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Wildman, I don't think ANYONE here is asking for a comprehensive breakout of all possible air-to-ground ordnance. Right now CMSF models a few basic samples of air support. I actually counted them once: I think CMSF has 14 or 17; CMSF:M has one more. Take those SAME EXACT AIR SUPPORT ASSETS. Don't add any other combinations or any other possibilities. Just use exactly what is already in the game. Then replace the useless 40mm grenade icons. Replace them with generic ordnance. Like, say, a GAU12 icon, or Mk84 icon, or a Mk82 icon. Then, now that the player can SEE what may be falling near him, replace the funky red through green gradations with an actual count. (Cannons excepted: let them stay within the accepted ammo status practice.) Now, under my imaginary system, when I click on the air support asset as the JTAC, I should have the same information a JTAC has - which is pertinent to the game. I should know what ordnance is available and how much of it is available. That information is missing right now. Thanks, Ken

Gents, Resurrecting this to go with my "Back at the Fire Control Center" thread. Some comments were made in the artillery discussion which touched upon air support. I thought it would be germane to bring this back to life. In short, the game tracks specific ammo. The ammo is loaded on the planes. Why can't the player SEE what the ammo is? I'm not asking for player CONTROL over the ammo; simply a better feedback mechanism. Right now all I see are three 40mm grenade rounds. WTF? I _think_ the one to the left is for light attacks, but I have no friggin' clue. Also, what the **** happens if my air support icon only has ammo bars on, say, the left-most grenade icon, but I ask for a medium area type attack? Will the aircraft refuse? Will I know if it refuses? Will it substitute the putative light weapon for the requested medium attack? Will I be told? If it only has heavy ordnance left but I ask for a light attack will the same results apply? I KNOW a JTAC would have all that information. Regards, Ken

Agreed! Stacking an ACQUIRE would save at least one turn. (Since I usually forget about the resupply guys in the vehicle for at least a turn or two!). Ken

Aaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhh. Continuing our saga from the first post.... "Arty center, this is Zebra06, over!", squawked the radio. "Sir!", yelled Sparks, "We have another request from Zebra06!" The Artillery Battalion Commander rushed over, saying, "Sparks, go ahead and tell him to give us his request!" "This is Zebra06. I need a smoke mission, medium, medium, area, at YZ987654, 50 meter radius! We're getting hosed by RPG's and machineguns! We need 81mm smoke! NOW!" The Artillery Commander spun around to his First Sergeant, "You heard the man! Get that smoke downrange now! We've been put on this earth for just this sort of call! Make it happen!" Then, looking at Sparks, he said, "Relay all calls from the firing battery to Zebra06." "First Sergeant!", yelled the commander. "Yes, sir?", he replied. "I want Jenkins to work the firing solution for this shoot. We need to ensure each man in the FDC can do each other's job. I know it may add time to Zebra06's support, but our training is VERY important to my fitness report. Don't you agree?" "But sir, um, don't they need that support NOW?", said the First Sergeant. "C'mon man, how much difference will a few minutes make? Have Jenkins lay in the mortars. That's an order!", stated the commander. Dutifully Sparks relayed the calls from the battery, calling out each of the needed three spotting rounds and splashes. Finally, the rounds were landing close to the target. "Fire for effect!!" Plunk, plunk! "Mission Complete!!" "This is zebra06. We only got TWO smoke rounds!!" The commander grabbed the mike, "Yes, you should be glad we accepted the fire mission at all! We're glad for the training opportunity, but those smoke rounds are expensive! Unit budgets, you understand." Grrrrr. This highlights a v1.10 experience; The long delay for 81mm response after just calling in a previous mission. Steve did comment that the delays should be less for successive calls in future versions of the game. I'm wondering if he meant CMSF or for future modules/games? Also, the lack of a suitable interface. (See my other threads...) I called for smoke and got exactly two smoke rounds. WTF? It was the first smoke call for that battery. I have no idea how many rounds will be used by a given mission nor how many will be left for future missions. Please fix or somefink. Thanks, Ken

Agreed. Nice job finding and relating this. Now that you've brought it to light, I remember many, many instances when my sniper team, in overwatch, never sees enemy activity until after the enemy fires. Then the sniper misses. Thanks, Ken

