Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich
Tom Brown
Bloodstar
> http://www.matrixgames.com/news/599/Gary.Grigsby's.Eagle.Day.to.Bombing.of.the.Reich.Is.Now.Available!
That's really a news :(((
Wake me up when they release War in The East...
:)
Mike Kreuzer
news:h9dvk7$1jj$1...@sunce.iskon.hr...
Woot!
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
Mike Kreuzer
news:4aba9a06$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> "Bloodstar" <george.w...@microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:h9dvk7$1jj$1...@sunce.iskon.hr...
>>>
>>> http://www.matrixgames.com/news/599/Gary.Grigsby's.Eagle.Day.to.Bombing.of.the.Reich.Is.Now.Available!
>>
>>
>> That's really a news :(((
>>
>> Wake me up when they release War in The East...
>>
>> :)
>>
>
> Woot!
I like it, but it has teething problems aplenty. Two turns of testing show
(in no particular order):
- A long long wait on the spinning thinking cursor symbol;
-The plane symbols are all borked. P47s show up as what look like He111s;
B17s look like p47s ... c'mon ...
- 'Show night' comes on by default & it seems to slow scrolling to a crawl.
Turn it off and scrolling becomes unmanageably fast ...
- the numbers of bombers & their departure time run together when you have
more than three digits of bombers (quite often at night I assume);
- clicking on the third out waypoint resets the previous ones to make the
path a straight line, huh?
- Casualty numbers might need some looking into. The 43 campaign starts on
the same days as Schweinfurt/Regensburg ... and I lost more B17s to flak (80
something) on a uboat pen on the French coast than were lost historically to
flak & fighters in the middle of Germany historically (60 something). It
might have been bad luck or bad play on my part, will have to see.
- The game sometimes shows up in the taskbar & sometimes doesn't.
Stealthy;
- The map pic looks awful at all but the furthest out zoom. It looks like
someone took a pic of the old map with a phone cam, then turned it into a
gif and spat on it for good measure. (I can live with it, but really, target
circles & towns don't even line up ...)
-Where'd the plane sounds go?
- Why isn't there a select all button on the squadrons; why do I have to
click every damn Brit squadron every other night?
Probably other things. On to turn three! All of this is a bit surprising
for a game that was in development for so long and is version eighty
something of the game ...
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
Mike Kreuzer
"Mike Kreuzer" <mi...@FIRSTNAMEkreuzer.com> wrote in message
> -Where'd the plane sounds go?
This one solved - the buttons on the right of the screen trump the option
defaults, whoops.
I'm thinking the random aircraft images are the worst problem. Seeing a
stream of British Me109s heading for the Ruhr at night is a little
disconcerting.
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
Erik
> I'm thinking the random aircraft images are the worst problem. Seeing a
> stream of British Me109s heading for the Ruhr at night is a little
> disconcerting.
I've only seen that in some instances when starting multiple scenarios
without restarting the game. If you fire up the game fresh and then
start a scenario, I've never seen this graphics glitch. Also, due to
the age of the underlying engine, even with the updates to make it
work well with modern OSes, alt-tabbing is not recommended. I've
forwarded your comments to the developers.
Erik
The developer responded by e-mail to me on your reports, but asked
that you please post some additional info in our tech support forum so
they can follow up. Replies below:
"- A long long wait on the spinning thinking cursor symbol;"
We found a cure for this, but it works when you save the game,
planning to add it at start.
"-The plane symbols are all borked. P47s show up as what look like
He111s;
B17s look like p47s ... c'mon ..."
That one I need more detail on, either bad data loading, which the
read me tells about, or it is something from the replay, and I've not
seen it do that in ages (NO He 111's in BTR, if he is seeing those, he
had BoB data running in BTR, that is computer/windows issue, some
computers don't clean up the buffers as well as others)
"- 'Show night' comes on by default & it seems to slow scrolling
to a crawl.
Turn it off and scrolling becomes unmanageably fast ..."
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't here. We'll look to see what we
can do about this, could be system/performance specific.
