c3k

I'm playing a night battle in CM:A. Yeah, a different game, but still... Anyway, the night setting is excellent. The stars are there, the moon phase is correct, the Soviets don't have night vision. In fact, the realism is so good, it's almost like I'm there. I mean, I can't see a thing in the game. It is a dark hole. If I press my nose against the monitor, I can see vegetation, hills, my men, etc. I've got one of those funky new high-endish graphics cards. I'm sure I could tweak the brighness. My display has a menu which includes a brightness adjustment, as well. My concern is that I'd set both up very high, and as soon as I exit the night game of CM:A, the overly boosted card and monitor settings could cause flash burns, blindness, spontaneous house combustion, etc. Heck, the photon pressure alone might blow out my playroom wall. A lot of other games I've played have a settings menu which includes a gamma adjustment. Now, I'm not a programmer, but it seems all we need is a slider and a label called "gamma" and that should do the trick. Seriously, night battles are great for mayhem and confusion. With the TO&E on the CM:BN site you know there'll be a lot of airborne units fighting in bocage at night. How much better if the player could actually SEE what was going on? Thanks, Ken

Ahh, but PRONUNCIATION is the key: "comban"?

Hmmm, just musing here... Imagine a defending unit igniting burning oil from their flamethrowers on the water's surface as submerged enemy engineers attempt to set satchel charges on the bridge's pilings. A thing must be done correctly, or it shouldn't be done at all. Ken

4-8 weeks is my guesstimate, so put it around February, either early or late. Given a tweak or two late in the release cycle, I'd GUESS I'll be playing CM:N with a beer by St. Patrick's Day.

No, not a bug, just the way it was designed and implemented. This folds into infantry weapon use issues as well. Certain infantry weapons are specialized. Certain AFV weapons are specialized. It would be an improvement in the game if the player could go "hot" or "hold" on those special weapons. For example, the Marder has ATGM, autocannon, and machinegun. If we stipulate that the ATGM is special, then, TARGET would mean autocannon + (at AI discretion) Mg; TARGET LIGHT would limit the Marder to firing its MG. The ATGM could be used by selecting the new order. It could be called "ATGM", or "SPECIAL", or "MILAN" anything else. All this is subject to TacAI logic and override. If the Marder were using TARGET LIGHT against a building, then a T-55 hove into view, the appropriate response would be to launch the ATGM. Ken

Jaw droppingly speechless... 1. Surrender? Hande hoche! Or somesuch. 2. The rest of the list... Way great. Ken

but this is MY first post on the CM:N forum. Hey, BF.C, thanks. Ken P.S. Or is it CM:BN?

Oh, I feel your pain, but I still have to laugh. Really. Because, waaaaaayyyy back here... http://battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=82818 ... in July, of 2008 - yeah, 2 and 1/2 years ago I brought this up. I was told that there would never be a reason to use MG's instead of autocannon. Yeah. Experts. (I wonder if any of them read Creighton's biography?) Try the BMP-3. It's worse.... Ken

BF.C Christmas gift bone??? From Steve: "... Plus, there's going to be more to talk about some other place very soon. Steve" Thanks! P.S. So, when are you going to get his nose fixed?

There are a couple of workarounds: 1. Use a different unit which has LOS to the building center to AREA TARGET the building. 2. Have the original unit move until it has LOS to the building center, then AREA TARGET the building. 3. Have the original unit stay in its current location, but give it a very tight COVERED ARC which includes the window/building location the enemy is using. Go weapons tight on ALL other units targeting that building. That should induce the enemy to pop his head up. That should give the COVERED ARC unit the opportunity to acquire the enemy and fire. None of the above are great, but those are the only solutions I've come up with...in the two years since I noticed this in my gaming. Let's hope the fix is in CM:N (but if not, the games are still great). Ken

