c3k

Obviously, we'll HAVE to see schuerzen being ripped off by tanks plunging through walls. Or panels hanging loose. Or flying through the air after a nearby explosion... Ken

For whatever it's worth, the Operations approach you presented to us in CMBO, et al., gave a truly visceral sense of accomplishment. If I fought and sweated to get that hilltop, then I could USE that hilltop to set up my forces at the next battle. That was a good feeling. Emphasis on the fact that I FELT something. In CMSF, that feeling is gone. I like the flexibility of CMSF's campaigns. The Scripted Dynamic Campaign is capable of a huge scope. But there is no feel. Each battle, as you're aware, does not SEEM to be connected to the next; or the previous. It's a numbers game. I get a number at the end of a battle. Then I play the next battle. (Interesting to me that I don't consider that I "fight" the next battle.) I'm glad to read that you're going to focus on this aspect when your resources permit. Thanks, Ken

Wait until next turn: that's when you'll see what happens when it hits the exhaust...

Congrats. Welcome aboard. I've got a few programming suggestions I'd like you to work on... Ken

You were shot (or hanged), based on the judgment of a "flying" tribunal. Oh, sorry, that was Germany, near the end. Other armies at other periods had other solutions.

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I did not go through GREAT lengths to create misaligned doors. I merely placed two buildings adjacent to one another. The code creates misaligned doors, but doesn't show them. Then, one one building takes damage, the INVISIBLE door remaining on the intact building, can be used. In fact, it WILL be used despite the player's wishes, unless he creates orders and pathing to avoid the INVISIBLE door. This occurs if the intact wall has NO doors. It is not just an issue of an available door on the left, but troops go through the right. Like I said, this is not any kind of game breaker. I'd label it "undocumented feature" with no implication of being a bug. It is a "feature" that doors are created between buildings if either one or the other has a door. If both have a door, which takes priority? If only one has a door, then what? If one is rubbled, what happens? Oh, I just tested and answered that. In the hopes of BF.C creating a "tighter" coding between what is seen and what is in the code, I'd hope that future games would SHOW the created doors. That way, when the scenario designer creates a door, it would be VISIBLE on BOTH walls. In game, it would show where troops could go. Right now, that's not true. Are there more important things for BF.C to code? Of course. (And not just FLARES!) Regards, Ken

Scipio, I just noticed the nice little red crosses for the lightly wounded men. Well done. Thanks, Ken

Check the latest from the USMC. They're going to use HK416's to replace their SAWs. Interesting development. It doesn't make sense (to me) to replace a suppressive firepower weapon with 100+ round, full-auto, with a selective fire 30 round magazine weapon. (Imagine the WWII Wehrmacht swapping squad MG-42's for Brens?) BUT, if it's the camel's nose under the tent, attempting to swap ALL M-16's out for the HK416, then it makes sense. Shrug.

Gents, I've just completed a test. It seems that new or old rubble - from adjacent buildings - does NOT block building doors. But there is a twist. In the test I created scenario-built rubble (all rubble refers to building rubble, NOT walls) adjacent to building doorways. Such that, XB where X is rubble and B is a building with a door facing the rubble. Additionally, I created building clusters, AB, where A and B are buildings sharing a wall with doorways between them. Then, I area-fired upon A until it rubbled, leaving the same situation as XB, above. The difference being the newly created rubble was made IN scenario. The results were NOT what I expected. With XB, preset rubble, the doorways facing the rubble APPEARED normal. Infantry was able to move through the rubble and enter the buildings THROUGH the doorways. So, appearance and operation were linked. (Earlier versions of the game did NOT allow movement through such a door as far as I'd remembered. Shrug. It does now.) Next, with AB, there were some difficulties. The need was to rubble A, but leave all of B intact. In several cases, the rubbling of A led to the collapse of the adjacent wall from building B. However, I was able to get the result I wanted. I had to use a multi-level, large B structure and single level, small A structure, and then area fire on A. Here's the oddity; in order to create the rubble adjacent to a building, I used this configuration: BA1 BA2 Where B was a single building and A was two smaller, separate buildings. B's door was setup off-center: ----------D-- A's were centered: ---D---|---D--- When both A's were destroyed, the ONLY visible door was the one on building B. Yet, infantry would enter the intact wall THROUGH the nonexistant door which used to be from either building A. This did NOT occur with preset rubble. I ran this test 12 times. Some lives were lost to get this data. Sorry men. Range safety rules shouldn't be broken. My bad. Game breaker? Hell no. But, the "fudge" to create doors between adjacent buildings has visible consequences. (I'm referring to the coding which allows a doorway to be created if EITHER building has a door at that location. The other may have a solid wall, but if a doorway exists in either side, it exists on BOTH. Visually, this is not shown. It is up to the scenario creator to sort it out visually.) Ken

