Erwin

While there are truly hopeless situations, I learned during over a decade of playing CM1 that what I thought was hopeless is often not, and by persevering, I have won battles that seemed hopeless, cos the other guy is often in more trouble than you realize.

If we could do interesting scenarios based on Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier" and have Nazi SS stormtroopers in Vietnam, I think we may have something...

I like the idea. Many times I resort to giving a unit a (say) 30 second PAUSE during which it fires and then moves to a new waypoint that gives it an arc so it stops shooting. Often, 15 seconds is just not enuff, but 60 seconds may be too much.

One issue may also be that we have seen designers react quite viciously to honest feedback which doesn't meet with the designer's desire for applause. Who knows how many have decided to say nothing.

In a couple of the Nijmegen missions I have seen one man out of a 50mm Brit mortar crew seem to get stuck behind a tree. I have found that the only way to get them back together is to move the other team members back to the stuck guy, and let em sit there for a WEGO turn, and then send em off in a different direction before resuming the desired direction. If this was a "once in a blue moon" occurrence I wouldn't be concerned. But, I have seen this happen maybe 3 times during Brit missions. Bug??

+1 for a different color or border color for teams from the same squad. As scenarios get larger the game is increasingly in need for every method of making it easier to handle the UI, ie: speed up play. (Selectable waypoint/lines has always been my #1.)

Thanks Jason. So, it does confirm Doug's point that WW2 players should not be able to "call in" CAS.

Interesting. Thanks.

For WW2 I tend to agree with Doug. At least then I can swear at the CAS rather than wonder why when I keep my men at supposed safe-ish distances away, they still get nailed - esp when enemy units seem well-identified.

It will be well worth paying full cost again. The people who like CMSF, really like CMSF.

Well, in terms of programming effort, I would make CMSF v3 a priority over getting this issue resolved.

I think you miss the point, John, which is that in the GAME, CAS doesn't have the same effects as in RL, and I am talking about the GAME. eg: In the GAME most maps don't allow for 500m+ distances from a CAS target zone. Plus many times immediately after CAS causes enormous craters a few meters away, they are able to get up and fight you effectively. I have merely been inquiring as to how to deal with CAS and its effects on friendlies in the GAME.

"In such a case wouldn't a target order not be enough indication for the AI that the player wants to shoot at a target? Maybe you would get a different colour on the target line in this case and the gun would be incapable of shooting for a small amount of random time during relocation. After that time the gun is in the position of the guy who could spot and is ready to shoot." I thought his xnt point was that IF you wanted to shoot at the target AND were willing to wait for the gun to relocate, you could order that fire command, and the AI would do what was necessary. So, no AI taking control and doing something that you don't want. Also, in the case of a MG the wait time would be negligible.

If that's true, then that is something at least. (I didn't realize there were different points awarded for WIA vs KIA.)

Ooops. I meant Jagdtiger. I figure many pics get used for effect rather than accuracy. It is odd that JT didn't see Eastern Front as I thought the whole purpose of those giant machines like JT and Elefant was to kill hordes of Soviet armor impregnably.

Have seen photos of OOA Elephants that are supposedly from the Kursk battle. Not accurate?

Is it possible to have the game award points for providing medical attention so a guy is WIA instead of KIA? In my games I always make that a priority as it seems the right thing to do. But, there is no reward. At the very least it should give a morale bump to the troops in the next mission in a campaign (or maybe a few extra replacements?).

"3) The loader of the ATG sees a juicy tank but the ATG cannot fire as the Gunner cannot see it. Can it be changed so that the ATG team can make a small adjustment to the gun so it can fire at the target ?" Ditto for MG's... (And vehicles if at all possible.) This phenomenon coupled with LOS issues are the last remaining major game "realism" problems with CM2. And in terms of speeding up gameplay especially for larger scenarios, we need selectable waypoints/lines so we don't have to continually move the camera back to another location to find the unit we want and click on it just to make a change at its destination.

That was interesting, John. The stats from your link re blast radius are the following: 100 meters - M203 & 40mm 200 meters- 60mm mortars 300 meters - 81mm 400 meters - 105 mm 500 meters - 155 mm/naval gunfire MK 81 LD GP bomb 250 215 m 620 m MK 82 LD GP bomb 500 225 m 700 m MK 82 HD GP bomb 500 170 m 700 m So if (250lb-500lb) WW2 bombs were equivalent one needs to be at least 215 meters from the blast edge and to be completely safe, 620-700 meters. That is usually impossible on the CM maps most usually seen. But, as a rule of thumb, one should be unlucky to get hurt of one is more than 250 meters from the center. However, my original question was NOT about blast radius but ACCURACY of the pilot dropping the bomb, when one has designated the TARGET AREA EDGE to be over 250 meters away from friendly troops. All I want to know is what is the safe distance from a targeted zone. If the pilot was accurate and the radius of the target area was (say) 100 meters, then the friendly would be a pretty "safe" 350 meters away. The question is why does the pilot see (and bomb) friendlies 300 meters outside the zone but not the enemy that is inside the zone. If CAS was this bad in RL, I would wonder why it was ever called in.

"But sighting in the game does not mimic real life sighting well, has not from the first and still does not to this day." Very true. It's often forgotten that this is "just" a game, and we need to learn to live with its (many) compromises that make it a very good game but not a simulation.

Looks good. I put it in my Z folder with a lot of ZZZZ's in front since I have SO many mods at this point (altho' have no idea which mods are still functioning with the latest version of CM).

There is also a difference in the way colors look depending on how far away you are from the subject. Close up, colors will be more striking. But, when you view from level 3 and above or far away, colors are naturally desaturated by mist, (smoke of war etc). The problem with all games is that the color saturation stays the same regardless of distance or elevation - as if one was looking at colors in outer space. That is what I think leads people to think that the colors are too bright.

Surely we all know by know that the LOS system is very fickle. A few inches very often makes a huge difference re what can or cannot be seen (or targeted for that matter). LOS determination is a game in itself since it's often not at all intuitive.

You'll need to be more specific. 1) Did you unzip the mod before placing in Z folder? 2) What else is in your mod folder? Could there be conflicts? 3) Do you have the correct mod version for the game version you have?

I notice you had a terrain tweak as well. What is that about?