Scipio

No problems to register or login, 220-250 kb/s DL speed from Europe. I just have missed that I should have logged in to my customer account, and was not made aware of in the process or login. Maybe this should be clarified. Well, now I have two accounts.

Here's another important question about MOUT settings that ain't modeled, and from my personal point of view a more important thing as the windows topic: why doesn't buildings start to burn? I could be wrong, but when I frequently read in the news how quick somebody lights up his flat, wouldn't this mean that we should see a lot of fires started by larger weapons? I would even think that fire starts much easier as we have seen it in CMx1, because of all the flammable cheap funitures and stuff we have today. Even if this sounds like a simple topic, this feature can have a great impact on the endresult. Just imagine, the building that should be preverved is in flames. Or think about a 5 story building with some soldiers in the upper half that's start to burn on the first floor...

Just tested this page, too, but I get very different results for different files, what makes it more likely that they do not use a standart format = an own tool.

I thought about the trenches problem for a while now. I don't see a general problem with always visible trenches, as long as a future quickbattle purchase system - if there once will be such a thing in future CMx2 titles - doesn't count them. Indeed I do see advantages for the defenders when they can have a lot of unused trenches. The CMx1 system works pretty much like this: trench spotted -> area fire on the trench, since you can be sure that something is there to hit. But what disappoints me is the simulation of trenches right now. Firstly, the 'trenches' look like natural ditches. While I think it's nice to have ditches in CM, they are not what I would expect to be called a 'trench' in the meaning of a fortification, for the simple reason that the angle of the ditches' sidewalls are to small - it should be closer to 80-90°. A second point is that they always have a massive sawtooth shape if they are drawn in 45° angles to the map border. Third point is the lack of crossings, what makes it rather difficult to withdraw troops within a trench system.

I'm not sure about the sound card driver issue. I use the onboard soundchip of my motherboard and the driver is up to date. I also can't remember that I had this problems with CMBB/AK, but I haven't played that games a while and have another hardware now. I guess 'buzzing sound' is not the right discription - my error. It's more like a music CD that hangs in the CD player.

Not a new issue, but something I always wanted to ask. I've noticed that the details in 3D are frequently reset to low quality and than reloaded to higher quality. It has happend very often in v1.08, but not so often anymore in v1.10, so I assume it's some kind of (known) bug. I always wondered what's the sense/reason is. Another thing that happens frequently is that the graphics freeze, while the sound turns into a buzzing sound. After some seconds, the game continues to play normaly. Seems to happen mostly when I turn into Lvl-1 view. It's as annoying as a promo break in the dramatic seconds of a movie. Has somebody else noticed this, too?

It can also be argued that - with a good scenario design - the Blue player is disadvantaged, because he can kill as many Reds as he want to and still can't win... But as insinuated, it depends on the scenario design. Unhidden terrain damage works also in two ways. Yes, the enemy can see that you blow a hole in a wall - and now he's forced to split his focus to cover two possible attack routes instead of one...

Ah, this explains a lot. May I ask anyway which program you've used?

Well, it's seems - in theory - easier to do as to keep track of LOS to (most) enemy units. Explosion animations can be kept hidden if no friendly units have LOS to them. And if for example a crater is at point X, a wall is broken or a building destroyed need to be checked only once - and I also believe it would be sufficient if borg spotting is used in this case. Pure theory, of course, of a person who don't have to hardcode this

I assume we're talking about damaged building walls, yes? I'm very disappointed about this, too, but I believe the damaged walls are hardcoded, at least I wasn't able to identify mod-able files for them. But I guess the problem is not just the eye candy thing, but what's beyond the eye candy. Certain weapons make holes of a certain size - well, that's likely still easy to model in terms of graphics. But when does a hole offer LOS/LOF? When can infantry pass it? Where exactly is the hole, are there more then one and with different sizes? etc etc... The current damage model is very simple in program terms: there is a wall/there is no wall, with all consequences for LOS, LOF and movement. Anyway, I would be very pleased if the modeling of this would once be enhanced.

BTW, I'm not sure if animations and models are really hardcoded, since the brz data containers has files for both. The point is just that nobody seems to know which 3D program/animator is used...or the BFC guys are using an own tool for that which is not compatible with 'public' 3d/animation formats. While there's no need to argue about adding/edding units and/or data tables, I wonder what the problem is with animations. Not that I would be able to do this, but modded animations wouldn't hurt, do they?

That's, by the way, something I fully agree to.

