Has the Engine 4.0 Patch been released?

[Frenchy56]

5 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

In all honesty, I have played all the CMX2 titles except CM Afganistan, and I have not encountered anything that I would consider "game-breaking" or "immersion destroying." Maybe they have occurred and I just never saw them because I'm not a "nit-picker," and I was just enjoying playing the games. If it were me, I'd buy it, but if you want to believe comments of "game-breaking" bugs by a small group of commenters who tend to pick apart every release, then that's your choice.

It's painful to be this "nit-picker" you're talking about and spend more time modding, or in my case patching mods together to attempt fixing the inaccuracies than actually playing the game.

 

Even then, with all the effort Battlefront has made to make uniforms and vehicle liveries more accurate, it still has limits that can easily be noticed when you get your head into it.

 

i wish Fuser would come back soon

Edited January 20, 2019 by Frenchy56

[sburke]

13 minutes ago, Frenchy56 said:

It's painful to be this "nit-picker" you're talking about and spend more time modding, or in my case patching mods together to attempt fixing the inaccuracies than actually playing the game.

 

Even then, with all the effort Battlefront has made to make uniforms and vehicle liveries more accurate, it still has limits that can easily be noticed when you get your head into it.

There is a difference between the issues brought up here and those you are noting.  AI behavior is really hard to get right and there will always be corner cases.  Modding the stuff you are doing is clear cut stuff that can be fixed.  The nitpicking reference is something you can ignore and please keep posting stuff you find.  

[Frenchy56]

12 minutes ago, sburke said:

There is a difference between the issues brought up here and those you are noting.  AI behavior is really hard to get right and there will always be corner cases.  Modding the stuff you are doing is clear cut stuff that can be fixed.  The nitpicking reference is something you can ignore and please keep posting stuff you find.  

Nah, I was being half-serious, even if it doesn't really look like it. I was talking about limits in even the skins, since in the end there are still no unique skins for Allied NCOs, US officers among others.

 

Though I still do wish my troops would stop sprinting straight into artillery barrages.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Frenchy56

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Vet 0369 said:

CMSF2 "Semper Fi: Syria" Campaign, Recon team detects and disposes of a Syrian HQ unit that had retreated beneath the waters of the creek. Not even the icon was showing. I said to myself "WTF? That was interesting!" I had seen them move into the water some turn earlier, and figured they had decided on suicide rather than face the Marines, even though both choices have the same result. Moved on and finished the mission.

LOL no no no Real Life, not your real life in CM  

[Ultradave]

4 hours ago, sburke said:

yep pretty much.  As long as the game has a tactical AI there will always be times when you say "wtf?".  And in RL there are plenty of those moments.  What I'd love about now is for our vet forum members to tell some of their best "wtf?" moments.  Entertaining and it would put a more realistic spin on this discussion.  

Yes. I have some. But most resulted in people getting killed so I'd just as soon leave those and not rehash. Leave it to your imagination. Our division commander was a big fan of Murphy's Laws and made up his own to go along with airborne operations. To the point we got sick of hearing of them. But in general, the maxim that says that no plan survives first contact with the enemy could not be more true.

I'll see if I can come up with a few from training/peacetime ops that were more interesting and not fatal.

Dave

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Yes. I have some. But most resulted in people getting killed so I'd just as soon leave those and not rehash. 

Yeah that would be preferable.

I had a buddy served in the Navy.  They were getting near to doing a port visit so the crew was out making sure the ship was all nice and shiny.  He was being hung over the side painting.  Unfortunately backward..... His ship was not included in the task force port of call.    Not relevant to CM, but funny nevertheless.

 

[Combatintman]

Well how about some light reading here:

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a446651.pdf

Some really good stories, in which no one gets hurt, of the frictions of warfare from real life commanders.

[Vet 0369]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

LOL no no no Real Life, not your real life in CM  

But but but .... You mean there's a difference?

ok, I'll try. My squadron went on depolyment to Naha Navy/Airforce base in Naha Okinawa for live missile shoot. It just so happen Ed that we were there over November 10, the Marine Corps Birthday. We'll, we had one heck of a party. It was such a good party, that the girls who were brought in from town to be our dance partners, were hastily withdrawn, ostensibly for their safety. After the party, we had to walk across the golf course. The next morning, as I sort of oozed out of my rack and stepped outside, the Marine insatiable urge to scrounge became evident. Outside, next to the door, were about a dozen tee markers and a sign that read "After Play, Please Rake Sand." Standing next to the sign was the rake.

