Paulverisor64

I realize that there are hotkeys which can be activated by key stroke but there are a few icons which I can't locate the correct key or key combination. I would like to find the appropriate keys for all the Instant Commands. HALT/CANCEL/EVADE. I would also like to find the appropriate key combination for the MENU mode. (This pops up the SAVE, CEASEFIRE, QUIT and HOTKEYS options) It is possible that there is no equivalent key(s), but I would like to ask this question just in case there are more key commands than what is listed in the game manual.

From your post above the MX700 does look promissing. The question for me would be whether the extra keys would be intuitively placed or if they are easy to mistake with each other. There are times when a couple extra keys on the mouse would be nice. I like the fact that it has the higher interpolation rate. You were wondering whether the N52TE might be worth looking at. For some people it is perfect for others it is a waste of time. Belkin used to have a forum for the N52TE which they shut down. There were so many complaints that the whole thing in the end just got abandoned. From my recollection there were 2 main complaints, which neither was a big issue for me. Many people who used the thumb pad for actual movement were very disappointed. The WOW crowd really struggled with this. For me I used the Thumb pad (D pad) to change stance UP was jump, DOWN was down etc... this worked perfect. Another issue was that the macros were quite flaky. I found that intelligent key layout achieved better results so I didn't need this. The 2 things that I considered as gain going from the N52 to the N52TE is how smoothly the WASD type movement is, and also how smooth the key feel is. This feels more like a good laptop style keyboard. One more thing that I do not really use, but is helpful for some is how the gamepad will retain the configuration that you determine as being the default. In plugging this in my keypad most likely has what I last used with Operation Flashpoint. If you'd like to know anymore specifics I'd be glad to fill you in. I have not actually put together a Combat Mission style key layout. I believe I will actually start off with the "Grid Key" style arrangement and see how that works. I most likely will use the D pad assigned to the menu headings. I will share my in game findings as I try this out; please feel free to compare notes if you do go the N52 route.

When you play FPS games good input peripherals are a must. I have both the N52 and the N52TE. The N52 is better for executing simple macro commands but the N52TE is much smoother when using WASD movements so that is what I prefer. I did a little test in Battlefield 2 driving the vehicles. The N52 would drive like a maniac but the N52TE would turn on a dime. With both gamepads I used the alternate states for vehicle commands or on foot commands. I've also used the N52 in games such as Silent Hunter; you can customize it for any type of game. I like the Logitech MX518 mouse. You can customize the mouse speed from very fast which is useful for seeing the battlefield to slow which would be better suited for setting up shots. I like the side keys which I use for mic input and melee. Regardless of the game type it's great to have options to keep from searching all over the keyboard or mouse clicking on the screen. From my perspective it allows getting more into the game with a personalized setup and less time hunting and pecking.

I'm exactly in the same boat as you. I've dropped the mainstream FPS games because it is all about reflexes which I don't have at 47 years old. I might get back in for the upcoming Red Orchestra game but I'm essentially done with FPS. The N52 allows you to drop the keyboard entirely as you can easily get to a lot of keys in a tight grouping. In Company of Heroes there is a special "Grid Keys" configuration which I mapped to the N52. "Grid Keys" allows you to follow the same menu drop downs as in the game without having to remove your mouse from on the map. This was not perfect as I could have used slightly more keys. I see that the 2nd generation Combat Mission had the foresight to allow a "Grid Key" type layout which I really do like, and it appears to have fewer keys needed. Printed from Manual: U I O ..................... Top Row of Commands J K L ...................... Middle Row M , . ...................... Bottom Row In reality with turn based games this is overkill, but Combat Mission can be played both WeGo and RTS. I am quite interested in the possibilities of the Logitech mouse which User38 posted. I will definately keep this in mind.

And for the other hand: http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=390404

:-) You don't know how much time I spent trying to adjust the segments. I guess this officially means this doesn't work. This isn't a show stopper but I did like being able to make adjustments to each waypoint leg.

Thanks for pointing the text size thread out. In my experience the character size is much smaller. There is just so much unused screen real estate.

