Holman
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Posts posted by Holman
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2 hours ago, The_Capt said:
Welcome to war in the 21st century. Billion dollar platforms firing million dollar weapons at 50$ targets.
I write an $80,000 check to Lockheed-Martin every time I launch a Javelin in CMx2.
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17 hours ago, dan/california said:
Iron mode should probably set all ECM settings to max automatically . No one has any clue how hacked they are among other things. Clearly every satellite in orbit will be a cloud of debris in the first hour. The Russians and Chinese are trying to cause a cascading series of disasters in orbit just testing their toys.
On the other hand, neither CMSF2 nor CMBS imagines a global/total war scenario but something more localized. All the "canonical" fighting in CMBS is in the neighborhood of the Dnieper River and nowhere else, for example. It's not a general conflagration all across Europe or the world.
CMCW is a different story, of course. Jamming is a certainty, not to mention that every military radio in Europe is in use at the same time. -
I'm confused.
CMCW 1.02 isn't released yet, right?
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It can also (especially in a WW2 setting) take time just to establish communications. Radio static, competing requests for support, etc can all get in the way.
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I haven't read a word of Asimov since the 1980s, but my good friend (a longtime SF fan) tells me that there's just a basic mismatch between the goals of the books and the aims of a prestige post-GameOfThrones TV series.
(He tells me:) The books reflected an old GALAXY magazine sensibility. They were made up of nearly stand-alone episodes that just happened to be set in the same universe and timeline. Characters were pretty shallow, mostly just mouthpieces for the Big Ideas that Asimov wanted to keep playing with and ruminating upon. FOUNDATION is less of a character-driven story than it is an experiment in alternative/counterfactual sociology and (future) history. None of that works with the way big-budget SF is done now, so old-school Asimov fans will be disappointed with the series' focus on characters and (wholly invented) backstories, etc.
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Villeneuve's DUNE, on the other hand, is easily one of the most faithful and compelling book-to-film adaptations I've ever seen, inside SF or out.
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I can never remember whether (for spotting and/or shooting purposes) it's better for armored vehicles to be buttoned or unbuttoned.
I know there are tremendous differences between CM eras and armies and even individual vehicle models, but is there an easy rule of thumb for knowing when a hunting/scouting/covering vehicle commander loses anything by being in or out of the hatch?
I know WW2 vehicles will have better sighting unbuttoned, but how can I tell which models of (e.g.) Strykers or other modern vehicles have good optics when buttoned or not?
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FWIW, the "dirty bombs emptying multiple major cities for a century" scenario has always seemed a bit too apocalyptic for me, but in the end it doesn't matter and has no game effect. All you need is a plausible motive for Western-led regime change. It can be abstract, or it can be as specific as you find plausible.
All that matters is that *something* has motivated the scenario you're playing.
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From his Wikipedia:
"Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American author and historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.[2] He has written several books, including the best-sellers Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin and On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.[3]"
One of my best friends was a Marshall Scholar with Snyder at Oxford and considers him one of the most serious historians he has known. He is not a "popular" author except in the sense that his work has attracted wide interest.
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Jungle fighting just wouldn't work at all in this engine.
Draw up an all-forest map and try an infantry engagement in it.
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I read it years ago, and found it fascinating.
IIRC (and this will be a test of my memory, as I'm not looking it up), Malaparte was an Italian journalist who enjoyed the company of aristocrats and other well-connected Italians, many of whom would come to be part of or adjacent to the Mussolini regime. He was also deeply cynical about the war. The novel is semi-autobiographical and offers a very unusual perspective on WW2.
Did I remember it right?
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2 hours ago, womble said:
Oh, one indicator of good cover (not quantum mechanics
) is when you see "bullet tracers" passing right through your pTruppen's pixels without causing them harm. Cover, AIUI, gives a "saving throw" to the little guys, and good, solid cover can see that saving throw be quite high, even if the round apparently penetrates it and the tender bodily particles of your pTruppe. If they survive several "hits", they're in good cover.
Plus, the CMx2 graphics engine doesn't present every twitch and squirm of an individual soldier. Someone ducking at the right time or pressing themselves that much further into the dirt can save them even if the computer doesn't show it.
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Someone could create "Invasion America" right now with graphics mods alone. The US/Soviet data is already in the engine, and all you have to do is change some building textures and doodads.
You've got German terrain for the East and South and NTC terrain for Texas etc. Recolor it for Kudzu and gravel roads if you really want to go to town.
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7 hours ago, landser said:
A 'visible terrain mode' would give all of this info at a glance.
Visible from whom? That's the question.
I think you should just accept that it's difficult and that the player has to learn the complications and work with them.