"- the numbers of bombers & their departure time run together when
you have
more than three digits of bombers (quite often at night I
assume);"
If your running more then 3 digits of bombers in a mission, shame on
you, but, there is some overlapping info on some screens, we spent
alot of time trying to hunt them all down. More info here would help.
"- clicking on the third out waypoint resets the previous ones to
make the
path a straight line, huh?"
clicking the buttons in the wrong order, that is player fault, not
game, but... more info would help.
"- Casualty numbers might need some looking into. The 43 campaign
starts on
the same days as Schweinfurt/Regensburg ... and I lost more B17s
to flak (80
something) on a uboat pen on the French coast than were lost
historically to
flak & fighters in the middle of Germany historically (60
something). It
might have been bad luck or bad play on my part, will have to
see."
Game is going to be bloody, even worse if you screw up, he not saying
where, but would guess south west coast, at the wrong alt, and paid
the price for it, those were bad targets in Real Life, that is where
the Glide bombs of today, got there start from (they didn't work too
well back then). More info would help.
"- The game sometimes shows up in the taskbar & sometimes
doesn't."
Don't know anything about this, either it is running or it is not.
More info would help.
"Stealthy;
- The map pic looks awful at all but the furthest out zoom. It
looks like
someone took a pic of the old map with a phone cam, then turned it
into a
gif and spat on it for good measure. (I can live with it, but
really, target
circles & towns don't even line up ...)"
to be honest, sounds like something is wrong with his computer, but
that last one is interesting, towns and target circles don't line up ?
the Target Circle is based on the center of the town (City ?), they
have to line up, they are not different
"-Where'd the plane sounds go?"
does he have them turned on ? most of the sounds are guns and what
not, the game does not have the little vids any more, and that may be
the sound he is asking about
"- Why isn't there a select all button on the squadrons; why do I
have to
click every damn Brit squadron every other night? "
One, nobody from the old game players, to the new testers wanted or
asked for one, Two you shouldn't be clicking and sending every
squadron on a mission. More info regarding his play style would help
understand why he feels the need to do this.
Regards,
- Erik
Giftzwerg
@o13g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>, er...@matrixgames.com says...
> Also, due to
> the age of the underlying engine, even with the updates to make it
> work well with modern OSes, alt-tabbing is not recommended. I've
> forwarded your comments to the developers.
Not to pick on any particular game, but I'm starting to be amazed that
so many games FAIL so painfully on something that every other
application on my PC has done right since, oh, 1998 or so.
When I can swap in and out such a monster application as LIGHTROOM 2.5
with blissful impunity, it irks the shit outta me when a game bombs when
I alt-tab to do something like *reading that very game's .pdf manual*!
Just my .02 dollars here.
--
Giftzwerg
***
"If only there were some ... natural mechanism by which to explain
variations in global temperature. It would have to be massive, though.
On the scale of our own Sun."
- Ace of Spades
Mike Kreuzer
news:db8df7f0-1c08-4556...@s6g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
> Mike,
>
> The developer responded by e-mail to me on your reports, but asked
> that you please post some additional info in our tech support forum so
> they can follow up. Replies below:
>
Thanks for going to the trouble (yet again). What's the additional info
though?
> "- A long long wait on the spinning thinking cursor symbol;"
>
> We found a cure for this, but it works when you save the game,
> planning to add it at start.
>
OK, if I save & reload the wait cursors goes away.
> "-The plane symbols are all borked. P47s show up as what look like
> He111s;
> B17s look like p47s ... c'mon ..."
>
> That one I need more detail on, either bad data loading, which the
> read me tells about, or it is something from the replay, and I've not
> seen it do that in ages (NO He 111's in BTR, if he is seeing those, he
> had BoB data running in BTR, that is computer/windows issue, some
> computers don't clean up the buffers as well as others)
>
Restarting the computer makes it go away, that seems necessary when
moving between BTR and BOB. So there's a problem with BoB leaking memory, or
with BTR's logic for initialising pointers, or both. A small amount of RAM
might also be a workaround, but that's not ideal either.
