Mattis

So do I get it right once the Marines dismount the IFAV midmission they can´t get back into it?

Btw, Squarehead you seem to be the master of the CM editor. Is it possible to put Marines into a NATO Module German G-Class jeep to get a basically perfect Marines IFAV?

Really It isn´t most certainly, it is which is a fact basically every Combat Mission player out there knows. Like it was explained thousand times it lowers draw distance which is one of the resource heaviest things in CM and yes you notice it. Still better than playing with goddamn 5 fps for years without figuring this out. It is common knowledge for 7 years that this settings literally kills your fps and just is advised for strong PC and/or smaller scenarios. I am not sure if I recall correctly but I remember Battlefront even stated that they thought about removing the highest settings because it isn´t efficient and there are so many set it too high.

Adding a St. and thus unambiguously impersonating the Patron himself is the worst offense a devil dog can commit and may lead to the Saint of Chaos appearing at night in your bedroom in order to judge you.

What a bunch of p´s here. Losing their stuff, getting offended and hurt over nothing, and engaging in mass wall-texting like some hyenas just because some guy loves to post alot of off topic (15k posts goddamnit JK) and who believes in Nazi UFO´s and super suits, who gives a damn get over it, reading some this stuff even washed my eyes clean hah! I also think last time when I got full looking for home in Pendleton 2am I also saw one of those Gestapo Messerschmitt UFO´s or perhaps I was just full. Whatever you all show some self-respect and stop confuse Geisha balls with real ones. Those words are not intended for you JK, you are a hell of a crazy dude but it still takes a man to stand constantly getting squeaked at by over-sensitive boys. Amen.

No offense but some of you guys really need start learning to read before cluttering the threads with pointless responses.

Gentlemen lets stay friendly with each other.

It should be obvious to every bright bulb in the box that they don´t do everything from scratch over and over again when releasing a new game.

Can somebody enlighten me what this guy is talking about?

This common plattform for all games idea was brought up several times but it isn´t that easy.

We need to watch out with the word terrorist, remember a guy in one of the CMSF2 update threads got violently triggered over it after folks coming up with it in a completely neutral, non-aggressive manner and he then explained there can be no terrorism in hypothetical game scenarios, that terrorism is not to be mentioned when talking about CMSF scenarios, and that it is just a discriminatory word for "brown people" (his words not mine). Gave me enough ab workout for the next two weeks. However joking aside it is impressing what capabilities the game editor provides and with what smart hacks scenario editors come up. Never knew this scenario was possible. I need to try this out.

You overlooking the fact that there is a scenario editor and CM has a talented and active scenario creation community. I would also be also interested getting into the editor and creating custom campaigns with such TOE in mind. I own the CMBN vehicle pack and enjoyed seeing and using the vehicles in various custom campaigns as I do not like QB. I am pretty sure same would apply for a CMSF2 vehicle pack.

The various factions involved in the Syrian Civil War can´t be given a simple and overall quality tag. Most of the mentioned parties here have seen utilizing a wide range of professionalism, organization, and equipment. In one battle the Syrian army may have appeared looking like ill-equipped irregulars in another battle they appeared like a professional army, in one enagement ISIS sends some teenagers which never holded a gun before in do-it-yourself vehicles into sure death in another battle they appear with battle hardened Iraqi insurgency veterans and captured modern military vehicles. In one battle Peshmerga represents itself with German training and equipment in another... you get it. To sum it up it is basically impossible to compare them on a basic level because there is already so much variation inside the parties including the Syrian Army which is really good reflected in many CMSF2 scenarios by mixing regulars/irregulars perfectly visualizing how blurred out the line can be between these two descriptions in modern wars. All of this also makes the fact even greater that the CMSF2 editor allows scenario creators have complete free hand by being able to set the experience, training, and equipment quality for every unit in CMSF2 in order to reflect this reality.