On that same deployment, we flew gun training. The F-4J didn't have internal guns, so they mounted a twin-20mm belly pod. Well, the C.O. was pulling the the target banner, attached by a really long rope, to the drag chute hook in the very tail of his F-4. Now most of our pilots weren't very good at using guns, cause after all, McNamara's Wiz kids decided that dogfighting with guns was a thing of the past. Anyway, one of our pilots was a real eagle eye, firing 80 rounds. Seventy-eight through the bulls eye on the banner, and two through the Skipper's Stabilator! Boy, did he get yelled at. 

Edited January 21, 2019 by Vet 0369

[Ridaz]

6 hours ago, Combatintman said:

Well how about some light reading here:

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a446651.pdf

Some really good stories, in which no one gets hurt, of the frictions of warfare from real life commanders.

thanks real good stuff where did you get it? Anymore?

[Combatintman]

53 minutes ago, Ridaz said:

thanks real good stuff where did you get it? Anymore?

I stumbled across it the day before yesterday while looking for something else so no as far as I am aware. The publication lives somewhere on the US Defense Technical Information Center's webpage, you may find more there but of course you may not. Hope that helps.

[Bulletpoint]

16 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Before the behavior change was made to the v20 patch players had been complaining that their troops made no attempt to save themselves when artillery started falling.

Source? I've never seen anyone complain about that, and I've been a regular here for years  I remember pretty much every thing players have been clamouring for - MGs to be more deadly - done. The Stug bug - fixed. Tank commanders to duck down faster - fixed. Troops running in long lines and sitting on top of each other - fixed. Etc. The game has improved. But I can't remember ever hearing anyone ask for troops to get up and run away when under a barrage. 

 

16 hours ago, MikeyD said:

What's being complained about isn't a 'bug', anyway. Its a behavior that some players object to.

Programmers have a strict technical definition of what a bug is, but to most regular people, a bug is something that doesn't work as it should. 

Call it a bug or not, the running-away behaviour was erroneous, because it happened only with off-map artillery, always triggered immediate fleeing no matter the morale state and quality of the troops, and no matter the cover they were in. Usually, CM models these things quite nicely, but not in this case. "Some players" objected to it because they realised it was not working right.

The patch should be here any day now, and I'm looking very much forward to it. The issues haven't stopped me from playing, and they should not scare anyone away from buying the game either. But will be great to see the patch released.

[Ultradave]

Ok, here's a couple:

1. Vehicles get dropped from airplanes (called "heavy drop"). Rigged with several parachutes, they are strapped to steel platform skids, with honeycomb cardboard crushable padding. The battery commander's jeep and trailer (with all his belongings), each get one small skid and parachute. Occasionally we lose a vehicle when the chutes malfunction. Occasionally. Two drops in a row, the only casualty was the BC's trailer. Tent, all his personal gear for a deployment...  BOOM.  Upside down. Nothing but the flat bottom of the skid visible.  Two times in a row. On another occasion it was the #3 gun. #3 is always the senior gun chief, and the gun we use for registering the batter, adjusting fire before FFE. They are the most experienced and best performing gun. SSGT Perry was looking for his gun. Its parachutes had detached as it slid out of the plane and it fell 1200'.  BOOOOM.  Upside down into the sandy drop zone. SSGT Perry almost started to cry when we told him "It's under there. That's your gun."  It ended up on display in the motor pool after they dug it out. It was about a foot tall, wheels out sideways, gun tube cracked in the middle and driven down into the chassis. Incidentally, it's for this reason that in training the vehicles drop first, then the  people drop. In a real situation you'd drop the people first to secure the drop zone, then the vehicles, but as you can see, that can be dangerous.

2. Two gun raid.  An artillery battery is comprised of 6 guns. In the 82d, back then we had M102 105mm howitzers. Nice guns. Towed by M561 Gamma Goats. But being a 105 the range is somewhat limited. A two gun raid takes two guns, and a couple of people from the Fire Direction Center (the LT and one enlisted man) forward with the two guns.  The FDC LT gets to play Fire Direction Officer and XO at the same time (calculate the firing data and lay the guns). The guns get slung with enough ammo for the mission, the two gun crews and us (The FDC - I was the LT), ride the 2 Blackhawks that are carrying the guns (Hueys early on but then it took 4 to do it). Placed forward in the front lines to be able to hit a lucrative target in the enemy rear, you set up, shoot, and rig up to be removed again, all very fast. In peacetime, Ft. Bragg, NC, you have strict range safety. A firing box to fire into from a specific surveyed firing point. When the helicopters set us down and flew off, the senior gun chief and I huddled with a map and quickly realized they had set us down on the wrong spot. We were a mile down the road from where we should be (and where I had safety data for), with no transportation. Radio silence, the choppers would return in 30 minutes. So we lay the guns, calculated the data and dry fired for the practice. No live rounds - that would have been a disaster. Had we fired the mission as given from the wrong location we would have fired rounds onto a road. A real road. Luckily the sergeant and I were familiar enough with the area that we could tell we weren't in the right place.  If it was real it wouldn't have been much better because back then with no GPS, you are dependent on doing your own survey.  We were in the trees with no readily usable landmarks. Who knows where the rounds would have gone, except not where the target was. And in real life we may not have recognized the error. 

