New HPS Releases

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl
These are tough-times for developers of computer wargames,

Mostly self-inflicted. You'd have to *pay* me to play 3/4ths of what got released this year. Luckily board wargame publishers seem to have gotten the message that playability, good graphics and originality sells games. The only place where seventies SPI-style boardgames are still getting produced is on the computer ...

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Rosseau]

Great, so from what Wodin said, I shouldn't be looking forward to my copy of Tigers Unleashed that's in the mail right now. I trusted Scott Hamilton and I cannot understand how they could ship it out in this condition. It will absolutely kill any further sales of the game once the word hits the street. I guess I'll leave it in the box for a year and see what happens.

[Titanwarrior89]

I am actually enjoying the game.....so far that hasn't been my esperience all....not saying it wasn't for Wodin. But my install went great no c++ errors. I have played alot worst ai's.....(I don't think the ai is the bad). Don't no yet wether its up to the speed of COTA. so I would take it out of the box and see what you think.[;)]

ORIGINAL: rosseau

Great, so from what Wodin said, I shouldn't be looking forward to my copy of Tigers Unleashed that's in the mail right now. I trusted Scott Hamilton and I cannot understand how they could ship it out in this condition. It will absolutely kill any further sales of the game once the word hits the street. I guess I'll leave it in the box for a year and see what happens.

[Rosseau]

Thanks Titan. Gives me some hope there. And HPS does patches very well.

[wodin]

Titan don't get me wrong the concept is superb. I enjoy POA2 so it wasn't the gameplay thats the problem.

However how about 40 direct hits of 20mm HE on an engineer platoon for no damage...and in larger scenarios eventually the sounds get confused and it plays the wrong weapon sounds. Or 3 out of 4 STUKAS shot down by a rifle. Of 20 direct hits on infantry by an MG for no dmamage...how does that happen? The weapon results alone are a massive concern.

I went into the Data Viewer to check that out and looked at the Ammo. Only for a warning message to come up with a huge list of ammo that had no kinetic energy values inputed. Either it's supposed to say that or there is a big problem with unfilled data tables.

The UI hasn't been tailored in anyway for a WW2 game and is really the POA2 UI, I had a flamethrower unit with a damaged ECM and damaged chemical protection. Also two boxes that where greyed out and said not used where ticked aswell. So something isn't right there.

They haven't even bothere to use a shell icon sybol for inflight shells, instead it's an Arty counter, I was wondering why I had a heavy Arty unit right out front only to find it was a shell in flight. The symbols are all messed up. There are two versions in the folders and the game must be getting confused. For planes you have flying armoured cars even though there are icons in the folders for planes (well on one of the symbol sets anyway). If you use Nato some will change others wont. Surely things this obvious must hav ebeen spotted by BETA testers? If they haven't bothered fixing that before release what else have they left?


I played at the highest levels of FoW and difficulty, then used manouvre groups, I bet you if you start doing things with the Officer tabs you will run into errors as thats where they start. Oh and I'm not sure why in the highest FOW setting your able to see in the combat reposrts exactly how much damage your troops are causing.

The concept is amazing but this is a rushed bit of work that doesn't do it justice. Seriously try the Thor scenario as the German 3 difficulty no problem. Or dont use composite unitsand try a larger scenario, I'd be surprised you managed to complete it before a C++ errors especially if you rely on your Officer tabs and use them alot! Another constant error whilst using the Officer tabs after trying to expand them is grid out of range error, which then means everyhting from the Officer tabs dissapears and doesn't come back...end of scenario...when you've just put a few hours into setting up all the SOP's for your units it's the height of frustration. Save and save often is all I can say.

The more I played the more it became obvious. Since Tiller left I expect they are short of money, so they threw some WW2 east front scenarios together and a OOB and TOE into POA2 and put it out for sale as a new game...my god even the sounds are the same ones for POA2, the damage tab is and most of it has no relevance to the period. It explains why the game came out of the Blue like it did. I can't imagine more than six months has been spent on it. They knew many out there wanted a WW2 game using the PoA2 engine so knew it would make abit of money. I also believe they knew it wasn't upto to scratch, maybe thats why they gave me a refund as promptly as they did. POA2 wasn't that stable as it was and doing what they've done to it has broke it even more. PoA 2 is far more stable on my PC. For me anyway I haven't yet played a game thats in such a mess. Maybe I'v ebeen lucky I'm not sure but the game is a car crash. The more I looked the more I saw things not quite right or glaringly wrong. The initial installation poblem and having to install it to C drive was minor compared to how the game started to act up and play out. Seriously if you have problems with it and going the fact the game really is already eight years old I'd ask for a refund. Do what i did, get a refund then hope and pray eventually it gets fixed and buy it back again.

