ASL Veteran

There aren't very many editor text fields that you type into within the editor itself so I don't really understand what you are asking. The briefings are all done on a text document outside of the game and then loaded into the scenario as a file. You can do whatever you want with the text file outside of the game. The only thing that I can think of right now that is inside the game is renaming units, naming victory locations, and naming reinforcement groups. It only takes a second or two to type a unit name. Is that what you are asking about? Typing unit names? If so then I don't think there is a way to paste into those fields. If you are asking about something else then I'm not sure I understand. The thought just occurred to me that you may want to translate briefings? I haven't done it in a while, but you should be able to export the briefing files while within the scenario editor. At least you used to be able to do that. When you export the briefing file you get a text file with the briefing so you can do whatever you want with it.

This was actually discussed prior to release and pictures similar to what you have posted were also posted, but BFC wasn't interested in allowing riders. The way it is now is the way it probably will remain since a change would require extra coding work on the vehicle. If they wouldn't do it before release they probably won't do it later.

The ranks for each command level are automatically set by the game and can't be altered so if someone of a different rank was in command of a unit historically you can't change the rank in the game to match the actual rank of the commander. You can change the name though. Out of curiosity I did a quick scan of all the CM scenarios listed at the Blitz and I crunched a few numbers. There are a total of 120 scenarios listed for CMBN, 42 scenarios listed for CMFI, and 40 scenarios listed for CMRT. That gives us a grand total of 202 scenarios for all three game series combined. I considered that a scenario needed to be played at least ten times to have a sample size large enough to give us a good idea as to scenario balance. Out of a total of 202 total scenarios listed 35 scenarios were played ten times or more for CMBN, 9 scenarios were played at least ten times in CMFI, and 8 scenarios were played at least ten times in CMRT. That gives us a total of 52 scenarios out of 202 that were played at least ten times. I considered a scenario to be 'balanced' if no side won a scenario more than 60 percent of the time. So a result of 60 - 10 - 30 would be counted as 'balanced' for my purposes. Of those 52 scenarios played ten times or more 19 CMBN scenarios were 'balanced', 4 CMFI scenarios were 'balanced', and 3 CMRT scenarios were 'balanced'. That gives us a total of 26 balanced scenarios out of a total of 202 were we have results listed. Out of those 26 I know that there are plenty of player comments indicating that the scenario was impossible to win for one side or another so even among those 26 there was a great deal of disagreement about whether a scenario was 'balanced' or not. A couple of observations I could make here. First I noticed that only about a quarter of all the scenarios available have been played ten times or more. That should give a decent idea as to how difficult it would be to test scenarios head to head under the time constraints while the game is being created by a limited number of beta testers. Second, even amongst those scenarios that were played ten times or more only about half of those fell within the bounds of what I considered balanced for these purposes. Finally even amongst those that did fit into the balanced category for my purposes there was disagreement amongst those who played the scenarios as to balance. There aren't a lot of scenario designers in the community at large and even fewer who create on a consistent basis. Scenario designers do the best they can with the tools available, but I think it would be helpful to keep expectations a little bit restrained. Creating a perfectly balanced scenario that is fun to play for everyone and that every player agrees is actually balanced is probably the scenario designing equivalent of hitting a Grand Slam in baseball. We can hit some solo homers and maybe get a few doubles and singles, but expecting a Grand Slam to be created on a regular and predictable basis is unrealistic. Sometimes things work out and sometimes things don't. Designers just put their best foot forward and hope they've created something fun and hopefully challenging for both sides.

The air cooled MMGs should be in the weapons platoon for A, B, and C company while the water cooled MGs are typically found in the weapons company or 'D' company.

