Placebo

You know why I've been playing Combat Mission since 2000 ? It has a soul, character, its detailed and historically accurate without feeling like a shore to play and best of all, it's fun and it let me explore a subject i've always been interested in without risking life, limb and my conscience

I have to say I feel the opposite - I'm glad they stand up for themselves, and they are certainly never rude to people unless people are rude to them first.
 
He's explained the reasons why lots of the things people want won't be forthcoming in a totally clear, logical way, many times; and there are a small number people who just refuse to accept the answer and basically think they know better, and a (very) few number of those people can end up getting pretty nasty - so why not defend themselves?
 
I'm sure it'd be easier in a big company to let the forum manager, or whoever, deal with these kinds of things but Battlefront has, what; 4 and a half people working for them? There's really no one else who works there to do it, I don't think.
 
So, with that being said.... will the briefing text ever get any bigger?

I remember in 2005 when BFC announced they were revamping the engine and that (heresy) the first game would be modern. Dozens of threads popped up predicting the end of BFC, yet here we are 10 years later and 5 new games have come out, 2 just in the past 12 months.

I think Steve and the gang know what they are doing.

no game has a "thinking" AI simply because a "thinking AI" does not exist.
 
A computer has the "intelligence" of a toaster, it only does what it is pre-programmed to do. What you see in a game which looks like "thinking" is the program following its programming, i.e. if player does A, do plan A, if player does B, do plan B. Sometimes, you will get a random variation, such as if player does A, do plan A or B. etc.
 
Obviously the smaller the amount of variables, for example a small number of pre-made maps, a limited number of options for the player, the easier it is to program the responses so the program looks more "intelligent". That is what first person shooters and flight sims do.
 
In the end though, it is all smoke and mirrors.
 
Now, players always like to bring up the example of Chess programs, but Chess is actually a very simple game: 64 squares and 32 units. Even then, programmers have spent $ millions to program every possible response to what a player might do.
 
Now compare that to CM where even a 800x800 meter map will have 10,000 "squares", each with a hundred variation of elevation or terrain; and that does not even count the different number and types of units.
 
The CM scenario editor allows the scenario author to program the AI response in a manner which is a complex and variable as the AI in any comparable game. Is there room for improvement? Of course!, but CM has always been a work in progress.
 
Now you want to play against a "thinking" opponent?, easy, play PBEM.

I am just thankful for the game.

Warts and all, there is no other that brings the same amount of fidelity to tactical gaming.

You can be sure I would like improvements but I also recognize the work, creativity, and thoughtfulness that have made Combat Mission excellent right from the beginning.

I had one of my russian main battle tanks immobilised by a plowed field, they are better than anti-tank mines   

Finding detailed accounts on tactical battles is hard indeed for Bagration in my experience, compared to the wealth of sources available on Normandy/Market Garden/Bulge.
 
That is why I decided to go the fictional/semi historical route. All scenarios I have done for Bagration are fictional but rooted somewhat in reality (the backstory and units names are often historical, but maps and OOB are mostly/completely fiction). 
 
Take a look for example at Fester Platz Polozk. The backstory is historical. The map only slighty resembles the real city though. There was a bridge over the river in the city of Polozk. There was heavy fighting for it. But the streets/buildings/OOB are pure fiction.
 
But hey, so what. If the scenario is fun to play, good enough for me. Use your imagination 

I'm not from battlefront, but if you look how long the CMSF game was drawn out in terms of modules, and the longevity of the other CMs, I think it'll be a few years before we see a CM: Pacific Rim.  Also I've seen the horror of when a company starts cranking out sequels without taking time to perfect the last release.  I'd rather see Black Sea done up with all them NATO and Russian modules to the max, and then maybe another release.
 
That said I'd love to see a Combat Mission: Korea and would pay Steel Beasts level prices for it.  Same deal with Combat Mission: Pacific for a World War Two setting (although only if it was both USMC and US Army forces, tired of WW2 Pacific stuff that assumes only the Marines showed up).

I seem to recall  Steve saying that he didn't want to see micromanagement orders such as "stand", "kneel", "go prone" etc in the game as this was not what the game was about. You can order a unit to move to a particular map reference but whether they go prone or "take a knee" when they get there is up to them, not you, as your eye is supposed to be on the bigger picture.
 
I have noticed though that if you put a unit behind a slope, they often stand fully upright so they can see over the crest, so the TAC AI does change posture in some circumstances. I also think one or two men usually take a knee anyway as default behaviour, with the rest generally lying prone.
 
