Cameroon

Gene, what an excellent post (and first post, no less)! Co-play is definitely a highly anticipated feature, but I'm with Hat Trick on the 'when' - not before the WWII game and probably not backported to CMSF. Who knows though, maybe they'll surprise us and stick it in the Marines module (hey, we did get eLOS in a patch after all) The other thing that CM really, really needs for multiplayer is an in-game opponent finder lobby. Even a barebones, simple system would be better than none at all

Fire up any number of scenarios. 'Rescue on the Outskirts', for example. Place a Syrian squad on the roof of a bldg, adjoining another identical bldg. Plot a movement from one roof to the other. The squad will exit their current bldg, and climb the stairs of the contiguous one rather than step over the tiny, shin-high wall separating them. Renders urban combat rather farcical, methinks. </font>

My thoughts exactly, this is what I wanted to start with for CMSF. It's unfortunate that it had to come out without all these items addressed, but I just played a thoroughly enjoyable, all-infantry, MOUT-centric WEGO game and felt like it was all fun (I had been playing RT and not MOUT because I always felt like I'd need to tweak behavior mid-move, but not now!). Squads did all sorts of great things with path finding, room entry, weapon use, spotting... it was fantastic Now on to the wishlists! Thanks for the commitment to fixing the problems with CMSF Battlefront; between you and Stardock I can count on awesome games with superb post-release support.

Food. Nice to have you on the forum, stick around, maybe you'll get some manners by osmosis. </font>

BFC is eastern standard time afaik, so many hours left for late Monday (and here's hoping!)

Heheh, no problem. Until relatively recently, if you wanted to build an application that was very responsive (that behaved more like an application that you'd installed to your computer) then you had to use Java. Imagine if you tried to build a card game on the web and every time you clicked a card, the whole page had to reload. That wouldn't work very well (not to mention games other than card games). In the past couple years Flash has also become popular for doing that kind of thing. Java and Flash are similar to each other with respect to their use in web applications. JavaScript, however, has been around for a long while as a way to let the web page change in (generally) limited ways. Only within the last couple of years have web browsers gained the widespread capability to let JavaScript make major changes to the page without having to reload the whole page. [ January 06, 2008, 04:58 AM: Message edited by: Cameroon ]

Actually JavaScript is in no way related to having Java installed - despite the fact that it's called JavaScript (it isn't tied in with Java at all). In IE, you need to make sure that Scripting is enabled under the Tools -> Internet Options -> Security settings (and you'll probably just need to make sure it's enabled for the Internet zone). As far as I know, scripting is enabled in IE for all of it's security levels unless you're using custom settings. In Firefox it's under Tools -> Options -> Content and there's a checkbox to enable/disable JavaScript. I don't know if that's the problem you're having, but you won't solve it with Java

Actually I hope that it's something added, not because I expect an entire force on the map to leave, but because some engagements are about getting particular individuals out. For instance, exiting a Humvee designated as carrying VIPs, or a convoy that has to make it through your grid or a rescue mission, etc. We already have some objectives that can be tied to individual units, so adding an exit objective tied to a unit (or units) wouldn't be a stretch.

Yeah, I understand using the points and objectives to keep Red in their places and so that they move to appropriate areas - just maybe reduce the value so that it isn't likely to be a deciding factor. Believe it or not, 1.05 and this scenario helped draw me back into the CM world - it's accessible but challenging (unless you take advantage of the surrender 'feature'). Thanks

Well, the real trick is just that no matter how badly you do, if you force the other side to surrender then you win a total victory. I think that should be an optional checkmark for the designer. Back in the CMx1 days it made sense the way it is, but with CMSF having much more varied and asymmetrical goals it doesn't fit well anymore. After all, if you're a band of unconventionals whose sole goal at the time is to kill as many Invaders as possible, what difference to you if you surrender at the end having inflicted 50% casualties? In my Draw (from above), I had 1 KIA and 9 WIA and exited (minus 3 hummers that bogged because they were coming down the dirt road - but AFAIK there isn't a way to check for that in the scoring?). In my Total Victory (my 3rd play of the scenario), I lost a Stryker and had 5 KIA and 8 WIA and hadn't yet made it to the exit point (and one bogged hummer in a crater on the 'good' road). Hard to say on what scoring changes I'd suggest, though since I haven't lost any hummers I can't speak to how those are scored. ***** SPOILER (But just the scoring info) ***** When I checked the scenario in the editor, I saw that Red gets 350 (or 300? was a few days ago) points for causing 10% casualties. The rest of their points were for meeting their Friendly condition and ammo (50 each) and for holding some territory. I met the Secure and Exit conditions (I imagine I didn't meet my Friendly casualties, but did meet the Condition and Ammo) and I think caused enough enemy casualties but didn't get them on condition or ammo. So that leaves the bulk of why I only got a Draw (was 950 to 850 IIRC) to the territory that Red held at the end. The only thing I wonder about there is whether that'd be the case. Would they care about holding ground that isn't going to be occupied anyway (just a convoy rolling through) or just inflicting casualties? Anyway, it's still a blast and the knife edge scoring makes it a challenge to be very, very exact and use the long-range firepower of the US as much as possible. That pesky low-wall bug from 1.05 raises its ugly head in a couple areas, but not in a completely crippling fashion (it is why I lost my Stryker in my 3rd game though). [ December 30, 2007, 05:55 AM: Message edited by: Cameroon ]

Hey Fighting Seabee, finally got a chance to play V2 last night and I still like it Ironically enough, even though I 'exited' my units and felt I did a much better overall job, I only managed a Draw (last time I managed a Tactical Victory, even though I didn't make it to the exit). This is a tough one, very 'technical' with (it seems) little margin for error [Edit] Though you can have a lot of error if you force a surrender [ December 29, 2007, 06:58 AM: Message edited by: Cameroon ]

Awesome, I'll be grabbing the updated version as soon as I get home

Just want to make sure everyone's straight - I'm not Andreas, just quoting something he said As for the rest, glad I had some input you found useful. Happy holidays!