> "- 'Show night' comes on by default & it seems to slow scrolling
> to a crawl.
> Turn it off and scrolling becomes unmanageably fast ..."
>
> Damned if you do, Damned if you don't here. We'll look to see what we
> can do about this, could be system/performance specific.
>
Scroll speed seems to be regulated by how much there is to draw, the closer
the zoom (and therefore the less stuff on screen) the faster the scroll.
Zoom all the way in and even a slight tap on an arrow key sends me scuttling
more than halfway across Europe. Zoom all the way out & have the default
options lighting on and I could wait all day to scroll a few miles.
> "- the numbers of bombers & their departure time run together when
> you have
> more than three digits of bombers (quite often at night I
> assume);"
>
> If your running more then 3 digits of bombers in a mission, shame on
> you, but, there is some overlapping info on some screens, we spent
> alot of time trying to hunt them all down. More info here would help.
>
Well thousand bomber raids are there to be had, not all the time sure, but
they're hardly something I just made up. I'll make a note of where it was
when I see it again.
> "- clicking on the third out waypoint resets the previous ones to
> make the
> path a straight line, huh?"
>
> clicking the buttons in the wrong order, that is player fault, not
> game, but... more info would help.
>
Hm ... waypoints needs to be set in order huh. OK, no comment. Right
clicking & dragging the points works fine though.
Add as another bug here the green fighter covered part of the route not
refreshing when I change the fighters allocated.
> "- Casualty numbers might need some looking into. The 43 campaign
> starts on
> the same days as Schweinfurt/Regensburg ... and I lost more B17s
> to flak (80
> something) on a uboat pen on the French coast than were lost
> historically to
> flak & fighters in the middle of Germany historically (60
> something). It
> might have been bad luck or bad play on my part, will have to
> see."
>
> Game is going to be bloody, even worse if you screw up, he not saying
> where, but would guess south west coast, at the wrong alt, and paid
> the price for it, those were bad targets in Real Life, that is where
> the Glide bombs of today, got there start from (they didn't work too
> well back then). More info would help.
>
I've seen half a dozen turns now & I've seen consistently reasonable night
casualties (5% or less) but some wildly unrealistic day casualties,
interleaved with perfectly reasonable day figures. The culprit might be
damaged planes crashing on return/on landing. Will follow this theory up but
the last raid I played had 10 planes downed to FLAK, 3 to fighters and 23
exploding on landing. It may always be that sort of mix, so that may be
where the problem is.
I've had a quick flick through the Mighty 8th War Diary & I'm not seeing
anything like the losses I'm seeing on any uboat pens ... (and I know
they're not getting me VPs, I only picked them as a convenient test first
up.)
> "- The game sometimes shows up in the taskbar & sometimes
> doesn't."
>
> Don't know anything about this, either it is running or it is not.
> More info would help.
>
Nope, it's running, and I can alt tab into it (even though I know I probably
shouldn't) but it just no longer shows up in the taskbar. Something's
probably writing over whatever memory's used for that with something else.
Maybe my P47 pics.
> "Stealthy;
> - The map pic looks awful at all but the furthest out zoom. It
> looks like
> someone took a pic of the old map with a phone cam, then turned it
> into a
> gif and spat on it for good measure. (I can live with it, but
> really, target
> circles & towns don't even line up ...)"
>
> to be honest, sounds like something is wrong with his computer, but
> that last one is interesting, towns and target circles don't line up ?
> the Target Circle is based on the center of the town (City ?), they
> have to line up, they are not different
>
I'll get a screenshot when I see it again, the ones I remember were in the
stretch Hamburg - Emden, but I don't remember which towns. I wonder if it's
got to do with the screen res causing rescaling, will investigate when I see
it again.
> "-Where'd the plane sounds go?"
>
> does he have them turned on ? most of the sounds are guns and what
> not, the game does not have the little vids any more, and that may be
> the sound he is asking about
>
As I said this one issue is me. I'd thought the options overrode the
buttons on the right, it's working fine - the problem was between seat and
keyboard.
