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Barleyman

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Posts posted by Barleyman

    So where is the patch

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    I've been playing the campaign 1-2 scenarios at a time and the biggest problem for me is the huge discrepancy in the scenarios.

    I don't think da patch is going to make david vs goliath setting any more interesting for me. Bah humbug.

    Especially since the catch-all solution to any problem is to swamp "them" with the sheer number of bullets (etc) you have in your disposal.

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    Will infantry animations be fixed in 1.05?

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by c3k:

    Bringing the range in closer helps, of course, but then lateral speed at closer ranges increases angular velocity (whilst reducing required leads). In short, a moving target is HARD TO HIT!! Except in CMSF.

    Short range, against assault rifles, you're dead meat unless you have severe suppression going on. Assault rifles are not really that great at anything. They're cumbersome in trenches, they're not that accurate over range.. but they're damn good in medium distance of about 50-100m ..

    Just one squad of 8-10 guys (depending on TOE) can put out frightening amounts of lead not accounting for SAW and/or LMG .. Multiply that by a platoon of 30-odd guys and you've got severe firepower in medium range.

    Making things worse, during an assault, unless you've got smoke/supression on your side, *they* can see you perfectly well for ages, while *you* can see the head of *them* while you're about to trip over their unfinished sixpack..

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    Will infantry animations be fixed in 1.05?

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

    3. It is not true that all shots in CM are aimed. Far from it. ROF, weapon type, Experience, Morale, and Suppression all have an impact on how accurately the weapon is fired.

    Uh-huh. There's also a big difference between blind spraying and taking very quick shots while being mortally afraid for your life. With the latter actually getting fire into the general vicinity of the bad imperialists. You can squeeze off 2-3 shots semi auto from an assault rifle kind-of-sort-of aimed in a second.

    Heck, there's huge difference between the guy actually using his weapon and the guy who does not. Latter is much much more common than you'd think.

    AFAIK, Spray + pray is more or less result of more modern infantry training WRT boys who "previously" would not shoot at all.

    [ December 10, 2007, 03:42 PM: Message edited by: Barleyman ]

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    Assault on Taleban stronghold underway

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by Leopard II:

    Yes, of course. No lend-lease program etc for the UK and USSR, and it is likely that Third Reich would have won the war. Well, I guess that wouldn't be better, since a black uniform doesn't suits me well... smile.gif

    Ahem.

    Not much lend-lease going on in -41, pardner. And in 42 it didn't look so good for nazi scum, at all. If you want to take credit for something, try the obvious lack of red square in Paris (whatever the liberty fries people would tell you)

    References? Well, how about Manstein, the old peace-lowing flower-sniffing hippy suggested in -42 that it'd be reeeeally good time to start negotiating peace with the bolshevic scum..

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    WEGO, RT and the blue bar that gets no lovin'...

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

    This could mean, for example, that you have 59 seconds of fairly laid back computations, but for 1 second there was a flurry of LOS/LOF/Pathing calcs that require a full second to calculate. This means that time compression would not be smooth. I'm not sure if players would really like that, I'm not sure if the code would either. I do know that Charles said in theory time compression is possible, though it might not be practical.

    If they won't like, it, they can shove it. I'll take uneven time compression ten times out of ten if the alternative is to stick to 1:1 time with smooth and boring action. After all, that's how it's always been with "time compression" option. Very often the compression depends on available CPU resources so the no-wiener quad-core geek will have much higher max time compression than the guy with an old Athlon.

    So in essence you wouldn't try to "skip" anything but run the AI/LOS/Pathfinding etc as fast as possible while updating the GFX when you have time, 5 times a second or whatever.

    That being said, I think the REAL issue with RT is the UI and the absolute lack of feedback (reports!) .. Right now you have eye-of-god view but you also have to be all-seeing and all-knowing.

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    WEGO, RT and the blue bar that gets no lovin'...

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Since we've got Comms back online, there are some excellent suggestions made vis-a-vis UI here.

    I mean, just in case Steve doesn't wade through to page 5 of every bitchin' thread in the forum..

    Basically, if you want to go toward RT(s), you should ste.. *ahem* study some of the UI innovations made in the genre during last decade or so.