Hmmm, or you could read this thread: http://battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=83773 In it, BF.C comments about that situation. Basically, you can target an enemy unit directly, regardless of its position. You can only area target the center of an action spot. Buildings have limited action spots. Enemy units can position themselves at non-action spots. So, you KNOW the enemy unit is over at that left-most window, but unless he's visible, you cannot utilize suppressing fire against the position. The enemy unit MUST be visible. A workaround would be to create a targetable action spot at every building orifice. The drawback would be the huge data increase needed to create a lot more LOS' in the pregame LOS table. BF.C is aware of this shortcoming. I don't recall whether or not they think it is worth fixing in the future. Ken From the linked thread, dated September 26th, of two years ago! "Ah.... yes, OK... I know what you're talking about now. There are times when you can't Area Target a building because you can't draw LOS/LOF to its center, but can target something in a portion of the building if you can see it. Boy, if you don't like it now you should have seen it 2 years ago So the LOS/LOF isn't a problem per se, it is the fact that Area Fire on buildings requires LOS/LOF to the center while target to target does not. This is definitely something that is on our list to address. In fact, I'm going to bump this up again on my own priority list. I don't remember the coding reasons why this issue still exists, I only know that it isn't an easy fix. Steve" If it's on their list, it's been there for over 2 years. I guess that means the "isn't an easy fix" comment is all too true.

With the interest perking up in this thread, I DARE BF.C to shut this thread down under the guise of the old "300 post limit" excuse. I DOUBLE dare you.

Play as the Syrians and use destroyed BMP's as shelter for your troops. You'll find out how often they cook-off, how long it takes, and how many casualties it will cause. All very cool to have modeled. Western vehicles don't cook-off as much due to the fire suppression systems they have installed. Ken

"CM: Neither X Nor Y"

Oh, and don't forget you're releasing a game to one of the pickiest bunch of grognards to ever pore over a game! ANY detail found to be erroneous, however insubstantial, will be the cause of angst ridden posts. Or poked fun at. A background wav file of a birdsong from a bird not native to that area? Yeah, that was spotted! So, Steve, you KNOW however much we're going to love this next game (and we will), you just KNOW that there will be posts on Day 1 griping about something. Git your thickskin suit ready! Er, I mean the "thicker"skin suit. You're going to be the proud papa, and we're gonna love the baby that CM:N will be almost as much as you're gonna love it, but we're the ones who'll ask, upon seeing the newborn in your arms, "So, when are you going to get his nose fixed?" Ken

My point being that we don't know when CM:N is scheduled to be released. We don't know if it is being delayed. We don't know what is causing any putative delay. We don't know if BF.C is accepting forum-based feature requests. It doesn't matter if we find it "acceptable". BF.C will release it when BF.C determines it will be released. Ken

Yeah, what he said. I have a nice LAN at home. TCP/IP WEGO was great for that. I mean, GREAT. PBEM on a LAN? Uh, you're kidding, right? That's akin to suggesting your print out your movement coordinates and walk the printout over to the other computer to log them in manually. Gigabyte speed NIC's, Cat6 wiring, intelligent switches; speed, baby, speed. I want my orders to show on the screen BEFORE I press the key... I have used the TCP/IP function playing WeGo on the Internet to entice a friend to buy into ALL the CMx1 products. After playing LAN WEGO at my house, he wanted to do that from his house against me. We set it up so each player only had a 1 minute planning period. Fast, fun, but NOT a clickfest. PBEM has its place. Tourney play, across timezones, fractured playing time, etc. But TCP/IP WeGo is far better. TCP/IP Realtime is too much of a clickfest, for me. Especially for company sized battles or more. YMMV. CM:N has been delayed quite a bit beyond the expectations here on the forum, realistic or not. If BF.C delays for 6 months to fix CM:N due to, say, a problem modelling Panther sights or armor, would you be screaming that it just needs to get out the door? Or, would you sigh, in understandable frustration, and then rationalize that BF.C has usually surpassed our expectations, so the wait will be worth it. If you're willing to wait for an issue like that, why not wait for TCP/IP WeGo? Right now, despite the gorgeous screenshots in this thread, we unwashed masses really have no idea why CM:N wasn't released many months ago (if not a year and a half ago). From October 28th, 200_8_! "Eh... OK. We'll delay the launch of Normandy for this, but not for the new QB system. We gots our prioriteez straits, yessereebob Seriously, any number of features could be improved significantly. It's always been true, and always will be true. Can't go running around with our heads cut off every time one is identified or we'd never release anything ever. I'd like to improve the UI for handling file management. Should be possible without pushing CM: Normandy until 2011 Steve" Pulling from the last part:"...Should be possible without pushing CM: Normandy until 2011 ..." Does anyone think it will be released (in a form acceptable to BF.C) in the next 12 days? From December 22nd, 200_9_ (a year ago) "... The last bone is an update on where we are right now with the game as a whole. We currently have one major game element remaining to code. Namely the new Quick Battle system. It's designed and should go into production in January. There's still a lot of things which have to be added, tweaked, and fixed... but we have 30 active testers working to help us with all of that now. Their initial reactions to hunting tanks in the bocage has been very positive (understatement!)..." Now, there's NOTHING in ANY statement from ANYONE at BF.C which promises a release date. All of our expectations for a release date have been based on groundless forum speculation. Having said that, what is the problem with having a fanbase request features in a yet to be released product? No one out here in forum-land knows why CM:N hasn't been released yet. Heck, we don't even know if there have been any unexpected delays. This could be part of BF.C's expected schedule. Shrug. If CM:N is "delayed" until June 7th, 2011 due to AI issues, is that acceptable? If CM:N is "delayed" until June 7th, 2011 due to marketing, is that acceptable? If CM:N is "delayed" until June 7th, 2011 due to TCP/IP WeGo, is that acceptable? If CM:N is "delayed" until June 7th, 2011 due to UNKNOWN issues, is that acceptable? Shrug. A lot of hopes, and not enough patience. I'm just glad that a salient part of my current life is wondering about the release of a computer game. That's a pretty good place to be. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Ken

