tinjaw

Thanks Smithy, I hadn't even thought of trying that because I don't really want the dismounts to "move". I just want them to take up the standard battle positions around the vehicle. But I guess I could give them a move order to the same spot. I'll give that a try.

Interesting about the beta testers' preferences. Maybe that explains why they felt in unnecessary to provide a way for a vehicle to move to a location and dismount the troops in a single turn. Not necessary to have a move & dismount command when playing RT, unless, of course you care about the fact that micromanaging being required at that level just makes it even more unplayable in RT.

I agree completely! But I hope that doesn't mean that we will never see tanks again. So, I am just thinking, when tanks come back, will they be so happy about changing that? Also, as I said, if the spotted target is taken out, I would want it to continue the hunt.

Agreed! And if I was on your side, that would be my response.

Booooo. Another change to tried and true, not to mention expected, behaviors. :confused: What new method is there that provides the equivalent functionality? Some hints: If you tell me I need to issue another hunt order, I will complain that if the contact is made ten seconds into the turn and the enemy is dead ten seconds later, I just lost forty seconds to a bad design decision. If you tell me there is some other, new command, you better tell me what I gain to compensate for the change that causes me frustration as a longtime happy user.

Add my +1 to zoomed out map graphics being subpar. I would trade my super hires pictures of strykers for a usable map any day.

I understand that it is a complete rewrite. However, Combat Mission is a franchise, it is a brand name, it is a user experience. So, 250K LOC being replaced doesn't matter on the inside, it is the "outside" that matters to the purchaser. My personal (software) design philosophy is that features and functionality should remain even after a complete rewrite, in general. It obviously does not make sense took keep "tank only functions" in a game, if the rewrite only includes infantry because it it now simulating the US Civil War. So, yes, I understand that it is a ship-it-now-or-never decision to get something in a game due to resource restraints. I just would have given "reproducing existing functions/features/behavior" a higher multiplier on the decision matrix. Personal preference? Yes. And I will hold you to your word that it will be in next week's patch. J/K

As the majority of my first posts on this forum have been negative, I would like to provide some context. I have many years of experience in the software business and many times that as a computer gamer. So, I do understand milestones, deadlines, realworld pressures, and target audiences. The issues I have raised mostly have to do with disagreements with decisions, not with outright bugs in the software. Combat Mission Shock Force is a solid game, and from the forum postings, appears to be almost, if not completely, Crash Bug free. This is quite a difficult feat to accomplish, more so by a (relatively) small group. I would like to commend everybody involved in the creation of CMSF on a job well done. There are some bugs, some of which I have experienced and commented on in these forums, however, none of the bugs reported are "stop ship" bugs that went undetected. Invisible MMGs are tolerable and do not prohibit game play from continuing. So, I hope you folks understand that my overall opinion of CMSF is positive, but my experience with version "One Dot Uh Oh" is a bit sour. And as such, I will recommend that CM 1 through 3 are better purchases, at this time, until CMSF is updated. Thanks for listening. :cool:

I would consider that the pre-engagement maneuvering. However, I will grant that even post-pre-engagement-maneuvering that would make for an interesting scenario, and would require a bigger battlefield that 4km x 4km. BUT, those 4Km engagements are on pooltables like the open desert, and not the norm. And, yes, CMSF is based in the desert, and some open desert battles are viable, they should not constitute the norm as no defender would accept battle on such terrain, and meeting engagements in the open desert are highly unlikely with today's sensors and other recon assets. And I agree! My hardware sucks today, but after Curt give me a big bonus (yeah! right!) I might own a faster computer in two years and want to do larger maps. However, too many units would make the game difficult to enjoy controlling if not outright unplayable. But with Co-operative multi-player in CMSF2...

I had the same question. Here's the short quick answer. You can, however, if the bunkers are abandoned of enemy troops, as they are in this case, the AI doesn't feel it is worth spending a Javelin round on it, so it doesn't fire. This is acknowledged as a bug by Battlefront and will be fixed. For now, just surrender that mission and move on to the next.

Edit: Please let me clarify something. By "do not recommend" I mean, this version, 1.0x. It is my assumption that after a few updates, I will be recommending it to others.

