sfhand

I don't care one way or the other about the other forum or Redwolf. That doesn't mean I should behave like a jackass in this forum when I disagree with what they are saying (I am under the impression that is what the other forum is for)...

My understanding is that Steve has said that the UI is a main priority for the next family... so, for those saying it needs to be addressed, it will be.

For some strange reason I think this is due to you being a RT player...

Replaying from the beginning is giving different results:) I gotta watch that tunnelvision thing. So far the Sherman is still spotting first, but by seconds not 5-10 minutes. My guess is because the Pz is skylined. The game is getting better, and more amazing, the deeper I look...

Not quite, at least for me... As a result of this post I put together a barren map with elevation changes to try to examine hull down spotting. I attached a sherman and a p4 to their respective Forward Observer units and put the Amis on the downhill side. I gave both tanks target arcs and put the spotters and their vehicles in places where they would be unobserved. I then proceeded to hunt the p4 forward ~one action spot at a time. I got to a point where the sherman could spot the p4 but the p4 couldn't spot the sherman - a barren map with only the default grass and elevation changes. Wondering what the deal was I then hunted the German spotter vehicle forward until it spotted the sherman. German C2 then did its magic and the p4 was able to spot the sherman. What I want to know is why, since there was los to the sherman, the p4 couldn't spot it without help? Savegame is available if interested.

The first time I ran the test I had the snipers' arcs facing the wrong way, they still spotted their targets pretty quickly, I believe the first spotting happened 9 seconds into the turn.

I just ran some firing lane tests with US snipers in foxholes 300 meters away from German infantry squads. I gave both forces ~50 meter target arcs. Not all units spotted their counterparts in the same time frame. All but one had spotted their enemy within one minute and five seconds (the vast majority had spotted their enemy within 40 seconds), with the first sniper team spotting in 3 seconds and the first German infantry spotting in 4 seconds. I only ran this test once as it seemed to indicate that units will spot "through" their target arcs which allows the player to spot but not fire at distant units. A side note, I waited a couple of minutes for the one hold-out non-spotting German infanty squad (I would have thought more eyes would give it a spotting advantage over a sniper team without binos) and then I gave it a minute with no target arc with no spotting occuring. I put the arc back on and hunted it toward it's enemy, which it finally spotted at 150 meters. Go figure... I guess those were the old troops the Germans were defending Normandy with.

Thanks for the link to the review. The game stands on its own quite nicely. The fact that one can download a demo and get a good feel for it speaks much more loudly than any supporter/detractor can. As far as I know BF/BTS has always encouraged/recommended potential customers to try their demos prior to purchasing their games; that act alone gives them more credence than bitter grogs (thanks for the term whoever introduced it) in my book. Now, off to read the review...

I got as far as the first turn of the second battle... there I found a pre-planned arty strike on the road leading to the aforementioned singular bridge. When the game prompts me to waste a turn (two or three turns in this case) to check for gamey "tactics" by the scenario designer it ceases to be enjoyable.

Just replaying the turn as played could yield different results... one of the beauties of the game, IMHO.

I'm currently playing my first force-selected QB pbem. I set it up as a medium attack/defend engagement on a large map. I am the attacker. I have played all flavors of CM except CMA. I am currently bemoaning the trees... This is pretty funny because all during the CMSF years I've been day dreaming about how great it would be to get back to the European countryside in a WW2 setting. Well, on the map I'm playing the combination of orchards and bocage coupled with a crafty opponent has me going crazy. Most of the time, initially, I have no idea who is firing on my guys or from where. Over time the troops get enough situational awareness to find the enemy, but time it takes can also be time used by the enemy's artillery spotters. Incedentally, command lines wouldn't help because of the foliage. When I turn the trees off I have a tendency to forget that I've turned them off (I actually thought there was a LOS bug when I started a new pbem with another buddy and didn't realized my guys couldn't see into that field because it was full of trees I couldn't see because I turned them off). This game is a game of momentum. The laws of inertia are at play most of the time. For me there is a big thrill, similar to CMBO, when/if I manage to get the flow of the battle to go in my direction. EDIT: one last thing, when I started playing CMSF I felt pretty confused by 1:1 infantry, not knowing who was shooting at whom. For me the confusion went away with exposure, of course, in the Syrian desert there weren't so many #$%$%$%^^ trees!

Just posting to say "Thanks for the patch!"

Thanks Phil, I would add a 3rd option c) not at all. The bottom line, for me at least, is that finding fault with another person is the easiest thing in the world to do, unfortunately for the fault-finder the focus is on the wrong person for it to be a beneficial exercise.

I wonder why the idea that the OP is trolling for his website comes to mind... maybe he/she realizes there is a substance far more effective at attracting flies than either honey and vinegar.

The first time I played CM:SF, upon release, I was blown away by all the lead flying and the lack of familiar targetting lines and such. It was hard for me to get into the game, in part, because of this. Once it was all patched up I found I had grown accustomed to the interface and the lack of all things CMx1, including my personal favorite: moveable waypoints, was no longer dealbreakers for me. I enjoy the game exactly the way it is right now. What I perceive to be the biggest "flaw" is actually a "flaw" and has been acknowledged as such so I'm not going to beat that drum in this thread. I'm not inclined to offer advice to others, especially in matters involving personal preference, but I will add my voice to the chorus saying that all they needed to grow accustomed to the game was to give it a little time...

Hopefully this will be fixed in the next patch as well as in the last patch for CM:SF...

Mine arrived a little "wrinkled" but served it's purpose well: it protected my manual from "wrinkles"...

Thanks for this thread, it finally got me off my @$$ to check out the editor. A much more glaring deficiency to the water tiles, IMHO, is the lack of schools of fish as a flavor object...

That is your opinion and valid as such, but as one who has played both it is not my opinion, which is equally valid in the same ways yours is.

You and I are on the same page in this discussion, however, that MAY have been true back then (I haven't seen the results of any studies to support the contention) but here we are 10+ years later and things have definitely changed technology wise to the point where I would suspect a great many more people are playing MP today than in the past.

A personal, off topic, rant... How can it be RT if there is replay(not implimented but referenced above) or pauses? I live in RT and would have used those features on more than a few occasions if they were available.

A couple of observations based solely on personal experience. When discussing gameplay or features ones personal experience is just as valid as anothers - not talking about historical/realism aspects of the game here, e.g., unit availability or capabilities. PBEM games don't have to last weeks. (If the opponent is willing to make themselves available for a TCP/IP wego game they have the time to make themselves available for dedicated PBEMing - which while taking marginally longer than TCP/IP wego due to file wrangling can still be done in a relatively reasonable amount of time if one is adept at file wrangling) Would I welcome TCP/IP wego? Yes. Is the lack of TCP/IP wego a deal breaker for me? No!

This thread reminds me of my pbem experiences as transferred to single-player. In pbem's it seems like all my shots miss and my enemy's are all first shot kills, in single-player it seems like in my games missing happens a lot while some here are posting the opposite. I will not be pbeming those of you who are reporting deadly accurate fire.

I've only messed around with the tutorial so far, but my initial reaction to my Shermans was that they kept missing their targets... eventually they connected, and they were shooting at infantry, but I really didn't think they were too accurate.

Thanks for the heads-up and thanks for making such a kick-ass game with the loving care you guys obviously put into it.