c3k

Some points... 1. Yes, this licensing thing is a pain in the butt. 2. No one likes DRM. 3. There are easier DRM's, but not applicable to this game/series. 4. BFC has never left a customer unable to run the game. A helpdesk ticket, as unfair as it seems to the player to have to open one, works. 5. The latest patch has a NEW, better, licensing approach. The transition from old to new is causing some users hiccups. Some are the user not following instructions (which are complicated in some cases), some are the fault of the game. 6. The new DRM will allow players with some modules to use them when they play those without the module. 7. DRM allows BFC to stay in business. 8. Number 7 is the most important reason to put up with the hassle. 9. I hope it gets simpler/easier to activate and license in the future. 10. Number 9 was supposed to be the last item until number 10 came along. Ken

Beta battle thread has started! Woot. The timer ticks...

Hah! Do not "reorient" for the defense! Attack the remnants, then ATTACK the newcomers! Attack! Do not lie there, supine, awaiting penetration of your position. That never turns out well... Good luck! Ken

And this is why I'm glad there's no gore in CM. It delineates that this is a game.

80 to 100 lbs of gear has been standard fare of infantry since...the Romans. Also standard has been dumping the extra in a reserve location and going into actual combat a bit more stripped down.

Grinders, welders, patches, or just a bit of paint. It depends on the depth of impact, the location, and the time available with whatever maintenance abilities are possible. It is very variable. The odds of a second hit on the same exact place is not high enough to worry about. (Well, for anyone other than the crew inside the repaired tank!) Ken

I would love to see this type of "situational learning" to be coded.

You have it all wrong. They do not refuse me: I must restrain them from their impetuous desires to prove themselves to me. They seek my approval. I allow some of them to do so, always in a glorious manner. Their lives are otherwise small, drab, and meaningless. They and I both l know this.

^^^ Nice point. I know that I -rarely- get a chance to play/use downloaded content until weeks (or months) have passed. At that point, I have no idea where I got it from, if, indeed it was not part of the original content, or who worked on it. It is just a title on a list of "Battles" or "Campaigns". Throwing in a designer note in the briefing would be good. Again, not perfect, but good.

Bah. Don't listen to the grumpy old men. Thumb type away! Where to get manuals? The US mil has some public pdfs out there on Soviet tactics. No links atm.

There is a lot of information out in the public sector. Using that, a very close estimate can be made about these capabilities.

Iron mode is very useful. Select a unit: notice which friendly units it sees. Notice the enemy it sees. That gives you a lot of info regarding potential morale bonus/decrements and comms. I prefer iron mode over the others.

The uberists will be in for a surprise. Whereas I'm quite happy to take many, many, many casualties in my quest for victory (just ask my men), I freely admit to a ragequit or two during testing when the totality of my losses overwhelmed even me. Mistakes equal death. Bad luck equals death. Attacking equals death. But then victory is sweeter...

Oh, to lose a Tiger like that is just so very sad. I like the glooorious determination of the Soviet commander sending his men in to do close-in battle by hand with the hitlerite machinery. But still, the blemish upon the Tiger commander's record for losing it like that can never be erased. For shame, sir, for shame! Thanks for sharing. Woot. Passwords: I always send my password to my opponent at the end of the battle. It's the gentlemanly thing to do.

^^^ Just use a regular road but add shellholes?

Well, the easiest/fastest approach would be to remove half the mods. Once the half with the culprit is found, keep cutting in half till you've isolated it. Be interesting to find out which one it is. Ken

Thank you! Looks great. (Okay...what road mod are you using in those screenshots?) Thanks, Ken

Oh, this type of command has been lobbied for, hard, for some time.

^^^ Programming the AI. Read the JonS booklet. (There's a whole thread with it somewhere.) Read the manual for trigger updates. Create a TINY map with a platoon on defense. Use Scenario Editor mode to see how they react. Post your questions. Repeat as needed, gradually increasing in size and complexity. Jump in! The water's fine.

Use whichever multiplayer mode corresponds to your solo play style. There are several flexible modes...

200 some posts decrying the lack of a patch and only a few replies once it is here? Get on it!

Interesting topic. As far as the Factory Mod, it is phenomenal. It brings an incredible atmosphere to the game. However, how do you want to get feedback? Seriously. If the game included a debrief screen with a "star" rating, perhaps that would help? But that would require players opt-in to a system to upload their playing history. (For example.) Finish a game and a screen pops up with 5 empty stars. Click on the one you think it earned. Then have an optional comments box. Whhoosh, up into the internet it goes, straight to the BFC feedback site. Barring something like that, the feedback system is poor. I don't use the repository. I don't have much time to dig through the sorting system, nor do I have much time to find and use what's offered. I don't know what's there. If I hit the repository twice a year, I'd be surprised. I have recently started visiting GaJ's CMMODs site. Much better organization (but still lacking a bit on ease of sorting/finding), but no feedback mechanism. I think the best source of feedback anyone could get, atm, is the number of downloads their work has garnered. What system should be used for the care and feeding of volunteer help here? Ken

That particular vehicle in which they entered battle. If you dismount two crews, and have one crew lose the TC and loader, and the other crew loses all but the TC and loader, the two crews cannot combine. Nor can the "extra" guys load into the "base" crew's tank. You'll end up with two "short" crews. (Edited to add: You'll want to protect your crews. Vehicle operation is less efficient with fewer crewmembers than what it should have.)

All I can say is that even I have underestimated the number of casualties caused/inflicted in a firefight. Suppression, autocannon, explosives, RPG's, Punishers, it just chews up everyone. There aren't too many squads which don't have some sort of mechanized overwatch. Spotting means death. Glorious death. For mine enemies. I hope.

No. Crews can only re-man their particular vehicle. It has to do with someone running off with the keys. I'm KIDDING about the keys. Sheesh. But there is a lot of cogent reasoning for not allowing cross-manning.