Yeah, February 29th...

I disagree: interior windows, doors, solid walls, or no walls are all options built into the editor. I will ascribe to BF.C (I may be mistaken) a statement to the effect that the various internal wall options allow the designer to create different interior effects. Windows allow fire, but no movement. Doors alone allow movement, but no fire. Etc. The interiors are abstracted. The interior wall options are there on purpose. None of this answers the LOF firing THROUGH multiple floors. (I've seen men traveling inside a non-window, non-doored series of rooms get shot through the roof from a unit in a different building with a single level height advantage; sky-light simulation?) The interior LOS/LOF is a bit too loose, IMHO. Ken

akd and stoex: thank you both for your reasoned and supported analyses. I concur with all you've written. As I stated earlier, this was an experiment conducted in the midst of a playtest scenario. As such, the conditions were not the best for a specific test on ammo sharing. Additionally, having 4 ammo bearing units, 2 of which can utilize the ammo, all within a small space complicates the interactions. The long-range ability to share ammo was also a complicating factor. The distance between Det 5 and Det 6 when ammo sharing occurred was 24 meters; LOS measured as a TARGET line from Det 6 to the specific terrain location where the leading Det 5 soldier was located when Det 6's ammo count went up. If ammo sharing is NOT based on a per soldier basis, but rather based on the UNIT location, then the ammo sharing range would be greater by several meters. I will run an isolated test; something quite a bit more controlled than hurling various units together at the end of a battalion level battle. I fully expect to get exactly the same results as akd. Ammo sharing summary thoughts: 1. The inclusion of ammo sharing by BF.C is a huge benefit which outweighs all the following shortcomings. 2. Ammo sharing ability is opaque to the player. This is a game manual/information shortfall. It could be remedied by an addendum to the manual or by modifying the GUI. 3. Ammo carrying and ACQUIRE command leaves room for improvement. In the above example, both the platoon HQ and the non-affiliated pioneers acquired ammo. Neither unit SHOWED that ammo. Only one unit could share the ammo with the GMG unit. 4. Abstraction involved in ammo sharing is fine. Lack of sharing between non-affiliated sub-units is understood to prevent gamey behavior. I.e., how could a just entered rifle squad know that the ATGM squad 1.5km away needs more missiles? Unless they're all in command... (leaving open the ability to modify sharing if all units are in command with a common HQ.) Thanks, Ken

Oooh, oooh, I have an idea for someone to test ammo sharing...

