Kwazydog

Alek, a lot of changes have been made 1.11 and as such all previous observations are reasonably invalid. Once you have 1.11 I suggest you try some new tests to see what results you get. Dan

Just to follow up I did an RPG vs Stryker test. The test was with regular Syrian Mech Inf RPG teams firing side on against a non-moving Stryker with full infantry squad at 200m. Below are the results... 50 RPG rounds fired 13 RPG rounds hit vehicle - of these 7 RPG rounds either did not detonate or caused no damage 5 RPG rounds detonated causing Strykers to be disabled - of these - 1 squad exited with no injuries - 1 squad exited with 2 injuries - 2 squad had their air guard killed - 1 squad took 2 kills and vehicle had 2 crew killed 1 RPG round caused catastrophic explosion killing all inside. Again, this sounds quite reasonable to me consdering the range, troops firing and rounds used.. Note that these guys are firing regular RPG rounds, which is pretty much all that is being used in Iraq at the moment and thus are the best reference. Troops using tandam warhead or thermobaric rounds will likely see better results, and troops using RPG-29s are of course going to see better results yet again. Dan

Heya Guys, Guys one thing that people have always done with the CM series is to make general assumptions on overall combat results based on their general game play, whereas CM is a perfect test bed for testing specific situations. For instance, the above can be tested reasonably closely to how it is described, and I found the results quite interesting...here is what I did. I set up one M240 team in a building looking out across 600m of perfectly flat dirt terrain. I set up one 2 man Syrian spec forces sniper team at the other end, and gave them orders to 'quickly' zig zag towards the house. Note that I made the Syrians fanatic so that they would be encouraged to continue their suicidal run. I ran the test 5 times with similar results, with the below being a break down of the last test. 0:15 - sniper team spotted approaching at 550m and fired upon 3:30 - sniper team takes first injury at 300m after M240 fired 175rnds 4:50 - Sniper team takes first kill at 188m after M240 fired 272rnds I also did a second test, with the m240 team facing the Sniper team at 300m, 2 story building to building. I ran the test 3 times with similar results, and here are the results of the last... 10:00 - neither side spotted other. Sniper team ordered to fire at point between units 10:35 - M240 team aquires snipers and opens fire 13:20 - Sniper team takes 1st injury after M240 firing 110 rounds 14:15 - Sniper team takes 2nd injury after M240 firing 145 rounds 18:35 - Sniper team takes 1st kill after M240 firing 265 rounds Now from my readings these results sound quite reasonable with regards to both spotting and small arms lethality, but if people have specific info to the contrary it would be interesting to hear. My main point here is that it is well worth testing specific situations before assuming that the engine had it wrong, as when you have 200 guys spotting and firing at 200 guys all sorts of variables come into play. Dan

C3k, have you tried redownloading the file? The error kind of sounds like a corrupt archive. Dan

Taki, Dima has been a great sound of information on Russian equipment for us, and we have made a lot of changes to the Russian gear in previous patches as well as 1.11 in order to make them operation more realistically. We have always had the philosophy with our games that we are happy to consider changes to our data providing people can provide sufficient evidence as to why those changes need to be made. For instance I believe we made changes to the T-72 ammo load out in 1.11 based on feedback on on these forums plus further research. If you feel that some changes need to be made to the Russian equipment in game and have the facts needed to back it up, please feel free to pass it on. Dan

Wiggum, I posted there too...I think youll be fine with 1.11, but let us know how you go! Dan

Hi guys. Just to add to what Steve said, I have a 4870x2 and am currently using drivers 8.11 and the game runs fine for me, so hopefully this issue has indeed been resolved. Dan

New Dynamic lighting effects were added, but the dynamic lighting engine has always been in game along with shadowing. This is why the surfaces of vehicles angled towards the sun are lighter whilst ones angled away are darker. In CMx1 this didnt happen adn all surfaces were rendered with the same brightness at all times of day which, in my opinion, lead to a model having a somewhat 'cardboard cutout' feel. In 1.05 we added in additional lighting for burning vehicles, gun fire, etc. Thanks, glad you enjoyed them! Dan

As the person who did the bulk of the graphics for CMBB and thus was looking out for such things I can assure you that many reviews were critical of the graphics, with some being insulting. I have a more than a few magazines stored away with just such reviews. That sentiment was echoes on the forums too, even before release! Errr no, its been in since the first alpha. Dan

Guys, Im not going to go searching for reviews as I dont have time and to be honest I cant be bothered, but I can assure everyone that CMBBs graphics engine was rather dated for its time. I can go into technicalities if you like, but the simply lack of dynamic lighting on its own is an important one. IL-2 had this and much more for instance, and released something like a year previous to CMBB. As I said above i think the graphics were certainly serviceable for the time, but I am surprised anyone is suggesting that they were state of the art or even comparable with other games of the time. As we move to WW2 we can likely make some considerable improvements to the overall look of CMx2, particually with regards to terrain. CMSF was our first release with the new engine and we have learnt a lot along the way. Dan

Canada Guy, whilst I do think CMBBs graphics were perfectly suitable for the genre at the time, I think you might want to check out some of the other releases around that time Most games had used dynamic lighting for some time at that point for instance, whereas we didnt. In my opinion we were somewhat behind the 8 ball at CMBBs release, and dated by CMAKs. The cool part about the new engine is that we can easily expand on the visuals whereas that wasnt possible with previous games. Dan

Congrats Mord, great news!