I did try this mod but it didn't help the issue by very much. What would really help is if the briefing screen itself could scale to at least the vertical extents of the screen. I also agree with Meat Etr that the "Entire User Interface" is too small. This would improve the over all polish of the upcoming product. Even though this might not be a dramatic change; it sure is noticeable when its not quite right. My eyesight isn't the greatest; I'd rather keep it challenged on the battlefield itself. On a different note: I've got past some of my initial quandries about Combat Mission SF and I must say that I am very impressed with the intelligence built into this game. I'm pleasantly surprised with the path finding of squads. I was in a larger building which I was confused about the inside layout. The troops easily got to the 2nd floor where I aimed them and in a later turn they easily navigated their way out of the building and around the surrounding wall even though I waypointed them to directly load into the Stryker. I am also impressed with the targetting capabilities of the AI. I just hope they are dumbed down a little in the WWII Normandy setting. Overall if this the CMx2 engine is essentially the same as Shock Force there will be good times to be had.

I have downloaded both CMx2 games Shock Force and Afghanistan and they both have very tiny text for the mission briefing. There is a large ammount of unused screen around the mission briefing. I have a 1920 by 1080 resolution which is common for widescreens. Could there be menu option to adjust the text display to widescreens or could this just automatically be adjusted to the correct size once the resolution has been determined? I have tried the wide and tall character mod, but this doesn't appreciably fix the problem; I'm hoping there will be a better solution. I tried to attach a screenshot but my IP was blocked temporarily.

Personally I like the idea of music accompanyment from the sounds of the time from either side of the battlefield. I think that classical music might be less distracting but other sounds might come across just as good. I do think the songs from Marlene Dietrick would be a good choice, but if something like this was used it would be nice if there was a random play of other songs as well. Big band music might also be a good choice from the US side of the battlefield.

Of course it would be nice to have downloadable content to print and review at one's leisure, but regardless I look forward to the teaser. This will help in understanding the upcoming game more prior to it's release.

That is very good to hear. Thank you!

Perhaps there isn't a great interest in seeing the game's manual prior to the game's release. I personally would enjoy this even if it is in the format where it is somewhat hard to read and not downloadable. I do remember going through the Theatre Of War II manual prior to it's release so I'm thinking this isn't an unreasonable question, but if there isn't very much interest in this I could not be upset if the CMBN manual wasn't available for review prior to the game's release.

I would think it would help people acclimate to the game if the PDF manual was available online to brouse. Would there be a chance that this might be available prior to the game's release?

Awesome! I can't wait. I realize this can't be all things to all people but I trust you have built this with a good look at who your prospective customer will be.

This video really sums it up perfectly. I don't want to get into an argument with people who understand the mechanics of Combat Mission 2; I want to see the door opened to people who would love to experience realism in gameplay yet find this unapproachable because of the interface and gameplay features. I will paraphrase one section from this video which really puts emphasis on this. Approachability does not prohibit deep challenging and rewarding game play. Anyone on the hard core fringe saying real gamers are willing to work for their fun; cut it out. You are not helping people discover the aspect of a game that people really enjoy. You are not helping the type of games that you like get made. Deep but approachable. If the game itself alienates people because of the learning curve it does not help the customer base, and consequently it makes these type of games less likely to be built with even greater depth. This video does give examples of how to make a tutorial helpful. What would really be nice would be text context which would display within the tutorial at the point of when the description of a specific action would be most helpful. I am not even really asking for this; I am just asking that your tutorial would at least match the 15 page description that was used in CMBB. The reason that I ask is because of what I have experienced with CMSF.

I do agree %100 that it would be beneficial to download and play CMSF to be able to prepare for CMBN. That however is how I discovered that there is a real opportunity for improvement for the upcoming CMBN. I am very much drawn to the World War 2 era and I love to try to relive what it must have felt like to be on the battlefield in this time of history. I am drawn to realism before I will try the easier to grasp alternative because games where you jump around, die and come back again don’t place you in a realistic historical frame of reference. I have to say however that I don’t have the patience to learn a foreign game interface where you spend half a day just learning how to move across the map. Once this is accomplished then you don’t have a clue in how to proceed from there. I might brave a couple games in which I get wiped out and ultimately conclude this isn’t very enjoyable or realistic; perhaps the game interface is still getting the best of me. I could ask a lot of questions to pick up better technique, but why not just make it easier on the end user. I would love to be able to install the game and proceed directly in completing the 1st guided mission. In this way none of the excitement of the game is abated. I’d so much prefer the feeling of being a field tactician rather than an interface tactician. There are absolutely good ways of achieving this, one of the thread suggestions was even to enlist a forum user to handle this detail which is a great suggestion because of the fresh perspective that this would bring. Regardless; there are ways to make this become a strength and not a weakness of this game series. I would applaud Battlefront for this, and what better game would deserve this. As for now it will be back to plodding.