Lt Bull your points are interesting but ultimately they don't make much sense since all you do is limit what people can play and create chaos and confusion. Designing a scenario for 'H2H only' is pretty simple to do. Make a map and plop some troops on it then ask others to play it for you. It was already mentioned that time constraints prevent any sort of thorough testing for H2H play so let's call that 'strike one'. Putting a scenario into the game with no AI plans will invariably create a situation where somebody will load up the scenario and say 'I played scenario x and nothing moved for thirty minutes! The scenario is broken!' You can place as many notes on the scenario that you want to but expecting everyone who purchases the game to read everything is not being realistic. So putting a scenario in the release that has no AI plans is a non starter. Let's call that strike two. Now let's just imagine that we went ahead and put scenarios in a release and categorized them as you suggest. A release has about 20 scenarios in it. If half had no AI plans and were classified as H2H and half had AI plans and were classified as SP then each category of player gets only ten scenarios each. Ten with no AI plans that would be unplayable for SP players under any circumstances and then another ten that would have AI plans that were suitable for play as only one side or the other. If we divide the SP scenarios in half for each side then the SP player would only have five scenarios they could play as German and five as American. So if you want to play as the American in SP then with your purchase of CMFB you would get a grand total of 5 playable scenarios out of twenty. Anyone want to guess how happy that person will be? Let's call that strike three. You seem to have an assumption that someone who designs for H2H will make a superior H2H scenario. Like I said though - all the guy who is making a H2H only scenario is doing is making a map, plopping units on the map, and saying 'I'm done, now someone play it for me and tell me how it goes.' That's great as far as it goes but there is absolutely nothing preventing the guy who has just made a map and plopped units on it from also creating an AI plan that uses those units without any modification whatsoever to what he has already done. The only reason not to create an AI plan of some sort is if the person doesn't know how to make one because whether the designer makes an AI plan or not is absolutely not dependent upon whether or not a scenario can be played H2H or not. The AI plan may not be a good one or the game may not play as well as one side or the other, but there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from creating an AI plan other than a lack of knowledge or skills with using the editor. Let's call that 'You're out!' Since there is absolutely no connection between whether an AI plan exists in a scenario and whether the scenario is suitable for H2H play your entire premise is a false one. The only thing doing what you say accomplishes is to allow scenario designers who aren't competent enough with the editor to create an AI plan to plop units on a map and call it a scenario as well as limit the number of scenarios that customers who buy the game can play. If every scenario can be played H2H and in SP from either side then everyone who buys the game has twenty scenarios to play in any way they want to. Your gaming experience will vary because every scenario will have its own quirks but at least everyone who bought the game has twenty scenarios to play with. If your expectation is that if every release had a few scenarios with no AI plans then your H2H experience would be better then I would submit to you that you haven't really thought through the issues as thoroughly as you might. There is absolutely no guarantee that those H2H specific scenarios would be any better than anything already in the game now and how would you feel if one of those precious few H2H scenarios didn't work out to be as 'balanced' as you had hoped. Just look at 'The Blitz' scenario listings and see how difficult it is to have a perfectly balanced scenario. Read the comments and see how different an experience some players had when playing a specific scenario. One guy says scenario x might be perfectly balanced while the next guy says it is a cake walk for side y. Perfect balance in H2H scenarios for everyone who plays a scenario is a fantasy target that can't be achieved and including a bunch of scenarios in a release that have no AI plans will not achieve that target of perfection any more than a scenario having an AI plan will. Balance can be achieved over the course of many games as a collective but there is no way to guarantee that any particular player in any specific instance will have a perfectly balanced competitive tournament match. It is an impossible goal to achieve. Once again, there is also absolutely no connection between H2H viability and whether or not an AI plan exists. The two can coexist just fine without one affecting the other. Adding an AI plan is just the last step in the scenario creation process and only designers who lack the skill to create an AI plan would make a scenario that didn't have one. If your desire is perfect balance in your games then play QBs and choose your own forces. Even QBs aren't going to give you perfect balance on every occasion but that's what QBs are there for.

I'm only seeing about four of the Market Garden scenarios and there are probably about twenty I think so you seem to be missing the majority of those unless there is some hidden tab that I'm not seeing or something.

Go ahead and put a ticket in with the help desk, but yeah, it is almost assuredly install related. Maybe try installing both before activating either or something? I think there are a few patches too ... it has been a while since I installed the game but you may be missing a patch or two.

This is typically associated with installing the game, modules, and patches in the wrong order or incorrectly.

The weapons of any particular group are assigned dynamically to some extent so it is possible in many circumstances to get a different weapons mix every time a scenario is started. I don't know if that applies to the specific unit in that scenario but the weapons mixes are assigned at scenario start and will be different most of the time. Apparently it has been this way since the beginning but I only noticed it with this particular release since some squads were getting more BARs than others and the number of BARs in each squad were changing every time I started the scenario.

Doh!

If you have a big map and you want to get across it quickly you can always hold the ctrl key down and then right click on the far side of the map and you will be teleported there instantly.

