Redwolf

There certainly is a communication problem about bug tracking. The Gill ATGM in CMSF2 is also unfixed in the new patch, although it is completely broken.
I vividly remember Elvis asking once "which bugs?", while at the same time (buried in semi-random threads) reports of such bugs were in the minds of people. The mechanism of catching the attention of a beta tester who can then transport that to the official bug tracker is obviously not working.
Given how expensive it is to make a patch release such opportunities shouldn't be slandered. 

There certainly is a communication problem about bug tracking. The Gill ATGM in CMSF2 is also unfixed in the new patch, although it is completely broken.
I vividly remember Elvis asking once "which bugs?", while at the same time (buried in semi-random threads) reports of such bugs were in the minds of people. The mechanism of catching the attention of a beta tester who can then transport that to the official bug tracker is obviously not working.
Given how expensive it is to make a patch release such opportunities shouldn't be slandered. 

There certainly is a communication problem about bug tracking. The Gill ATGM in CMSF2 is also unfixed in the new patch, although it is completely broken.
I vividly remember Elvis asking once "which bugs?", while at the same time (buried in semi-random threads) reports of such bugs were in the minds of people. The mechanism of catching the attention of a beta tester who can then transport that to the official bug tracker is obviously not working.
Given how expensive it is to make a patch release such opportunities shouldn't be slandered. 

Trading engine v5 for PBEM++ - not sure that worked out well.

Yeah, you said that in the 2023 update thread already, I think, and of course you are right. And what a wonderful job the modders are doing!
However, I still think that it is way better to have such assets (snow maps, winter uniforms, snow vehicles) as official content. Why? Because then scenario and campaign creators in the community and also the modders themselves can concentrate on giving us new stuff. All those winter mods for Red Thunder and now for Black Sea! Only so that at some point snow will be officially added to the game after all?
In fact, the only custom campaign with snow for Red Thunder I can think of right now is Dragonwynns Last Panzer. And that doesn't even work without the additional mod package Dragonwynn included (incl. mods by Kohlenklau. I.e. it doesn't use the tagged assets we now have in Fire and Rubble. Why is that? Of course Fire and Rubble is relatively new and campaigns take a long time to create. But isn't it also so that most community campaigns came out shortly after Red Thunder released? Seven (7!) years later the module came out, giving the creators a lot to toy around with. But where is that momentum now, again: 7 years after the game came out? And now the very same mistake is made with Cold War? I said it in the 2023 update thread already but it is not only asset content that CW is lacking (i.e. factions, units) but I think for a lot of people it is quite taxing on the mind to see and play the ever same maps with green hills, lots of forest, country roads, and some small villages. While there are certainly other areas in central Germany one could portray to mix things up (industrial zones, big lakes, ruins from a former battle), the "easiest" way to mix things up map-wise (and the most realistic on top of that, even influencing the gameplay!) is to implement the different seasons.
In the end, I just wanna say this: the sooner we get more variations (including master maps, vehicles, different weather!), the sooner we will see community content with those variations. And community content is what makes these games so long-living in my opinion.

Trading engine v5 for PBEM++ - not sure that worked out well.

I will add the last thing this game series needs is bureaucracy intervention nonsense by Slitherine. Release the games when they are ready, ffs. You all already wasted a year on this nonsense PBEM++ which was clearly a downgrade. I assume this was heavily persuaded by/forced upon by Slitherine.
I'm not mad or anything but it has to be said. What the hell are we pushing release dates back for? These games are niche and pushing release dates makes absolutely no sense until you can market the game as something more. I.e. multiplayer.
I wouldn't doubt a large percentage of people see the lack of multiplayer and are turned away.

Trading engine v5 for PBEM++ - not sure that worked out well.

Trading engine v5 for PBEM++ - not sure that worked out well.

It seems to take ages for Matrix/Slitherine/whoever they are to do anything, in a couple of months it will be a year since CMBN was supposed to come out on Steam, which is more than enough reason to just buy from BFC directly, as much as I like Steam's convenience, plus you can transfer over to Steam for free when it comes out anyway.