You hit the nail on the head. This would be a great advantage to ensure that familiarity doesn't fill in invisible details. What's more; this would free up the developement team more to work on more of the game's mechanics. There are many people here who are very anxious to get a look at the game; it would not be difficult to get a volunteer for writing up a tutorial for the demo. In the CMBB manual there were 15 pages used for the basic tutorial. As also suggested the best approach would be to make this demo with tutorial very simple; tying together a number of concepts but only concentrating on giving the player the required basics to complete the demo mission. HOWEVER: I do recall that Moon suggested that someone was working on a number of tutorial sequences. If that is the case; perhaps none of this dialog is necessary. Ideally the tutorial could completely bypass description in the game's manual if there were several tutorial missions within the game itself. I am thinking along the lines of how Company of Heroes has implimented their "Basic Training". This would be a scripted mission in which specific commands would be hilited until the player clicks on the command to continue. There were several different Basic Training missions focussed on different gameplay elements.

Just out of curiousity I am wondering what degree of collaboration that Battlefront has between their similar projects. It would seem to me that a lot of work could be bypassed through sharing TOW and CM's 3d world. I do understand that infantry reacts different between the games in regards to whether you can or can't individually control units. It would seem however that map and vehicle sharing could eliminate a lot of costs and time in game developement, so that more time might be used in tweaking the behavior's within an environment. Redirecting back to the original question: I personnally like CM's approach a little better than TOW's approach 1) They have WEGO 2) Control of squads vs being able to control all individuals 3) Not having to re-direct round type or decisions about what to do with ammo or different weapons. However it is also nice (however not accurate) to be able to gain experience between scenarios. If push comes to shove I still prefer the approach CM takes. I do like TOW and I have wondered several times why such a visually pleasing as well as realistically detailed game as TOW doesn't gather more of a following.

I appreciate hearing everyone's feedback. I have started working through the videos which is very helpful in seeing how well the bird flies; but without good instructions with CMSF I just have trouble getting the Albatros off the ground. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get past the setup phase. I didn't realize in the demo's tutorial that there were actually 2 slightly seperated setup zones. Once I figured this out I was able to determine that the Move command was what allows you to revise your setup location. I anticipate as I move along that other simple questions with difficult to find answers will impede learning this game. I am not really into the modern age warfare so it isn't a huge thing to not learn this game; yet I would like to understand the mechanics of Combat Mission 2nd generation in preparation for CMBN. I appreciate the fact that Battlefront is putting some extra effort into tutorials. The most important thing to me would be that there would at least be a turn by turn walkthrough applied to a "simple" scenario that the player might be in command of a single tank and a small infantry contingent. The tutorial could guide you through the interface and how to interact with the environment as stated above. If an excess of explanation is necessary to explain any action this could just be linked to an area in the manual that covers this in greater depth. I still recall reading the Combat Mission Berlin to Barbarosa manual's way of covering a single simple scenario turn by turn. It implimented different movement type's for the infantry, and concepts such as "Hull Down" for the tank. Perhaps this would not go into great depth with anything but it would tie in a lot of concepts which should be considered, and in doing so it would also set the context of when such an action should be used. A couple pictures for difficult to explain concepts also would be helpful. The bottom line would be that the reader would easily be able to walk through their 1st scenario. I can envision people from this community setting up scenario walkthroughs (such as the thread by tyrspawn in CMSF) which would shed light on some of the finer details of the game. I do agree with Erwin in regards to hoping that the game manual might being easier to understand with some game examples attached in order to develope a greater game understanding.