    One additional feature of the blue bar era that would be nice is the ability to replay a bit, especially if you get pause on events -function (such as abrams getting smoked) to see wtf happened.

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    Smokin'

    in CMSF Strategy and Tactics Forum

    Posted

    Originally posted by SgtMuhammed: M1 smoke in game is nothing like real life. Handheld smoke is useless, unlike real life.
    Let me put it this way. 10 years ago serving in Finnish army we "played" a bit with smoke grenades. The so-called "big" grenade puts up completely ridiculous amounts of smoke. It's not grenade sized as such, maybe about 4/6 of a sixpack. And with ridiculous, I mean RIDICULOUS .. You have guys in windy finnish forest and after about 30 seconds you can see about the guy next to you because of this one smoke grenade.. In around 100m x 100m area.

    Being finski army smoke grenade, it's probably eastern european origin. Not like smoke is rocket science..

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    Fed up

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by Mud:

    By 'variable turns', think condition-based autopause, like the new spotting of an opponent, destruction of a vehicle, movement orders being complete, or friendly units giving an all-clear of sorts after eliminating all spotted enemies on whom they've had LOS/LOF. Even just allowing turns of shorter fixed duration might help.

    Now that would be sweet for the real-time as well. Maybe a list of report/pause boxes for given conditions. I'm sure paradox would approve! Heck, make it global/unit specific so your point guys can pause the game at the drop of a hat while globally distant contacts are worthy of a notification only.

    Ex. -- RT, there is an utter lack of message log, minimap, unit roster, alerts regarding contacts or significant events (such as vehicle loss or clear threat to vehicle), units reporting that they're being hit by air/artillery, units reporting in after being completely idle for some time, or so forth. This is not particularly good from a coordination point of view, or for dealing with situations in which the TacAI is not sufficient. For a complex situation, such as when you're breaching an airbase at multiple locations, it becomes too easy to focus too much on one particular sector while neglecting others -- because the game won't remind you.

    Also very good ideas there. And I think perfectly plausible to bolt on the existing engine. Maybe not for a "module" but for next game on the series for sure. CMBO->CMBB style improvements within the engine as it was.

    And taking this a bit further, if the event log is click-able with jump to relevant spot.. Even better.

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    Smokin'

    in CMSF Strategy and Tactics Forum

    Posted

    What's the deal with smokes or lack of thereof?

    In CMx1 you'd never attempt charging over open terrain without shooting the place full of smoke from either mortars or gun rounds.

    In CMSF however, you can't .. Only sources of smoke I have are from vehicle smoke launchers that shoot right in front of the vehicle so to cover your advance, you'd have to drive stryker right next to the enemy to put smoke on them.. :rolleyes:

    Squads also have smoke grenades but they only go about as far as you can throw them. Not very useful again for crossing open terrain.

    So am I missing something here or there's no way to put a substantial smoke-screen over a terrain you need to cross? and/or known enemy positions?

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    Fed up

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by MarkEzra:

    9. Some say that v1.05 will decide if the CMx2 engine can be successful or not.

    That's a bit silly, really. The engine is what it is. There are some outstanding issues with LOS, some due to design, some not. Route finding is pretty bad but then again, coming from CMx1 you're used to baby-sitting your units step-by-step down the bends in a road.

    I don't think the patch will change gameplay in a fundamental way. I seriously do doubt marines-module will do that either. For whatever changes Charles will incorporate into the engine will have to wait until Next Game. Think of CMBO and CMBB - Latter had lots of nice tweaks of how things do play without changing the basic engine.

    I bought the game when it was at 1.02 but let it sit on desk until 1.04. With 1.04 it's definitely playable but I have to say the campaign setting is really not very interesting at all. You have huge disparity of forces where gameplay boils down to orchestrating huge firepower reserves with woefully insufficient number of troops..

    For me the Marines module promises to be more of the same.

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    small arm evolution and body armour

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by JasonC:

    The original purpose of the extra energy in full rifle ammo is to be accurate at 1000 yards through a flatter trajectory. But the same "full speed" also deals with body armor in the first third or half of that distance.