I agree that speed and response could be differentiated a bit more. Although, thinking about it, ANY troops in a combat zone should be ready with just a few responses, be that freeze, run back, run forward, fire, don't fire. In my dream world, as I've posted over the years, the movement orders should be color coded to equate to some objective speed. For example, SLOW would be red, meaning less than 1 m/s. Keep going through the rainbow until FAST (for infantry) would be, say, green meaning, say, 10 m/s. Now, click on that vehicle. Yes, that's the one, over in my dream world. Hmm, its SLOW order is red? Well, that means it's able to crawl along at 1 m/s. What? MOVE is green? Well yes; MOVE for a vehicle is the same as FAST for infantry. All I need to do is match the COLOR of the movement order and disparate units can maintain equivalent speeds. Simple, yes? (Of course FAST for an M1 would be violet, say anything above 25 m/s.) Ken

Resurrected for the HOPE, not the NEED, that blocked doors somehow get SHOWN to the player. A red "x" would suffice, but I'm sure something a bit more, err, flavorful could be devised. Any chance of inclusion in a future patch/module/family/epoch? Thanks, Ken

Oh, I think that a cooperative multiplayer COULD be great. Assign each player the role of a specific tactical HQ, say a company each. The hurdles would be, and are, quite large! Would it be realtime or email? Wego? How would players find a server? Guilds? Clans? Etc. The upside exists; the obstacles are huge. Ken

Oh, that post certainly has my hopes up! A patch? With some sort of AI or (more likely) QB map update? That would be a very nice bonus release to go with CM:N. Thanks, Ken

For me? Well, other than its release, the thing I'm most looking forward to in CM:N is... FLARES! Yeah, I said it it! Great big, bright, gobby FLARES! Wobbling upward, leaving smoke trails, exploding with a sensuous "pop", then drifting down, wafting on air currents, spreading their light! Oh, yeah, baby! FLARESin the night, FLARES in the day, FLARES that signal, FLARES that dingle, FLARES that tingle! How many, many FLARES we sight! Okay, okay, enough already; I know. Just hoping it'll be ready for prime time very soon. Ken

FWIW, I consider "move" to really mean "saunter". It is slow, the troops are VERY vulnerable, but they don't tire. My SOP is to use "quick" with dedicated pauses at locations offering cover. "Hunt" is only for the point element when contact is expected, but the enemy's location is unknown, and I can afford to let the point element be destroyed ("Hunt" freezes them upon contact; the last thing you want is your troops to stop in place when they're being fired upon.).

Ah, yes, the lack of adequate CQB training rears its head. I've had to send many (surviving) squad members back to the training center for inappropriate weapons usage in close quarters environments. M32/M203 use seems particularly prone to errors, second only to the "rain of frag grenades" syndrome... On the plus side, they DID clear the building, right? I feel your pain. Ken

sdp, Thanks, that was one of the screenies which got me thinking that the OP in this thread was right.

Does that go for the guy standing in the hatch?

Your mod is up on the repository. It's also on my hard-drive. Thanks, Ken

Hmmm, the screenshot makes the CV seem like the sandcrawler from Star Wars. Look at the soldier next to the CV in the screenie; now, look at the size of the road wheels in relation to his calf. Do the same with the photo standing next to the transporter: there is a difference. My limited internet research tells me that the height of the CV family of vehicles is 2.7 meters. (Crossposted with akd: my 2.7m vice his 2.8m is negligable. I defer to his sources.) I do not know if that is just the chassis height, or the top of the turret. Regardless, that is 8'11". The screenshot shows the CV dwarfing the soldier. Literally. He must be a dwarf. Hence, he got dwarfed. The photo shows the tracks as being as tall as a strike zone - mounted on the transporter, the top of the track is even with the man's shoulders, the bottom of the tracks intersect his upper thigh. (In the real sense of that phrase, not the Al Gore sense!) The screenie shows the track starting at the ground (appropriately), and seemingly as high as the soldier's shoulder. That's out of scale. The screenie makes the CV9035 appear taller than an Abrams. Heck, it may be taller than the WWII Grant! This may all be due to the perspective... Thanks, Ken

What's the latest from the CV90 grogs? Is the Dutch version (9035NL) based on a totally different, larger and heavier, chassis? Prima facia, that's ludicrous, but I have no evidence on the matter. What are the dimensions of the non-NL CV90's? What are the dimensions of the steroidal NL version? What are the weights? Have the Dutch souped up the engine, or does the same engine output try to move the bigger Dutch beast? Thanks, Ken

Scipio, Those are beautiful! Thanks for letting us know that they're coming down the pike... Regards, Ken

TheVulture, Great stuff! Keep it coming. Thanks, Ken

Ammo? Repair status? If you have a save with that information available, that could explain the seemingly poor behavior. (Either that, or he had a bet with the driver...) Ken

janbak, The solution is really quite simple: the picture actually SHOWS you what orders to use... QUICK (or any other movement order) up to the firing position you want. Then select PAUSE for however long you want to stay there. Next, pick another movement order to leave that point. REVERSE if you want to stay facing that way. I suggest you start a Quick Battle with armor on your side, ignore all other aspects of the game, and just click around a bit. In fact, you can try to exactly recreate that set of orders, then create your own. Good luck! Ken