3. And I've already told the story of the final protective fires. Danger close with infantry company mortars (I was a FIST Chief then). Rounds kept creeping closer to us. They were already close and getting closer. So we radioed "Check Fire" and received the reply "Rounds Complete".  Mortars are quick firing with a long time of flight. There were still about 15 rounds in the air. We bugged out. The last rounds hit our former position. The mortar baseplates were sinking in wet ground with every shot, causing the tube to rise, which shortens the range. They hadn't noticed until it was over. So we had good FPF fire but had to retreat in a hurry anyway. This one could easily be applicable to CM games due to the close quarters of most battles.

Not very exciting stories, but examples of if something can go wrong it will.

[A Canadian Cat]

I'm an army brat in the '70s my dad was Company CO and then battalion 2IC in London Ont. During really bad winter storms the army would sometimes be asked to rescue stranded motorists because their M113s could go were the fire and police could not. During one of those storms some of the soldiers were having a bit of fun crashing through snow drifts until one was not actually a snow drift but an abandoned car. That was a fairly expensive mistake and there was some hell to pay. Secretly I think my dad thought it was pretty funny but only because no one was hurt. And that certainly could have turned out differently. After all they were literally out there to rescue people who were stuck in cars during a snow storm. So, good thing that one was empty.

I did spend a little time as a truck driver in a reserve service battalion (supplies, MPs and food prep). During basic training we had some time with blanks and a night exercise. Before the exercise we were shown how blanks form our FN's were actually still pretty dangerous so we had to use BFAs (they help keep any bits of the casing from heading down range) and there was to be no firing at people if we ended up in close quarters. The thing is even pretending it's hard to remember that. We were patrolling an area around some buildings when the NCO's attacked us. We ended up in close - way to close and I fired on one of the Corporals at close range. Scared the **** out of him - and me frankly. Everyone was fine and he had a bit of a laugh. The original plan was not to get that close but the NCOs thought it would be fun to surprise us.

Another time we were bringing supplies and water a fair distance in support of a larger exercise. The weather was really ****ty - raining in sheets I missed a turn and had to do some fancy footwork to get my truck towing a water trailer back on track. Later on the main highway in the heavy rain the highway traffic came to a stand still suddenly. I started stopping and realized that I was not going to stop in time. I was driving a big 2.5 ton truck loaded with supplies with a full water trailer in tow. My Lt was in front of me in his 3/4 ton truck (basically a pickup). When I realized I was not going to make the stop I let go of the breaks and manoeuvred to the shoulder before reapplying the breaks. When I stopped I was looking down from my window into the cab of the other truck. My Lt was white as a sheet - I imagine his driver was the same. Later he joked that his life flashed before his eyes. It turns out earlier in the day during my fancy footwork I managed to damage the break lines to the water trailer so only the truck's breaks were available to slow down. Actually that's not officially how it was recorded but its what I figured happened. Again just glad no one was hurt.

[Ridaz]

Some update, I end up buying CMBN so far having fun with the tutorials. 

[danfrodo]

Ridaz, I hope you keep having fun.  One thing I did when I started was to give myself an edge in some of the battles.  It's very easy to add units to an existing scenario, usually by just adding some pieces of units that were not turned on.  Note you might need to go to 'deploy' in editor to make sure then are where you want them.  Be sure to save the game to a modified name, because later you might want to go back and fight the original battle, as I have now done often.  It helped me enjoy battles a bit more  while I was learning, since I could have a better chance of success despite my lack of skill. 

[Ridaz]

14 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Ridaz, I hope you keep having fun.  One thing I did when I started was to give myself an edge in some of the battles.  It's very easy to add units to an existing scenario, usually by just adding some pieces of units that were not turned on.  Note you might need to go to 'deploy' in editor to make sure then are where you want them.  Be sure to save the game to a modified name, because later you might want to go back and fight the original battle, as I have now done often.  It helped me enjoy battles a bit more  while I was learning, since I could have a better chance of success despite my lack of skill. 

Thanks for tip personally I try not to change the original's author's intent. I am so far having a blast and minimum difficulty.

[danfrodo]

Glad to hear it Ridaz

[Dynaman216]

Talking about blanks and not firing at close range since they are still dangerous.  My friend was in the army in the eighties and told me about an exercise he was on, they gave him a flare and said to fire it at a vehicle since it was a "LAW".  They DIDN'T tell him to shoot it up in the air and instead he aimed it at an APC that was going by.  The REF chewed him out a new one he says.