Rake

A little more testing on the Blunting the Spear map... I ran some units to the buildings at the northeast end of the map to see if there were issues with buildings outside of the setup zone it seems units will enter single-story independent buildings but but not one-story modulars, at least not ones that are connected to another building Maybe I can try and break this scenario out of the campaign and delete the russian units in the editor. At least this way, I could preserve FOW and try to figure out what buildings work and what buildings won't.

I just loaded up the first scenario of the German Campaign... troops are entering some buildings and exiting all that I've tried, so far. Unfortunately I have an early work day tomorrow, and wiil be out of town until Monday. Here's the situation... In the southeast cornet of the German setup area, there is a small farm complex. Units set up within the buildings inside the start area will exit the buildings, and will enter those buildings inside the setup zone. BUT, they will not enter the small barn or attached building (the "L" shaped building) just outside of the setup zone. I'd post pics, but the machine I'm on does not have Photoshop or another photo editor available. I can take a Fraps movie and make it available, but it seems that this would just be proof that I'm not seeing things. If those without the bug can't see what's happening, I wouldn't think a save game would help. I'll have this computer with me while I'm out of town. If someone is interested in looking at the file, I can find a way to post it... I've had Dropbox issues with CM Helper, but I think I could get this posted in my dropbox

No, I'd guess it isn't a "biggie", if you don't have the issue. The problem has been that the bug only affects rigs with certain hardware/software configs. And, it's not just one or two buildings on a map, it's every one-story building placed during map design at a certain time. It makes town or village battles impossible to play for those of us experiencing the bug... it's hard to clear a village of the one cowering pixel comrade when you can't go inside and he can't rout. You can't see him from outside because he's hiding in a corner. The only workaround is to blast holes in the buildings, which is fine if you have enough time and HE. Personally, since the 3.0 upgrade has come out for CMBN, I've gone back to playing that game. Still, I completely understand the frustration of others because I'd much prefer to be playing RT. Seriously, I wouldn't count on it at this point. BF seems to be trying to clear up some TCP/IP issues before they'll release the patch. It will be released when it's ready

Thanks, Phil! After reading sb's & 88's posts, I just got to wondering if the Win7/NVidia/laptop combo was the problem... I tried Vista and XP compatibility, and obviously it didn't work. Unfortunately, I'm getting ready to change the CPU & Mobo on the desktop that I purchased back when CMBN first came out and can't really afford to do this on a nearly new laptop :eek: I can't figure out what's up with the desktop; CTD's w/ BN, FI and RT shortly after startup... I've tried everything from game reloads & drivers to windows reinstall and removal of all mods. I'll keep playing CMBN 3.10 until the patch comes out. Still, killing commies is more fun than the other allies

This got me wondering if playing around with compatibility settings might unlock the doors... no such luck, at least on my end

Togi... while I'm just as frustrated as you about the long wait for the patch, it will come out when BFC is ready to release it. I'm sure that everyone that has an issue to be addressed is anxiously awaiting its release. I certainly had hoped to see it this week when Steve said they might release it without totally fixing the TCP/WeGo issues. I don't play TCP; selfishly, that's not an issue for me personally. As far as the thread going off-topic, that's often the case with any long thread... it's the way of the internet and happens on many boards, not just at BFC. Anyone having expectations of "good behaviour" on the internet will be sorely disappointed. One of the enjoyable reasons for reading the board are some of the first-hand tales and humorous comments that come up off-topic. Emrys' recollection of prohibition as the cause of the great depression was a hoot... please do tell more stories about the good old days, Michael!

I started to reply to this early yesterday evening (1930 Zulu), with something smart @$$ like "Guess not!". I started typing, thought the better of it and deleted the post (there are plenty of letters and emails I wish I'd never sent :eek:) because others are doing a good enough job of complaining. From reading the back posts, I see it didn't take long This is the issue that has frustrated me with the long wait... I've been wanting to start the German campaign for several months, but I know I'd get hammered trying to recon the large village on the right without the cover of buildings. East front is far and away my favorite area of the war and it's been hard to step back to CMBN and the bocage. I primarily enjoy fighting with the Americans and the Germans, so I did the next best thing... My Honor is Loyalty as the SS. No offense intended toward our Commonwealth allies;). Still, I miss blowing up T-34/85's and IS-2's. They'll have to do until we see some BT-5's, 7's and T-26's

I can only assume that you're talking about this fix being released in the patch??? I've had to quit playing RT because I've tired of wasting HE to open up walls. Units still don't go in; those in, won't come out:mad:

I believe you!!! I think a lot of the reason I don't particularly enjoy CMSF (and other modern games) is the asymmetrical nature of the combat. I've enjoyed John Tiller's Modern Campaign series... on the other hand, in the old Avalon Hill title Arab-Israeli Wars, I liked the '56 scenarios much more than the later ones