Actually I have just noted you mention that you have no interest in solving your issues or continuing the discussion anyway so there is really nothing to be gained here from further discussion. As such I guess this thread is now rather pointless, so Im going to lock it. Thanks for the feedback. Dan

GG, are you certain you were playing with the latest patch and that it has installed correctly (as noted on the load screen), as it sounds like it may not have been? What you have described is certainly not something we have had reported reported in quite some time and is usually the result of a odd scenario set up as the strat AI is now controlled from within the scenario design. If you care to provide some more info on the map/battle set up you were using and maybe provide a save game Id say that many people here could provide you with some detailed feedback as to what went wrong. Dan

Guys just so you know, this is primarily a brightness/contrast change to the terrain. When I made the origional terrain I was on an older CRT monitor and I was surpised to see the different in contrast when I upgraded to an LCD screen (which are much brighter and tend to wash out colors), and as such I made the changes that will be seen in this mod. Im not too sure when youll see it but Id say its pretty close Dan

Earl yup, as I recall we broke the Pz-IV series up into more models than we did in CMx1 with several G models accounting for upgrades as well as even some cosmetic changes. The Jpz IV is another good example with around 3 different variants of the initial production model iirc. With regards to the Hummel we are including it for close support purposes, and again it was a nice bonus that is used the same chassis as the Nashorn, which of course was a considerably higher priority Dan

Yes, I beleive that is quite possible sequoia, though time will tell of course. This time around we are also able to put more detail into vehicle types than we had in CMBO, too. As an example we have split the basic 75mm M4A3 into and early and late version with the early version missing the cupola yet with a more accesable .50 cal, and a late version with the cupola and shifted .50. We will also have the HSVV when representing a time frame when available. To answer the origional question, yup, you will certainly see the Elefant at some stage (though not on the western front), and will likely see a lot of vehicles that were skipped the first time around. One advantage of the new engine is that variations of a vehicle are consderably easier to make, so you will see likely variants such as 'early' and 'late' Hummels too.

Just to answer this one guys its not a bug, rounds and their penetration potential are tracked into, through and where possible out of a vehicle. [ June 08, 2008, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Hi Adam Well adding dimension to a map is going to lead to exponential growth in the data required to represent that map. If we just add 1km extra to the dimensions of the map we have increased the overall size from 16km square to 25km square, which is 60% extra data the engine needs to work with. Adding 2km is well over double our current size, etc. Im not saying its impossible, Charles can probably work some magic which is why I said 'likely' above. Its certainly not *just* an 'eye candy' issue though as has been suggested though, in fact its far from it. Dan

Of course CMx1 traded eye candy for time spent on the simulation, just look at the visual changes from CMBO to CMAK. Terrain doodads, smoke, explosions, dust were all added along with many additions. On top of that it would have been much less time consuming for Charles if we just had one Pz-IV 3D model and one T-34 3D model instead of having each series represented correctly. So yes, tradeoffs were certainly made with CMx1, but I dont think that was a bad thing. I’ve seen you mention the suspension a few times, but do you actually have any idea how little time that took to code compared to the time Charles has spent on the simulation aspects of the game? The time was inconsequential in the overall picture. Currently you seem to be mentioning map size, but has it occurred to you that this is actually a data issue, not a visual one? Maps of 4km x 4m aren’t a bad size at all for simulating modern combat, in fact I’ve played many excellent scenarios on far less, but to include larger maps would have likely killed the much requested PBEM option right there. There will always be trade offs between visuals and mechanics for any games, but you concept of the time being spent on visual appears to be way out of whack with reality. Dan [ May 26, 2008, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

By not sitting back and copping rudeness with a smile? Try walking into your local store and abusing staff and see how you go, I suspect you will get the same result. The problem for us is that it is much more frequent on the net, as the net is much less personal. Most game companies dont have official forums where they discuss their games with their customers, and this is why. We like to do things differently, and Steve spends many many hours here explaining game mechanics and listening to what players feel isnt working for them. The result of this is the huge list of updates we have made to the game over the last year, as happened for years over the life span of the CMx1 engine. All we ask for return is a little politeness in the conversations, yet for some that appears to be too much to ask for. Dan [ May 22, 2008, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Dragon generally I dont beleive this to be the case. If you look through the forum you will find many threads containing requests, complaints, problems, etc that are accepted and discussed, in fact there are several in the first few pages. The difference between those and the ones that go downhill is usually the tone of the poster, not the content of their post. Dan [ May 21, 2008, 07:26 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

John if you do a search for 'IED' on youtube you will unfortuantely find thousands of such videos. Its the size of some of the IEDs that has shocked me the most in the past, such as the one below... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG_K35JMDQk Dan

Yup, which is why this debate shouldnt really be about adding an M113, becuase that alone will not suit your needs anyway. Instead it should be about whether there is enough demand out there for a type of '3rd World' module. Dan [ May 19, 2008, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

And unfortunately this is a large part of the problem Jason. For us its a very slippery slope, as you’ve just described. If we start adding random vehicles to the TOE of US military forces which *they* will most likely never use again in a modern conventional conflict people will use it as justification to add others. I can probably think of 1/2 dozen more relevant vehicles that the US military could have over the M113 (M1 TUSK and M2 with ERA has been mentioned), and I would rather see those added myself before a vehicle that will likely never be used. To me it appears that what Jason and others are asking for is something more than just a single vehicle. What you guys are basically after is a '3rd World' module that would cover vehicles such as the M113, M47, M48, M60, Chieftan, BTR-152, BTR-50, BRDM-1, Type-59, Type-69, Type85, etc. This is a different kettle of fish, and adding the M113 alone would be just one vehice of many which would be needed. Dan [ May 20, 2008, 04:22 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]