Of course the current focus lies on (not necessary in this order) bug fixing, releasing the updated campaigns, and having some well-deserved days off including enjoying Christmas and New Year. However I wanted to talk about an idea that may become worth considering in the future: It would be really fantastic if Battlefront could bring us the Black Sea US Army TOE, the Armored Knight, the upgraded Strykers, Bradleys, Humvees, and Abrams into CMSF2 via a Vehicle Pack Addon. They would perhaps require a more appropiate simple tan paint job but the assets are already created thus limiting considerably the involved work. Can´t tell of course how much work would involved bringing the Laser Warning Receivers or APS system to CMSF2 but at least me can also do without them. The new units could be listed in a seperate entry "US Army 2019" in the editor to differentiate them from the original Shock Force 2 US Army TOE. Furthermore the Vehicle Pack could bring some of the Black Sea Vehicles to the Syrian Faction like the different MTLB variants including Strela and Mortar Carrier, the Tunguska, the BTR-80, and the MT-12 AT gun. Combat Mission Back Sea still would keep its charme and selling point by presenting a modern European theatre based Cold War Gone Hot scenario, the full set of modern Russian technology, and the Ukrainian Faction with its unique Equipment. Another Idea could also the option to introduce the Russian faction to CSMF2 via a "Russian Army 2019" entry in the editor, probably fueling our wildest Middle East scenario creation dreams but may bear the risk then to undermine the selling point of Combat Mission Black Sea. So consider the ladder just as brain storming. This would give CMSF2 campaign and mission designers even more exciting options especially in creating present day campaigns and scenarios. For me this would be a purchase without the need to consider it twice.

Thanks for providing this. I hope that you guys one day manage to find a way to extract the compressed and decrypted information which is required to recompile the campaign file.

It is fine to have different tastes when it comes to the time limit and I basically share the same prinicples you´ve described with the dish analogy. Thus I see no problem to invest some time into editing files to bring it to my standards. However the majority of time I´m spending playing official and custom campaigns as I have an affection for linked missions with context and narrative. Being granted the ablility to modify the time limits in these campaigns would probably eliminate the biggest gripe I have with Combat Mission. However as it was mentioned there are perhaps issues attached to it especially when it comes to the file information concerning core force etc. I never took a look into file and scenario editing but will do so in the following days but if any of you has a solid clue on how to do it in a competent manner, I would really appreciate if you could point me at a resource or give me some insights via pm.

No I didn´t know that but this sounds awesome. Can this be done with campaign files also? By unpacking them modifying all missions and the repacking them?

I must admit this often makes me angry. There are so many great campaigns and missions out there with their fun completely taken away by enforcing those cheap time limits, especially in the WW2 titles but also the modern titles suffer from this: If I recall correctly the Black Sea BP1 campaigns were just outright absurd in this matter. "Hm I have no idea how to present the player with challenges, let him do this assault in 5 minutes, works every time" - do proper recon before the main body develops an assault? - nope, recon are just another word for light assault infantry. - establish proper base of fire element covering assault elements? forget it - pick up the wounded and dead? - no time for that nonsense, there are no score points given for that, and points are everything in a real war right? - reserve your artillery elements for important moments? - nah best is to unleash them before even the missions starts as calling them in may take half of your mission timer away and we got no time to wait for artillery strikes or support to arrive unless you´re ready to run your troops into your own artillery, I suggest just throw bodies at that enemy MG. - carefully work your way forward and exchange units that suffered casualties and stress with reserve elements? Sure why not but won´t take long and you´ll notice that there are only ten minutes left and half of the map is still not under your control, just end up spamming those quick and fast commands and have fun getting your pixeltruppen killed like in a C&C game because time is money and manpower is not important right? Disabling time limits or extending them manually is requested since the stone ages but you hear the same two arguments: a) in the real world time is also very important and "insert babble about the hard truth of war operations here". I served and read enough about every modern conflict out there that I can promise you that no modern army in the world demanded such gains in so short time from you like it is daily business in many of the CM scenarios. No not even Peiper and company was demanded to storm 5 heavily defended villages in 45 minutes. b) the AI actions are tied to the timer and because of that allegedly the timer can´t be disabled or extended. 1st) in most scenarios there is not much going on with the AI in the last minutes, in fact you notice that in most there are no AI commands or waypoint given out by the script anymore, they just hold their positions being completely passive except their built in 4.0 behaviour, they could do that for hours. This is especially true for the scenarios where you have to attack which is basically 95% of what you have to do in CM. I get it that some hardcore WEGO CM vets playing this for 20 years may accomplish everything with 10-30 minutes remaining on the ticker in scenarios while I´m suffering to take half of the objectives in time... So what? Good job! They can be proud now and hit the cease fire like a hero and be happy. Why scenario designers always assume "okay lets remove that spare time and everything is fine" forcing everyone to eat this artifical difficulty. Take this post with a grain of salt but I don´t know how often it get so annoyed to realize that I started one of the CM scenarios and campaigns, applying real life tactics and procedures you´ve learned or read about, just to find me in the usual endgame rushing click- and die-fest more resembling one of these Korean starcraft matches than real world ground operations. This is extremely fun-limiting especially when you´re one of these roleplayers that focus more on recreating/reliving what-if moments, who just don´t do everything for the sake of getting some gamey virtual highscore. I wouldn´t even care if I get a Marginal Victory or a Draw but often you don´t know if your campaign is botched and lost just because you didn´t Zerg Rush the objectives or wasted your time with "silly" things like recon or real life tactics. I really hope one day this custom and game mechanic changes allowing for individual preferences or that a hacker comes by and finds a way to cheat-modify the time limit

Great find!

