ChrisND

In CMBS the M2A1 has replaced the M2HB across the board. At least for deploying units, which are the only units that we are concerned with.

No sorry. I was running into major space and time limitations, didn't get the chance to add a glossary. Another word for glossary is Google.

Doh.

Hi rogue! Answers: 1. No air-to-air is in the game. We aren't terribly interested in having invisible off-map units fight each other. We have to be careful not to let the scope of the battlefield creep any further away from tactical than we have already, and having air fight each other off the map would definitely be heading in that direction. 2. That's a difficult question to answer, because the spotting and LOS systems are very complicated. You'll have to be more specific. If I had to guess from your question, my answer woudl be that thermal and night vision technology is much better defined in Black Sea than it was Shock Force. You will see a dramatic difference in spotting capability for units equipped with thermal sights, especially at night. A unit stopping its Hunt without seeing anything is normal if it took fire without spotting the shooter. Hunt means that a unit will stop if its sees an enemy OR realizes that it is taking fire: for something as fragile as a Humvee, you don't want it to keep going forward when something can shoot at it! 3. Routing has been replaced with surrendering. You can expect the entire enemy force to surrender en-masse when they've reach roughly 75% casualties (that's a super-rough figure, it will vary depending on the morale state). 4. Videos of air support from Iraq (other than parts of the ground war itself) and Afghanistan are very misleading. Those aircraft are operating in practically perfect conditions with little threat to them. In Black Sea the airspace is considered to be hotly contested and aircraft are flying low and fast, trying to hit their targets and then get the heck out. That's the assumption by which the aircraft performance is modeled. 5. No, when aircraft are out of ammo they head home and stay there. Having aircraft rearm/refuel and come back is something we consider to be out of the scope of Combat Mission. Chris

We don't know yet.

We all missed you.

We'll officially announce the Black Sea manual tomorrow, but in the meantime, I'm attaching the Black Sea manual to this post. Enjoy. This is the Supplemental Manual, which has the info that is unique for Combat Mission: Black Sea. The Game Engine Manual V3.0 will release with the game. Note: To keep the file size down as a forum attachment, the PDF images are lower quality than the official/printed manual will be. CM Black Sea Manual.pdf

To be clear: There is no ETA on Shock Force's upgrade. We aren't working on it right now, and we do not yet have a defined time frame in which to do it either. It's "in the future". We don't know what the price will be yet, or the specifics of how this upgrade will be carried out (whether currently existing scenarios will be retained, etc). I can say that this will be a big effort. Just about every system has undergone major changes since the last version of Shock Force. Existing CMSF maps are in an old format. The TO&E needs to be re-made because we use a completely new TO&E system now. 2D art needs to be remade, 3D art needs to be modified, etc. That's really all the information currently available.

The above post is a quick selection of highlights from the patch notes put together from titles that have been released since the last Shock Force patch. From Battle for Normandy to Black Sea. When CMSF gets updated, it will be current with whatever state the CMx2 engine is in the future. That includes all of the above stuff that was added after Shock Force's last module, plus whatever else is done in the future. Can't answer any questions on equipment implications for Shock Force armies. Simply because I don't know since we haven't investigated that far yet.