Such a crying shame. More than any other release this year I so wanted this when I heard it was being released. Blimey go over to the POA2 forum at gamesquad and see how many years I#ve been pestering for a WW2 version. I was willing even to forgive some minor bugs and problems at release, but what I saw the conclusions I came to made me totally disheartened and to a point a little conned (though to be fair HPS gave me a refund instantly). If it hadn't taken eight years to get PoA2 more or less stable I'd be confident it will get sorted, but to me it seems Tigers is in a worse state and not putting some effort into the UI to make it fit into WW2 is shocking. If I was Scott I'd be damn embarrassed about asking what will really be $59.99 for POA2 not working well with WW2 scenarios and OOB\TOE. I can only hope they put alot more effort into it, make the UI relevant to the period and go through the game with a tooth comb to squash the bugs and check the ballistics etc etc. More than anythign I want the game it should be.

The good news is though Panther Games have released alittle info on their next title. East front aorund Winterstorm. Hurrah.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: wodin
Such a crying shame. More than any other release this year I so wanted this when I heard it was being released. Blimey go over to the POA2 forum at gamesquad and see how many years I#ve been pestering for a WW2 version. I was willing even to forgive some minor bugs and problems at release, but what I saw the conclusions I came to made me totally disheartened and to a point a little conned (though to be fair HPS gave me a refund instantly). If it hadn't taken eight years to get PoA2 more or less stable I'd be confident it will get sorted, but to me it seems Tigers is in a worse state and not putting some effort into the UI to make it fit into WW2 is shocking. If I was Scott I'd be damn embarrassed about asking what will really be $59.99 for POA2 not working well with WW2 scenarios and OOB\TOE. I can only hope they put alot more effort into it, make the UI relevant to the period and go through the game with a tooth comb to squash the bugs and check the ballistics etc etc. More than anythign I want the game it should be.

This is the kind of concrete info I'd been looking for about this thing over at wargamer forums... with this and what I found out reading the comments on usenet, I'm pretty much convinced this was actually more of a booby trap rather than a wargame. I'm not going to touch this even with a stick.

[Rosseau]

If this is what it's like, I'll be happy to get a credit from NWS, although I have most of the HPS games anyway. 

[wodin]

There is a new patch that has stopped alot of the C++ errors. So it's looking a little brighter.

I reported everything I found. If they get it right it will be a srupeb game. lets keep our fingers crossed.

[Titanwarrior89]

This is a size 7 battle-FOG 3-Difficulty 3- No C++ errors at all. So what do you guys think. I will test and run some size 10 battle later when I have the time.[:)]

[BletchleyGeek]

Checking the attachment made me feel the urge to write an script to make sense out of it

Anyways, these caught my attention:

Firing Unit: Platoon of Vehicle. All Moving. Face: Unk. Loc: Hex: 662 (6, 16)
Fire Grp: 0 Trg No: 0
Wpn: 7.92mm MG 34 Machinegun VEH Ammo: 7.92mm x 57 Ball
Target: D USSR Mot 45mm AT Btty 1941-42 Group (Loc: Hex: 597 (23, 14))
Range: 1707m. 68 % of max (DF).

Burst: 1 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.56%

Burst: 2 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.12%

Burst: 3 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 21.68%

Burst: 4 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.56%

Burst: 5 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 21.9%

Burst: 6 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.34%

Burst: 7 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.34%

Burst: 8 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 21.68%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: 1.7 Damage: 1.00 Supn: 3.0
Result: no damage
Projections: Kill: 1.7 Damage: 1.00 Supn: 3.0
Result: no damage

Burst: 9 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.12%

Burst: 10 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.34%

A MG34 doing a "1.7 kill" (excuse me?) on a dug-in (is that what the D does stand for?) 45mm ATG from over 1 kilometer away?