I am better of by making my own picture of how I perceive and categorise people and do not need your questionable advice so don´t try to draw me onto your side. I have been to these forums only for a couple of months but in this time I just saw legit comments and great activity by Erwin. Nothing that justify the aggression here. But let me guess, once in the past he dared to voice slightest critique about Battlefront, Combat Mission, or your job as self-appointed moderator and forum dictator, is that about right? On the other hand in this short time this is probably the 2nd or 3rd time I´ve seen you suggesting everybody to put a guy onto the ignore list just for the sake of not agreeing with you. How often I´ve seen you going for such and other ad hominem attacks I´ve stopped counting. Is that the high bar your talking about?

Erwin (and others) did neither attack somebody nor did they ask for something unreasonable. I also agree with him. He just pointed out that they would love to see more of the assets in scenarios and campaigns and even mentioned that he admires everyone spending his time to design scenarios. And still you have to explode. There was no reason for it really. I do not see anybody here attacking scenario designers nor do I see a comment here that should leave a negative effect on any individual designing scenarios. I just see paper-thin skin and one that can´t take different opinions.

Like already mentioned map size and the quicker communication and command play a key role why everything plays out faster here. Also most of the time in real combat operations there are no air or cavalry conveniently around the corner to provide support. You may stir up a hidden nest, call in support, and then hit the deck for several hours before they come to solve your problem. Also many things in CM die alot faster, especially infantry in buildings or other cover. To visualize this: There was a night where nearly an complete operation was hold up because of incoming small arms from a five-story compound in high density urban territory. Hours of shooting at nothing and dark spots that may be somebody peeking or just NOD shenanigans, thousands of round were put into this building but they simply denied to stop shooting. Cavalry was called in and also put another pack of heavy ordnance into that building (many buildings don´t collapse that easy), even calling further support was considered. Silence. Then order to enter the building, enemy gunshots erupted on one of the higher floors. Again on hold. Took another half on an hour to find a solution in order to pacify it and nearly another half hour to clear the rest of the building and situation (which takes seconds in CM). Turned out that this building was occupied by only two individuals armed just with one AK and one RPG and alot of ammo. They´ve managed to hold up company sized elements, cavalry support, and futher to delay the operations of other elements for half of the night. Imagine this in urban environment where you have dozen of such buildings. Real warfare can also involve an unbelieveable amount of waiting and also "camping" to put it in video game terms.

He definitely knows what he is talking about, which is a rare trait in the internet. Also there is no reason instantly start fiddling around with your stopwatch just because you´ve seen a random Steel Beasts video. It is perhaps the most definitive tank simulation but still far from reality, at least the version for the private sector. For example a military grade joystick may give better results than a lagging mouse simulating this joystick, also the override... I think it isn´t potrayed completely correctly but damn close. Then imagine a fellow that probably spent countles hours with a virtual simulator, in the life tank with sim equipment, and then in life fire excercises. Beside this not all tank features especially newer inventions and confidental ones are represented in Steel Beasts L2A4, C2, and the other tanks there. Furthermore most commanders wouldn´t call out a slow HEAT round for a >2k meters moving APC target like SB´s AI does there but just stick to the high velocity KE-based rounds like APFSDS. You hear occasionally stories about the danger of overpenetration without causing any damage but these people have no clue. Hits are highly likely mission kills. Yes it will overpenetrate but you and your friends inside that APC definitely will notice when a 120mm KE says hello when passing by and you´ll consider twice if you continue your journey if you´re even in the state then to do so.

This would be theoretically doable. Faces could be done like any other face, and modeling, except perhaps the smaller average height of a female the rest of the "female physiology" isn´t that noticeable when wearing a BDU, plate carrier, and full kit, so modelling this wouldn´ be even mandatory to potray female soldiers. Current sound system doesn´t allow for specific character connected sounds but you theoretically could replace one or two of the infantry sounds with female voices and would occaisionally hear them on the battlefield.

Sounds good, already eager to see it when you finish it.