> "- Why isn't there a select all button on the squadrons; why do I
> have to
> click every damn Brit squadron every other night? "
>
> One, nobody from the old game players, to the new testers wanted or
> asked for one, Two you shouldn't be clicking and sending every
> squadron on a mission. More info regarding his play style would help
> understand why he feels the need to do this.
>
It's not the end of the world, this is partly just my frustration at the
things mentioned above, it would be a nice feature though. I suspect most
of my night raids are going to be 400-600 planes rather than a thousand, and
I'll mostly want to pick & choose, but I'd also like to be able to say
'all of them' once in a while.
> Regards,
>
> - Erik
Thanks again for your help with this, appreciate it. I look forward to the
patches & the pathos, in whatever order.
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
Mike Kreuzer
> "Erik" <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote in message
> news:db8df7f0-1c08-4556...@s6g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
>> Mike,
To continue with my impressions.
Have only had the chance to get in one hour of play over the previous
several days, but it was a good hour. I had an AI Germany sending Me110s
nipping at the stragglers of my bomber stream, and for me an AI doesn't get
better than that. So there are certainly some good bits.
Don't get me wrong, there are the bugs mentioned, but it's more that the
game's a bit ... fragile. Something that's probably not surprising
considering the underlying game's age & the original programmer's propensity
to ignore the ends of arrays. And sure I disagree with some of the numbers,
but so what, it's still a fundamentally good game I think. FWIW.
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
M. Ziegler
I installed my original BTR with the latest patch with the OOB (1.06)
again and played it for a few hours. I think, if one owns the old BTR,
its not worth the 50$ for the new one. For me its the old game with an
update. The new one has 1024 resolution, the old 800x600.
For 25$ I would think again.
Michael
Mike Kreuzer
news:h9qe0c$144$01$1...@news.t-online.com...
Well that's a whole 'nother dimension to this too, good point. On the one
hand, the improvements & changes are nothing like on the scale of a TOAWIII,
or WITP:AE.
On the other hand, for me it was worth paying the money so I could read the
numbers. I only played the original BoB on Vista, and while it ran fine
all the numbers came up as gibberish (even though the other text came up
fine. Weird.) Didn't even try DOSBox, but I'm sure I could have fixed this
with some effort. Spent $50 instead.
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
M. Ziegler
> Well that's a whole 'nother dimension to this too, good point. On the one
> hand, the improvements & changes are nothing like on the scale of a
> TOAWIII,
> or WITP:AE.
>
> On the other hand, for me it was worth paying the money so I could read the
> numbers. I only played the original BoB on Vista, and while it ran fine
> all the numbers came up as gibberish (even though the other text came up
> fine. Weird.) Didn't even try DOSBox, but I'm sure I could have fixed this
> with some effort. Spent $50 instead.
>
> Regards,
> Mike Kreuzer
> www.mikekreuzer.com
There is a trick for the numbers and letters for the old BTR. I run it
in XP.
> Right-click the desktop and choose Personalize.
>
> Click on Window Color and Appearance
>
> Click on Open classic appearance properties for more color options
>
> In the Appearance Settings window, click the Effects� button.
>
> In the Effects window, either uncheck the Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts, or change the drop down menu from ClearType to Standard, and click OK.
Michael
Erik
> On the other hand, for me it was worth paying the money so I could read the
> numbers. I only played the original BoB on Vista, and while it ran fine
> all the numbers came up as gibberish (even though the other text came up
> fine. Weird.) Didn't even try DOSBox, but I'm sure I could have fixed this
> with some effort. Spent $50 instead.
The new version does a lot more than fix such glitches too, for those
that are considering. As with our other updated Talonsoft versions,
the long-standing bugs that remained in the originals are resolved,
BOB is updated to the improved BTR engine (so both games are
effectively rolled into one) as well as improvements to the gameplay
and scenario OOBs.
Graham Thurlwell
<snip>
I haven't played the game that's the subject of the thread, so my
comments below are general observations.