You can overlap the waypoint for order 1 and order 2 by painting the waypoints for each order in the same location. If order 1 and order 2 are painted in the same place then the unit located in that waypoint will not move. It is a fairly easy mistake to make because the waypoint for each order only appears on the map when that specific order is selected. One very common mistake is for someone to paint several waypoints and then decide they want to do something different. They then paint the new waypoints but they don't delete the old waypoints. The AI then has two separated waypoint locations to choose from and sometimes the AI will not move something because it is sitting on an old waypoint that you don't even know it is assigned since it wasn't deleted. Edited to add that yes, the total footprint of the waypoints that you paint need to be large enough to fit the force you intend to move, otherwise the truppen won't move.

As long as the waypoints do not overlap then the AI will move. If the AI group is properly assigned, the waypoints do not overlap or aren't fragmented, and no time has been assigned to the waypoint then the AI will always move. Now you can have fragmented waypoints that partially overlap and it will work but you have to be practiced at it. Here is how you might troubleshoot your issue: All of your pixeltruppen are automatically assigned AI group A1. In order to assign your truppen a different group then you need to assign those truppen to an AI group in the purchase screen. Select the unit you want to assign to a group and press F2 to assign that unit to AI group 2 and F3 to AI group 3 etcetera. In scenario author test mode you can find out which troops are assigned to which groups by selecting the truppen and looking in the area where the suppression meter is. The AI group the unit has been assigned can be seen there. Step one: Are the truppen that I am trying to have move assigned to the AI group that I am plotting waypoints for? Step two: Do any of the waypoints that I am working with overlap? Step three: Are the times associated with each waypoint the correct times that I want? Step four: Am I working with the correct AI plan?

AI plan time starts when the scenario begins and counts forward from zero. So if you want a unit to begin moving at the start of the scenario you don't put any time on it. If you want a unit to wait ten minutes from the beginning of the scenario before moving anywhere you put ten minutes in the exit before and after slots - I think they are called something different now but I hope you understand what I mean. That's all there is to it.

Have you checked your spam folders? Sometimes BFC customer support e-mails get flagged as spam.

Here is something to entertain you while you are waiting for the game to be released

The game has not been released and no version is ready for download because the public release version of the game is not finished yet.

There is no coop play. You can play real time vs an opponent using TCP/IP.

Actually it isn't a requirement for all objectives to be visible for both players. Every single scenario I've made has different objectives for each side and each side's objectives are only visible to that particular side. The important thing is that the objectives are created such that both sides need to engage the other in battle in order to achieve their objectives which is pretty simple to do. I'm not sure who made Platoon Patrol - is that a third party scenario? I would say that the issue you have described is specific to that scenario and not an overall indictment of different objectives for each side. If the designer's intent was to have each side defend a patrol base from the other then the proper way to do it would be to split the terrain victory points and place an occupy objective on the friendly patrol base and place a touch objective on the enemy patrol base. Alternatively the designer could have placed an occupy objective on the friendly patrol base and a touch objective at some other map location such as a building or something. A different location for each side that would cause both sides to have to pass each other in order to reach their touch objective. There are many ways to accomplish the design objective. It just seems like in the case of the scenario you played the design objective was not met.

Mist doesn't limit visibility in game to 500 meters. I think that either Light Fog or Fog will do that though. Mist, from what I can tell, has almost no effect in game. As far as the visual representation of Mist - it is there but hard to see. You have to be at ground eye view looking across a long distance and there will be a bit of a misty look but you won't see it in a way similar to fog. It is more like the effect that Haze has in game. For a long time I could not even see Fog in my game. Eventually it got fixed enough that I could see Fog when CMFI came out (I think) but it is definitely video card specific. Others could see Fog and I could not. I would venture to say that if you can see Fog in the game then you should be able to see Mist as well. Like I said though - Mist is hard to see because you have to be at ground level looking across the entire map. As far as the briefing note about the 500 meters goes - that was probably either a mistake in the briefing or perhaps confusion about which environmental settings were being used. Maybe the author used Fog at first and then switched to Mist but didn't change the briefing.

I don't think a political discussion in this thread serves any purpose and is likely to get the thread locked before long. I think it would be advisable to move on from that topic.

I don't know who BFC has that does all the translation work, but if someone was willing to translate all the briefings it might be worth contacting them just to see what they say. I have to imagine that it would be a tremendous amount of work though! I could definitely see value in having all the briefings translated. I can only assume that it is a matter of cost at the moment.

Hmmm, you know ..... I don't think that the scenario briefings are converted into other languages for the foreign language versions. I think only the main menu screens and stuff like that is translated.

There would be enough Russian stuff to do to keep BFC busy for years.