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Capt. Toleran

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Posts posted by Capt. Toleran

  1. So recently I took advantage of the free Steam key option from Matrix to move my CMBS installation over to Steam, and get my Game Engine 4 upgrade for free in the process.  I've owned CMBS since it came out, as well as almost every Combat Mission title, going back to CMBO.

    So on the Steam installation, I'm clearly missing textures.  Black treads on T-90s, BTR-82s that are completely black, etc.  Doing the usual solve to check for missing or corrupted files (you have Steam check against the local files) doesn't work.  Does anyone else have this problem?  I get that Battlefront might say the usual "We don't support Steam" but it's their product on there, broken, and imagine a user coming to the product who doesn't have the experience here of what needs fixing.  It certainly doesn't look good for the product.

    I posted a thread about this on the boards there, but no response yet.  So I'm trying here.  It doesn't seem right that a game is missing textures that has been through this many rounds of iterations.

  2. Great mod.  I'm noticing a major issue with the first campaign so far.  For some reason, the jeeps with recoiless rifles are apparently completely invisible to the T-55s and BTR's.  No joke, I have armored vehicles completely unable to see them, 200 yards away, parked in the middle of a road, and I'm losing my entire armored force and APCs to jeeps in recoiless rifles, frontally.  Not flank attacks, not ambushes, literally Arc-set, unbuttoned (when they will), I-know-where-they-are, just move an inch forward and shoot the thing in your sights, never winning.  That doesn't seem right.  I'm not blaming the mod, presumably there's an AI spotting issue here?  Regardless, it somewhat spoils it for me.  I can only rage quit so many times before I realize I've lost 2 hours to my day to bad game programming.

    Also, shouldn't my infantry always be shooting at them, given the value of the target, the power of the weapon system involved (an anti-tank weapon, after all), and the vulnerability of the unarmored vehicle to small arms fire?  That's not happening.  The squads seem very shy about firing on unarmored vehicles.  That seems ahistorical in any era, especially that one.

  3. Given there is a known issue with these mines, which were never there in the original, and apparently unremovable by the breach teams (at least my teams wouldn't blast them away), why are they in there?  There's a whole host of problematic behaviors and it really sours the campaign to start that way.  "Ok, we cleared some lanes in the mines, finally.... No, don't go over there.." BLAM!  "No, don't back away into them.." BLAM!  Not a great way to show off the new engine to those of us who have been along for the ride and invested early since CMBO days.  Why not just take them out of the campaign mission?  Am I missing something?  At some point the regret really starts to sink in that this isn't the game experience I paid for.  There are plenty of heartbreaking moments in the game without clunky mechanics that have had 13+ years to get worked out making a mess of a game session.  While I accept some of that is inevitable, the choice to put mines there with no way to resolve it short of calling an arty strike on yourself is somewhat baffling.

  4. Hate to complain after finally having my rep here repaired, but the repository seems to sadly lack behind what we saw for other games in terms of it actually working on time (took many weeks to go up), and for the files actually working.

     

    Case in point -- tried to download Stagler's MSV uniforms:

    http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=startdown&id=3481

     

    ...and I get a "File not found" page consistently.  What's the deal?  It's kind of sad when misc. dropbox links from PM's and threads here work better than the official repository.  I'm sure the modders here have better things to do (like make mods, and thank you for those) than post links and deal with PM's from annoying/needy people like me.

     

    Could someone maybe look into this and fix it definitively?  It seems really strange it has taken this long for this to solidify given the great repository support for the past games.  A repository is of little use if it doesn't work consistently.

  5. Sure would like to see a youtube of someone winning this.  Rage quit 4 times in about 40 minutes.  The first two games, I lost my jeep mg gunner in the first 2 turns, despite being in heavy cover.

     

    Also, I think this scenario needs a map with the general area of the outpost mapped.  First time, I didn't understand that the outpost was right there and the "rush vehicles forwards" advice seems to end up with a jeep that is quickly routing in panic.  Unit position ended up with either my units in too much cover, with no sight of the enemy, or not enough, and getting picked off.  Snipers were surprisingly passive, and many observation areas proved selectively useless for covering advancing troops,  I quickly started running out of time and losing too many troops to attrition -- to rescue one guy, this sure wasn't worth the sacrifice.

     

    But I seem to be the only one with this experience.  Once again, would love to see this in action so that I can know what I am doing wrong.

  6. Getting to this discussion late -- I think sometimes people forget that Battlefront is a business, and at the end of the day, they need to sell games to make more of them.

     

    Let's think about the audience for the game -- while we have plenty of international players (welcome!), there is still a significant amount, I would assume the majority, that are American.  This means you do Marines, because the Marines are almost a religion unto themselves here, revered (rightfully so) as some of the best of our best.  If you want to sell games to Americans, you make it about Americans.  Battlefront themselves said that one of the big problems with CMBB was that the effort vs. ROI tradeoff was very poor vs. CMBO because there were no Americans in that part of the war.  It was a great game for a specific niche of hobbyists, and Russians didn't bite on the game (or maybe they couldn't really sell it there anyways vs. pirating), so it was kind of a waste.