A minor edit to the post I made above: I actually sent a specific squad to every Stryker in either a platoon or a company. As it entered, I would ACQUIRE ammo. Specifically, all the 7.62 it could carry. I kept track of the ammo by seeing what was left in the Stryker. I also loaded them down with all the Javelins they could carry. I looked up the weight of ammo and divided it out across the number of men. The laden and unladen squads were capable of the same speeds for certain distances. A few hundred meters? I forget. The test track may've been about 1 km long. Regards, Ken

Steve et al., The masses have spoken. It is clear from reading the overwhelming responses to this thread that there is a groundswell of support. I fear a grassroots consumer movement to boycott CM:Normandy unless the scenario interface is revised! Seriously, though, with the idea of BF.C hosting downloads that will only increase the number of scenarios the average player has on their hard-drive. Do NOT think about the interface as a way to manage files: think of it, as I mentioned, as the entry to the player's view of the game. Make the interface easy to use, flexible, powerful, slick, and graceful. It is a reflection upon the game. Make it anything beyond merely functional. Again, for emphasis, once I click on the CMSF icon to start the program, I am devoting my attention, my time, my computer, and all the rest, to your creation. The very first step in entering the game is that scenario interface. Make it a joy, not a task. Make it a tool to help me, not a "file management" tool. If no industry award actually exists for scenario interface, I hereby pronounce that I will create such an award. Regards, Ken

Ahh, and all those years ago when I watched the TV series "UFO", I thought it was fiction! (Edited to add a link: http://ufoseries.com/ ) I still fantasize about those Moon girls. Anyone remember Commander Striker? Or the cool submarine launched interceptors? Regards, Ken

Oooh, 5k by 6k? Nice.... Err, as long as it's not a platoon versus platoon meeting engagement. Ken

Ryanwtod, A long time ago I ran a test. The short answer is "yes, they are penalized". The version I tested must've been something v1.03. I don't know if the fatigue model has been tweaked since then. I loaded one squad with everything from the Stryker. I forget the numbers, but it must've been something like 120 lbs. per man. The other squad was standard. (A better test would have them shoot off every bit of ammo.) Then I QUICKED the squads 100meters down and back on parallel roads. It took a bit of distance, but eventually the unladen squad pulled ahead. The laden squad reached an exhausted state more rapidly and took longer to recover. I tested with various squads and teams over varied terrain types. I only have qualitative, not quantitative, results. Regards, Ken

No, no, no. I don't know who this "Steve" guy is, but we all KNOW the reason why v1.11 is being delayed: BF.C is redoing the scenario list interface! (And also tweaking the artillery and air support interfaces.) Why all this for v1.11? Because they heard the hue and cry lamenting the need to delay CM:Normandy for those self-same reasons! BF.C doesn't want to delay CM:Normandy, so, instead, they are delaying v1.11. There was much rejoicing in the village. I'm glad to hear v1.11 is coming along. I really can't imagine there'll be much more to do after that. (Other than the tweaks I mentioned above! ) Thanks, Ken

Hmmm, it really doesn't take much to throw a discussion totally off the rails, does it? One mention of "tripod" and it all goes pear shaped. Back to the main topic: a BETTER interface for the scenarios. How about color-coding scenario titles? How about other subjects with which to sort scenarios? Anyone? Thanks, Ken

Nice work. Ken

Steve, Thanks for recognising a little tongue-in-cheek when you see it. Hyperbole? Over-reacting? I have NO idea what you guys are talking about... But, seriously, there is a lot of room for improvement in the scenario interface. If you go beyond the idea of simple FILE MANAGEMENT and instead open up your view of the scenario interface to include PLAYER'S GAME EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT (is that a clunky title? ), you could set the bar. Again. How many guys reading this have simply been running through the battles alphabetically? I've downloaded some scenarios from CMMODS (a HUGE "thank you" to the scenario designers!!) and, frankly, I'm not sure which ones they are when I access the scenario interface. Original scenario? New one? Played? Unplayed? Too bad if I'm playing the "G" scenarios and have downloaded one that starts with "A". I'll probably never get back to the "A". Implementing a sorting system would be huge leap forward. Of course, that would entail having information about each scenario available to be sorted. That was the purpose of my list. The simplest information would be "did I play this one to a conclusion before?" Then add more information about each scenario to make it sortable. The more, the better. A multi-level sort would be the most beneficial. I'm looking for a scenario with US Army, any opponent, night, US attacking, M1 Abrams, which I haven't played before. Click. Oooh, look! There are 3 scenarios to choose from! Or, click, and nothing available. Time to fire up the editor/QB and make a new one. File management? Bah. It is a doorway. When I click on "Battle" I have given you my entire screen real-estate to use. My entire computer is dedicated to the experience of the upcoming game. I have given myself over to your game. The FIRST thing I need to do is CHOOSE the nature of the game experience. The interface could be so much more than just an alphabetical list of all the files. That first scenario interface click is the beginning of the game, NOT pressing the "start" button within the game interface. Start it off with a bang, not a whimper. Now, for those who thought I was a bit over the top, c'mon guys, it was MEANT to be a bit over the top. And see what it got us? Steve has admitted the release date for CM:Normandy is now December 2010, due to the QB system, and Normal Dude (a Beta Tester) has violated his NDA and let us know that the Bren tripod WILL be included. Hah! Sometimes you NEED to poke a stick in the hornet's nest. Thanks, Ken

