and 10G ram) SO if you switch to the tank POV (point of view) and look out the hatch, you see a flat polygon with a texture that represents "rough" ground.. A calculation is made and the tank crew either sees the men or it does not. If the men are seen then they are seen, if they are not seen, then they are not seen.

Just because you have 2 (or more clients) and a server doesnt mean it has to run on a network (but it can) it simply means you have 3 different ways the game is "rendered" It only really renders 1 version at a time (your POV) and the rest is abstract.

Using this paradigm you could easily run a Battle sim that would allow you to hop in a Bradley.. Race across the desert, stop engage, dismount your troops and easily switch to the Platoon leaders POV who then sees the world in a totally different way.. Since the visability is less, and range of the weapon isnt as great its all possible.

But wait! you say, what about the Range of man portable AT missiles?

Simple, when using the sights on these things, its a totally different client.. Probably the same client used in the tanks.


It all works on the same premise used in online gaming. For that reason, it could all be easily used with online gaming OR solo play with AI.

Years ago I asked a programmer at Steve Jackson Games how feasible it would be to play a new game that was just out called "Castle Wolfenstien 3d" (heh) over the internet. THe guy was an incredible programmer. His reply was. "impossibly" Given the limited bandwidth of the internet, it would be impossible to send all those graphics across the pipe."

Wow. It wasnt untill 2 years latter someone started thinking about Clients and servers and Internet Head to Head DOOM was born.

For some reason people still think that the clients connecting to the server have to be identical. Nowhere is that "required" furthermore, the clients can all run on the same machine, the only difference really is the Level of detail on each client.

wow.. sorry to get so off topic, I just started rambling.