33lima
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« on: March 01, 2015, 09:32:33 AM » |
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My Gamersgate copy of SABOW sat on a shelf for a long while but now I'm starting to play it, ahead of the re-release. So I have a question - well lots of questions actually but this is one I am having trouble finding an answer to, at this point.
When the battle loads up and I'm in my tank, in simulation mode, that tank is the platoon commander's vehicle. I expect to be able to give my platoon orders over the radio, from my vehicle - at least, covering formation, movement and fire control.
So far, the only way I have found to do this is by Ctrl+left click on icons in the bar along the bottom of the screen.
But I prefer to turn this off - I dislike 'Head Up Displays' and on-screen aids like target markers in tanksims, especially in the external view. I understand the reason they are there and there are times you do need them - mainly when 'buttoned up'. In the external view I turn them off.
Even with the icon bar already displayed on screen, Clicking on nested icons is slow. Much as it is in 'Steel Fury', except that you mostly have to go to the tactical map to give orders to your platoon. No 'hotkeys', like many other tanksims - Panzer Commander, Panzer Elite, steel Beasts for example, which all had 'hotkeys' for many basic platoon commands.
So I looked at the manual and 'Hooray'/'Urrah!', there are lots of hotkeys for commands, including a whole series of Ctrl+ commands for basic fire control and another series for formations.
But I can't get them to work.
Are these hotkeys not usable in the simulation/3d mode? Is there something else I need to do for them to work, like turn on the radio, designate the unit the orders are for, or what? Or are they used only in map mode? Which would be sad - a decent set of hotkeys, but not usable where they are really most useful - in simulation mode! I mean, if you're a tank platoon leader, you don't look down at your map, and away from what's going on around you even for a second or two, to order your platoon to change from wedge into echelon right as you pass that possible enemy position on your right, do you? You hit the pressel/PTT switch and give the order on the radio, watching your arc and noting your platoon comply out of the corner of your eyes.
If platoon command hotkeys don't work in simulation mode in SABOW now, I hope they will, in the relaunched version.
I know I said 'one question' but here's another. Does SABOW support target indications from other vehicles on your radio net, and if so how? In Panzer Elite for example you get an audio message with target bearing and range, plus a text display which also has the target type, if the AI can recognise it. And the target is marked on the tactical map. What happens in SABOW? I haven't heard any radio traffic like that so far. Are spotted targets just marked up on the tactical map?
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« Last Edit: March 01, 2015, 09:34:18 AM by 33lima »
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For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" But it's "Saviour of his country!" when the guns begin to shoot! 'Tommy', Rudyard Kipling, 1892
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