Scipio

A while ago I asked on CMSF forum for a good place to find PBEM opponents, but unfortunatly my question was left unanswered. So I thought it's time to create such a place, and here it is: WargamerScout! WargamerScout is an (as I hope) easy to use online database, where wargamers can post or take up challenges. For those of you who don't like ladders and leagues: WargamerScout is NOT a ladder. And for those of you who love playing exclusivly on a ladder: I really don't see a problem, just mention it when you post your challenge. WargamerScout is not an exclusiv CMSF database, indeed it can (in theory) support all wargames that allow H2H-matches. For now, all CM titles and the old Campaign Series games are supported. The site has also a basic forum for general issues and as a place to meet (thanks for the idea, David ). Beside that, there are no bells and whistles so far, but I really want to get this thing started now :cool: . I hope you find this site usefull. Let the games begin!

A while ago I asked on this forum for a good place to find PBEM opponents, but unfortunatly my question was left unanswered. So I thought it's time to create such a place, and here it is: WargamerScout! WargamerScout is an (as I hope) easy to use online database, where wargamers can post or take up challenges. For those of you who don't like ladders and leagues: WargamerScout is NOT a ladder. And for those of you who love playing exclusivly on a ladder: I really don't see a problem, just mention it when you post your challenge. WargamerScout is not an exclusiv CMSF database, indeed it can (in theory) support all wargames that allow H2H-matches. For now, all CM titles and the old Campaign Series games are supported. The site has also a basic forum for general issues and as a place to meet (thanks for the idea, David ). Beside that, there are no bells and whistles so far, but I really want to get this thing started now :cool: . I hope you find this site usefull. Let the games begin!

A walkthrough Please notice the small burst in the upper left corner of image 3, that's the shell that walked throught the Striker!

I vote for that, too!

Nothing happend to the moral of the crew. It can be discussed if this is right or wrong. The crew doesn't know what has hit them, they just know it was something big, but they and the tank are still alive. I guess the possitiv and negativ effects on the moral are equalized. Otherwise would each hit of a larger shell/missile have a noticable effect on the moral, independently from the tank.

Indeed the 12.7mm MG was destroyed, and a minor damaged on the tracks. Let's praise St. Charles of Moylan for precise damage modelling! Sivosdi, I wonder that you haven't noticed that a second tank survived a Javelin in the same turn, too.

The weak spot of the blue/US forces are surely casualties. IIRC, that's even written somewhere in the manual!? Since resupply and lost equipment is not really a problem for the USA, even for most expensive stuff (how I have learned in another thread ), I'm speaking of course about personnel casualties or in other words: dead and most heavily wounded electronic soldiers. My first question is: are personnel casualties handeled differently as destroyed 'hardware' in regards of the victory conditions? Second question: if I would like to balance a scenario, it seems to make sense to (nearly) always set a parameter threshold for the blue forces, so they have lost the battle if their casualties are getting to high, disregarding the other achieved objectives. If so, what threshold would makes sense? I would think that, depending on the mission, 10-15% are already enough. Are there any numbers that can be compared with modern real world conflicts?

I guess this belongs here too: infantry doesn't seem to change the position within a building if you give them just a 'view' command. But they do if I order them to move (within the building, even on the same level) and add a view command. Not the worst problem, but it appears to be wrong, since I would expect that only a view command should be enough!?

Yes, the tank definitely survived. I must know it, since I'm Sivodsi's opponent!

Steve, I agree that many things as you described them are outside of the CM scope and that most problems could be solved by the scenario designer. The workarounds, especially the randomly marked buildings, are a very good idea, too. But there are still some important questions open: how does the calculations for the victory conditions work, such as casualties, ammo usage, condition?

OK, I'm maybe just a poor player and a bad loser . Anyway, I would like to second the request by Cpl Steiner and also add that it would be very helpfull to know how the casualties calculation works!

It seems to me that the natur of my topic is missunderstood, maybe I have failed to express my thoughts. I did not not mean that the Blue forces should not be allowed to use Javelins at all. I just think that there are to much of them available. What's the sense if one side has 1.5 times so much Javelins available than the other side has units at all? To the guys who recomment to change my tactic: you are very welcome share your best red forces tactics and experiences here.

That's easy to say, unfortunatly it would be necessary that I have both knowledge about the position and direction of the enemy forces right from the beginning of the battle and get into LOS/LOF before the infantry with the Javelins can dismount. In this special scenario for example there's a town between the Red and Blue forces. Not without reason by the scenario designer, as I assume.