What - no teleporting? You haven't seen the real bridge bugs yet

What - no teleporting? You haven't seen the real bridge bugs yet

What - no teleporting? You haven't seen the real bridge bugs yet

If you can, maybe try the Matrix/Slitherine edition of CMCW. It has a simpler DRM scheme.
Does CMRT v2.12 work on that system?

The only question here is why the patch in the winehq bug is not integrated into the official wine yet. Then it would arrive in bottle over time.

I'd happily pay $60 for a 3/4th recycled game - if I could.
The "Charles-free" new content such as scenario packs is not that interesting to me. I want to play with new toys and I want bugs fixed.

Posting this now, likely start date will be Christmas or the New years.
Its a tournament that has you playing 5 (approx. 30 minute scenarios) that no one has seen or played before and which they cannot access the files (so truly blind).
The tournament has lasted 9 to 11 months in the past.
The battles can be very challenging and you likely might be using units you would not see in QB format games.
Three battles are ready at this point and I can say, two of them could be nighmares for some players.

So if you are ready for a real challenge, sign up at that site. keep in mind other tournaments and commitments you might have. I know a steam tournament if coming soon, so dont over commit yourself .
But I have a group of players that just love the format I have come up with and we hope to see new players now that we are going to WW2 instead of just the modern stuff I have run in the past.

Make sure to review the rules below as to what you can expect in this tournament.
Get over to The few good men web site and get signed on.




General Rules:

Looking for players that are committed and mature enough to complete what they start and grown up enough to play through battles that might be hard on ones ego since you might be on the brutal end of an enemies attack. In three tournaments hoisted in the past. I find all players are not, and they either fade away or I remove them. (They are not allowed in any further events I run. So don’t bother to waste your or my time if you are someone that is going to fall into that category.

Please read through these rules and make sure you are willing to abide by them.



1. A dropbox folder is to be maintained with an invite to the Tournament master (Slysniper), this will provide me access to the game files if for any reason we need to replace a player or verify slow play issues.

Please name the dropbox files in a method that I can tell who is playing who

Example: ( Match 1 Jtimo vs grunt )



2. Game files can stay in the dropbox folder and not be deleted until I have copied them and I will remove them.

Or you can have the normal auto remove on but at some point I might pull them from achieve, copy them and then remove them once more.



3. No surrender at any time is allowed, if you want to end a game early, then use cease fire with both players agreeing to those terms, if one player wants to play on instead, allow him to do so until he is satisfied. It is in your own best interest to put up the best fight you can no matter what, throughout the whole battle (No one wants to be that guy that has the best score posted against him)

Also, some battles can be very one sided, so it’s not the point about if you are losing or not. It’s about the point as to not lose as bad as the other players playing the same side in the tournament.



4. If for any reason a player needs to drop out of game play, just contact me and let me know of your intentions and I will make sure any non-completed game will be finished for your opponent.



5. If pre-planned arty or air is available, you are allowed to use it. I will likely make sure the opponent will know that option is out there to possible be used against him in that battle.

In my tournament, if it’s available. You can release hell on turn one or however you want to use it.

Since there is at times no way for you to know where the enemy set up areas are since these are truly blind battles, it’s a risk reward decision in battles where I feel unit placement is not a given and you are taking a risk to use it in such a method.

You might guess right and hit the enemy or miss. Then there is the targets that are logical, so both sides should expect such tactics at possible locations.



6. If there is a problem with slow play by any participant, I will invite them to be dismissed from the tournament and will complete any unfinished game as necessary. (Slow play will be determined to be less than 5 Turns an week) exceptions allowed for vacations and trips and such as long as your opponent and myself are informed in advanced.

Do not bother to join if your only method is to try and play all your turns in one or two days of the week, that likely will not work with many of your opponents.