    Ahem. I do believe it's got more to do with the manufacturing tools becoming more sophisticated over time than anything else. Brown Bess shot was huge, .75 caliber.. If you look at the history of firearms, the rounds become smaller and smaller over time. it's easier to make big-ass .45 cal pistol round than 9mm round, never mind .22 cal..

    Now hunting moose is hunting moose and hunting men is hunting men. First off, moose is a huge animal so unless you're going to pepper it from nose to tail, you want to do huge damage. Hence the big-ass soft-nosed rounds..

    Shooting at men is a different ballgame, thought. Up until VERY RECENTLY people were unarmoured, so main concerns are that people

    a) do not stay put while you machine-gun them down

    B) shoot back

    these days there's the problem of

    c) the damn guys will pick themselves up a few moments after you shot them and dust themselves off!

    That's the body armour bit. Still, .22 bullet is deadly, don't let the FPS kids fool you.

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    small arm evolution and body armour

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Originally posted by tiny_tanker:

    Aren't troops only issued level 3 sapi plates?

    I've seen that Dragunov video before, its amazing what adding a few more inches to an AK-47 barrel will do to muzzle velocity, add some AP rounds to the equation and your in a world of hurt. Though I think a few rounds from a 7.62, or 30-06 rifle would destroy a sapi plate.

    The fact that Dragunov fires 7.62x54R, not 7.62x39 may have something to do with the velocity as well..
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    small arm evolution and body armour

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    The thing is, "they" want to shoot "you". And since "you" have body armor, "they" have a problem to overcome.

    Since WP 7.62x39R ammo is not as powerful as NATO 7.62x51, there's no no-brainer solution for "red" force. Not that it was a good decision to use a full rifle cartridge for battle rifle..

    Let's assume every nation looking forward for AP capability doesn't issue SVD as standard and AN-94 doesn't become supremely popular..

    ..On the other G3 is perfectly serviceable Battle rifle that's being produced in Iran and Pakistan among other places.

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    small arm evolution and body armour

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    As anyone knows, an assault rifle will "shoot through" it's price in ammo fairly quickly during peacetime not to mention any shooting occasion. Therefore manufacturing fancy-schmancy AP ammo for 5.56mm would definitely be possible but expensive proposal. Mind you, since US Army likes to use man-portable AT missiles to replace RR, maybe they do not have a problem with the concept.

    Things get interesting since the guys *without* big resources want to shoot guys with fancy body armour. Not the other way around. Now on the cheap, you have a few options, basically an engineering problem. There are some fairly "low GDP" approaches to the problem I could think of.

    Basically you would want a relatively low caliber round with high muzzle velocity.. I'm sure 5.45x54r round would be bad for body armour on 100-200m ranges assuming the barrel is long enough to allow the powder to burn completely. However, making a new assault rifle (battle rifle?) using this new round would be non-trivial especially as we have to assume we do not have a few dozen billions USD to throw at the project.

    At least you could use a lot of existing machine tools since you'd basically use standard 5.45 bullets and barrels (maybe a bit longer than ak-74?).. More importantly, you could probably keep most of the parts of an existing AK-74 and sort of upgrade-as-you-go.

    I'm sure our ballistics experts will put my armchair gunsmithing to it's place, but there you are. Syrians wouldn't necessary have the resources to hire the absolute best either.. :rolleyes:

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    Marine Module as Referendum

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Gameplay-wise, it'd be best to add a bunch of RED and/or obsolete BLUE units and systems. Most actual shooting happens with not-quite-latest-and-greatest equipment in places you probably never see in headlines.

    Great seller potential for such add-on? Hah.

    It's kind of how CMBB didn't sell that great althought the setting is hands down the most interesting in the series..

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    The best way to fix CMSF is....

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    I can imagine it'd be real fun to introduce 1-3 more programmers to the team after years and years of doing thing "just so" .. But, for sure, me and my wallet votes for more programmer resources as well.

    I just suspect that the 1-man-project CMSF cannot be broken into pieces for a team effort like that.

    Maybe for the WWII game they will have more people involved doing UI etc..

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