handihoc

Steve, your point is well-accepted in terms of the difficulties of actually modelling civilian behaviour, animation and AI. But what about something along the lines of what I suggested above, where civilians remain abstracted but we can be made aware of their presence in buildings by the simple use of icons. It would put a different slant on tactics. I, for one, would find that kind of extra element very challenging without getting into anything 'icky'.

I have seen footage (admittedly much of it 're-enactions') of Brit and US inf clearing buildings occupied by terrified civilians. It's true that any civilians that haven't fled are likely to be hunkered down indoors, but you still have the problem of occupying/clearing that building without inflicting needless casualties on non-combatants - plus the possibility of enemy combatants placing themselves deliberately in the same location. Then there's the issue of calling in an airstrike in support of infantry where enemy combatants are believed to be hidden, only to later discover (as I'm sure we've all seen on the news from time to time) that you've bombed a wedding party or family gathering. There's also some excellent but shocking examples in Generation Kill of villages being observed by the Marines recce force and confirmed as a non-threat, only to be bombed out of existence by some incompetent higher up. I would guess that that kind of thing happens more often than we get to know about in our armchairs back home.

Spoilt for choice here! Excellent work, all of them. I like the sand version as a variant on the desert camo in the game. Nice work indeed, across the board. (Seems that right front panelling showing white is still not resolved, though)

I certainly agree it would make a great addition. I suggested something similar a while ago, along the lines of an icon indicating when civs are id'd or stongly suspected of being in a building/location. It could apply whether or not enemy forces are in the same building. Something along these lines would definitely add an extra element of tension to the game, and wouldn't require actual civilian modelling so, as far as I'm aware, wouldn't add too much to the calcs. I guess your hostage/pow scenario would require modelling, but even that could be something static and quite basic.

Bit of a sense of Groundhog Day going on here, methinks. All very esoteric.

Thomm, sorry if this sounds pedantic but if I don't point it out one of the Scotties here almost certainly will: Scotch is spelt Whisky. Irish and American is Whiskey.

I've played through six missions in the campaign so far, and I found them very varied, thoughtfully-designed and for the most part extremely tough. The new Brits equipment is great (I particularly love the Jackals) and does take some adjusting to after the awesome firepower of the Marines, and 1.2 has so many improvements. An excellent addition to the Shock Force base game.

My mistake, sorry. Possibly needs a little more checking into, but looks like Fallout is right.

From p5 of the Brits Manual (bold emphasis mine): The easiest way to explain these differences is to use the original US Army/Marines content to compare against. The smallest infantry unit fielded by the British is the Fireteam, with four men. Two Fireteams make a Section, which is called a Squad in the US military. Infantry formation names above Section are identical with the US.

Excellent!

Cool. (And cool again, because cool alone doesn't meet minimum 10 character requirements!)

Lovely stuff! And yes, the gunner's stance is improved for v1.2.

Very nice, M1! You planning to do the other Brit vehicles too?

I pray CMN will not have so many problems when it is released!

I'm backing up Fighting Seabee here. I've been with Shock Force from the start and, yes, we all know, it was pretty flawed at the beginning and was probably released a bit sooner than was wise. But it's been steadily and consistently developed since then, with huge improvements/enhancements/fixes etc. There is no other game like it, and it just gets better and better. And the Brits and v1.20 add a heck of a lot more. Not only that, but the first WW2 game using the CMx2 engine is not far off, either. This is a very good place for serious wargamers.

Yes, grenades are very cool, and realistically nasty, in this game. I had a situation with my inf section hunkered down behind a high compound wall. They knew there were enemy on the other side, but seemed to be safe behind the wall - or so I thought! In fact, they'd been spotted. Obviously the Syrians couldn't shoot through the wall, but they could lob grenades over, which is exactly what they did. I was both hugely impressed and profoundly miffed that my brilliantly executed tactic was nipped so effectively in the bud. War is horrible indeed.

Excellent work, M1! So that's why you've been so quiet these last weeks! The potential for scenario/campaign development with these is enormous.

I haven't rechecked lately, but I would imagine Thunder is a lot tougher these days than it was a while ago. The latest updates have radically improved red AI.

Well, it does get very hot out there.

Been checking it out again and basically the majority of sounds seem to be distributed fairly evenly across all speakers, including centre. As I said above, it mostly depends upon your camera position and facing - although I've noticed that most air support calls and comms come from the rear speakers, which is quite effective. Scipio says the game is optimised for stereo only, so it is down to the soundcard to compensate for 5.1. Mine does a damn good job overall. It's a Creative X-fi external, with various audio consoles to fiddle around with and enhance sounds. My biggest beef with Creative, though, is that their soundcards give the impression of being built to burn out soon after the warranty expires. I've just had to buy my third in less than five years. My old audio stereo system, by contrast, has an amp and speakers that are more than 25 years old and still work perfectly. Just a bit bulky by today's standards!

I've got 5.1. I get sounds from all speakers, but as to what comes from which speaker it's largely due to where the camera is situated in game, and which direction it's facing. Hugely atmospheric, though sometimes aircraft flight sounds come from a different or even opposite direction to that of their weapons visual flight trajectory. To be honest, though, I've not specifically listened to what comes out of the central speaker. I'll pay more attention next time I play - and report back if anything interesting.

I've installed a number of your mods, Gordon, and they are among the best out there. Sorry to hear the news. I wish you well.

C.O.G, you really gave us a lot. Respect to you, and many thanks.

I didn't. I reported it in another thread and no one asked for a save, so I assumed they were on it. I think I still have the saves, though, if anyone wants?

Second that, with bells on! I haven't designed maps, but the VBMB has prevented me enjoying a couple of the newer campaigns and scenarios that use very big maps. The battle just won't save and/or freezes and crashes. Really annoying, but I'm optimistic for a fix. Not so long ago, for 1.11, some of us (like me) had the Slideshow bug which similarly revolved around some kind of memory leak that only affected certain computers. Took a lot of testing and tweaking to fix, but BF stayed with it till it was done.