Firing Unit: 1st USSR Rifle Pln 1942 Group (Loc: Hex: 303 (16, 7))
Fire Grp: 0 Trg No: 0
Wpn: 7.62mm Mosin-Nagant carbine Ammo: 7.62mm x 54R AP/I M40
Target: Platoon of StuG B 7.5cm/24 Kanone (StuG III). All Moving. Face: E. Loc: Hex: 622 (7, 15)
Range: 1104m. 36 % of max (DF).

Round: 1
Accy: 98.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Round: 2
Accy: 96.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Round: 3
Accy: 99.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Round: 4
Accy: 96.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Rifle fire at about 1km away having an effect? (Though it seems small)

Besides that, why would an infantry force uncover their position to an attacking mechanized force by shooting their weapons at an extreme range? It doesn't make sense to me at all [&:]

[Titanwarrior89]

It looks like a MG was firing at long distance would put it at cyclic rate(57 rounds)(M-60 had a max effect at 1100 metes) at a dug in target- who returned fire with one killed and one seriously wounded(within the russia unit). What do you think? Seems feasible to me.

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

Checking the attachment made me feel the urge to write an script to make sense out of it

Anyways, these caught my attention:

Firing Unit: Platoon of Vehicle. All Moving. Face: Unk. Loc: Hex: 662 (6, 16)
Fire Grp: 0 Trg No: 0
Wpn: 7.92mm MG 34 Machinegun VEH Ammo: 7.92mm x 57 Ball
Target: D USSR Mot 45mm AT Btty 1941-42 Group (Loc: Hex: 597 (23, 14))
Range: 1707m. 68 % of max (DF).

Burst: 1 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.56%

Burst: 2 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.12%

Burst: 3 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 21.68%

Burst: 4 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.56%

Burst: 5 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 21.9%

Burst: 6 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.34%

Burst: 7 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.34%

Burst: 8 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 21.68%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: 1.7 Damage: 1.00 Supn: 3.0
Result: no damage
Projections: Kill: 1.7 Damage: 1.00 Supn: 3.0
Result: no damage

Burst: 9 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.12%

Burst: 10 (2 Rounds)
Accy: 22.34%

A MG34 doing a "1.7 kill" (excuse me?) on a dug-in (is that what the D does stand for?) 45mm ATG from over 1 kilometer away?

Firing Unit: 1st USSR Rifle Pln 1942 Group (Loc: Hex: 303 (16, 7))
Fire Grp: 0 Trg No: 0
Wpn: 7.62mm Mosin-Nagant carbine Ammo: 7.62mm x 54R AP/I M40
Target: Platoon of StuG B 7.5cm/24 Kanone (StuG III). All Moving. Face: E. Loc: Hex: 622 (7, 15)
Range: 1104m. 36 % of max (DF).

Round: 1
Accy: 98.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Round: 2
Accy: 96.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Round: 3
Accy: 99.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Round: 4
Accy: 96.99%
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: - Damage: - Supn: 0.20

Rifle fire at about 1km away having an effect? (Though it seems small)

Besides that, why would an infantry force uncover their position to an attacking mechanized force by shooting their weapons at an extreme range? It doesn't make sense to me at all [&:]

[Titanwarrior89]

Here is one more-size 10 battle-FOG 3- Difficulty 3. No C++ errors-sounds working. What do you think?

[BletchleyGeek]

The M-60 was a quite different thing, in my opinion.

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89
What do you think? Seems feasible to me.

In a firing range, it would be at the extreme envelope of effectiveness. With a tripod and really good eye. While firing at a stationary, relatively big bullseye. Then I'd say just perhaps. But I doubt what kind of effect would have on the target.

In combat conditions, from a moving (?) vehicle, across terrain other than nicely trimmed grass, against a possibly concealed target, I would say it's far-fetched.

Let alone the question of the Russian crew opening up on the half-track from so far away. That's also a bit, ehm, far-fetched.

[BletchleyGeek]

Firing Unit: Unknown Ground Unit (Loc: Hex: 495 (3, 12) est)
Fire Grp: 0 Trg No: 0
Wpn: 15cm Kanone 18 (gun) Ammo: 150mm field gun HE
Target: 1st USSR Rifle Pln 1942-1 Infantry (SAR) (early war) (Loc: Hex: 514 (22, 12))
Range: Unknown.

