Kwazydog

Guys, which particular Strykers are you not seeing the Mk-19 fire from? Keep in mind that the recon vehicles require the commander to be unbuttoned to fire, as they do not have a remote turret. Also note that to use the LRAS on both Strykers and Humvees you will need your guys unbuttoned. Dan

Hehe, now that is a game I had a lot of fun with as a kid. Even to this day I have a special place for the B-17 becuase of it.

Bartleby, I think that this is a good point, and one which some reviews miss in my opinion (not specifically talking about the one in question here, I haven't read it). Personally I have no problems at all with reviews comparing any of our releases to other *wargames* on the market no matter how many people worked on them, but I do think that its important to compare apples with apples. Our games are aimed at a customer base whom has a primary interest in game play being realistic and accurate, and comparisons really need to be done with that in mind else the review itself is missing its own target audience. For instance when is the last time a review compared the ballistic modeling of C&C or COH to CMBO? They don't of course, because even though good old CMBO would blow those games away in this field its not relevant to the target audience those games are aimed at. If we pulled out all of CMs ballistics, flight path modeling, armor penetration calculations and behind the scene details from CM we would have a HUGE bunch of spare time to add all of the glitz that RTS based titles have. The result would be just that though, another RTS game with no solid basis in reality which in turn would totally miss our target audience. Dan

Adam, Im not too up to scratch on the technical details on the engine, but I do beleive that some base cover level is assumed depending on the terrain type your soldier is in, which represents the minor details and cover not visible to the player. Also all flavour objects such as telephone poles, barrels, rocks, tree stumps, etc, etc provide cover, and I think there are several dozen of those (beyond the regular terrain types).

Not sure what we are supposed to be 'getting around' as such, so Im not sure of the actual question here? There are plenty of terrain types available incluyding tall and short grass, trees, bushes, brush, etc, if thats what you mean, so basically what you are seeing in screen shots is what the scenario designer included for that particular scenario. Dan [ July 25, 2007, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Yup you are correct SGT_56M, though this ability is something we shall expand on in the future.

Hehe damn you guys are quick...I must have deleted it just as you posted.

True, would you be happy to sit in a fully loaded T-72 and have one detonated under the vehicle though ?

FAI, as far as Im aware the system is currently abstract to the point where the general location of the ammo is known as well as if it is compartmentalized (such as with the M1s storage), etc. Complete 3D tracking of ammo though is something that is actually possible with the new engine, and we currently do track direct hits to tracks, etc. We will likely expand on this as time goes by. Panzermartin, it was to me too and I built them, hehe. Ive seen artillery and tanks take out trees thus far, usually knocking of some of the foliage with the first hit or two before the tree itself is taken out. In fact I was just watching an early model T-72 (complete will gill armor ) tracking a M2 Bradley at short range. Just as he took the shot the M2 passed behind a tree which the HEAT round hit and detonated on, saving the M2s butt and ruining the tree, hehe.

The TOW I described basically landed under the front of the tank instead of hitting the front hull. It has a large warhead, and Im guessing the blast was enough to rupture the underbelly of the tank. The thing about the T-72 is that its ammo is held in an unprotected autoloader situated below the turret in the hull. Any penetration of a T-72 risks detonating this ammo, but particually so if its the hull thats penetrated. It was one of those cool CM moments that I probably wont see for another 100 games, hehe. This is why ERA can be a life saver against these things. Usually a TOW will pack enough punch to still penetrate a T-72 covered with the older kontakt ERA, but even if it does it will do far less damage. [ July 12, 2007, 04:24 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Something else I found interesting guys is the old T-55 is not as useless on the modern battlefield as one might think. Your certainly not going to go head to head against an M1 in one, and even against a bradley you are going to be in for a tough fight as even its 25mm can penetrate it from the sides/rear or front if it gets lucky. If used carefully in an infantry support role though it can still be a devastating weapon, particually in urban areas. I find myself using them in much the same way as I did the self propelled guns in CMx1.

Louch, keep in mind Im the graphics guy so Im not fully up to speed on the technicalities of the engine but as far as Im aware yes, trees are handled on a 1 to 1 basis for line of fire and movement. As a test I just positioned a PK team looking into a heavily forested area I created in the editor. I moved the target line in an arc though the trees and at certain points I had a clear LOS into the forest compared to no LOS just a few meters left/right, as there just happened to be less trees along that particular path.