7. All battle have set time finishes, no variable endings are done in this Tournament format All games will be compared to each other playing the same amount of time. If by chance a setting is missed. Both players will cease fire at the expected end time of the scenario and then inform me of the issue.



8. Any additional questions, just post them here and they will be addressed.



9. And remember to have Fun, which is what it should be about





Scoring Format



The format is you will be given a selected force. Your mission will be to do the best you can with the situation you have been given and the scoring will be given out to the top 50 percent from each side of the battle.



So in other words, your side could be very challenging, but perform better than 50 percent of the players playing that side of the battle and you have won and will be given a point value as to how you have done.



Winners will get a score of somewhere between 80 to 100 points per match depending on how they have performed to each other. So best player will receive 100 points, lowest winner will receive 80 points, and everyone else is somewhere in between.



Scoring in scenarios will be your score minus your opponents score (as to how you will be selected for the top 50%).



Each round you will be in charge of a different Nations forces, so skill with all forces will be a factor. As well as both offensive and defensive skills



Battles are designed generally to be short and intense ( I have been keeping all battles at 30 minutes or less so far generally.)



If you are new to this, go review previous tournaments as to how this works if you have any question

Twenty years ago you would have been right, but for over a decade now it has been the case that third party security is generally worse than the Microsoft stuff because they are unaware of the zero days which Microsoft is working on closing.
Attack surface area means that by using third party security software you are increasing the potential ways your system can be attacked. They tend to interfere with the operation of the OS and that can cause issues in itself.
"Viruses" aren't really a thing any more, it's all about zero day exploits.

Current IT security best practice for home users is to not use third party antivirus as they tend to increase the attack surface area. You're better off just keeping windows up to date.

Okay how about USA then? Have you looked at the turn I posted yet or nah?
Fine I'm totally cool with that, but at the very least from a gameplay perspective - my conscript vehicles are bogging within 250m of driving, and even less in the turn that I posted.
In my opinion these vehicles must have had some sort of off road capability. In the case of the PSW222/3 it's a 2/5 on the HUD. It feels like a 0 or 1/5 currently.
It sucks especially since conscripts generally perform realistically in combat compared to regular troops.

I had 2 m3 scout cars bog on "dry" grass on turns 1 and 2 in the turn I sent dave above. You are free to check it out.
Earlier in the thread I had a conscript sherman bog in place on "Dry" ground the very first second I gave it a move order.
In the pictures you have replied to, ground conditions are set to "very dry", and I had armored cars bog as soon as 200m. Sometimes more, sometimes less. The rate of bogging is astounding. It's not a small amount by any means. It happens very often.
These armored cars have huge tires for a reason. It lowers their ground pressure so they can operate off road. Otherwise, they would have small tires like the Sdkfz 251 halftrack.
How the hell is a vehicle going to "immobilize" itself on "very dry" grass to the point where it's unfixable? I'm not discounting that it COULD happen. The rate that is happens is just way, way too high.

But then you have to run in Steam. That prevents some usage scenarios such as having the game open on your desktop and your laptop at the same time.

Well, the idea is to point beta testers to the proper bug reports, so that they consider copying them to the BFC bug system.

I am surprised they (Matrix) don't have a separate test/staging server for testing new versions before they go public. Upgrading the one production server to 1.06 before any of the customers can get 1.06 is a little below the standards of good software engineering.

So I just downloaded GIMP and took a look at it's handling of a uniform texture bmp. First thing to say is uniforms don't have alpha channel masks so they should be saved as 24-bit bmps. I opened one uniform bmp in GIMP, opened a second, copied and pasted a chunk of that into the first one, flattened the image (did you do that?) then exported the final texture as a bmp. Upon export there's an extra dialogue that will appear to select Advanced options for your file, disclose those and make sure you have 24-bit toggled on:
 
Then export - you should have a perfectly serviceable bmp.
Unless of course you're trying to do something else ...
PS
Ah yes in the list of file extensions - I just used the first one, the second seems the same but did say something about not matching the file type, though the resultant file is actually fine.