Yeah, that's correct, but I had something else in mind. My usual tactic when playing blue in MOUT is to pump as much fire into each building I know to be occupied by red forces. This usually results into casualties or pinned/paniced reds within 5 or ten seconds. That's why I doubt that adding a 'move through windows' feature makes to much sense. But on the other hand, I have often wished for 'passable windows', when my men were on the top of a building and were not able to enter throught the windows of an adjanced building. Question is just - is this a problem of game design or scenario design?

I jump in late here, so please excuse if I've missed something in an earlier post. About the 'entering through windows thing', the time you need to let 5 or 10 men climb through 2 or 3 windows should be considered, too, especially if it's not a large windows. Even if the equipment is only light, how much time do you need - 5 seconds, maybe even 10? This sums up very quickly to a half turn or more... Birdstrike, that's a great idea!

Yep, I would like to see a simple switch for this, too, as we had it in CMx1 (ALT-Q to turn of all game aids, IIRC)

Not a brand new idea, thought: would it be possible to load an image as background for the map editor? That way we could make a screenshot from googlemaps (for example) and can easily trace it in the editor, for example. At least more easy as to draw from a hardprint. A big problem would just be the correct scaling, I guess. Oh, and is it possible to get rid of the briefing defaults as 'must'!? I mean the 'Enemy Forces', 'Friendly Forces' etc. thing. It's okay as guideline, but does it have to be a 'must use'?

Are there plans to work on the AAR screen? While scenario designers can make workarounds for grounds objective by simply give the objectives informative names, it doesn't work for the parameters. May I suggest to show this stats like this: instead of 'Enemy casualties x points' it should more look like this: Enemy casualties 10 of 20% x points = you was ordered to cause 20% casualties, while you have caused only 10% casualties. Since the program must have this numbers available, it should be possible to show them, I guess. Similiar thing for unit objectives.

Now that's what I call a fast fix

Take your time. I want to finish my PBEMs once... BTW, will the tumbling vehicels at the beginn of a PBEM replay be adressed this time? How about the craters in turn-based mode? Will the NSV 12.7 MG show up now? Curious? Meeee? What are you speaking of???

Hey, that's a great idea, especially the directions!

*Bumb*, cause I still wasn't able to find the NSV machinegun in the game.

I would, but I go holiday next week. Check my site, there are still some people waiting! www.unitedwargamers.net

This 'effective range' numbers are pure theory. I can only speak of my military service, of course, but I doubt that you can even hit on 500m distance without a sniper scope. Surely not on the move, under combat stress, enemy fire etc etc. Below 100m or so, the things that really counts is rate of fire and reliablility of the gun. The Ak-47 has a A++ in reliabilty, the M-16 is overcomplicated and susceptible (at least I've read that more than once).

That's a good point. The people on this forum seems to believe that the most people who purchased CMSF (for example) use this forum and download stuff from the internet. But truth is that many people don't know about all the great clubs and forums out there, and even if, many of them are absolutly not interested into them. And I bet most of all people who have purchased CMSF do not even know nor imagine that the game can be easily expanded/upgraded/altered with mods. Most people here sounds like 'thousand of people DL stuff every day', including the BFC people to some degree . CMMODS is a well known site to the CM internet community! Some of my mods are often named as 'must haves' (excuse the self appraisment). But fact is: my mods are being DL in average between 250-300 times, with a peek of ~360 for my Green/Yellow weapon icons (=~50 MB of traffic). It can't be figured out on CMMODS, but I bet the most of the DLs happen in the first weeks after release, and then drop to somewhere below 10 DLs per month. Anyway...I wouldn't have a problem with a small fee for a DL site. $25 for a year are no problem. My concerns are of a different nature. Let me assume that BFC will advertise this site in their game manuals, or even add a direct link to the games main menu - what is the biggest potential to let the community grow, IMO. Now people will go there and read 'you need to pay x$ for subscription', than this will automatically turn off many people, even if you can DL some stuff for free. No matter if the x$ are justfied or not, if it's meant as compensation or profit. Another point is, that many people do not even know how to install a mod or a scenario. Some of my friends - long time computer users/players - can't even use the Windows Explorer savely without the risk of ruin something . It's already an adventure for them to find out where the things are going to on there HD when they DL something. 'What do mean with DL folder???'. Keep in mind that many frequent computer users still can't find the 'Any-key' on their keyboard . I think BFC should add - if not even an implemented Mod/Scenario manager - at least a section in the manual about how to download and how to install stuff!

Yeah, but there is only the option to save as 32-bit RGBA or 32-bit RGBX, and the latter are displayed as black squares in CMSF. But you can try on your own, there's link for a package with a BMP and a TIF on page two, IIRC.