     

    All of these other countries I have seen listed -- France, Britain, Poland, etc. -- they will have to be "in addition to Marines."  Nothing against those countries, but until the UK and France, Germany, etc. start buying the game wholesale (if you want to help Battlefront, spread the word!), they are going to focus on things that make Americans buy games, and there are a lot more of us who care more about US Marines vs. any other country's force that is supposed to be on the "allied" side.  This is just economic reality, but I am eager to hear any counter-arguments that might contradict this, including if there were any major demographic changes in the Battlefront audience since CMBO.  If so, I stand corrected.

  7. It's very tough. I mean VERY tough. I was stunned at the number of blue icons present on the map after the rage quit. I got down to level one and the Ukrainian regulars seemed to be flipping the bird to my troops. As in Toleran's experience one of my T72 crews abandoned their perfectly intact ride after what appeared to be merely MG fire. The survivors were promptly gunned down after crawling around looking for... a place to die. I felt compelled to LIKE Toleran's posts.

     

    Also, if you want this battle to appeal to MP'ers I suggest your provide setup zones for Red.

     

    You're a meanie. ;)

     

    Thank you good sir for liking my posts here, you have brought me back to neutral and erased some of my self-inflicted shame from bad behavior in January.  I won't forget the good favor, cheers!

  8. One reality this scenario really drove home for me was the caliber change in modern warfare, which for the most part is smaller bullets with less penetration power.  Troops in CMBN could hole up in a heavy building if they wanted to, but a barrage of 30-06 and the 7..92mm German equivalent (as well as 7.62x54R in CMRT, which kicks like a mule if you have ever fired a Mosin or a SVD-imitation Romanian PSG) meant that it was only a matter of time before you caught the right round in the wrong place, or the building slowly came apart.  In this scenario, aside from the heavy MG's and the tank rounds, which really make themselves known once they show up, only the Dragunov's and PKM's/PKP's have the penetrating power needed to really put someone down inside a heavy building vs. what seems like a barrage of 5.45x39 rounds against those walls.  They take much longer to have any chance of getting through some of these buildings, and while the squad now has great rapid-fire ability in the open, in an urban environment, they struggle.  I had remembered it from CMSF, but it had been a long time since I had played that (thanks antivirus programs!) and I had been playing CMBN and CMRT a lot, where urban environments didn't stand up as well to higher-caliber rounds.

     

    RPG's and grenades (launched or otherwise) are still of pretty limited use on a lot of the buildings on this map.

  9. Thanks, I was tired and cranky last night and maybe a bit more blunt than was appropriate.  You can see from my current rating here (due to my meltdown on CMBS launch day) that I do that sometimes, much to my chagrin later :P

     

    I also think perhaps you are right about difficulty level.  I always play Iron out of principle, but the first time I did Warrior, and maybe I am drastically overestimating my own skillset vs. the difficulty.  My stubborn pride won't let me not do Iron, and I think this is probably one of those scenarios I need to get right to learn and grow.  Thank you again for doing this, and I look forward to other scenarios from you, they for sure are not overly easy ;)

  10. Thanks RepsolCBR, I appreciate the breakdown, it sounds like I was doing it wrong and trying to take them out from long range.  I still find the suicidal last stand behavior somewhat unreal, but maybe that is just a limitation of the AI and nothing you can account for.  I will take a rest for a while on this one and try it again later.

  11. Anyone win this one yet?  After rage quitting twice, and taking massive casualties from seemingly suicidal/invicible outposts (who would not rout even when surrounded and pounded for minutes on end with every caliber I had), I surrendered and got a lot at the rest of the forces -- and they seem overwhelming.  Is this a fair attack map, or is it one of those scenarios meant to be extremely realistic but not necessarily winnable?  I saw a ton of blue out there, and even the reserve didn't look like nearly enough troops, tanks or not, to get anywhere near a winning condition on this map.  As a side note, both tanks were completely tore up by the higher caliber MG's, and I wasted all of my HE rounds taking out just one of them.

     

    I would love to see a youtube of someone winning this scenario and proving me wrong.

  12. Yes - anyone think the snipers and heavy MG's are a little too tough?  I mean, with the volume of fire I am throwing at them, either that building is made out of titanium or their body armor is diamond-coated.  These guys are fighting like suicidal jihadis.  And do heavy MG's always wreck T-72s?  Mine are getting pretty roughed up from what is essentially a .50 mg, and that gunner doesn't seem phased at all by HE wrecking the wall in front of them or shrapnel.  Not sure that this is accurate, but I could be wrong, maybe this is why the pocket stayed there so long...

  13. Hmm -- rethinking my comments above, maybe I am comparing apples to oranges, as the rebels presumably are not the same as front-line Russian troops in the CMBS scenario.  CMBS Russians are using AK-74M's (the plastic furniture ones), so maybe it makes sense they would all have optics vs. the rebels with the surplus the Russians are giving them to disguise involvement.