One solution I would like to suggest is that when you give a unit a fire order and trace a line of sight for the unit, the game should take into account lines of sight that are not valid right now but would be if the unit changed its posture from prone to kneeling or kneeling to standing up. Once you click down the order, the unit will adjust its posture to accomodate the order. This would allow you to trace lines of sight where currently you cannot, without the need to micromanage. Of course this is only for firing. If you just wanted the men to take a peek without revealing their position, it would require another combat action such as "Spot Briefly". This would allow a unit to kneel or stand for 15 seconds just to look in a particular direction.

Honestly I think that model would work terribly for this product.  BF would go under trying to implement stuff that is just not feasible resource wise.  Why can't we just be happy that we have something, stop freaking out if it takes a few weeks longer to develop and stop trying to change a working business model.
 
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Agreed I am having to check this thread all the time.  Please lock this thread and release the game - job done  

Agreed I am having to check this thread all the time.  Please lock this thread and release the game - job done  

Throwing rocks at stuff is underrated...

 
... these things don't show on thermals! H4XX0R!!!

That drill is similar to one I participated in,  Our company was parachuted and our objective was to take over a town which was basically 6 buildings and each was 2 to 4 stories high. Long story short after taking the objective my squad was to set up camp in the woods and provide defense which it was 1 week long, And my unit ran out of rations so we had to hunt and we starved during the duration and still had to do objectives such as move 3 kilometers north to ambush a squad. And then we would get ambushed and then repeat. We were ambushed and were given objectives only and we were starving it was horrible... And on top of that our extraction was to run another few kilometers and make it to armored personal carriers in a given time. This is not standard training but a drill to check combat readiness of units. 

Beatings are pretty uncommon.  I can only recall one Soldier who'd clearly had the crap kicked out of him, but it was the same kid that had just been caught at an airport wearing a uniform with sergeant's stripes (he was a private first class), and special forces unit markings (he was definitely not one of those).  Came in one morning with a broken arm.  Fell down a flight of stairs, yet lived on the first floor of the barracks.
 
In terms of difficulty sort of two things:
 
1. The end training event for Armor Officer's course went I went through was a 10 day field exercise.  You only got to sleep between the hours of 0000-0300 with 33% security (so one in three guys had to be up).  You were also still preparing missions, orders, briefings and executing missions on this amount of sleep.  If you failed a mission you could have to restart the whole four month course all over, or even be booted from the armor branch.  
 
By the end of it people were starting to hallucinate levels of fatigue.  And the scenerios were all built specifically to go haywire from the start.
 
Like my mission went from going to a friendly village to question an informant, to seizing a terrorist, then the locals rioted, we got ambushed, and then once we dropped off the prisoner they hit us again and had us go secure a pipeline.  We got held up on the way because one of the other platoon's hallucinated some opposing force roleplayers and got in a firefight with some trees before we could get around them.  
 
Was crazy.  Fun at times, but making your brain still work when you've been up effectively for almost a week was hard.
 
2. When you're actually downrange how little what power you may have means.  Like you've got your 30-40 dudes, you've got rocket launchers, grenades, machine guns, demolition, on your trucks you've got .HMGs, AGLs, etc, etc, and all of it will do precisely nothing to unkill the dead children from the last suicide bomber, and no matter how smart, clever or motivated you are, the Iraqis that "mission accomplished" relies on are not smart, not clever, and certainly not motivated, and they'd like you to stop bothering them so you can go win the war on their behalf.  

You are one intelligent man! I broke up laughing when I read the part about stealing the pallet of Gatorade. Marines in my time were known for their "midnight acqusitions" of Army, Airforce, or Navy supplies. We never considered it to be stealing because it was going to us anyway. We were just cutting out the middle men
 
Most people don't know this, but we have a tradition in the USMC called Mess Dress Night when all the Officers and Staff NCOs in the company gather for a very, very formal dress uniform dinner. It's about a seven-course meal with a different wine at every course and all of the obligatory toasts. What people don't know is that our first toast isn't to the President of the United States, it is to the Queen. That signifies our roots in the British Royal Marines at the start of the American Revolution. The second toast is to the President. The first course is brought to the President of the Mess (the Senior Officer) who tastes the food and declares it "Unfit for human consumption." We can then begin dining.