I am someone who finds the going rough figuring out new games especially if the game is quite complex. I downloaded the CMSF demo and even though the mission is a tutorial I find that there appears to be no guidance for getting started. I looked for documentation in the game manual but nothing appears specified towards the tutorial. In the original series CMBB there was a written tutorial that walked you through a mission, and got you aquainted with the game mechanics. In watching through the battle between Elvis and JonS it appears that there are many things to be aware of in order to play a rewarding game. The easier it is to get up and running; the easier it is to get fully hooked on the game and recommend it to other friends. Will there be a helpful tutorial with CMBN?

I do like the different dynamic map outcomes that you speak of using the Campaigns. I also like the fact that your original troops DO carry over in the same state as from the previous battle map. It sounds as if careful thought was put into how the entire theatre would unfold.

I was curious about what Operations even meant in terms of CM so I pulled out the CMBB manual and it described this as a series of maps that could move forward or back dependent on how well each side did in the skirmish. Reinforcements would include some disabled yet not destroyed equipment and personnel that broke but did not get killed. I am not so certain in how Campaigns might compare to this. In my guess there would be a similarity in the fact that there would be a series of maps, but after that it would be for the most part different. I don't believe reinforcements would be determined by survivors of the previous confrontation. Once one map had been played the action would progress to the next map. Correct me if I'm wrong. My take on this would be that it would be epic if the whole theatre of play would be dynamic; where the progress could be seen on the main battle map. Even though there might be independent maps the tactical and strategic aspects could be outstanding. I would think that this could be played out 2 vs 2 or even 3 vs 3. I am certain that something of this magnitude would be a huge logistical challenge but would be awesome to see in the next generation of Combat Mission games. I have to believe that there would be a very strong market for this.

I too am enjoying the debate which Jason C has initiated. In the AAR of a very entertaining game preview is a good place to discuss how well the game holds up to RL. It also brings up the question of the what and wheres as far as how the game could be tweaked to gain the proper effect. I'd like to say that Jason C was very helpful with me getting involved with the CM BB game. His Russian tutorials helped me understand the importance of engaging combat the proper way. I also appreciated his help on the forum in explaining how to achieve the desired effect. Someone who has enhanced the love of the Combat Mission game for the rest of the community deserves to be listened to. On the other hand I understand the apprehension of people who do not want to lose direct control of the pieces on the figurative chessboard. It appears that what comes into direct question is whether the casualty rates are unrealistic. Do troops get driven far beyond their RL capabilities. It appears to me that the game modeling and mechanics of the 3d battlefield might be outstanding in of itself. I really enjoyed watching the battle between JonS and Elvis unfold. The main culprit that I am seeing through my perspective for unrealistic results is the person who is commanding his troops. This person will always see more of the battlefield than what the RL commander would see. He will drive his troops without regards for losses, only to take the objective. These pixel troops will always move according to the flesh and blood commander who will be able to see the entire battle unfold. I do think delays to engagement would help in seeing more realistic casualty results, but for the sake of keeping the game more in control of the flesh and blood commander it would be good if these delays would be literal rather than making number triggers to bring about the delay. In the game between JonS and Elvis there were several occasions where the troops did delay as a result of taking fire. This may be a little outside the "type" of delay that is in focus but I am wondering if re-introducing the Command type delay which was featured in CM BB might actually help in getting more accurate casualty results. What this would penalize would be the human commander's on the fly decisions, as the troops would need to receive the order from it's command. The battlefield actions however would be acted out at full speed as long as counter orders were not given. I believe that Steve from Battlefront has a good grasp of how this best could be implimented. I realize that this would take a lot of coding to impliment but I love the literal realism possibilities that this might represent. This would slow down the twitch responses to the changing battlefield which I believe would reduce casualties. This also would put a greater emphasis towards having the best initial planning, making it more of a figurative chess game.

I did search for the text mod this evening but couldn't find it. I searched the CMSF tech support forum back to 2008 and the Afghan forum to the beginning. I'm not really sure that this would resolve the issue. The text itself is clear, but it is tiny. I would attach a screenshot but I haven't figured out how to do this in the game.