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Percival

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Everything posted by Percival

  1. ...and now I do have both of them and certainly not regretting it so far. Also there's CMSF2 just over the horizon.....fortunately I've got all the CMSF1 modules so not painful financially. Now all I need is the time to play it all.
  2. Thanks guys, that's helpful. I'm not a beginner, have been around since CMSF 1.0, but I'm well out of practice! I found the answer on map sizes in the manual for the CMBS demo, it's a max of 8km x 8km, which isn't at all bad. I see that's double what it used to be (bravo Battlefront). I think I may have to get both because I just can't decide. I tell myself this is a small company that deserves support: and as an old friend of mine used to say "there are no pockets in a shroud".
  3. Trying to decide between CMBS or CMFB, unfortunately I can't afford both at once, but wish I could because they both look great. One factor that may influence me is map sizes in CMBS so I was hoping someone could give me a broad idea of how big the maps are. I'm not so keen on the "knife fight in telephone box" type scenario on a small map. Is there much scope for manoeuvre on the bigger maps? Are there any maps on which heavy weapons are at maximum or out of range? Demo maps seem quite small. Any advice will be much appreciated.
  4. Isn't the reality that artillery was dominant on the battlefield in WWII, causing more casualties than any other weapon? Accuracy may have been poor compared with today, but veterans of the Ostfront were horrified when they experienced how deadly Allied artillery was compared with Soviet I see the strength of the arguments about gameplay, but if you dilute the impact of artillery are you not arguably reducing realism? In the Normandy campaign and Italy airpower was also so important for Allied success but in CM its role seems peripheral. OK I admit I'm playing devil's advocate! Having read everyone's posts again I find myself agreeing that the impact of changing the way it works now could be bad for realism overall. It's too easy to make a change which improves in one place but wrecks the game somewhere else. Perhaps spotters could be given a little more latitude with LOS though. Also CM models relatively small engagements where forces are already close together so it may be reasonable to assume that the Allies would not call on the full force of air and artillery strikes for fear of hitting their own men.
  5. Just to clarify, I was suggesting that in RL spotters could call in fire on map positions, not that it would necessarily land where it was intended to! Also I was not looking at this problem from the perspective of an omnipotent player but the spotter. So in my example my spotter has four mortars in contact, He knows that the enemy are in a particular field behind a hedge (because they are firing from there) in an area he cannot see, but he cannot call down fire on that location except for a narrow strip behind the hedge. You can't use a large enough area fire circle because you need LOS to fix it in place. Interesting piece here Artillery Practices by the Major Combatants of WWII
  6. Thanks for the replies. I suppose my question is what we have realistic? If you see each CM scenario as a portion of a larger battle what actions in Normandy in 1944 could spotters perform? I don't know the answer to that myself, but I assume they had detailed maps and could call in fire on virtually any point in range, including suspected enemy positions they couldn't see. I'm inclined to think the way it works now is too limited to be 100% realistic. Both artillery and air power seem weak and run out of ordnance quickly. If you based your knowledge of the Normandy campaign on the engagements in the game you would might think that all battles were bloody slogs against prepared axis positions involving heavy casualties, more like 1914-18 (at least that's what seems to happen to me!). I might try building a scenario with lots of airpower and artillery to see what effect that has. Having said that I appreciate that the designers had to take lots of factors into account e.g. playability and balance in multiplayer games.
  7. I'm just getting back to this game after a long break. It's always impressed me with its realism but there is one question that I have wanted to ask for ages but never got round to its so here goes. Imagine this: you are in the bocage and facing a large hedge. You have had to take cover because there is heavy MG and rifle fire coming from that location so you know the enemy are there. You have two mortar batteries in contact but you can't call down fire because you have no line of sight. My query is why not? You can call down fire on your own position easily enough (like the beleagured US troops in the Battle of the Bulge) but why therefore can't you adjust fire so it falls beyond the hedge? I'm assuming here the officer calling fire has a map and knows where he is! What am I missing here?
  8. Thanks for this. I'll give it a try. I've now learned how to use the unpacking and packing tools and they seem pretty straightforward to use. Not sure whether to add any music...you can get sick even of the stuff you really like if you hear it enough. The music that comes with the game is good, I've just heard it too many times. I might try setting up a series of files and swap them in and out from time to time. Interesting to read what music files you like-it started me wondering what other people have gone for as background music, if any.
  9. Sorry to respond so long after you first posted, but I just discovered your mod and I wanted to say thanks, it's great. Now when you hear gunfire there is no danger of confusing it with the background sound-it always means something in the scenario you're playing. I don't suppose you are interested in doing a silent file for the background music as well?
