HerrTom

There is a fourth channel on the bitmaps that controls the alpha, so they're really RGBA bitmaps. If that channel doesn't exist or is all white (really 255), then the background will show.

I've been exposed! It's not. I have a levels shader that makes the image darker. Thought it made a more dramatic image. Edit: lol looking at the images on my phone in the hot sun on my way to lunch gives some perspective. Looks fine on my computer but right now they're just black rectangles

Under the cover of darkness, Russian forces scout a Ukrainian MSR (also Morning Coffee)

A Russian scout platoon overruns a Ukrainian Battalion HQ. (Morning Coffee)

Tell me about it. Apologies for the delay. I've been traveling on holiday and forgot my charger! Hopefully should be back on track soon.

Thank you Bil, it's an honour to receive such praise from you! The overlay is actually how it appears in-game, believe it or not! I'm using Reshade to inject some post-processing over CM. It's really something I only use for screenshots since it can definitely get in the way of gameplay, depending on what's enabled. I posted some info on it here:

1644 Not much happened this turn, so no new map. Please forgive me! An unsuppressed BMP-2 managed to fire off a volley at one of the crossing BTRs. Shots riddle the front plate and rip apart the crew. There are no survivors as the BTR drifts to a stop. One of the surviving T-72s notices the trouble too late to save the stricken BTR, but exacts revenge, delivering an APFSDS round into the BTR straight through a thick cloud of smoke and a building! (Thanks @Bil Hardenberger for the idea of using a PIP!) It was hard to get a good shot here since the BMP was literally engulfed in smoke from the artillery shells landing nearby. Despite some (maddening) pathfinding issues with BTRs taking the long way down the slope, going into the water and coming back out at another point, the crossing is going OK for now. It's not as coordinated as I was planning, with a 2+1 configuration. More like piecemeal. Regardless, we go onward! To victory!

You can get some contours by compressing the range of the heightmap they output and posterising the image (compression is optional but makes it a lot easier to see the contours). You have to know the highest and lowest points in the image (but I think that is standardised from their satellite data sources - so certain grey values correspond to certain elevations). When you know that, you can divide by the number of tonal levels you set in the posterisation and each tone is a contour line. With that said, I doubt satellite data is useful in creating data for Combat Mission scaled maps. For example, here is a section of B27 heading to Fulda (chosen for a myriad of reasons not the least of which is the hills). Overlaid with the map section. Looks pretty good, right? Well, this is the whole map that Cities Skylines lets you use, not Combat Mission. So you need to trim it to the 4x4km square that we're allowed. Which is this sad chunk That is this section (actual scale). If you're doing macro level terrain on a map with a lot of variation in height, it may work out. Otherwise you'll run into trouble that the satellite data just isn't that accurate and on flat areas or areas with water it'll be really garbled. Cool stuff though, I may end up using it myself...

I couldn't leave you guys hanging! I actually had the turn for about three weeks before I noticed it apparently. So subtract that from the six months!

I demand to read an AAR of this. I'd love to join in myself but I'm not sure if I have the time right now...

I found something in my CM Helper inbox a couple of days ago... The dachas turn out to be more exposed than I anticipated. This means I need to start the crossing ASAP. The platoons on the riverbank and dive into the water. BTRs from 1st Company boldly drive to the riverbank, catching up with their comrades. Another BTR eats some 30mm fire from across the river. The passengers survive with major wounds as they bail out of the doomed vehicle. And yet another. Clearly the smoke screen is not doing its job! None of these hits have been catastrophic, but they are definitely decreasing the combat power I can deploy across the Dnjepr. All the while artillery shells land around 1st Company as they stage. But the order comes: "Cross to landing point Boris!" The engines roar to life as the platoon surges forward. The crossing gets staggered as some drivers attempt to find better slopes to enter the river. But the crossing has begun...

I'm loving this! Gonna steal the GIF idea for when I find the time to get back into writing AARs. You really do set the gold standard of presentation - but will the Blood Board match such splendour?

I mean... statistical science? Take, for example, MIL-STD-105 SAMPLING PROCEDURES AND TABLES FOR INSPECTION BY ATTRIBUTES. It provides a methodology for defining an acceptable quality level based off of selection. To put it in terms I can easily explain: Say you have a machine shop that's making wingdings on one-off jobs. Sure, in this case you can inspect each one and tell the customer that it matches print. OK, so the customer tells his buddies how good you are at making wingdings and now you're producing thousands of them. Do you inspect each and every one of them before giving it to the customer (ignoring the aerospace sector because this is why everything costs billions of dollars)? No, you take ten of the thousand, for example, and inspect them and then you can say that your defect level is X per hundred units with a Y% confidence level. So, typically the decision is by ISO/ANSI/ASME/DoD/DIN/etc. But this is pretty off topic. Edit: I forgot to mention that since I don't think the poll was random sampling, none of the above applies and it's actually very easy to get carried away with the wrong conclusions precisely because the sample was volunteer-based. Perhaps so - definitely so for this thread, I think. Do we know the extent (or look ) of the website update? It sounds like a total rework which is exciting. I almost didn't buy my first CM game because of how janky it looked!

In statistics there is the idea of a representative sample that you can take a smaller subset of a population to represent it at large. It's how approval polls and television statistics work, for example. Now there is the question whether the people who answered the poll are a representative slice of BFC's customer base which is the perennial problem of polls of this nature, but it's hardly worth mocking him for it. Personally, I don't think it's an accurate slice but it's interesting nonetheless. I also voted that I wouldn't mind Steam. Most of my games are on it, like Graviteam Tactics and Gary Grigsby's WITE for example.

Thank you! First step to this is not to have forgotten about this for a year... Crunch time at work always ruin good things!

No love for North German Plain rather then Fulda?! Heresy! Call it CM: BAOR. But, given the choices I'd also say Early War. It's a relatively uncovered part of tactical wargaming and poses unique (I think) tactical dilemmas for the under gunned Germans.

If I wasn't before I am now. Thanks!

An Iraqi crew didn't necessarily need a penetration to bail out. Could be the ping pong ping was enough to spook them into running?

Here I was thinking I should resupply my AT teams and they grab 1000 rockets. That much munition materializing in their pockets annihilated everything in a half block radius But on a serious note, I agree. I don't always (often?) need 1k rounds all at once.

Germans are obligated by law to be very precise in their wording! Very interesting article, surprised I missed it.

I think the HQ panel covers the 3 men in the other team. In the AAR screen does it show 6?

Wow looks awesome. Excited to see what you come up with!

I have to agree. It's so... cute? I'm also partial to the Leopard 1. Comes from an age of transition so they made a fast tank with a great gun and sensors (for the time). All in a beautiful profile.

Thank you Haiduk, very informative! I think a crucial point hit here was about semiconductors. Computers and high tech sensors are HUGE force multipliers. The cost difference between an M1 and T90 aren't enough to offset that advantage. In the 80s when smart weapons and thermal optics were starting to be fielded Soviet planners equated their power to nuclear weapons! The playing field may be a little more even technologically but I don't think it's quite enough.

I'd for sure watch that!