More data for those watching... When we last left, our intrepid Det 6 lads were on the rooftop, empty. Their Platoon HQ was with them, hoarding 50 rounds of 40mm HEDP acquired from the Bulldog's stash of 320 rounds. These Bulldogs have the 320 rounds of 40mm HEDP specifically for the platoon's GMG's. In this case, the HQ would not share. I gave them 5 minutes. I ran the HQ off the roof, into the hinterland. Remember Det 5? The had returned to a normal ammo count. Don't ask me how. They now were back to 16 PPHE and 32 HEDP. I ordered them to join Det 6 up on the rooftop. Det 6, empty, had the GMG DEPLOYED. As Det 5 approached, at approximately 24 meters away from Det 6, the ammo got shared. The ammo got shared. There, that deserved its own line, didn't it? Anyway, at 24 meters between groups, or about 2 action spots away (?), Det 5 went to just 32 HEDP and the missing 16 PPHE went to Det 6. Why PPHE? Why do girls like baby deer? (Insert Gallic shrug.) Within a platoon by units capable of using the weapon the ammo is meant for, sharing works. The platoon HQ does not share. At least with GMGs. The fun part will be this: GMG's are part of weapons platoon which includes machine gunners. I will see if the GPMGers can be used to run ammo for the GMG. And vice versa. Off to test land. Oh, if any of you know how to get pioneers to give up 620 rounds of 40mm ammunition, please pass it on. Ken

Yes, partially. As Det 5 ran away, it gained ammo. Later, it lost the gained ammo. Det 6 gained HEDP ammo, but lost all its PPHE ammo. It gained 50 rounds (16 to 66) HEDP, and lost all 16 rounds of PPHE. Later, with the pioneers and Det 6 on the roof, I emptied Det 6 by firing on the open ground. All 66 rounds were fired. They showed "empty". The pioneers, putatively with 620 rounds of 40mm HEDP, did not share ammo. I then ran the pioneers off to the boondocks. I sent the HQ, the PLATOON HQ, up to the rooftop with 50 rounds of ammo (HEDP). This was to verify whether ammo sharing only occurs with units in the same platoon. (That was also why Det 5 was nearby...) The HQ and the Det 6 never shared 40mm HEDP ammo. Det 6 stubbornly remains empty. It could be that "empty" blocks ammo sharing? I don't know. What I do know is that a cool feature, sharing ammo, does not work with the GMG. I do not know what else may have the same lack of sharing characteristics. This was one that I noticed, so I started testing different situations. Ken

More testing has proven that the presence of 620 rounds of 40mm HEDP in the hands of the pioneers does NOT get shared with Det 6, even after Det 6 has run empty. I tried it with the weapon DEPLOYED and TARGETED, despite being empty. I tried it DEPLOYED with no target. I tried it NOT DEPLOYED. At no point does Det 6, once empty on the rooftop, gain ammo from their buddies with 620 rounds. 7 men in the pioneer section, 620 rounds; that's 88 rounds per man. Perhaps they don't think that's enough? Of course, that 620 figure was determined by boarding them on two Bulldogs. The first had 320 available; they acquired all of them and the Bulldog count went to zero. The 2nd Bulldog only had 300 available; after acquiring, the Bulldog count was zero. I ASSUME the game gave all 620 to the pioneers. Does anyone else think ammo sharing (and ammo counting) is currently a bit wonky? If not, please explain the fluctuating round counts. Thanks, Ken Erwin: The HQ was placed there in preparation for testing that I didn't do because of the oddities that were occurring.

Focusing on Det 6 during the same turn.. At start... 16 seconds... 23 seconds... 25 seconds... A round count vs. time shows; 0- 16 PPHE, 16 HEDP 5- 16 PPHE, 16 HEDP (to show no interaction of ammo with Det 5) 23-46 HEDP All the PPHE has DISAPPEARED!! Where did the ammo come from? The ammo buddy pioneers? 25-66 HEDP More ammo showed up. I SUSPECT the 620 rounds the pioneers have area somehow getting to Det 6, except NO OTHER TEST HAS SHOWN THIS AMMO TRANSFER. The Pioneers NEVER share ammo, at least the 40mm HEDP to the GMGers. I'll show proof of this later if needed.