Round: 1
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: 41 Damage: 37 Supn: 1000
Result: no damage
2nd USSR Rifle Pln 1942 Infantry (SMG) (early war) (Loc: Hex: 514 (22, 12)) suffers a loss

Target: 1st USSR Rifle Pln 1942-1 Infantry (SAR) (early war) (Loc: Hex: 514 (22, 12))
Range: Unknown.

Round: 2
Direct Hit
Projections: Kill: 41 Damage: 37 Supn: 1000
Result: Damaged
1st USSR Rifle Pln 1942-1 Infantry (SAR) (early war) (Loc: Hex: 514 (22, 12))
has formed a detachment.

That sort of sounds ok - I see that Kill: number means perhaps the chances of killing someone? - though a bit too similar result to previous one. I would expect some more variability from such a - presumedly - detailed game.

[Titanwarrior89]

I would have to agree with you on this......except for the MG-60. Both fired ball ammo-7.62 cal-with about the same grain size for the ball round and both were air cooled. Now, how they would compare when firing in a non-moving over watch position with a tripod and a T&E at max effective range(plunging fire) I don't no. I am trying to be fair with this game-but it is what it is wether it be good or bad.[;)]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

The M-60 was a quite different thing, in my opinion.

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89
What do you think? Seems feasible to me.

In a firing range, it would be at the extreme envelope of effectiveness. With a tripod and really good eye. While firing at a stationary, relatively big bullseye. Then I'd say just perhaps. But I doubt what kind of effect would have on the target.

In combat conditions, from a moving (?) vehicle, across terrain other than nicely trimmed grass, against a possibly concealed target, I would say it's far-fetched.

Let alone the question of the Russian crew opening up on the half-track from so far away. That's also a bit, ehm, far-fetched.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

I would have to agree with you on this......except for the MG-60. Both fired ball ammo-7.62 cal-with about the same grain size for the ball round and both were air cooled. Now, how they would compare when firing in a non-moving over watch position with a tripod and a T&E at max effective range(plunging fire) I don't no.

You know much more about the M60 than me, that's obvious About the German MG's all my experience limits to a several firing range sessions with the MG42 iteration used by the Spanish Army back in 1997. Which is a different thing from a MG34. And my memories about it were that it was quite difficult to control, especially on auto. I mean, it was very easy to put a lot of bullets in the air across a section, but boy, they could really go anywhere.

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89
I am trying to be fair with this game-but it is what it is wether it be good or bad.[;)]

I'm cool with it But my opinion is that there's a long long road ahead of patching for this one. If you can get something enjoyable from it, I'm glad you can. My opinion is that it's not living to the expectations it created, and the stories I'm reading about don't tell me anything other than to keep my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans.

[Titanwarrior89]

I wished I had been able to fire a MG42.....nice little debate.... but I would have agree with yours and wodins overall accessment of the game.[:)]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

I would have to agree with you on this......except for the MG-60. Both fired ball ammo-7.62 cal-with about the same grain size for the ball round and both were air cooled. Now, how they would compare when firing in a non-moving over watch position with a tripod and a T&E at max effective range(plunging fire) I don't no.

You know much more about the M60 than me, that's obvious About the German MG's all my experience limits to a several firing range sessions with the MG42 iteration used by the Spanish Army back in 1997. Which is a different thing from a MG34. And my memories about it were that it was quite difficult to control, especially on auto. I mean, it was very easy to put a lot of bullets in the air across a section, but boy, they could really go anywhere.

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89
I am trying to be fair with this game-but it is what it is wether it be good or bad.[;)]

I'm cool with it But my opinion is that there's a long long road ahead of patching for this one. If you can get something enjoyable from it, I'm glad you can. My opinion is that it's not living to the expectations it created, and the stories I'm reading about don't tell me anything other than to keep my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89
I wished I had been able to fire a MG42.....nice little debate.... but I would have agree with yours and wodins overall accessment of the game.[:)]

Yes, it's been a nice little debate And thank you for posting the logs, it has really given me some insight into the game or simulation or whatever. Anyways, thank you

[Rosseau]

Once the game is patched up, it may be unbeatable in its simulation aspects. But for now I think I'll put it aside for a few months and hope. For $40, it's a bargain if they get a few things fixed.

[Perturabo]

There's no way I'm going to buy it unless they'll release a demo that will show that it works on my comp and is possible to be enjoyable.