Letsbe Ave.

Thanks for changing the Subject line to include what you are asking about. (Still cranky, because he had to go and work on his Jeep's brakes, and it was be warm today (89F)) mutter, mutter, 'get off my lawn...' [ April 12, 2008, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: Letsbe Ave. ]

Quit it with the car analogies. It's *driving* me nuts.

I'll be very surprised if the manual is ever updated. What's the point? The target audience would be those who paid for the printed copy, and they are not likely to pay for another copy. Those who haven't paid are unlikely to pay in the future. BFC have shown that they have no interest in producing a manual that can be printed by their customers, otherwise they would have already taken the small step of releasing a version with black text and no background image. In a patch, if they want to keep the swashbucklers at bay; as a download if they want to improve the lay-knowledge of how to use the non-intuitive interface, and maybe - gasp - spread the game to a wider audience. I know documentation is very expensive to develop and maintain, quality documentation is even more so - you know, the sort that doesn't simply consist of large paragraphs of descriptions of features presented in a stream of consciousness fashion, with no particular ordering, no index, thus requiring you to read the entire thing each time you'd like to examine one aspect of the game that is not made obvious by the game controls. But, having made the investment to produce a document, and then, having significantly updated the game-play - as planned - wouldn't it make some sense to include in those plans timely updates to the features guide? And to release the updates so they are accessible in-game, or printable, for reference? User documentation is apparently the bane of most software developers' lives - take a look at the paucity of quality documentation for Open Source software, for instance, and you'll see it either doesn't exist, or it adds no explanation to the description of features, or it's out of date, and therefore, wrong. If you get it right, though, and/or your software is intuitive to use and single-purposed, the people who would like to use it will be able to do so. Let the manual languish, and the frustrations with bugs and features are compounded by the lack of guidance on 'how to drive'. It's like the elusive flying car that we've all been waiting for, but it's uncontrollable by most non-professionals, and the many and varied controls are all in a foreign language. Where's the manual, not only on how to operate the thing, but also how to navigate across country/continents? Disclaimer: I bought the game as a download, since I've not been impressed by the previous games' manuals (see above). I use it mostly using email, and I still enjoy CMBB much more (the camera is much easier to control, I understand the control panels on the screen, the software works as I expect). Sorry for the soap-box rant, but I'm a repeat customer who is unlikely at this point to pay for any upgrades to this game; some of my reasons are stated above. Please try to convince me otherwise.

I would heartily recommend getting to 2 GB of memory before upgrading your processor. It's very cheap these days, and your setup would certainly benefit from it...

What an eccentric performance!

[ January 03, 2008, 10:58 PM: Message edited by: Letsbe Ave. ]

FWIW, I modified the intro/exit sound files to be about 10% of the original volume, which greatly reduces the fatigue factor for me.

Well, the quickest and easiest way to be sure you have all the directory names/filenames correct is to unpack the brz file using the instructions in the readme.txt. Here is what your directory will look like before you run RezPack: </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force\Mod Tools\RezPack\input> dir/s Volume in drive C is Local Disk Volume Serial Number is F0BC-FB63 Directory of C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force\Mod Tools\ RezPack\input 01/02/2008 12:00 AM <DIR> . 01/02/2008 12:00 AM <DIR> .. 01/02/2008 12:00 AM <DIR> Sound 0 File(s) 0 bytes Directory of C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force\Mod Tools\ RezPack\input\Sound 01/02/2008 12:00 AM <DIR> . 01/02/2008 12:00 AM <DIR> .. 01/02/2008 12:01 AM <DIR> Music 0 File(s) 0 bytes Directory of C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force\Mod Tools\ RezPack\input\Sound\Music 01/02/2008 12:01 AM <DIR> . 01/02/2008 12:01 AM <DIR> .. 01/02/2008 12:03 AM 12,157,336 music end of battle.wav 01/02/2008 12:03 AM 11,725,940 music intro.wav 01/02/2008 12:03 AM 13,154,592 music splash.wav 3 File(s) 37,037,868 bytes Total Files Listed: 3 File(s) 37,037,868 bytes 8 Dir(s) 5,547,237,376 bytes free C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force\Mod Tools\RezPack\input> </pre>

Please read the mod tools readme.txt file. (It's in the mod tools folder.) It explains how to explode the resource files, modify them, then repack them. The files you are looking for are in the Version 100.brz file in the Data folder, in the sound/music subdirectory when exploded. I'll wager that if you replace the three .wav files with 'racket' of your own choice, but preserving the filenames, you could repack just the three files into a .brz file of your own called Version 999.brz, and Nirvana will have been reached. Note, you don't have to use music by Nirvana to reach Nirvana, mmkay? Good luck!

He was speechless at the incredible ability to report a problem? Did you ever see any gratitude from Microsoft when you reported a problem? No, prolly not, since they don't even have a way for you to supply an email address when web-filing a report. However, I'm sure I speak on behalf of the world and his wife, when I say 'thank you' from the bottom of my heart for doing such a splendid job of discovering and documenting a problem. Words cannot express our collective gratitude and admiration of the monumental size of your abilities of reporting a problem, and not letting go, no matter who replies that 'we've heard it, found it, fixed, ta', or how many people pile on, agreeing with you. Your collective perseverance in reporting this problem so many times in one thread is commendable. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you. Please may we have another?

...what a maroon...

Hm, Signal-to-Noise is rather worse these days. Lots of 'sick-and-tired' people... Reminds me of: http://arago4.tnw.utwente.nl/stonedead/main.html "I certainly am not. And I'm sick-and-tired of being told that I am."

Yes, it looks great - but the legibility in greyscale is not-so-great - and my toner bill is 'great', too, btw. I didn't realise it would take weeks to remove the background graphic, and post a printable PDF on the Download Links page. Sorry to be such a bother, but this is very eco-unfriendly, bordering on a terrorist/hostage scenario.(/sarcasm)

Wasn't supported with AR 7.1, but an upgrade to AR 8.1 works as you described. Thanks! Seems a shame 'they' can't post a black-on-white version with no background. Is it too much to ask for a pointer on the downloads page to a 'printer-friendly' version of the manual? Please? Thanks!

I agree that this *is* a monumental waste of toner - white on black background on my monochrome laserjet... Any chance of a 'reversed colour' version, please? Or some other workaround? Thanks.