I learned of CM very early on... before the demo. I'd heard rumors of a "computer squad leader" and ran a search on whatever engine I was using in the late 90's (probably Yahoo?). I lurked on the forum occasionally, but not often enough to catch the demo release. I remember playing the demo the first time, getting my butt kicked and not being very impressed with the graphics or the UI. :confused: I think I came back and tried the demo again shortly after the release of CMBO... and was hooked from then on :eek:. I've bought every WWII release since; I purchased CMSF after the bugs were worked out just to begin learning the CMx2 system. Modern warfare just hasn't been my thing, but I will admit that Black Sea has piqued my interest. I likely won't pre-order (like I do for WWII), but once the videos and reviews start coming out... we'll see

I enjoy smaller maps, too, But, with the release of RT, I'm finding that the larger maps are a great deal of fun, larger scenarios, too... They just take longer to finish, sometimes a lot longer :eek: I've found, as Womble related, that I can't expect to see everything, and I don't expect any commander would notice everything during the heat of battle... that's one of the reasons for overwatch. I just try to take care of due diligence with my recon. I've found that most tanks seem to draw their LOS is from the second level with 1-3 "clicks" down on the scroll wheel. KT's seem to be at 1 click down, Shermans and PzIV's at two and the smaller German AT vehicles slightly lower... I pan around using the hotkeys for fine adjustment (I've set mine to I,J,K & L; default is W,A,S,& D). I also use the arrow keys to pan and the X,Z keys to zoom. I always try to remember to check LOS from any new waypoint that I set. Prone infantry LOS is probably best viewed using the LOS tool from a waypoint... AIUI, this will draw LOS from ground level to ground level at any action square. Standing infantry will draw LOS from eyeball level to ground at an open AS. Try as I may, I still often wind up with my head above the hilltops when I'm thinking I'm in dead ground. So, take anything I've said and use it at your peril... I've been playing since the game came out and I still suck at it

Ian... Knowing your way around PS will help... I learned from playing with my photography, also. I have personally given up trying to draw, paint or anything similar. Anything I do unrelated to photography is cut and paste from another image. I can't give you a tutorial on creating alpha channels with varying grayscales, but I'd recommend playing around with "Calculations" under the Image tab... This will allow you to combine various channels and blending modes and you can save the result as either a new file, channel or selection. I've had some success with Calculations when trying to build masks for my photos, but it can be finicky and I certainly don't have a clue as to how it works. Photoshop is not just a tool that I use; sometimes it's a toy that I play with just to see what I get... kinda like a box of chocolates:eek: Edit: I dl'd billy_sp's icons and opened one up just to look at the channels. I now see better the issue you've been facing. Try Calculations and save something you like as a new channel. I often just use the Quick Selection Wand to grab a fast selection, refine it if need be. B&W can always be adjusted using Levels

Chirac... After walking away from the computer for a second, it occurred to me that the easiest way for you to make the alpha channel is to "Select" the black corners, invert the selection (Shift/Ctrl/I on PC), click on the Selection tab & save the selection. When the box pops up just name the channel "Alpha". When a selection is saved, the selected part is white and the unselected is black. Or, if you have another file with an alpha channel of the same shape, just "Shift/Drag" that channel into the file with the missing channel.

In Photoshop, and I presume other editors, the alpha channel is a black and white "mask" The black portion hides anything behind it and the white allows everything else to show through. This is a cut from my PS desktop showing an icon with the channels tab selected. There are 3 color channels, 1 each for Red, Green and Blue, plus the combo rgb channel. If I don't pay attention when saving these, I also wind up losing the alpha channel... This screen shows how the alpha channel hides the corners of the icon. In the distance, the German icons are diamond shaped and have and diamond alpha channel... The white portion of your alpha channel needs to be the exact shape of what you wish to show through... the remainder needs to be solid black. Disclaimer: These icons are from BilH's Period Based Icon set... I have edited them for my use simply because they are easier for me to pick up on the field.

Oddball... just so we don't have to explode all the .brz files to find the names, can you pass along the new filenames for the KT and JPz files? Please?

Direct download was fast (Win7 w/ Firefox), 2G in 4-1/2 minutes... faster than the transfer to my flash drive. Now to kill some red b@$+@rd$

No, Erwin, not that I'm personally aware of... yet. I'm certainly not a computer geek, but my brother is. My thoughts are primarily based upon his recommendations. He runs a huge bank of servers for some sort of "adult entertainment" websites Several years ago, he switched all of his servers from SSD's to the velociraptors. He was having a lot of failures with the solid state drives and says he's not had a velociraptor fail yet. I've read multiple reviews which claim the opposite to be true (i.e., the VRaptor fails outpacing SSD's). His server banks are refrigerated, so overheating hasn't been a problem. I'm trusting his judgement and experience on this one... he's hasn't failed me yet when I've asked his advice about computers. For me, it's the bang for the buck. MY 180GB SSD basically only has Windows, AV/Malware, drivers and the CMBN series (with a boatload of mods) loaded. At this point, the drive is about 48% full. I do a fair amount of photo editing, so loading Photoshop/Lightroom and CMFI will pretty much fill it up. Now, if I can ever learn enough about computers to mirror the drives so my games can be stored on the HDD with (close to) SSD access times, I'd likely change my opinion... I'd have my bro do this; unfortunately, he's in San Diego and I'm in DC. I picked up (actually, stole ) a 1TB velociraptor for just over $80. I plan to replace the failing 7200 rpm on my desktop over the holidays. I'll take a save game from my SSD laptop and run it on the 10k drive. I'll time game, scenario and turn comp times on the laptop and desktop and report back later.