Here are some highlights of what's happened to the CMx2 engine since the last Shock Force module. When we go back and update Shock Force, this is a good idea of the minimum that will included. MULTIPLAYER * WeGo TCP/IP with the ability to save but not the ability to replay combat action. * Pausable RealTime TCP/IP option. A player can request a Pause and, if the other player agrees, the game is Paused until both players are ready to continue play. QUICK BATTLES * Redesigned Quick Battle Generator that includes the ability for players to purchase formations, units and support, for their own force and for the computer AI. By deleting subformations/units, setting experience, motivation, fitness, and leadership levels, and attaching Specialist Teams and individual vehicles, the player can custom-tailor their force for the mission. * Automatically purchased force options are still available for the player and opponent, as well as a "Suggestion" button in the unit purchase screen that will quickly buy a force that the player can then modify. * Players can now choose their own maps, and preview maps before playing. USER INTERFACE * Two new camera control modes have been introduced in addition to the traditional Combat Mission controls: First Person Shooter (FPS), and Real Time Strategy (RTS). These new camera controls allow a player the choice to control the in-game camera in a way that is more familiar to other game genres. * Hotkey Unit Groups. Select units and assign them to number keys for quick navigation during gameplay. * New Load New Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by size, length, or alphabetically. * Improved Saved Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by newest file, oldest file, or alphabetically, or filter between single player and PBEM saves. Save games can be deleted in the game. * Visual Hotkey binding. A new dialog in the Options menu allows you to specify and view key assignments. * KIAs are shown in the Soldier/Crew Panels to track soldiers lost during the game. * The Ammo Panel has been redesigned: Ammunition is now listed by name and in discrete quantities instead of with icons and depleting bars. * Option to disable music separate from other game sounds. UNITS * FoW floating icons. FoW floating icons. Instead of getting a general area "?" icon and then immediately progressing to an accurate 3D representation, now there is an inbetween stage where you get a icon that represents the general category of enemy unit and no 3D representation. This tells the player "you know roughly what the unit is, but nothing more specific than that." * Command lines are back! Command and Control (C3) links can now be shown on the battlefield, allowing you to quickly determine whether subordinate units are in contact with their headquarters. Use Alt-Z. * Expanded floating icon categories. New unique floating icons have been added for Ammo Bearer, Recon, Engineer, MANPADS, LMG, Light Truck (Antitank), SPAA. * Dismounted vehicles function as Ammo Dumps, allowing formations to have reserve ammo stored separately on map (automatically distributed for certain Skill Levels). * Player-placeable static defenses and fortifications such as trenches, barbed wire, and mines. * Active Protection Systems (APS) are now available for some vehicles. * Some vehicles can salvo fire two ATGMs simultaneously at the same target. * Vehicles with laser warning receivers will display hit text warning the player that they have been lased. The vehicle will then rotate towards the threat, deploy smoke launchers and back up to cover, unless it is immediately preoccupied with another task such as engaging an enemy vehicle or moving. COMBAT AND SIMULATION * Ground units are now able to fire at attacking aircraft using self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicles, emplaced anti-aircraft guns, or shoulder-launched MANPADS units. Aircraft that are fired upon may have their combat effectiveness diminished, be forced to abort the mission, or even be shot down. * Soldiers with assault rifles are more likely to use aimed semi-automatic fire at distant targets instead of burst fire. Soldiers fire weapons faster at short ranges. MGs fire longer, more accurate bursts. More realistic/varied RoF of automatic weapons. Ammo bearers and heavy weapon assistant soldiers generally use their weapons only at shorter ranges. * Soldiers can surrender to nearby enemy units and possibly be "rescued" by nearby friendly units. This replaces the "routing" behavior from CMSF. * Wide range of weather types and environmental effects, including rain, fog, heavy winds (with ballistic effects), different types of ground conditions, animated water effects, and more... * Vehicles and soldiers equipped with night vision and thermal vision have a significantly improved boost to spotting abilities in low visibility conditions such as night. * Buttoned-up armored vehicles spot enemies to their flanks less effectively. * Improved UI display for timing of preplanned artillery missions also indicates what delay would be after the battle begins. * Small arms fire causes more suppression than before. MAPS AND ENVIRONMENT * Game performance for large maps has been increased while load times for large maps have been improved. * Maps can now be up to 8 kilometers long or wide (up from 4 kilometers). However, total map size is still restricted to 16 square kilometers. This means that you can make a 2 kilometer wide map that is 8 kilometers long! * Conduct combat operations in lush rural landscapes, dense urban settings, or anywhere in between. * Heavy Rocks, Heavy Forest, Marsh, and Deep Marsh block all vehicle movement, while Deep Marsh additionally blocks infantry movement. * Water terrain types added: Water, Reeds, Deep Ford, and Shallow Ford. Infantry can cross Deep Ford and Shallow Ford, while non-amphibious vehicles can only cross Shallow Ford. * Bridges are now available as a terrain type. Bridges come in multiple varieties, including wooden foot bridges, small rural stone bridges, large concrete traffic bridges, and even railroad bridges. Bridge lengths vary from 16 meters to 600 meters long. * New and improved tree and bush models added, representing