Just passed my 7th year of service in the British Army. Did 1 year and 3 months of initial and combat infantryman's training which was.... horrific! Joined the 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment (Vikings) and was deployed to Afghanistan in late 2009. My company was posted to Musa Qaleh in Helmand province, IED's and small arms were common and a couple of times we encountered some very close IDF from an AGS-17 the Taliban had acquired which was probably the scariest thing I've ever come up against. Handed the AO over to the USMC at the end of tour and we freaked the **** out of them and stole an entire pallet of Gatorade, sorry about that!
 
I deployed to Kenya on exercise in 2011 and nearly got killed by an elephant, this sucked.
 
2012 saw me return to Helmand Province as an IED detection dog handler and my pooch found the largest IED of the summer campaign. Transferred to become a dog handler in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps and its where I'm at now.

Krasnoarmeyets (Red Army, I believe?)
 
Welcome aboard!
 
That is a tremendous first post. More like a thoughtful essay, in fact. Well done, sir!  Here's some good English language material on Nakidka. It appears to be from NII Stal's site. I, and I'm sure others here, notably BFC, will appreciate that, rather than coming in fangs bared demanding things be done your way, you've instead identified a series of issues, asked questions about them, while considering matters of game implementation, then offered your suggestions on how the areas you identified as of concern could potentially be addressed. Your issue about broad area smokescreens is one long of interest to me, ever since I saw footage of pre WW II US wargames (Louisiana Maneuvers) in which aircraft with spray tanks put down screens running for considerable distances. Like this.
 

 
On a more recent note, when the Russians moved into Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush the Prague Spring, they did it shielded by both heavy jamming and broadband obscurants (see Other Uses at link), making it effectively impossible to see what was going on across the border. While at Hughes, which made the TOW, my nightmare scenario as a Threat Analyst involved a screen of the stuff which would allow the Russian armor to avoid our critical to success long range TOW kills and wind up on our doorstep in almost full strength, at knife fight range, with huge numerical superiority. Offensive use! Where a defender would greatly benefit, though, would be to isolate and destroy successive batches of attackers, who would be unable to get support from their otherwise deadly fellows in trail. 
 
TOW 2, unless guidance implementation has been changed, substituted a heated metal honeycomb structure (we called it the waffle iron) for the former visible band only xenon tracking beacon, which could be defeated by smoke, dust and other things. The TOW 2 device operated in the 8-12 micron range and was unaffected by diesel and HC smoke, battlefield dust and such. Broadband obscurants are another matter entirely.
 
As for decoys, they don't have to perfect, just good enough, to cause all sorts of problems. During the US air campaign in Kosovo, it turned out that most of the ground attack sorties vs the Serbs hit dummies or were rendered ineffective by related means. I tried to warn the editor of the Journal of Electronic Defense, to whom I pitched an article idea, how things were going to play out, but he didn't listen. Instead he selected another writer, whose rosy predictions were shown to be completely unfounded.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Greetings. I have just registered here on the forums, but have been playing CMSF for several years and am awaiting CMBS very eagerly. I have several questions / suggestions pertaining to some tactical capabilities that can be potentially game-changing on the modern battlefield and the possibility of their implementation in CMBS and its (hopefully) future modules or unofficial modifications. I apologise if this have already been discussed (in that case, can you please direct me to the relevant topics / posts, if possible), but I was not able to find anything relevant through the search (only "Nakidka" has been mentioned a couple of times in passing, it seems, and without official BF comments on it). Also, pardon me if my English is not perfectly clear, since I am a non-native speaker. So, without further ado, how about putting in the game:
 
1.) Vehicles equipped with infrared-blocking and radar-absorbing camouflage covers.
 
The obvious example is the Russian "Nakidka" kit (my apologies for the Wiki link - could not find anything more useful in the English language). Since thermal imaging plays an enourmous role in how most modern combat vehicles and some weapon systems (especially the deadly "Javelin") acquire and engage targets, reducing the vehicle's IR signature should be one of the top priorities for any nation faced with a modern technological opponent (such camouflage should probably become as common as optical camouflage eventually). The radar signature reduction would probably be more significant on the operational level (I do not know if and how the functioning of BRM-1/3 recon vehicles radars is simulated in CMBS), reducing the visibility of the formations to the enemy radioelectronic reconnaissance, but would still perhaps help against certain radar imaging / targeting systems, such as the AH-64's "Longbow".
 