Urgent!! BF.C, read this! The next game needs to be held up. That's right, stop the nutrients from going into the jar. We need to ensure that CM:Normandy does NOT ship with the same scenario interface that is in CMSF. Why? If you REALLY need to know why, then you must be some sort of programmer who enjoys reading hexadecimal. Or something. Seriously, the scenario interface is a kludge. It is functional, I'll give you that, but that is all it is. First, the scenario interface screen does not even allow the full scenario name to be read. You can type more characters as the title of a scenario in the scenario editor than the interface reads. The result is chopped off names. Not even a sidescroll is available. C'mon, attention to detail guys. Either cut the number of characters the scenario editor allows, or add the number the interface can display. Hint: sidescroll bars. Second, why can I only select "NEXT" and "PREVIOUS"? Functional? Yeah, but clunky. Why not a scroll bar? Hey, I see one over here on the right side of my current screen. Can I send it to you to use? Third, adding the ability to SORT the scenarios would be a boon. A huge boon. I dream of sorting by TITLE, by AUTHOR, by SCENARIO DATE, by DATE CREATED, by FORCE TYPES, by SIZE, by COMBATANTS, by TIME OF DAY, et cetera. Hell, I even bet there's some sort of industry award for scenario interface which you could win by making something like this. Imagine scrolling through your list of scenarios and seeing which ones you've ALREADY PLAYED? Or, and this is really stretching it, seeing which ones you've played and HAVING AN ENTRY WHICH TELLS YOU YOUR SCORE FOR THAT SCENARIO? "Ooh, "Allah's ak Bar, and His Favorite Drink", that's a goodie. I've played it 8 times, averaging a tactical victory as Blue. I wonder if I can do better?" Finally, being able to delete scenarios from within the interface could be useful, especially if it could delete savegames. The strength of these games hinges around the infinite number of scenarios available to the player. We now have a seriously good game with v1.10. However, we are hobbled by a crippled scenario interface. Imagine if you actually had a few hundred scenarios in your scenario folder? In sum, the attraction of these games is the number of scenarios; the weakness is how the player accesses the very same scenarios. Thoughts? Regards, Ken

Nice. How about, INSTEAD OF JUST "?" for enemy, how about adding what it just was? For example, I see and identify an enemy HQ. I get a little flag. Cool. Next, due to incoming, the enemy HQ is suppressed and goes to ground. Now, for the next few turns I only see "?". Sometimes I leave the game for a few days. When I get back, I have no friggin' idea what half the "?" are. I'm sure my little men would know. How about adding the contact info? You know, put the little flag NEXT to the "?". That way I, the player, can see what it is. Obviously, you only get the extra icon info if you gained the intel earlier. Thoughts? Thanks, Ken

My own opinion is that a low velocity weapon would be better suited to direct HE support of infantry. In that regard, and for ammo commonality, I would've thought a breech loading 120mm mortar would've been great. Of course, against any armor that choice could be somewhat lacking. Perhaps the 105mm was the least worse compromise solution? Ken

Gents, I'm resurrecting this old thread for a reason. I STILL cannot fire the Bradley coax on its own. Sure, on occasion the TacAI will use it, but those occasions are rare. Is there ANY hope of EVER gaining control of the coax? I wouldn't care about it if the 25mm ammo never ran out, but, unfortunately, it does. Now, to suppress various locations, the Bradley must use the 25mm for area fire. The thousands upon thousands of rounds of 7.62 go unused. If BF.C states that this is the way it will remain for the CMSF family, then will it be changed for future games? Meaning, CM:Normandy? (Obviously the Bradley wouldn't be there, but there are plenty of AFV's with similar weaponry configurations.) Thanks, Ken

