Erwin

Lovely - thanks. Any plans to redo the WW2 era? Those are still my favorite for the WW2 games.

Yeah, sorry about that...

Hey... our reputation scores are running neck and neck. We should start voting for each other and soon we may actually get enuff reputation to have credibility!

If you detailed how you did this it would be very helpful. People always ask about this in CM1.

Was there another M16 AA nearby? Or, just another halftrack with 50 cal?

Also, recall that using the Elite JTAC and Elite drone, the FFE on a Point Target was very disappointing - arriving all over the place in a large diameter like a wide area target. Precision Strikes using the Elite JTAC/Drone combo were better, but it often took two Precision missions to get close enuff to kill.

wow... what are the odds...?

Recommend you upload em to CMMODS. I think many will be interested in your mods.

That sounds clever... any pics to show the effect?

This is a similar issue for Strykers. And one can't easily tell when a vehicular MG will run out of ammo so that one could order the vehicle back under cover to reload. Maybe it would be useful for the gunner to NOT reload without a specific order from the player. That would enable the vehicle to be moved to safety if desired.

CMSF is set in early 2000's, CMBS is contemporary... So effectiveness has improved.

The baby elephants is probably your best ever link, John. (They seem to have very good taste in women!)

B4 CM my favorite W2 game was Panzer Elite - but it was very buggy. Steel Fury seems to be a worthy successor.

That's actually my normal work position...

I appreciate your points, but we have to agree to disagree. I have spend literally thousands of man-hours actually playing the CM2 games including hundreds of hours playtesting for designers, and know how the CM1 and CM2 games work as well as anyone. That is what I enjoy and this is how I choose to spend my leisure time. That's why I am often asked to playtest new designs. Along the way I have discovered many bugs and phenomena that may require improvement - items that the average player may not even notice. On the other hand, one gets the impression that designers and modders do not spend nearly that amount of time actually playing. They enjoy designing and modding as a part of their leisure activities. I have attempted to design and I hate the process, and do not have talent or the hundreds of hours it takes to become proficient at design. Am happy to pay BF for professionally produced content. Just because a person loves doing one thing, it's incredibly self-centered to expect others to love the same thing. It would be arrogant to expect everyone to play thousands of hours of CM2 like I do before they are allowed to make comments. No one here should be told to keep their mouths shut about suggestions or improvements, just cos someone else doesn't like what is being said. If anyone does not like my suggestions or comments then they are perfectly free to ignore them or simply put me on their IGNORE list. No offence taken. What should stop are personal attacks on people just cos you don't like what they say. New members on these forums may not know that only a few months ago it was possible to mark people DOWN for the comments (as opposed to LIKE). At that time, a gang of bullies (who AFAIK still infest these forums) marked down another member to something like MINUS 200!! in an effort to embarrass and humiliate that member and shut him up. These cowardly bullies never owned up to who they were. However, the "mark down" feature was removed, and those childish schoolyard asswipes slunk back to whatever dank hole in the ground they slimed out of. Meanwhile the rest of us marked up the bullied member with "Likes" so he is now back in positive territory and continues to be a contributing member. In summary, it's disappointing that we still have this lingering need for some to shut others up cos they don't like being what is being said. One would have hoped that we could have confidence that the mature folks on these forums are able to make their own minds up re whether they agree or not with posted comments and not feel the need to make personal attacks on a members credibility in order to discredit what is being said.

+1 and a lot more. Could not have said it better myself. The best scenarios/missions do this. I keep referencing MOS's superb Tactical Ops Center (TOC) scenario as an outstanding example of this design philosophy.

Exactly so Michael. We all love the detail. But, playing a game like CM2 takes so much mental energy it literally can cause a headache after a few hours (and eventual regular burn-out) - knowing that every move has to be perfect or you could suffer catastrophic loss. I play Grigsby's massive WITPAE for R&R cos as you say, one can distance oneself and have so many resources and assets that you can afford to lose an aircraft carrier or a few divisions and it hardly matters.

This is brilliant and would save me SO MUCH TIME! In addition, I wouldn't have to worry about burn-out and spousal units screaming at me about wasting my life playing CM... If the computer could also just turn itself on, decide to play a game, and get on with it without any input from me, it would be a godsend. Yes! Where do I plunk down my money?

"...pink for girls, blue for boys" has existed continuously since at least the 1820s, while "blue for girls, pink for boys" is only recorded between 1889 and 1941." So there it is...

This would be perfectly normal in my experience. As MonkeyKing said, in a large scenario one can spend many more than 2 hours setting up. This is a very detailed simulation "game" and one error in CM2 can be catastrophic. When I was recovering from injuries, surgeries, rehab etc. I had the opportunity to play for dozens of hours (am embarrassed to say how many) every week for many months, (years actually). I handled my pixeltruppen as if they were my buddies and regularly suffered from burn-out due to the stress and anxiety of knowing that one bad move could mean disaster. So, what you are experiencing is quite normal. Just need to learn to live with it. It gets easier with experience.

It is interesting that in CMBS one can split a 7-man Ukr squad into 3 teams. Was hoping we could do similar in CMSF2.

Yes, I use those for the WW2 titles as well.

Sometimes it's hard to decide whether to simply do a SPLIT or ASSAULT split. With a SPLIT each team's firepower is fairly even. With ASSAULT split the longer range support firepower stays in one team while the assault team only has rifles and grenades. If you get the split wrong it takes time to recombine and redo the split.

+1 Thank you...

Exactly. The only issue is that the 9 man US squads can only be split into 2 teams. So, if 2 guys are in one team, that leaves an unwieldy 7-man team. I suppose if this reflects RL, that's ok. But, it doesn't make much sense. In CMBS the 7 man Ukr squads can be split into 3 teams (2+2+3) and that makes them tactically much more useful than the US - which again is counterintuitive.