I am not sure if there are currently stocks of the "Nakidka" or similar kits for the regular line service vehicles of the Russian units (this was probably a rather low priority since Russian Ground Forces were not likely to face a major high-tech opponent in the past two decades; however at least the new M2 modification of the 2S19 "Msta-S" SPH seems to come factory-equipped with such countermeasures). However, it should be relatively easy to rush produce them during the mobilization efforts when faced with the real possibility of conflict with NATO (certainly easier than producing new APS units or ERA modules; for example this article (in Russian) claims that the price of one such kit for Armenia was just $2675 in 2005). US/NATO seems to have done some research (.pdf link) too, though I am curious as to how far it has progressed (obviously, encountering major high-tech opponents has not recently been a priority for NATO either).
 
Implementing it: Since I do not know how the CMBS engine deals with IR/radar spectrum (if simulating them at all), I can not offer concrete advice on how to simulate it in the game. If the IR/radar signature is an independent value of the unit, then the camouflage kit should, obviously, directly reduce it in the given proportions. If there is just a single "observation" parameter (combining optical, IR and anything else), then perhaps the camouflage can reduce it by a proportion relative to FLIR/radar system "boosts" factored into the values. For weapons with IR/radar guidance, the camouflage can perhaps increase times needed for acquiring the target and/or increasing the probability of losing target lock in-flight (not sure how air support is implemented - if even ATGM launches are handled as very precise area strikes then perhaps their CEP can be increased when targeting the camouflage-equipped vehicles). Not sure if it is better to handle the process from the targeting ("how much it is seeing") or the targeted ("how much it is seen") vehicle's side, and how to do it without affecting either the observation capabilities of regular optical systems, or the visibility parameters of vehicles without camouflage (it would be really great to have independent IR and radar signature variables if there are not ones now ).
 
As for the vehicle models, while it would be really great to have ones with visible camouflage covers, from gameplay perspective just standard models with changed values and short description modifier (like "T-72B3 'Nakidka'" or "T-72B3 (IR camo)") would suffice.
 
2.) Dedicated smokescreen laying systems for area concealment.
 
As opposed to the already implemented individual smoke screens or artillery smoke rounds with temporary localised effect, how about being able to cover entire areas of the battlefield in the long-term across-the-spectrum (visible/IR/radar) shroud? As an example, here is a recent exercise (in Russian) of the Russian CBRN protection unit - an entire railroad station was concealed for 3 hours with a 2 km long and 200 m high optical/IR/radar impervious smokescreen. The exact designation of the equipment used is not given, but it was probably something like the TMS-65 turbojet spraying vehicle (here is a rather illustrative video of its operation). And Russian chemical units practice such actions rather routinely, training to conceal entire military bases and airfields. Combined with a heavy ECM jamming of GPS signal transmission frequences to block or disrupt satellite positioning, such smokescreens would render just about any piece of precision-guided weaponry ineffective in the protected area (the only thing I can think of that would remain unaffected is inertial guidance, but this method is not very precise to begin with), and any kind of target acquisition beyond the simple notion that "the enemy is somewhere in there" would be completely impossible (the same would also be true for the defenders though - "somebody might be coming at us from somewhere").
 
While this would probably be more common practice at an operational level (protecting sensitive installations in the rear from airstrikes), it is not impossible to imagine it being used in a tactical frontline defensive action (if you have to defend a fixed position against a technologically superior enemy, it is much better if he were not able to use his sophisticated engagement capabilities effectively). Aside from being outright useful, I think it adds the possibility of some very interesting tactical situations (think of having to assault or defend a completely shrouded city, with your and enemy soldiers fighting through an apocalyptic gloom while wearing gas masks, further reducing visibility to almost point-blank engagement ranges, as if city fighting was not already hard and brutal enough as it is ), and therefore would be a welcome addition to the game.
 
Implementing it: Since basic smokescreen mechanics have been present in the game for a long time, it seems that implementing a bigger version of it should not be that hard (yes, very presumptious of me, I know ). There may perhaps be some processing power concerns, but even CMSF already has a capability to produce quite large smokescreen fields (like when a couple of "Stryker" platoons get spooked by a mean-looking T-72 ) without a noticeable effect on performance. In any case, it is probably possible to reduce the smoke field's detalization for the sake of gameplay.
 
3.) Realistic decoy vehicle dummies.
 
Here are some photos of the Russian 45-th independent engineering-concealment regiment training to set up various inflatable high-fidelity (well, relatively speaking ) decoy vehicle dummies. They not only look realistic enough, but also have appropriate moving parts (like turrets) and equipment that reproduces thermal and radioelectronic signatures of the real vehicles. All to confuse the enemy, of course, and to make him waste time and effort destroying these false targets, sparing your real forces some trouble. Since the dummies are easy to transport and deploy (the tank decoy weighs less than 100 kg and takes about 10 minutes to set up) they might prove to be an advantageous asset in a defensive operation. Perhaps the player can be allowed to place them in the deployment stage within the designated zones, where they would stay for the duration of the battle.
 