a variety of European species ranging in size from small shrubs to towering evergreens. Forest ground tiles can accompany them for proper forest terrain. * Generic buildings can now be up to 14 stories high, and have sloped roofs available in addition to flat roofs. SOLDIERS * Dynamic, context sensitive equipment loadouts for individual soldiers depending on what weapon and equipment are carried. * Expanded Soldier details. A completely new way of assigning models and textures allows greater flexibility and variety of how Soldiers look in the game. It also allows for more flexible Modding possibilities. * When available, pre-made soldier appearance options can be toggled in the editor or QB Purchase screen by using the Appearance button. For example, this allows the player to choose between Ukrainian troops equipped with either new digital camouflage uniforms or older TTSKO uniforms. * Night vision equipment, such as goggles and weapon sights, will be automatically and visually equipped in scenarios with low-light conditions. * Many new soldier animations, stances and positions, including kneeling and sitting positions for crew served weapons, pistol firing animations, hand grenade throwing, crew functions, first aid, and much more... * Automatic ammo sharing between nearby soldier Units. FIRE SUPPORT * On-map mortars, both dismounted and vehicle-mounted, are now available. On-map assets such as mortars are able to fire in both direct and indirect modes, using their own spotters or separate forward observers. * Spotters are now restricted to directing only one Artillery or Air Support Mission at a time. Assets can now be group fired by shift-left-clicking them, allowing more than one Asset to be assigned to the same Mission. EXCEPTION: Spotters directing one UAV Observation Mission can also simultaneously direct one Artillery or Air Support Mission. * Player-placeable Target Reference Points (TRPs) allow simulating prepared support strikes and ambushes. Support missions aimed at TRPs do not require LOS from the spotter, or any spotting phase. * Precision artillery missions are available for Point targets. These missions are only available for certain artillery assets and 120mm mortars. * UAV Support Missions are now available. These missions use UAV support assets which can share spotting information with the player and ground units. * Helicopter and UAV Support Assets no longer require Line of Sight (LOS) for the spotter to call in a mission. In other words, the mission can be called anywhere on the map. COMMANDS * Scout Team Command splits off 2 men to act as scouts. * Target Armor Arc Command. Instructs units to engage only armored units within the specified arc. As with nearly every Command, outcome varies greatly depending on unit quality and battlefield conditions. * Target Briefly Command. Tells a unit to fire all its guns on a designated spot for 15 seconds, then cease fire. Issuing the command repeatedly increases the duration in increments of 15 seconds. * Mark Mines Command for Engineer teams and squads. * Waypoint dragging. A waypoint can be clicked on and moved by dragging it to a new location. * Grouped Spacebar Command system. Instead of getting all of the commands in a big list when the Spacebar is used, instead you get four groups of commands: Movement, Combat, Special, and Administrative. Selecting one of these presents the Commands specific to that Commands Group. * For vehicles with more than two weapons systems, such as an IFV armed with ATGMs, cannon, and MGs, the Target Light Command will fire only MGs on the target, while the Target Command will allow all weapon systems to be fired. GRAPHICS AND PERFORMANCE * Shaders. * Faster graphics, including FPS improvements, especially for infantry-heavy maps and faster video cards. * Possible speed improvements depending on video card hardware and drivers. * Movie Mode. * Bright Night Mode. * Hit impacts to vehicles and bunkers now shown graphically ("hit decals"). * Improved rendering. Normal and Bump mapping allows for more texture detail while using less system resources and improving the pressure on framerates. EDITOR * Independent Vehicles and Specialist Teams can be purchased and attached to any formation, allowing players to tailor their formations. * Exit objectives. * Improved Scenario briefing format, including a new Designer Notes subsection. * "Reduced headcount" option to simulate previously depleted formations. * "Ditch Contours" feature. Map editor elevation changes can be "sharp" by holding the control key when clicking tile elevations. This allows the creation of realistic ditch contours. * Ability to create AI Triggers that execute actions based on other units or interaction with Objectives. * Improved responsiveness of 2D editing, especially for large maps. * Improved load time for 3D Preview, especially large maps. * Customized "Mod Tags" for most graphics. This allows for multiple mods for the same item without the need to move items in/out of Data folder. * Ability to specify specific mods be used for a specific Scenario. If CM fails to find the specified mod it will use the default graphics. * Auto-Assemble linear terrain tool. Roads, walls, fences, and hedges can now be automagically drawn across the map instead of placing them one tile at a time. The old manual selection interface still exists to allow tweaking specific Action Spots. * BMP map overlay. Instead of having to create game maps by freehand you can now trace over a real world map within the Editor. Four different levels of transparency make the process easier by adjusting for different needs as work progresses. * More AI Groups. The number of AI Groups available has been increased from 8 to 16. This allows for greater fidelity of AI Plans and their assigned units. * Copy and paste AI Plans. Create a solid AI Plan, copy it, and paste it into an unused AI Plan slot. Once done the copied Plan can be modified to make a unique variant without having to build the Plan up from scratch. BONUS * Combat Victories (Kill Stats) for individual units showing how many and what types of units the soldier or vehicle has eliminated in the mission (totals tracked for campaigns).