To be honest Ive only had time to actually play in the last few weeks, but there is one short moment that sticks in my mind (and highlights one of the changes in the new engine that wouldn't have been possible in CMx1). I was playing a small scenario with a bunch of combatants trying to hold off a reinforced Stryker recon platoon. The Stryker RV in this particular scenario happened to be armed with a Mk-19 auto grenade launcher, and was hammering anyone it spotted at range. My guys only had RPG teams to deal with the threat, and after forcing the RVs commander to button up for a short while with small arms fire I managed to rush a team into a forested area to its right without them being taken out. It was a long shot they would be useful due to the Strykers slat armor, but its all I had. I slowly moved them into position around 100m away where they had descent LOS, and fired off a round. The round hit to the rear of the vehicle and as expected the slat armor defeated it, causing no detonation. It did alert the crew to the threat though, and the commander unbuttoned and turned his AGL to engage. My RPG team had one more chance, reloaded and fired a second time. As soon as they did I knew it was going to go high and sure enough, it not only missed the slat armor but missed the entire hull of the Stryker by about a foot or so. To my surprise though as it passed over the vehicle is clipped the edge of the LRAS optics unit, detonating. The resulting explosion killed the vehicles commander and damaged the optics, thus removing the vehicle as a threat. Unfortunately the RPG team were taken out a short while later by infantry before I could pull them out, but they did their job. A few other quick cool factors Ive noticed... An M1 fires off a quick round at a T-55, the round missing by only an inch but slamming into the T-55 behind, resulting in a satisfying explosion anyway! In another example I saw an M1 fires a sabot round which passes straight through a T-62 turret, taking out a tree a few yards behind it. A Bradley fires a TOW off at a T-72, falling short by about 1m. The resulting explosions causes the T-72 explode, leaving it listing into the TOWs crater with the rear wheels and track dangling in the air. Stryker slat armor is very effect against older RPG rounds. Best bet if thats all you have is to get onto high ground or into the tallest building you can find. If you can hit the Stryker from above on the upper hull chances are that you will do some serious damage. In urban areas you need to play very carefully. Sending a squad across the wrong street or even alley way can be deadly if there is an MG positioned accordingly. RPGs with AP rounds are also particually deadly in this environment too, especially if the round passes through a window into an occupied building. Anyways, just a few items Ive noted that spring to mind Dan [ July 11, 2007, 04:52 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Ive seen a few posts, but far less I must admit Im looking forward to seeing Panthers and Tigers in the new engine myself, hehe, but CMSF will certainly hold me over until then and beyond even though Ive been working on it for years now.

Indeed, so have we been Michael, and in fact that innovation in many ways molded CMx1 as it developed. This is actually one reason why I think its a big shame that some WW2 only fans arent willing to even give CMSF a go, as they wont be able to provide any input or feedback for future releases which ironically includes their favourite theatres.

Hi Scipio. Buildings can be destroyed wall by wall, floor by floor. As such, depending on the way the building was constructed, it is possible to see a building with a hole blown in the walls on the second and 4th floors, the roof on one half collapsed in whilst the other have of the building has collapsed down to the 3rd floor, that sort of thing. Damage decals is something we definately want to do, showing increasing damage to each wall of the buildings structure, but it hasnt made it in just yet. This is just visual though, the damage is tracked. Dan

Ill add that the Bradley ATGM issue is a know one, and the model is actually set up to rotate but the code to do so in game wont make the first release. As such we figured it was better to be in the firing position than in the travel, hehe. It is certainly something we will keep on the list to add in the future though Dan

Arrigo, performance will likely depend on the map size you wish to play as well as the amount of units, etc. I can give you a pretty good example though as I tested CMSF on an AMD 2400 with 1gb of RAM and a 6600GT which is reasonably similar to the system you have. In the test I played the ATGM Ambush map shown in the sample videos right through, and performance was actually very descent. I also quickly tested a couple of the urban maps and was similarly impressed with the results, the 6600gt seems to handle CMSF quite well from ym experiences. These were against the AI, so you can also assume a little better performance against a human opponent due to less real time processing being needed. [ July 04, 2007, 05:21 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

I thought the same when I made it! Below are a couple of pictures with a human reference (the only I could find after a lot of searching), its a huge thing. [ June 25, 2007, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Guys, iirc infantry do receive a slight cover bonus to represent miscellaneous cover that is not visually represented directly in game. Ive played that scenario about 100 times as I made it as a test firing range for various vehicles and once spotted those ATGM crews usually get chewed up badly by the M2s. As such I think what you are seeing here is one very lucky soldier!

PanzerMartin, no worries at all. The cool part with the new engine is that we can put in vehicle variants quite a bit more quickly than with CMx1...I think we have over a dozen variants of T-55/62/72 in game at the moment for instance.

Nope, not really, there were many more important things to take care of. Its something you rarely see in game and if it really annoys you you can always turn the wind off Seriosly though we will look at it again in the future, particually when moving to theatres where it will be a more noticable issue. We will probably look into making the actual trees bend and blow in the wind, which should look great, but unless you wanted Charles and I to cut a chunk out of features and vehicles out it wasnt possibole for the first release Dan [ June 21, 2007, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Yup, they made it as Martin mentioned! For the BMP series we actually have 8 variants available. These are the BMP-1 and BMP-1K (command), the updated BMP-1P and 1PK armed with an AT-4 and AT-4C (the later with night sights iirc), and the BMP-2 and BMP-2K.

Its on the to do list Its something he is going to look into when time permits. Dan [ June 13, 2007, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]