Attention wodin....

[GBS]

Wodin, You seem to understand some of the new features in the march alpha patch so I left a post on the Graviteam site requesting explanations hoping you or someone else would respond. (Andrey is the brains, I know, but I have trouble understand his English sometimes.) With no reply I thought I would try to catch you here.

Can you explain the new icons that appear above the unit icons such as the blue one and the yellow one and the three small white dots. Also an antenna looking icon appears above vehicles. These fade in and out indicating something is going on,I'm sure, but what? Can you explain "wires", how they are used and what role they play. I looks like Graviteam is trying to put communication into play which is good but I just want to understand what is happening.

I think I know what the blue bar at the top is doing but I don't know how I use it and what good it is to me.

Anything you can offer would be great. Thanks.

[wodin]

GBS..I will try and help you abit later..bit busy at the minute..I will say for now though..I have only a basic understanding..it's mainly all about how the men are communicating between each other..nothing really you actually need to worry about well except the odd thing which I struggle to get myself...I will explain more later. I have similar problems understanding Andrey myself at times.

[wodin]

GBS..

Ok The IG firing question..What I saw happening was my Leader (HQ unit) spotted the enemy, I then saw the voice icons come up above the heads of the units in the platoon as the info was passed around the unit (this means they are talking to each other), once it got to my IG gun it turned abit and an eye sign came up which meant he had received the info and spotted the target..he then proceeded to engage and he did it well..I had all my men quite close so hey could speak to each other. Now if they where further away and the scenario has them (some don't I've found at the minute) the leader will automatically send wire men to the furthest units so they can communicate info..say my gun was to far to speak to then wire men would have alreayd been sent out to lay a wire (automatically) then if the leader spots something he can contact the gun quickly over distance due to the wire the gun can then spot and engage if the target was in LOS.

It's all automated..those signs are just telling you info is being communicated between the units (Yellow voice icons mean the info is being passed from unit to unit in a platoon, cyan\light blue is when the discussion is between the individual soldiers in a unit). When you see a yellow spot above an enemy it means that a unit (one of yours) is in the process of discussing it's position when blue the firing unit knows where it is and will engage. White dots mean orders are being carried out sent(I believe).

I played a scenario with few units and Luckily I had put the IG gun with good LOS and the HQ in an area it could spot as well without being to far away from it's other units..thats when I saw this taking place and I could see what was happening..all out of my control..but it was showing me how the platoon was communicating..it would all light up when a unit spots a unit (yellow dot), then all the icons start coming up..I watched this then saw the voice above the IG gun go yellow to light blue it turned then the eye icon appeared the enemy unit dot went from yellow to blue and it engaged..over a period of 10 mins that unit slowly spotted Russians in trenches and the IG gun went into action and took them out and I never gave one order. it would spot the enemy..engage the IG gun..then when the contact went it stopped..quite..then another would be spotted and off it all went again. was good to watch. Once they never spotted any for awhile I started moving my troops up, still took alot of casualties but that IG gun had taken out two or three lots of trenches and cleared the center field and probably saved me from defeat. the battle though became tough as my three platoons then moved up to engage in close quarter action..I won and one unit got the Knights cross..but it was a tough little fight. The best part though was getting to see what was happening as everything else was quite at the start except this one platoon spotting and engaging enemy and I could watch it in peace and see how it was all working. Like with alot of this game it seems it's far more complex and require syou to do something when you actually don't it's purely info it's giving you of how a platoon communicates.

I'm not sure what a yellow down arrow means..but so far I get it when a unit is taking casualties. As for the blue bar and command points..well to be honest I'm still unsrue..It doesn't appear to have any impact yet.

The bit that will impact gameplay will be the blue bar and command points..but it doesn't yet as far as I can see. Orders cost command and the blue bar drops if you give more orders than a unit can process..I think...but I haven't experienced anything negative or anything that effects gameplay at the moment..so I'm ignoring it really.

Oh and the fact that if you don't have wire communication or the mortars don't have LOS you can't use them and the wire link must go from the mortar HQ back to the mortars as it calls in the rounds. Again the wiremen will just automatically go out and lay the wire..but at the moment they don't have wire men for it and you can't manually give indirect fire orders to the individual mortars anymore. Again the HQ unit you can so whether that works you give the HQ the indirect fire order and then the mortars carry it out I don't know..I do think now though the HQ or Mortars must have LOS to the area you target..