  14. In terms of the separatists and Russian helpers, I haven't seen much optics in the vids I've seen on Youtube and Liveleak.  Yes, the occasional one here and there, but not nearly as many as I have seen in footage from Syria.  Still seeing a lot of iron sights and stock AK-74's (wood furniture), instead of some of the higher-end, obviously sponsored or merc ones from other theaters.  Just my 2 cents though, I'm certainly no expert.

  15. I thought I would weigh in with my opinion here at risk of violating the "no politics" clause in this forum -- please understand that I do not have strong emotions about either side in this conflict (I am an American, full disclosure), but I will understand if this post gets deleted back out for straying a bit too far from the Debaltseve topic in this thread.  I do hope I can keep this acceptable and neutral enough that it does stay up, and that what I am saying here isn't something everyone already knows all too well..

     

    Big picture, the cold war never really ended.  Russia hit hard times during the official end of the first cold war, and while it's not worth recapping the last 20 years, you can summarize it that they hit on hard times, and are facing very hard economic and demographic realities (e.g. negative population growth forecasted) that Putin seems pressured by.  Russia has continued the gamesmanship by challenging us in pretty much every world situation since the late 90s -- Serbian militants, Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc.  Because of the ramp up of the economies in China and India, oil, and commodities as a whole. shot up in value in the past 10 years and put them in a position of some influence in terms of being able to jerk the EU around when it came to energy prices and supply.

     

    There is some good evidence (but not irrefutable) that we did find a good way to counter this through gas and oil price manipulation with our own oil production and possible collusion from Saudi Arabia to lower prices and start drowning the economies of the  "usual suspects," Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, who are active opponents and adversaries in the international arena, supporting US and NATO/EU enemies, etc.  For instance, Iran has almost no refining capability of its own, so low oil prices hit them multiple ways and sink their economy.  Same goes for Venezuela, and of course, Russia, who only had that going for them, and a lot of internal problems (and Putin's oligarchy) going against them.

     

    Finally, to my point -- when Putin invaded Crimea, I thought to myself, "He fell for it!"  Why?  Because the invasion of Crimea was something Russia could have been depended on to do, especially with Putin in charge.  Let's ignore for the moment the strategic reasons that almost any other aggressive leader would have invaded or at least made a big fuss about, that Crimea was their only warm-water port and that losing that is essentially the final nail in the Russian Navy's coffin, and that coffin was already well into the ground.  The fact is that Putin always invades when this happens.  The Bosnian situation and the airport, back in the 90s, when they seized it ahead of us?  I think Yeltsin was technically in charge, but that was Putin.  Chechnya twice?  Putin (and there is some evidence the second time was justified with a false flag terrorist attack or attacks, vs. real terrorism, but that is another topic). 

     

    The fact is that Yeltsin could be counted on to invade as consistently as you could count on a bull to charge someone in the ring --  it's what he does.  He has already taken several pages out of a certain former leader of Germany's playbook, and I think NATO decided this was a good "tar baby" to get him to punch this time.  Why?  It saps resources further, but additionally, it then brought in official sanctions that the UN had to sign off on.  Now Russia's economy is going backwards at a rate of -3% to -10%  of GDP, while he sinks time, soldiers, and rubles into this fairly pointless war (other than the significance of Crimea).  His expansionist goals are stunted, though it is a somewhat dangerous game for all of us to corner him.  Strategypage.com  recently had an interesting opinion piece on him and his staff -- it sounds to me very similar, once again, to the very aggressive former leader of Germany being delusional about some grand military future of his country while those in the know, and those who count the rubles, are trying to get him to address real internal problems vs. this world domination fantasy.  He has made a big show of trying to reinvigorate the Russian defense industry in the past few years, but why, and is it practical?  My thought is that we wanted him to invade, to sap away from those goals, sap his ability to help our enemies (Syria/Iran/NK/Venezuela), and bring the wrath of the world down on his head.

     

    This isn't to besmirch our current president or the presidents before him -- I'm not sure those guys are really in charge anyways, given current campaign finance laws in the US and the fact that corporations essentially pay both parties off.  The folks pulling the strings have a set policy, and Putin was a legit opponent of those goals, with his own goals in mind (supposedly he is now the richest man in Europe due to his own cronyism and corruption).  Ukraine is being used as a pawn for multiple parties here, and the folks that NATO supports there are not totally innocent (nor are the separatists) -- see their actions post-coup to remove all languages except Ukrainian from the ballots, which was in violation of UN treaties they (and we) had signed.  There are things going on in that country that probably should be settled internally, but the reality is that they now are a proxy for a bigger cold war fight, one that is rapidly warming up as Russia spirals down the drain.  Meanwhile, Putin fell for it, and instead of dealing with real issues (population growth, stopping rampant alcoholism, dealing with Chinese encroachment in the East), Putin is fighting his own little Stalingrad, and I think we remember what Stalingrad did to German ambitions and long-term goals in the big one.

     

    Ok, that's about all I plan to say on this topic, and many apologies if this is out of place (please move or delete it), I want to stay in good standing on these boards in spite of my boorish behavior the day CMBS went on sale :P

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