Sandbox vs Open Play

[Zeke]

Well done Rob Son of Paul for raising this - I must admit it was confusing me why troops were missing in the sandbox mode in Army mode - I'll also admit I didnt read the manual - typical bloke jump straight in and ignore the instructions!!!

But If Norb has said he will fix it in a patch - he definately will, isnt it great when games developers listen to their users!

I also understand why Norb and co have initally limited OOB sizes though, if people with lower end machines bought the game and then loaded up oobs in full army mode and it crashed - some people would automatically blame the game and not their computer.

Im off to read the manual!

[Jim]

I have a test scenario with the full OOB for both armies at June 30 strength. On the Kansas map it runs about 7 FPS with all troops standing still. If you start a significant amount of combat, it looks like 160K people playing freeze tag. This is on my alienware quadcore system, so its not an issue of computer power. It's just more sprites than the game can deal with properly.

As soon as we get the SDK out, you can set up scenarios with the full OOB if you want to try it for yourselves.

-Jim

[Rob Son of Paul]

Jim wrote:

I have a test scenario with the full OOB for both armies at June 30 strength. On the Kansas map it runs about 7 FPS with all troops standing still. If you start a significant amount of combat, it looks like 160K people playing freeze tag. This is on my alienware quadcore system, so its not an issue of computer power. It's just more sprites than the game can deal with properly.

As soon as we get the SDK out, you can set up scenarios with the full OOB if you want to try it for yourselves.

-Jim

Thanks.

Lets not forget a full OOB can be a 15k vs 15k, 20k vs 15k (ect) not just the 60k vs 70k (or whatever it is) day 3.

[Rob Son of Paul]

This might a good time to ask about making the sprite that equals 4 men to be selectable. Where you have options for a sprite to equal 4, 6, 8, or 10 men in the options.

[Jim]

Rob Son of Paul wrote:

This might a good time to ask about making the sprite that equals 4 men to be selectable. Where you have options for a sprite to equal 4, 6, 8, or 10 men in the options.

It is supposed to be adjustable in a full MOD, but it has not been tested yet. It will be documented in the MOD guide which will be part of the SDK package.

However to have things look right, you also have to rescale all of the terrain sprites, building etc as well as change the spacing on all of the formations. Other that that, it is easy. :blink:

-Jim

[Zeke]

Jim wrote:

Rob Son of Paul wrote:

This might a good time to ask about making the sprite that equals 4 men to be selectable. Where you have options for a sprite to equal 4, 6, 8, or 10 men in the options.

It is supposed to be adjustable in a full MOD, but it has not been tested yet. It will be documented in the MOD guide which will be part of the SDK package.

However to have things look right, you also have to rescale all of the terrain sprites, building etc as well as change the spacing on all of the formations. Other that that, it is easy. :blink:

-Jim

Maybe easy for you to say your a pro!!!!!

[Tacloban]

norb,
I would certainly appreciate the ability to play a custom OOB just the way it is written, following formatting protocols of course, in Sandbox (I think I will habitually continue to call it Open Play). I often like to play as the numerical underdog, or at least to use OOBs as historical as can be.
Thanks,

a repeat customer

[Jim]

If you use the custom difficulty settings you can adjust the enemy strength to be as much as double the strength set in the OOB.

-Jim

[Rob Son of Paul]

Jim wrote:

If you use the custom difficulty settings you can adjust the enemy strength to be as much as double the strength set in the OOB.

-Jim

Aaaahhhhh.. Hmmmmm.

*scratches head....

Would that make more units or increase the size of units for that side?

[Garnier]

It just multiplies the number of men in each regiment. For instance if you set it to 120%, a 300 man regiment would become 360 men. 80% would make the regiment 240 men.