Implementing it: The real trouble would perhaps be in allowing the player to identify the vehicles as dummies while denying his enemy the same untill his forces make a positive identification (for which they presumably would have to get rather close to them - within less than a kilometer, probably (obviously bound to differentiate depending on the observing unit's capabilities)). The actual models can probably be borrowed from the vehicles that are being simulated (and this course will probably have to be followed if there is no way to present different models of the same unit to the player (dummy) and his opponent (real vehicle model untill identified as dummy)), while adding '(dummy)' classification to their description (though, if the enemy player would be able to see it too, that would obviously defeat the whole purpose ). The on-hit animations and after-effects would probably have to be changed too (it would certainly be nice to have a deflating and a burning/melting animation (or being torn to shreds in case of large explosions), but from gameplay viewpoint simple disappearing into a pile of rubber debris would suffice, perhaps).
 
So, dear Battlefront, can you please-please-please-pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top try and implement at least some of these capabilities in one of the further patches or modules? Or, if not, maybe some modification makers are feeling up for the task?
 
In any case, thank You for Your attention.
 
P.S.: As long as we are on topic of softkill countermeasures, I also had a question about the "Shtora" optical-electronic suppression system in the CMBS. Have its emitters been implemented as an upgraded system, now covering the relevant tracking signal spectrum of the TOW-2, or would they only be effective against Ukrainian "Konkurses" and other older SACLOS ATGMs?

I think the main thing in this is "unique" - you guys are a unique gaming company. Producing unique games. I'm so glad I'm into CM. Not many games can be played on a daily basis for years on end without getting tired of it. But rather gets better over time!
Keep up the good work 

Hey (normal)dude, Chris said 'picts' so I guess this isn't breaking any NDA. 
This newfangled website. I suppose you'll have to click to enlarge.

Going to have to disagree - there are a multitude of games which make us use the skills inside us, but which are not realistic. That's fine, but this one strives for realistic. And that's good.  It's why we're here and not on those other games' forums.
 
PS: Also see the latest UKR/US report in the AAR for alleviation of your spotting concerns - seems even the much vaunted US can run into ambush despite their modern gear. It's all good  ( and realistic )
 
And now, lest you start fingering your knife, I'm outta here. I'm not much over long-distances, but I can really shift for the first 50m, so you can work on sburke, he's backing away slowly.  

realistic doesn't mean good. The world could of played out in a billion different way, each as real as the next. It really doesn't matter what the game is about or how it's played, but what makes it good is that it makes us use the skills inside of us and that is as real as you can get. What if in the future they have super laser beams that can shoot in between atoms to kill you, and senors that can detect life within a 20 mile radius, those things are real, in the future, who cares what this version of what we have is in the game or not, because you can't change the genre of what it is. A game, like any other game. The medium is us, and that's what makes it "real"

This might be a good time to remind everyone that just because something happens once, or twice, or even three times does not mean it always will.

Also remember that when bad things happen to your forces 49.99% of the time it is your fault and 49.99% of the time it is your opponent's plan. The rest of the time it *might* be a bug.

Well the original post does have a point, though it's certainly not limited to this game or just guide missiles.  Battlefields tend to be bigger in real life then in PC games for both techinical and flow reasons.  Armor and Mechanized forces can cover 4km in a very short period of time.  Line of sight can be much, much further.  Ukraine is a big place, some of it can is forested, some of it you can see for miles.  For proper scale you might need 40 square Km.  Frankly that would be kind of boring. 20 mintues of driving through farm land punctuatied by a guy launching a Sagger into an unoffending barn.  Combat Mission is still a game, and realism takes a back seat at certain points.  When you start a mission, you know you'll face some stiff resistance.  In real life, you have no idea what you'll face.  Often it'll be light resistance or none at all.  You might fight an small urban battle in Combat Mission shock force and go for 45 minutes of game time and win a decisive victory over the insurgents.  In Iraq, you might be get in a six hour gun fight and never know if you actually inflicted any causalties on the enemy or how many there were, or even who they were and what their problem was.  That doesn't make for a good game experience (or any kind of good experience!).  There will always be a conflict between simulation, game, and what can realistically be produced on a computer.  I'm not saying tha Battlefront is beyond critisism on any of these factors, but you should take these factors into consideration.