  10. Yes, thanks Steve, that is good news-looking forward to it (and hopefully building a few tank battles).
  11. That's a nice system Mishga! I think your specs say it all-the "suggested" system requirements for this sim appear to have been on the optimistic side, unless all you want is skirmishes on small maps. What it must be like playing at the minimum spec I can't imagine. Hopefully Battlefront will be able to do something to help in future patches.
  12. You can I think have a realistic scenario on a small map provided you design it as the closing stage to something bigger that has already happened. Since that is about is clear as mud I had better give an example. I really enjoyed the Al Fubar scenario which assumes that some of the units had been ambushed and had to hold out until they were rescued. In fact any scenario which assumes that concealment/stealth has brought the fighting down to close range could work. But for a realistic scenario involving tanks and ATGMs in which manoeuvre plays a part and weapons are engaged at their maximum effective ranges you would need a map of 16-25 km, many times bigger than the Factory Outlet battle. It would be great if Battlefront could fix this, by giving us less demanding large maps, but maybe that isn't possible.
  13. I've had a similar experience with one large map (the Factory Outlet battle) and my theory is that the size of the maps has a direct bearing on this problem. The only 2 maps for the stand alone scenarios that exceed 2 sq km are the Factory Outlet (2.89 sq km) and the Allah's Fist scenario maps (2.39 sq km). My system can manage the second one but I'm down to 7 fps when I look down the 'long side' of the Factory Outlet map, however much I downshift my graphics settings. All the others I've played (and I've still got a couple to go) have run very well. Apart from the two mentioned above, the other maps are below 1 sq km (most well below) and some are tiny (e.g. Al Huqf 0.07 sq km). I've found I can put large numbers of units on a small map but large maps kill your fps even with small numbers of units. What this amounts to is inability (at least on my system) to play scenarios at realistic opening ranges for modern weapons. If the scenario is the land warfare equivalent of a "knife fight in a telephone box" it works fine. This doesn't change my high opinion of this game; if you accept the limitations you will have a great time playing it. My system P4 3.2 ghz Geforce 6800 GT 256 Mb 1024 DDR Ram
  14. Thanks for your replies. The Factory Outlet map is a huge 3008mx960m, compared with for example 224mx352m for the House Cleaning battle and 736mx1024m for the Jisrash Shugur scenario. Although my system isn't cutting edge, it meets the suggested requirements so I have my doubts about scenarios this demanding as part of the basic release. Of course if people want to build scenarios that cripple anything but very high end hardware that's fine, as long as they include a "health warning" about low fps. It's a pity that larger maps aren't viable on my PC (if that is the case) because it rules out tank battles at realistic ranges. It's just as well that the small street fighting scenarios are the ones I like best! Perhaps someone on the Battlefront team could comment. I'm not sure who built this scenario but I'd be interested to know what hardware it was intended for and tested on and how it performed. I've tried everything I can think of to get it to run faster, but I'm stuck at 7-8 fps whatever I do. Not sure whether more RAM would help, but for me that's going a bit far when all the other scenarios so far have run smoothly. I'd be grateful for any further thoughts others may have.
  15. To answer my own question, no it's not the minefields, so it could be the size of the map. Has anyone else been able to play this scenario at a decent frame rate? It's completely unplayable for me at 7-8 fps. If I turn the map so I am looking across it I get over 50 fps but that's an awkward viewpoint to fight a battle from! Not sure what the point of very hardware-intensive scenarios like this is as most people won't be able to play them, but maybe it's something in my setup. Any thoughts?
  16. Hello everyone, I'm new to CM games and so far I've been very impressed with CMSF. It's extremely addictive! No real performance issues at all apart from some CTDs early on caused by out of date video drivers (now upgraded). I usually run the game (V 1.01) at 1600x1200, elite level, with turn-based play. My options include improved 3d models, vsync and AA on and I have been averaging about 25-35 fps. However, the Factory Outlet battle (playing Blue) brings my system to its knees; 7 fps when looking towards the factory. Reducing my graphics settings drastically brings it up to 8, still unplayable. The odd thing is looking towards my units in their deployment area I get 55 fps! Looking at the balance of units in the scenario editor they don't look excessive compared with some of the other scenarios, so I'm wondering whether the minefields are having this effect. I was going to test this out by building a small scenario and see what effect adding mines has to my fps, but I would be interested to know what others think about this. My system specs are as follows P4 3.2 Ghz Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT 256 Mb 1024 Mb DDR RAM Windows XP SP2
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