I second the motion. A bit more obscuration would be nice. The absolute pinpoint characteristic of the dust source is the problem. The solution? Hey, if I had that, then I'd be at BF.C. I leave it to them. Ken

Stop!! Don't sign ANYTHING until they promise you daily access to a computer so you can play CMSF. At least 3 hours a day!! Years ago, in jump training, my 18/19 year old buddies and I were amazed at this one really old dude who showed up. He was ancient, Methuselah (sp?) kind of old. I think he was around 30 or 32. Nice guy, but the pit jumps did him in: knees and lower back. Now that I'm past 40 I really appreciate the work he must've done! As I do you. Congrats, work hard, and I hope you and the Army both benefit from your decision. Regards, Ken

Yes, very clear. That was, indeed, my previous understanding and obviously explains how an enemy disappears behind a window. I was confused as to your _purpose_ in bringing up unit ELOS heights. Thanks, Ken

Steve, Glad to know it's on the work list! But, um, can't a unit be at other heights? Like, level 2 through 8 of a building? I'm not sure about the point of your post, upstream, about the various allowable unit heights. In the cases I've seen, the enemy unit is rarely on the ground floor, thereby eliminating the ability to fire short. Agreed that the easiest (from my keyboard!) solution would be to allow more "residual" firing upon the location of a just disappeared enemy target. Right now we seem to cut off the fire almost immediately. Targeting "?" would be nice. Although, the ability to fire upon any visible action spot would allow that as a by-product. (The "?" must surely exist IN an action spot, therefore if I can fire at all visible action spots I could also fire at the subset of visible action spots which contain a "?" symbol.) Thanks, Ken

SlowMotion, That's EXACTLY what we discussed in a previous thread. The RPG element of a Syrian squad had LOS/LOF to my Bradley because the RPG'er was at the corner of a building. He would get fired at, duck down, then go "?". Once he was under a "?", he became ineligible to be a target. That meant that the only way the Bradley could fire would be to area fire at the floor of his building. That was impossible because area fire at a building needs to trace a LOS to the center of the floor. That LOS was blocked by another building. Therefore, an asymmetric LOS/LOF existed. One side could fire with impunity at the other side. (Okay, ALMOST impunity: for the brief seconds the RPG'er was exposed, he could get fired at. Without exception, the first notice Blue had of the RPG'er was AFTER he fired. The first rounds fired at the RPG'er always missed and always caused him to gain "?" after he ducked and became suppressed. Then the return fire would stop immediately. Rinse and repeat.) Since then I've been on the lookout for this behavior. It occurs much more frequently than I'd like. It is not a very rare occurrance in MOUT. I agree with Steve that it is not very common WHEN COMPARED WITH ALL THE OTHER ACTION, however, it seems to occur at least once in every single battle in MOUT if you look for it. Being allowed to area fire at ANY action spot would be a solution. Continuing to fire at a last-known enemy position for 10's of seconds after the enemy disappears would also be a solution. (Current system: "There he is! Fire, fire, fire!!! Stop! Stop! He just ducked down. Now we have to wait, men." Not very realistic. ) Regards, Ken

Thinking about RT command delays (take this from a dedicated WeGo-er): Command Delays are, IMO, very important to model certain forces. The player has a lot of extra power compared to the real commander. Why not variable command delays based on the players current perspective? Two different thoughts on that subject: the first bases the delay on the chain of command; the second on the viewpoint. If I double click the platoon HQ and select a movement point for my entire platoon, then add a certain delay to my sub-element. If, instead, I select the squad, eliminate the delay. Add more delay the higher up the chain I go. This forces delays based on how many units the player selects. If you want to tweak every single squad, well, they'll move or shoot when you say, but it'll take you a lot of time to get to each unit. If you like lassoing a lot of units, then the delay gets added. My other thought regards viewpoint; if I am at the lowest camera elevation, then no delay; add successively more delay the higher I go. This simulates chain of command delays as you utilize the bigger picture to make your decisions. Of course, the amount of delay is based on unit experience, training, doctrine, etc. Thoughts? Thanks, Ken

JonS, I'll do that! Thanks for following up. (My only fig-leaf of an excuse will be that the original setup pre-dates v1.10; therefore, no artillery is capable of smoke and no FO is capable of requestion smoke. Obviously, to be fair to the game, it is inexcusable to test a new capability added in a recent patch by using a pre-patched scenario. I will gin up a whole new test scenario so only the latest and greatest artillery support units are added.) I'm also interested in artillery round counts based on ammo availability in the editor. More on all that later! Regards, Ken