Erwin

I am under no illusions about how hard modding and scenario design is. So, my hat is off to you. The only other idea I had (even during CM1 days) was that there tended to be a professional glamor studio look - that is, no shadows. I wonder if it's possible to use darker lines along uniform creases and under chins - basically wherever one sees darker areas on any real person etc to give a shadowed look. Shadows are the sort of thing that makes pics of models look more realistic. Same for vehicles actually.

Question: If one uses one of the "personalized" mod variants then all the tanks have the same graphic and text/numbers. Can one put in a folder ALL the variants including the initial plain version, number them sequentially like we do for uniforms, and hence have more varied-looking vehicles? My understanding is that when this is done for uniforms, the onscreen uniform graphics are used based on the % of any particular uniform graphic present in the mod folder. (Hope that makes sense.) That's why we can have troops in a unit with differing uniforms, helmets, boots etc.

Actually those would be GREAT mods for any CM game. CM: Cowboys and Indians anyone? Regrettably, after WW1, all colors disappeared. If you look at photos of the WW2 era, even color ones, everything is muted and muddy/dirty/worn/soiled/torn. As a "Hitler Channel" slut, I don't recall ever seeing any type of patches on any soldiers unless one was very close, or they were still clean and pretty in England. I think Aristotle has got the look just about perfect for his xnt vehicle mods. It's perfectly understandable that a modder would want to show off his skills with colorful patches etc. But, anything that would tend to make a WW2 soldier stand out from the foliage would not be realistic (soon discarded or covered over).

There's no shame in not having a sense of humor, noob. There is still a place for you in this world... somewhere...

Did a quick test: Vehicle refuses to pass over the mines, although in trying to turn around it triggered one anyway, but only caused a little damage to its wheels. Infantry that used SLOW, MOVE and HUNT passed over the mines ok. Infantry that used QUICK refuses to run over the mines and will find another route. The latter is a bit silly. It would be good if mines triggered a routine that slowed QUICK or FAST moving inf to a slower pace when encountering marked mines.

Thanks noob. I was kidding.

Great looking. I would continue with the highly muted colors. Modders make the mistake of using colors out of an Osprey book - all bright and pretty. I doubt if one could see shoulder and collar tabs of any nationality unit unless really close. And those blue uniforms and helmets look like they would attract fire from a long way away. I bet they were gotten rid of or dirtied up fast.

Wouldn't it be great if BF could combine CM with a railroad simulator/game. CM: RR Engineer would be about trying to deliver goods/troops around the place in the middle of a battle.

I'll check to see if MOVE also works across marked minefields. HUNT and anything faster doesn't in the scenario I am in. Will have to check vehicles too. But, I reserve the right to redo those turns. What puzzles me is since one gets a red mine marker as soon as someone gets blown up, why do we even have to bother to "mark mines" and have the sign turn yellow/white when you already know where they are.

Best thing for Win7 is to install CM games to anyplace but either of the Programs folders. eg: C:\sims\battlefront etc. Then saves etc all go in the expected places.

Let's hope these mods will be compatible with future CM modules/version. When you are done with the vehicles, I hope you have energy to create some really torn/worn and dirty/soiled uniforms.

That's a really good observation. I can't recall ever seeing troops in action with backpacks. They would have discarded them someplace safe well before. None of the CMBN troops should have packs.

fabulous as always. Thank you!

great idea...

You need to specify if you're playing RT or WEGO as one needs to use rather different tactics when you have your men doing things for 60 secs before you can change their orders.

Paper Tiger: I thought so too in some scenarios. But, am playing La Haye in "Courage and Fortitude" and there are many mines at gates etc. However, once my engineers have marked them and I issued QUICK orders to get inf to use the gateways, they ran in the opposite direction trying to find alternative routes. Even when I put waypoints on the marked mines to force inf to go that way, they went around another route and tried to get to that mine waypoint from a different direction. So, I concluded that in the latest patch maybe inf will not enter a marked minefield. (I haven't tested if inf will SLOW move through, or if vehicles will move through.)

From my experience: Does anyone know if the size of the target arc matters? I find it better to have a small angle arc pointing in the desired direction as that simulates everyon's attention being given to that direction and arc. Do you have a better chance at long range detection if you have a narrow arc field but a longer distance? I do not believe so. The length of the arc is simply a way of restricting the range one's troops will open fire. Would a 360 Target Arc,(holding shift while setting target arc) 100 meter radius be less effective spotting than a 45 deg. target arc for 100 meters? Yes. (Troops would be forced to look around 360 degrees.) Is there a maximum that the unit can spot, assuming they have clear visibility? Is this tied to their weapon (sniper= longer visibility?) Guys with binocs (and I assume snipers) see better. On the relatively small CMBN maps I believe that in clear vis, one can see "forever." I will be happy to stand corrected by more knowledgeable players and testers etc.

Very useful. Thanks.

Good heavens. Such a person may find themselves driven to do productive work, find a girlfriend or even have wife and kids... <shudder>

And just to clarify (for my own education as well), once engineers have marked the mines, they may as well leave and do something else as they can have no further effect re mines. The effect of marked mines is that units refuse to walk/drive over them. So, mines on a bridge or on a road with bocage on either side are nasty. In some respects then it may be better to NOT have engineers mark mines since you can order units to move across a known but unmarked minefield (and take the chance of getting blown up). But, once the minefirld if marked it's essentially impassible (least it seems that way in a scenario I am playing).

Also, you can have your friendly assault troops waiting right at the blast site. BLAST does not make friendly fire casualties - ever.

One can use the preplanned option with a 5-15 min delay, THEN maneuver to get LOS to the impact area to see if there indeed any enemy units there. If none there, you can ADJUST the mission. In another thead I think folks said that you can still adjust to a spot not in LOS. If not, at least you can cancel the mission saving precious arty and call again for arty on a spot within LOS later.

never mind... initial install seems to be working, now for the patches.

One can also make ones men crawl SLOW for a while so their clean uniforms get dirty and are thus better camouflaged.

Do NOT put your "spare/Back Up" Z files in a folder in the CM game's DATA folder! I generally have a dedicated folder under C:/SIMS for all my games' back up folders. PS: Especially if you have Win 7 it is best to NOT allow games to install in the default location (Programs) as that can trigger UAC and other weird security-related phenomena. I create a C:/SIMS folder and install all games to that folder.