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I feel icky about dumping on another developer's vision. There's room for lots of wargames, and the life of the genre depends on attracting new players at all levels.
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Buddy aid has a random element, and rightly so.
Maybe you want the FT, but the buddy just has no idea how to use it correctly. Maybe that BAR is better than your carbine, but the stock got shattered by the blast that killed the BAR man. Maybe you'd love to pick up that M240, but the former gunner's entrails are currently slathered all over it.
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8 hours ago, landser said:
I fail to see how this applies to the mode I am suggesting
I assume you want to press a key and have the map highlight everywhere your unit can see.
But what is the "unit?" Since sighting in CMx2 is by individual members, does (for example) a selected tank highlight where the commander can see (even if the gunner can't), or does it only highlight what the gunner can see (meaning that the tank itself might be visible from places where you're told it can't see).
Likewise, an infantry squad. Does your button highlight only what a single member can see, or is it necessary for all of them to be able to see the spot?
In the end, even with such a sighting-highlight tool in place, you'll be developing an eye for what a unit can *effectively* see and not see through long practice. And that's what we're already doing now. -
1 hour ago, landser said:
Combat Mission could really use a feature or mode where clicking any unit under your command would shade or color all parts of the map visible to that unit.
Ideally, sure. Or... maybe not.
In CM, visibility is checked not per unit but per individual soldier. Your opened-up tank commander might see an enemy that the gunner can't; an infantry rifleman might see one that the squad machine-gunner can't; etc etc.
CM requires that you learn by practice what works and what doesn't. Some extra UI tools might actually make this harder, not easier.
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53 minutes ago, dbsapp said:
Really? It's great if it's so, but the design is definitely misleading. I tried it many times and was left under impression that LOS is always measured from the current position since the line originates from it, not from the waypoint.
Try it and see. Place a waypoint (which you can of course delete afterwards) on the other side of a forest or even just a building. The LOS line does appear to originate from the unit, but its colors very clearly indicates sight from the waypoint.
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On 5/8/2021 at 8:00 AM, Der Zeitgeist said:
The Reichstag building in West Berlin probably would have been taken by Warsaw Pact forces within the first hour of any cold war gone hot-style invasion scenario, as it sat literally right next to the Berlin Wall.
So, no, not much fighting to be done there.
I haven't spent any time in the CMCW map editor, but how is it for 1970s-80s urban architecture?
Berlin might not be much of a battle, but fighting would surely be serious in Hamburg, Hannover, etc. And of Course Frankfurt and Cologne/Bonn would probably be the ultimate targets for the Pact invasion plan.
Perhaps the West-and-East German DLC could include appropriate urban terrain as well. -
11 hours ago, Bufo said:
I often see this come up, and it is a completely false argument.
You do not only play as a commander in CM. As a commander, you tell your tank platoon to go to this area, and find a good point where you have a good observation on this area - for example.
In CM, you have to tell each unit exactly where it has to go. So you have to check from which position what is visible, and not the unit itself.
Remember that CM allows you to check LOS not just from a unit's current position but from a movement waypoint.
For example, select a unit and place a waypoint somewhere the unit definitely can't see (such as the other side of the map). If you select that waypoint and give a "target" order, the line of sight tool will reflect visibility from that waypoint, not from the unit's current position. (It take a little getting used to because the line still originates from the unit, but its color clearly indicates calculation from the waypoint.)
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And "Target" works perfectly well for this.
CM already gives the player plenty of unrealistic god's-eye-view advantages lacked by historical commanders. Having to be in position to check spotting is a feature, not a bug.
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31 minutes ago, ratdeath said:
I hope they add multiplayer after release, especially if it turns out to be a fun game. Feels like computer 3D version of Deluxe ASL.
CM actually started development as what would have been the official computer adaptation of ASL.
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On 5/3/2021 at 9:32 PM, BFCElvis said:
Philly? What part? That's where I was before moving to Pennsyltuckey. I plan on the moving trucks pulling up the day after my daughter graduates high school next year.
We've been in Roxborough/Manayunk for 20 years now, with friends all over town!
) is when you see "bullet tracers" passing right through your pTruppen's pixels without causing them harm. Cover, AIUI, gives a "saving throw" to the little guys, and good, solid cover can see that saving throw be quite high, even if the round apparently penetrates it and the tender bodily particles of your pTruppe. If they survive several "hits", they're in good cover.
Duplicate Scenarios (with slightly different names)
in Combat Mission Cold War
Posted
There are several duplicate scenarios in my copy of CMCW (e.g. "NTC If it ain_t cav" and "NTC If it ain't cav").
I assume it's best to just delete the earlier versions in these pairs?