Here's something I noticed when playing the scenario 'Al Hawl' (PBEM) as the Reds. Without going to much into details, my opponent has started to wipe out my vehicels and other forces with his Javelins. That's of course his good right and the logic thing to do, since he has Javelins available. But the 'Javelin problem' I see is a simple calculation. As example: in the Al Hawl scenario, the Reds have a total of 23 units, including all vehicels, HQs etc. The Blue side has a full Stryker company, thats ~a dozen Strykers, each of them carries 3 Javelins = 36 Javelins. That's more than enough firepower to destroy all my vehicels (the Javelin rarely misses, as we know), and still leaves 1 - 2 Javelins for each of my infantry units - and one Javelin is usually enough to wipe out a squad. It seems to me that this is an unbalancing factor that is oftenly ignored by the scenario designer - beside the fact that they can't do much to solve the problem at all, except limiting the general supply level of a unit, what would reduce the available Javelins to 1 per Stryker, leaving each Stryker company still with ~ one dozen Javelins From another point of view - a single Javelin rocket is worth 80.000 US-$, maybe $75.000 at the sales! The cost factor is surely something that applies to all rare and expensive equipment. I wonder what will happen with the career of a company leader if his Stryker company would fire off Javelins for nearly $3 Million on a typical combat day . Of course I could be completly wrong with this, especially in regard of the US-Army. Anyway...has somebody a simple solution for this problem? My two ideas are 1) a function to directly edit the available ammo for a unit in the editor. Disadvantage is of course that it wouldn't change older scenarios, and it's just one more thing on the endless to-do list that it will/will not make it into the game. 2) A simple by choice rule like the old quick battle purchase rules for CMBO/CMBB. Disadvantage is of course that it would restrict the Blue forces only. Please excuse if ths topic has been hashed and rehashed already.

If BFC won't do a hypothetical Warshaw Pact/Russia vs Nato, then is an Asian setting like Korea or Taiwan the only somewhat realistic temperate setting, isn't it? The possible participians in such a conflict could include NATO, Russia, China, ANZAC & maybe even Japan, so most of the important modern equipment of the last 20-30 years would be available. After that, our loved modders could do nearly each modern setting...

The officials frequently answered to that already - there are no specific AI changes for CMSF:Marines, because the module uses the same core engine. In other words: all engine updates are for free, since they are always included in the free patches. Just my personal (narrow) view: I prefer PBEM anyway, so I don't miss TCP-IP. I'm very pleased that turn-based gaming works mostly fine now.

Doesn't seems to me that the opinion about CMSF of the most people there is based on much own experiences; at least not with the actual version 1.08!?

Sounds like you mix up exchange rate and purchasing power. The exchange rate doesn't matter for BFC, since they get always 25$ for CMSF:Marines, while it is very good for me (as European), because I buy it for just ~17 €. Different story will be when each member of the BFC staff buys a second BMW and/or Porsche! Sorry, I know this is completly off-topic...I just couldn't resist.

Pandur, you should keep in mind that not only our virtual soldiers can be damaged, but their equipment, too.

I'm pleased that the T-90 is in! I look forward to some performance tests. Have I missed the sheduled release date in the blog? The US-$ is very cheap in Euro-Land right now, so there's no time to waste!

Just as a question, because you've frequently posted how happy the brain in the jar will be when it can return to program on a Mac... Won't it make things worse if a program is developed on a Mac, while it will have to run mostly on Windows machines. I'm just curious.

I have read some weeks ago that it's possible to make a blue vs red scenario & purchase units, than switch to red vs red and purchase red units for the blue side, than switch again to blue vs red. Maybe it's possible to add Blue Airsupport to red units that way; not very realistic, but since we can only see the effects of airsupport, it's maybe a conceivable workaround? I'm no scenario designer, so I haven't tested this! [ May 02, 2008, 07:04 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

There's maybe another way...please take a second look on a usual engine function! 3D struktures like trees are blended out, trenches are replaced by a 2d 'placeholder' if you get in some virtual distance, both to disburden the PC. Can't this be misused to hide trenches? As another stupid idea, why not make trenches some kind of 'vehicel' or building? BTW, I think that the trenches in CMSF look rather unrealistic, more like a roadside ditch as a frontline trench. Even if I don't like 'ToW' that much, but the trenches look much better there. I also hope the pillboxes in future CMx1 titles will have a more realistic look and weaponry. I guess everybody who has ever seen pics from the Westwall, Atlantik Wall or Maginot Line knows what I mean.

Elmar, if you don't like single sounds in a sound mod, why don't you remove them? This can be done very simply with the mod utilities.

I think it is a very good idea to highlight the whole target tile, or tiles in case of unsplitted squads with more then one team, and it would be very good for area fire orders, too. Even if it's good for nothing but letting the player know in which area(s) of 8x8m his squad will likely end up. Just to make sure, I speak about UI feedback, not additonal control of the teams within the squad. It would also show better which area will roughly be covered by are fire I believe this would be a good solution, at least it's a good ground to start from. The cause for the problem I described in my first post seems to be that two teams can't share the same tile. A slightly delayed movement of the teams could help here. I think the solution wouldn't even be unrealistic: the first team within the squad 'scouts' the path, the others follow. I could be wrong with this, but isn't this or something similiar common pratice? I have seen this for infantry when I tested movement in a zick-zack trench, too. Waypoint A was switched to waypoint B before the whole squad reached it, and by the way, some soldiers left the trench at this point to take the direct way. Of course this could be a misinterpretation of me - I assume the squad had reached the waypoint tile, so the wayoint was reached in program terms and the next waypoint was switched on.