This is a tough one Fighting Seabee, I'd say the time limit is definitely the limiting factor. I managed a draw (550 each side) but didn't make it to the exit zone (forgot to look at my KIA/WIA). Both sides managed some of their objectives and met their Friendly casualty reqs. I am as non-authoritative a source as can be for accuracy in the modern era so I have a question; if the lead elements ran into stiff resistance like this, would the convoy keep coming on or would the situation be re-evaluated (more time, delay the convoy or re-route, call up some troops, etc.)? I suppose that's part of why added time and a downward adjustment of Red's forces are being advocated heh. Maybe 1 1/2 hours, slightly reduced Red forces and have the convoy show up a little later (dunno if an ambush ahead means the convoy behind would be told to slow down or not)? Anyway, I think the map's pretty great. The location is pretty interesting and doesn't feel artificially constructed to present a specific type of fight. I don't know if that make sense, but sometimes when I fire up a map and look at the terrain I have a moment of "Oh, so it's going to be that kind of fight". I didn't know what to expect here and that was good.

Ouch, harsh much? I'll say I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the inf animations with a critical eye (too busy trying to figure out where to send them without getting them killed ), but still, they don't seem ridiculous or anything.

Enforcement of the forum rules be praised! I found myself spending much less time in CM and on these forums than I would normally, not because of the game (though I am also eagerly awaiting 1.05) but because the forum had grown so abusive, especially towards those that had positive things to say. Just because you disagree doesn't mean you have to rain on someone else's parade, but that seemed so frequent lately (even before the hiatus of moderation).

thewood, I see where you're going and it certainly seems plausible. I recall Steve mentioning fixing bugs during development where they'd remove a building or similar, but path-finding still "saw" it. I'm too lazy to go find the actual quotes tho

I expect I will be and will likely pick up the expansion. Definitely having fun and enjoying it, though that will go up with bug fixes as well.

Edit because it was way off topic. Lots of WiC info is available elsewhere

Dirtweasle, it's not a real world combat simulator at all. It's, believe it or not, a faster paced RTS.

Cap/Mazex - so you're suggesting that a tiny development house is going to have the resources to devote to eye-candy that a big dev house has? That's just silly. If the implication is that WiC shows a lot more on screen while still maintaining high FPS, they're also using DirectX which gets the lions-share of improvements and testing by ATI/NVIDIA. And, again, they have a big development team. If instead it's that OpenGL on the 8800 has some series flaw(s), then obviously yes. My 7950GT churns through CMSF and WiC with similar FPS, but with 16x AF and 8xS AA in CMSF. I'm not being an apologist, but it's like every post is a re-hash of "the problem lies in CMSF" when if it's just CMSF - as you seem to claim - then how come a lower-end nvidia card is performing better than a higher end nvidia card with the same settings? That just would not make a single bit of sense. They've already said that it's entirely possible that something about the way that CMSF does its rendering could be making the G80 cards (in particular) significantly underperform, but that doesn't make it any less a problem with the driver that they have to work around. So if they can't reproduce the horrid performance in the "lab" (lab being the 8800 equipped machine that they have), how are they supposed to work around it? Personally I think they should buy someone's 8800 rig that's having the problem

Could it be a bad scan-rate for the monitor? Does the monitor go into standby when CMSF starts up? Have you tried setting the resolution of the desktop to something like 1024x768 and starting CMSF (assuming that CMSF is set to use the desktop's resolution)?

Do you have your CPU overclocked? I know that an old computer that I had would have problems if I overclocked the CPU but didn't "lock" the PCI bus to 33mhz. There seem to be other games in which this (or similar happens), particularly in Neverwinter Nights (was looking for opengl 'windows xp' 'blank screen' and ended up there) with G80 based cards. It seems to be a driver problem, but it's hard to say if anything for that game will have any impact on CMSF. Here's the relevant thread: G80 cards and blank screens (Neverwinter Nights)

I feel this might be relevant (from the Neverwinter Nights board at Bioware - NWN is OpenGL): While that's from a thread related to blank screen problems with the 8800, here's a thread completely about problems with the 8800 and there are a lot of similar problems to what has been experienced here: NWN: Nvidia 8800 There's a post in that thread linking to two additional threads about problems with the 8800s (or probably just G80 cards in general). While most workarounds in those threads (if there are any) are likely fairly specific to that game; perhaps seeing additional symptoms can suggest a workaround for Battlefront.

Just a point, there's no way that the 8800 is the most popular card - it's far too expensive to be that. It may be the fastest card and the best card, but not most popular. Otherwise, you've shot yourself in the foot with this argument: Don't go blaming that you have more advanced AI than WiC etc as CMSF clearly runs OK on older cards etc. If it isn't drivers, then it wouldn't run faster on older hardware. On top of that, on the 8800 based machines that they have they can't reproduce the horrid framerates. Whether it's a bug in the drivers - which it appears to be from those two facts alone - or it's a bug in the game, until they figure out why - they can't work around it. Comparing it to other OpenGL games just isn't as useful. It's a valid point to say that the 8800 can chew up and spit out OpenGL or DirectX; but there is obviously some combination of factors in its use in CMSF that can trigger a massive bug in either the card or the OpenGL drivers for that card. I've also been (and am on my own time) a software developer, remember, it doesn't do this on all the 8800s. It's a huge bug (whatever and wherever it is), but fixing or working around something that you can't reproduce on your end is not exactly easy.