> When I can swap in and out such a monster application as LIGHTROOM 2.5
> with blissful impunity, it irks the shit outta me when a game bombs when
> I alt-tab to do something like *reading that very game's .pdf manual*!
That sort of thing is just about tolerable on a budget game, where
you'd expect a little bit of flakiness and the docs being PDF only,
but for forty-odd pound I personally /expect/ that I won't have to
alt-tab to read the manual because the damned thing is printed on
paper.
I'm still a bit irritated that they never bothered doing a proper
manual for IL2 Sturmovik 1946, but the fact I bought that /and/ Falcon
4 Allied Force (which I really should install and play sometime) for
just twenty five pounds total does soften the blow. ;-)
--
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.
nos...@jades.org is currently broken, please reply on group!
Giftzwerg
nos...@jades.org says...
> > When I can swap in and out such a monster application as LIGHTROOM 2.5
> > with blissful impunity, it irks the shit outta me when a game bombs when
> > I alt-tab to do something like *reading that very game's .pdf manual*!
>
> That sort of thing is just about tolerable on a budget game, where
> you'd expect a little bit of flakiness and the docs being PDF only,
> but for forty-odd pound I personally /expect/ that I won't have to
> alt-tab to read the manual because the damned thing is printed on
> paper.
There was a time when I felt the same way. But I've been rudely
assaulted by The New Reality.
MS-OFFICE ($499) doesn't include a manual. Adobe LIGHTROOM ($299)
doesn't include a manual. Adobe PHOTOSHOP ($699) doesn't include a
manual.
A better question might be, "what program *does* include a printed
manual these days?"
--
Giftzwerg
***
"You would think we'd busted [Roman Polanski] for unpaid parking
tickets. The guy *drugged a thirteen year old girl in order to rape
her*. Perhaps the French have some sophisticated, European point of view
on these things that I, with my puritan ancestry, simply cannot rise
to."
- Meghan McArdle
eddys...@hotmail.com
> In article <d4a50fa350.ja...@d.thurlwell.btopenworld.com>,
> nos...@jades.org says...
>
> > > When I can swap in and out such a monster application as LIGHTROOM 2.5
> > > with blissful impunity, it irks the shit outta me when a game bombs when
> > > I alt-tab to do something like *reading that very game's .pdf manual*!
>
> > That sort of thing is just about tolerable on a budget game, where
> > you'd expect a little bit of flakiness and the docs being PDF only,
> > but for forty-odd pound I personally /expect/ that I won't have to
> > alt-tab to read the manual because the damned thing is printed on
> > paper.
>
> There was a time when I felt the same way. But I've been rudely
> assaulted by The New Reality.
>
> MS-OFFICE ($499) doesn't include a manual. Adobe LIGHTROOM ($299)
> doesn't include a manual. Adobe PHOTOSHOP ($699) doesn't include a
> manual.
>
> A better question might be, "what program *does* include a printed
> manual these days?"
Boardgames ? :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Mike Kreuzer
news:4aba80c1$0$4975$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com...
> It is out now!
>
> http://www.matrixgames.com/news/599/Gary.Grigsby's.Eagle.Day.to.Bombing.of.the.Reich.Is.Now.Available!
>
My badly written in-my-lunch-hour review:
http://wroteontheground.blogspot.com/2009/10/gary-grigsbys-eagle-day-to-bombing.html
or
http://bit.ly/dusxP
One star. "This remake is obviously a labour of love. But just as obviously,
I think the labourer loved the original game just that little bit too much.
Rather more tough love was required here."
The out of eight guy also reviewed it, 5/8:
http://www.outofeight.info/2009/10/gary-grigsbys-eagle-day-to-bombing.html
Haven't seen any others. Back to work (!).
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
Jukka I Seppänen
Is there a patch? :)
Tried to find patch with Google and from Matrixgames but no luck.
Jukka
M. Ziegler
> Is there a patch? :)
>
> Tried to find patch with Google and from Matrixgames but no luck.
>
> Jukka
For the new one, the patch is in the making. For the old BTR, version
1.06 is the last one.
Michael