I just loaded the game on a laptop with the same specs, the only difference being the SSD where the game is loaded: Processor: Intel Core i7 4700MQ (Up to 3.40Ghz) (Quad Core) (6MB Cache) Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz (2x8GB Sticks) mSATA SSD: 180GB mSATA Solid State (SATA 6Gbps) Storage Drive 1: 750GB 7200RPM (SATA 3Gb/s) Optical Drive: DVD/CD 8x Multi-Drive Graphics Card(s): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M 3GB with NVIDIA Optimus Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-Bit Edition) The game runs better on the laptop than it does on my desktop which has a better graphics card, and all but the SSD being the same. The game will boot to the load screen in less than 5 seconds and it takes just over a minute to load George MC's "Wittmann's Demise", a fairly large scenario... save games are a different story As far as the SSD, if I were to use this build in a desktop, I'd fore-go the SSD and install a WD Velociraptor (10k rpm)... Unfortunately, this HD won't fit in a laptop without removing the drive from the heatsink and, naturally, voiding the 5-year warranty. :eek:

Bil, Many thanks for your time in posting the blog, scenarios and AAR's. I've finished the infantry scenario; it was pretty straight forward... SPOILERS Total victory with 6 German dead and the other one wounded. I used traveling overwatch until I cleared the corner at the base of the hill below the US setup area. From there, it was bounding overwatch (alternating) until the MG HQ unit opened fire. Once I had an area spot (I never had a confirmed spot until the team routed), I used area fire with all three teams to pin these defenders. Still using bounding movement, I sent the scouts across the creek, followed by the assault team and finally the BAR team. No more than one team moved at a time while the rest poured covering fire into the foxholes. Once it became obvious that there was no further resistance from the HQ team, the scouts and assault teams slipped back across the stream and took up positions on the hillside below the LMG team. The BAR team circled around and came up the back side of Hill C. Once they were in position, and with the US HQ team having a spot on the LMG, it was a simple matter to pin the mg... the scouts and assault team hunted to within 30 meters and finished them off with grenades. I think this was the biggest thing that I learned from this, to stop with a los inside of 30 meters to let the squad use their grenades. I'm looking forward to the Tank section scenario. I don't expect this to be quite as easy for me... my armor tactics lag far behind my infantry skills. I hope to learn a lot! Thanks again!

Bil, understand completely. I'm mostly interested because, while I love armored warfare, it's probably the weakest part of my game. I really stunk at the steppe battles in CMBB:o

Bil, as another lurker, I too, really appreciate all of the time you put into your AARs. As an amateur photographer, I understand the effort that you put forth in Photoshop. I'm somewhat fluent in PS and, while I enjoy using it in my hobby, I realize that it can eat up a lot of time... particularly when I get into layer styles, text boxes, etc. I try to set up as many actions as I can to speed up the processes, but it's still a time hog. I normally don't play scenarios this large, but I might just give this one a whirl. Even after reading the AAR, I fully expect the AI to hand me my hat in this one. Any chance you might still have the game files and would release them? I'd love to follow this blow-by blow Even if your not willing to release them, or no longer have them, I really do thank you for all the work you do for the community. Rake

Hi all... new to this series, but definitely not new to BF. Looking forward to getting this game figured out, at least to a point where I feel competitive against the AI. Now, on topic... Another disadvantage to hexes is that movement can only be in six directions. From the little I've learned about the game so far, it seems that movement and attack can occur along the diagonals, for a total of 8 directions. Coming from an old boardgame background, hexes do look better IMO, but, unlike hexes, octagons don't play well together

Thanks Bil. As I mentioned above, I had some difficulties when saving my earlier attempts. ISTR they were auto-saving as 24-bit files and, when I'd click on them in-game, they'd flash the black background. I was also seeing a green, comma-shaped "feather" at the top of the icons. When I'd reopen the file, the alpha channel was gone. Somewhere along the line I must have the changed default save because "Save As" now brings up 32-bit as the default rather than 24. I suppose this was the reason for my confusion. Guess I just need to remember 8 bits each for the rgb channels, plus 8 for the alpha... Dohh!

I am indeed working with transparencies and it's been a couple of months since I last played with this mod. I must have reset the default save to 32-bit because I had to go back and re-save quite a few that had been saved at the wrong depth previously...Thanks for the assist!

I've been playing, off and on, with a floating icon mod based upon BilH's mod. My question has to do with saving these as BMP's because I usually screw it up the first time and wind up having to fix it once it pops up in the game... Do the floating icons need to be saved as 32-bit or 24-bit files? My Photoshop default is 32-bit, but ISTR that they need to be 24-bit. Thanks in advance... Rake