Yep, I've been in MOPP4 while doing strenuous work, and put simply it sucks. In addition to the overheating and extra weight, everything is more difficult, even simple things like aiming a weapon or reloading. Reducing unit experience is a good way to simulate that degradation of basic combat skills, even if it's with a broad brush and not exactly a perfect solution..

Likely candidates for a future pack or module include SOF units that can also function as elite light infantry, like 75th Ranger Regiment and the majority of Spetsnaz units, and a few other units. However they would only be considered for duties that fall within the scope of Combat Mission, which is acting as elite light infantry or recon. It isn't practical for us to support actual special operations, like the stuff that dedicated SF and counter terrorist units do. The Combat Mission engine simply is not built to support that sort of action. The next question will be "why don't include you include SEAL Team Six/Delta/*insert fifty other forces here* and we'll just make do?" Because if we include it, people will expect it to be fully supported. And that would basically require a whole new game.

You can simulate an NBC environment right now pretty well. To simulate having to wear full protection gear: - Crank the environment temperature settings up. - Reduce soldier Fitness levels. - Reduce soldier experience drastically across the board (EVERYTHING is much harder to perform in MOPP 4) - Ease the above restrictions for vehicles that are NBC sealed. If you want to simulate a battlefield hit hard by EMP that has shut down or greatly reduced communications (not to mention tac nukes hitting comms hubs), increase the Electronic Warfare settings. Heck, if you set both sides to Strong, then there will be zero functional radio, GPS, satellite, etc, for anyone. Welcome to the dark ages. Granted, you won't have the visuals of soldiers running around in protective gear. Regarding specialized NBC vehicles: what exactly would these vehicles DO on a battlefield of Combat Mission's scale? Decontamination? Detection? Both of these aren't any help on a Combat Mission battlefield.

Another problem with the old vbulletin version we were using that many people probably don't appreciate is that it had major security flaws. Really, really bad ones that were sooner or later going to make us regret not moving.

The game covers June through August. For base game there is no impact from the date, other than for story purposes, dawn/dusk times, and night illumination.

Why are some of you guys already deciding that the Khrizantema's missile is useless? Making sweeping assumptions based on one anecdote or battle result isn't wise. Any number of a multitude of factors that you aren't aware of could have influenced those results. Just ran a quick test to demonstrate, had Khrizantema shoot at Abrams on a clean range from the front - no APS. 15 hits to Abrams front (some were double salvo hits, some weren't): three Abrams survived with moderate to major subsystem damage four Abrams survived with moderate to major subsystem damage, but were immobilized two Abrams survived with severe subsystem damage. Literally 90% of systems destroyed. Essentially a KO. six Abrams KO'd. And I happen to know that these are fairly typical results, provided of course that something doesn't drill the Khrizantema before it gets the shot off: it's a beast at killing vehicles, but also a glass cannon since it can't take hits and survive.

Parts 1 and 2 are up, part 3 is processing.

It's processing right now.

Sorry got held up out of town. Going to start in an hour at the old time today,

US rifle squad options: 1. B Team Grenadier: M4A1 Carbine w/ M320A1 grenade launcher or M25 CDTE grenade launcher. 2. Squad marksman: M4A1 Carbine w/ ACOG or M110 CSASS. Those are the two options. Javelin distribution works as such: Light infantry rifle platoons have two Javelin teams, two men each. To accommodate this setup two men have been cut from the M240 teams to man the second Javelin. For Stryker and Bradley infantry platoons, every vehicle that carries a rifle squad also carries a Javelin with three missiles. Most recon and some engineer vehicles also carry a Javelin with missiles. This differs from Shock Force, where just about every vehicle carried a Javelin launcher and missiles. In effect you'll see a roughly 30% decrease in availability of Javelins, since you won't be able to equip all of your HQs with Javelins because their transport vehicles don't carry any. The Javelin assignments in Black Sea are based entirely in the latest official US Army TO&E, and will prove to be less generous than Shock Force, although still enough to give AT teeth to any US infantry formation. As an aside, just about every special dismounted weapon has extra reload ammo carried in it's transport vehicle. Russian/Ukrainian ATGMs, SPG-9s, automatic grenade launchers, RPGs, TOW missiles, mortars, you name it... the vehicle carrying that team also carries extra ammo for the weapon. For example any Russian or Ukrainian AT-4/AT-7/AT-13/AT-14/Corsar/Skif ATGM team has an extra eight missiles stowed in their transport vehicle, in addition to what the team carries for a battle load. And you can always set the vehicle to Dismounted in the editor, turning it into an ammo dump that you can place near the team. Scout platoon: For Combined Arms battalions, the scout platoon is a mix of recon humvees and M3 Bradleys. For Armored Cavalry squadrons, the scout platoons are purely M3 Bradleys. Information we have gotten is that the Army is moving to pure M3 Bradleys for scout platoons, but that by 2017 there won't be enough Bradleys to cover all platoons, so the compromise is that the cavalry units get pure Bradleys while infantry units use a mix. Mixed armored scout platoon: HQ + XO teams in two recon humvees x3 Scout Sections w/ x2 scout teams riding in one recon humvee and one M3 Bradley Cavalry scout platoon: HQ + XO teams in two M3 Bradleys x2 Scout Sections w/ x2 scout teams riding in two M3 Bradleys

The supplemental manual will be printed and shipped with the disk for pre-orders, if that is what you mean.

Bone has been tossed here: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/117228-a-not-very-exciting-christmas-bone-this-year/

No changes to the briefing or campaign format for this release.

Right now my time is completely absorbed with Black Sea. When that gets out I'll swing back around to look at a patch for Fortress Italy.

... and now some idiot contentID party is now disputing the second video because of the game music, music which we bought a license for. Yay.