Martin, Thanks for the insight. But I am going to have to disagree with you on the decision to not include it. (I know it doesn't matter what I think ) First, It was in the prior three versions and you don't want to remove functionality on successive versions. Enhance, yes. But remove, no. Second, Don't make the user repeat themselves. If the user takes the time to input orders, provide the user an efficient manner to correct their mistakes without having to start over. Nothing aggravates users more than having to do something over from scratch when they perceive the issues as being solvable by only making "one small adjustment". Users/Gamers/Etc value their time -- more so when playing a "quick" game like a Quick Battle Scenario during a lunch break or 30-minutes between putting the baby to bed and going to sleep themselves. Edited to add: Let me provide another example, fire missions. If I am entering a fire mission and I want to make a change, say 10 minute delay instead of 5 minutes, I have to start over. I cannot change the delay before confirming the minssion. [ July 28, 2007, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: Tinjaw ]

Exel, I understand what you are saying about maneuver room, and 100 sq km is small when maneuvering modern day forces. However, maneuvering on that scale would be done before contact. The meat and potatoes of CMSF is the battle at contact. Once an element of the size modeled in CMSF is engaged with the enemy, they would not be maneuvering on such large chunk of terrain.

Errh... 250km is a larger area than Baghdad. That would imply that you want multiple divisions... :eek: In a 4km x 4km area you could easily see multiple battalions in MOUT, so maybe I'm missing something here. Which anyway is quite meaningless, as Combat Mission never was meant for that large scale play. </font>

Guilty as charged. And, BTW, no joke, I complained about no LOS tool before I took my Ritalin and found this post afterwards.

Thanks for that explanation. I've been beating my head against the monitor on this one. (good catch metalbrew on those icons.)

You uninstall CMSF and go back to one of the other Combat Missions. At this time, that is the only way to do it. I think it was a poor decision to not include this functionality when it has been in previous versions. (A new engine is not excuse to remove *basic* functionality.)

They are and no you don't.

I am experiencing the exact same in all of the things you have mentioned.

I am very disappointed. I don't mind change, but I feel like that whole GUI has changed to a point that I don't recognize it. Were is the LOS tool? An LOS tool is essential. Why can't I right-click on my unit and choose their action? I don't want to have to move my mouse all the way across the screen, click a button to choose a sub menu and then finally click yet another button to choose their action. Context menus exist for a reason. They are efficient. This multi-click on buttons somewhere else on the screen is ugly and requires extra work. Poor decision to change that. Not being able to alter your waypoints? Another step back worth three demerits. What happened to being able to hit / and turn 180 degrees? I can go on and on because more has changed than has stayed the same at first glance and a few hours of play. (And yes I did RTFM.)

Battlefront has made a very bad decision. TCP/IP does not mean the Internet exclusively. I have several friends that would love to play over a LAN. In fact, I would say 90%-95% of my "TCP/IP" play is over a Gigabit LAN and *not* over the Internet. Secondly, I am not looking to get in a technical argument with you. I have no way of knowing all of the specifics of this particular piece of software or the issues surrounding its development. However, I too do this for a living as well, and sending only the delta for each nanosecond would suffice. I see no reason to send the entire state of the world. If this is your "excuse" for no multiplayer WEGO, it is a very sad one. As I said, I am not looking for an argument, and I have no way of knowing the particulars of this software, but from an educated outsider's perspective it sounds like very poor design as many many COTS games (not to mention military simulations) do it well. I did pre-order my copy, and have only about three hours of game time under my belt, but this issue of no multi-player WEGO has rubbed me the wrong way. I would say that between the no multiplayer WEGO and the virtually complete abandonment of a highly successful GUI metaphore, CMSF is starting out as a disappointment and a "do not recommend" and will take a lot to change my mind. It may do so, as I said, I have only played it for three hours, but let me give you an example: The whole reason I am here posting to this thread is because I am on the second scenario in the tutorial campaign (which isn't a tutorial because there is no tutoring, no instruction, and is merely a limited sandbox.) and cannot figure out why I cannot fire the Javelin against the bunkers in the same manner as I can against a tank. So I am searching the forums for that answer and stumbled upon this thread. KISS. Why need they be different? Back to my search.

I followed the directions and downloaded my offline license. However, when I click the button to "Read Off-line License From File" I get an error, "Off-line license file license.txt cannot be open because: license.txt was not found." Well, it is there. I chose it in the open file dialog box. And if I change it's name to ThisIsAPainInTheAscii.txt the error is, "Off-line license file ThisIsAPainInTheAscii.txt cannot be open because: ThisIsAPainInTheAscii.txt was not found." It is a valid file and readable by text editors. The file is on my USB stick, drive F on that particular computer. I am able to paste it from the clipboard and get it to work.

Sobikop, Welcome. I (and probably many others here) would be glad to throw some free advice over the wall to you. Why don't you tell us about one scenario in particular you played. We can give you some suggestions. Then you can play it again and see if you do any better. How about it?

Would you please look into the idea of allowing us version 1.0 owners to mail in our CD and have you mail us back a CD of the new retail version?