ParaBellum

The squad AI decides when to fire a Javelin and should do so mainly against high-priority targets like tanks, bunkers, etc...

Indeed, playing with the Syrian forces is quite rewarding, taking out Bradleys and Strykers with RPGs and recoilless rifles. OTOH leading US forces in MOUT operations is a terrific experience, too. Make a mistake and watch how your platoons get chewed to bits... The battles I've fought so far were far from a cakewalk for the US side.

Something seems to be wrong in general with the way key inputs are processed by the game. For example, I can hardly record screenshots with FRAPS, a program I've used to take screenshots in dozens of games for several years without problems. When I press the key to record a FRAPS screenshot, I only get a screeny with something like every 10th try. Strange. Also, ALT-Tabbing is VERY difficult, always requiring several key presses until it finally works.

I consider it tedious because RT mode literally forces me to cut down the action phases into a series of tiny action tidbits. On the highest realism level when the fighting gets tough I pause the game, select a unit, TAB-zoom in on it, unpause the game in order to give orders, pause the game again, select another unit, unpause it, give orders, etc... With WEGO a battle consists of 60-seconds sections with the possibility to replay important scenes, in RT mode I seem to stumble through 20 three-second-clips in the same timeframe.

Since I got the game yesterday evening I played a couple of scenarios (about 10 hours of playing), both in WEGO and realtime mode. I started with realtime because of the newness factor but reverted back to WEGO after several rather frustrating battles. Mind you, I'm not a grizzled grog that hates RT just for the sake of it, I still play Close Combat 2 from time to time and even like games like Dawn of War, Company of Heroes or the Total War series. But in CM:SF I stumble upon the main problem that killed ToW for me: too much happening too fast. In order to play it I have to pause the game every couple of moments just to keep track of things. Even in the tiniest scenarios (like the ATGM ambush scenario) I miss important actions in no time. With the brutal lethality of modern war units get killed or wiped out before you even notice a threat. This gets even worse on higher realism levels when your own units are not automatically spotted anymore. In order to keep in contact with what's going on you have to constantly switch from unit to unit, pausing and unpausing the game in a way that quickly becomes tedious for me. It probably reflects the reality of battle and the confusion but for a computer game this is merely frustrating. What are your experiences with realtime mode so far? Like it? Hate it? [ July 28, 2007, 03:17 AM: Message edited by: ParaBellum ]

I'd already be happy for a VCR button that jumps to the end of the turn with ONE click, instead of the multitude of clicks required to fast-forward right now.

Hehe...

I just played around with various grafics settings and found out that switching off shadows (alt-w) gave me a massive boost in FPS, between 30 and 50 percent actually! Tried it in the 'ambush tutorial' mission with a Stryker in front of a building, FPS went from 20 to 30 with my 7600GS.

I have the same problem.

The rotate and move functions on the edge of the screen still work the same as in CMx1. The upper third rotates the view, the lower two move the view sideways.

Press "t".

Well, the area fire should definitely NOT snap back such a large distance as shown in your screenshot. In the games I've played that distance was usually within 5 meters.

One minute? With my crappy DSL connection it'll take 15 minutes to upload such a file... not to mention the fact that quite a few email accounts limit the size of attachments to 10 MB...

Yup. This is one feature so far that I'm not very fond of, too. The beauty of CMx1's interface was its simplicity, CM:SFs interface is a step in the wrong direction IMO. You can switch through the different orders 'sections' by keypresses too, though.

I had the same problem with the Stryker not firing in the 1st mission at known targets, no matter if buttoned down or not. AFTER I area fired at some targets it worked. Just tried it again: Moved the Stryker so that he could spot enemy units. Ordered fire on one squad. Nothing happens for a whole minute. Area target-> Stryker begins to fire immediately. Re-target enemy squad-> Stryker switches target and continues firing.

From the manual: "Area targets always “snap” to the underlying action grid in CMSF" I guess they needed this feature to prevent unrealistic targetting to bypass the relative spotting. Relative spotting doesn't make much sense when you can simply order a unit that can't see a specific target to fire at the ground exactly underneath said target.

Yes, it was indeed a FAST move command. Ah, good to hear that.

Haven't found a way to edit waypoint either...

From the ReadMe file: "If you want to run the game in a resolution not listed, you can manually set this by editing the "display size.txt" file located in your game directory. Simply change the two numbers that you see in there with the width and height you wish to run the game. ex: For 1680x1050 you would delete the two numbers in that file and replace with "1680 1050" (without quotes)."

In the 'ambush tutorial' mission I've now seen it twice that a Stryker, instead of moving 5m straight forward, took a detour to the left, through a building, into a narrow alley, than to the designated position. Looked pretty weird.

LordCalvert refers to the training campaign.

I agree. I have played a couple of scenarios and I can see me spending a lot of time with this title. I have a couple of (mostly) minor problems but I'm sure these will be fixed in future patches. Love the new camera system. Since I switched to 'mouselook' game performance is A LOT less sluggish.

/slaps Michael with syrian pineapple. Oh come on, we didn't need such a message in three iterations of Combat Mission, and the pause function is extremely handy for those of us who like to take pretty screenshots for AARs, tutorials, etc... If I can't switch off the entire GUI at least let me get rid off the message.

When you pause the game you get those giant GAME PAUSED lines on the screen. Not nice for taking screenshots. Any way to disable them?

Whenever I try to jump to a point on the map using the old ctrl-leftclick the game freezes for several seconds. Pressing ctrl alone causes the same effect. Happens both with a unit selected or none selected. Any clues?