RockinHarry

Here´s Aris terrain tile mods for CMBN http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/4817/details and for CMFI (I hadn´t looked at content yet) http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/4774/details I modded "ground rubble.bmp" from original CMBN file set and mixed and scaled down portions of that into a new file. So the new file shows more true to real size heaps of brick, as well as larger portions which could be larger parts of the facade or interior walls. It´s pretty rough for my taste and I intend to ask Aris if he could make an Aris quality one. My file is somewhat darker as I wanted and attempting to lighten it up, just resultet in some loss of color saturation. The lightened up (and somewhat desaturated) version though looks good, if assuming a dry and dusty environment, while my original version looks better, assuming damp environment. Using Gimp 2.8 btw. I could send anyone interested in the files by email, as I do not want to upload these at GAJ mod place yet. Yep, using a rubble ground tile saves a lot of necessity to scatter additional junk heaps. Just using them to add more detail at certain places, or mask transitions between ground tiles and buildings where necessary. Hm...collapsed walls? I basically made them just as you described, if understanding correctly. Assuming you put modular building #1 (covering 1 AS only) to overlap 2 adjoining AS with different height by half, then the lower height AS sets the base building height and the higher AS is cut at an sharp angle. Both AS are tile locked off course. A height difference between 1-4m works best so far. The rubble tile is placed both, beneath the building and on the cut down AS beside it. This gives the impression of a collapsed wall. I use higher ones for buildings that have collapsed upper stories and small ones for just partly collapsed lower walls and such. That what you mean? I´ve not worked that much with rising AS by ditch lock, but best results so far, are with tile locked mounds. When it comes to rubble strewn streets, I use a mix of pavement, ground hard and rubble tile and where appropiate put gravel road at intervals on top. Here´s some more pics, where it´s seen more clearly:

German full strength HMG teams have 6 men. This includes the gunner team and the ammo bearers. This unit can not be split. US HMG teams have gun team and ammo bearers seperated (2 teams) by default. The point is that full strength german HMG teams are a rather big target when cramped in a single AS, depending on terrain type. Usually it´s just the 3 men gun team occupying a fighting position, with the ammo bearers seperated at a distance, at least 1-2 AS apart in game terms. In real life they would keep out of the fight, unless in an emergency. A single german HMG team thus can not operate the weapon and at the same time have ammo beareres on hide. Any fire directed at such a large team would make it very vulnerable at whole. I do the same strength reduction for US/UK teams under AI control and usually leave them at original strength when human played. Steve said it´s made this way so that there´s enough crew members left to operate the weapon, when the actual gunner(s) has been killed. Well, in RL a HMG would seldomly stay until last crew member is killed and rather retreat or move to a switch position. Matter of realism, or maybe of taste, but I prefer to have HMGs a small of a target as possible, particularly for an AI player.

Thanks, understood! Nice to see all that neat CMRT stuff in action, particularly on GeorgeMC superb maps! Think what I asked initially is way out of topic here and better left for mission design threads. Knights Cross for that flamer guy!

Exactly! (with regard to AS and facing) Interestingly I´m toying with the same idea as well. I reduce german squads to 70-80%, then split and add either marksmen or scout teams to the platoon HQ, to get the overall strength back to what I want. This gives me the desired density of ptruppen (3-4 max) within an AS. So far this is for AI players only, as I find the AI is using assault move too often and in wrong circumstances (urban terrain, woods ...), with the forward group getting slaughtered, while the support group is beeing unable to...support. So far testing results are quite promising and the AI appears to have a more easy time with seperated half squad size units, particularly in difficult terrain. Off course there´s far more behind, like constructing the right AI plans, movement orders and zones, unit soft factors, so lots of experimenting remains. Overall my aim is to help the AI player reduce vulnerability and increase path finding abilities. Also I want to rule out full strength squad assault move, when I need advance, assault and max assault move orders applied in a plan.

I see you put as much love into detail, realism and gritty looks! One can spend many hours just to get certain details right and urban maps are the most challenging, but also most fun to make. To bad I do not have CMFI and GL (yet). My current map is rather small (~300 x 500m) and serves mainly for prototyping, just as you do with mentioned industrial park, administrational buildings ect, to see what looks and works good and what not. Full working maps to follow. So far I´m quite satisfied with what can be done, offered in the editor. Kudos to BFC for that! I´d like to see the problem with flattened Indi building wall texture ( building-damage-stub.bmp ) solved though. It unfortunately resists any modding attempts, as likely it´s more of a 3D geometry problem and the one texture fits all aproach, for flattened Indi buildings. I see from the CMRT AAR screenshots, the problem is still unsolved. Is the rubble doodads (junk) in CMFI the same as in CMBN? How about the rubble floor in flattened buildings? My texture mod is made from the CMBN floor and thus fits fairly well, when placed on rubble piles adjoining flattened buildings and spiced up with occasional junk doodads. Blends fairly well together. For CMFI it likely needs to be lightened up considerably. I assume the western european red brick would not look that convincing in most italian cities. Aris has a nice ground tile mod package and his "ground hard" replacement tile is also in use, combined with my rubble tiles. I think this would also look good on italian maps. Is boulder terrain a CMFI type? I do not see it in CMBN. :confused:

This, or add ground type/texture variations in the empty space in lower left corner, just like it´s done for buildings, doodads and the like. Rubble would be very similar to Rocky ground, maybe more hazardous for tracked vehicles and impassable for wheeled ones. In this regard my modded Rocky Red is just for looks and little hindrance for tank movements, but it works ok. It´s doubtful that BFC adds another impassable (to vehicles) ground type to the game, as it would highly increase AI path finding problems. We´ll see.

Partly you can already. Constructing larger blocks from Modular Building #1, which covers just one AS, is possible, though requiring lots of work to get all interior walls matched. Selecting right facade texture also makes this apear as one large, multi AS building. It´s not quite the same as dividing into 4x4m rooms, but it comes pretty close to what you want and works well.

Interesting! Unfortunately I do not have CMFI, so I can not have a look at your Venafro map. I´m working on similar environments, with all sorts of partly weird building configurations, which to my partly surprise, "work" pretty well in the game. Though I had to use some selfmade mods to get convincing looks as well (a rubble texture as replacement for rocky red and a better looking ground hard from Aris, as well as some dirty pavement).

Could be the target (sighting) line toward a particular map spot was just traced from that killed crew member alone, but as said, the gunner counts and is usually replaced when going down and with crew members left. Could also be the suppression from the kill, reduced spotting/LOS enough, that tracing LOF/LOS is now (temporarily) impossible.

Do you think the VL´s are at tactically reasonable places with regard to the whole map and how much did their locations influence you for purchasing and deploying your forces? I assume the VL´s beeing the same and known to both of you, did matter as well?

I mainly play (test) my own mission creations and I do not encounter the odd movement behaviors in and out of buildings that much. But if something like that happens, I go to map editor at once and check if the building is one of larger ones, that overlap into more than 1 action spot, or single 1 AS buildings placed in that matter. I mean filling out 1-2 AS completely and overlapping just half of a neighbouring one. I do that quite often in my maps and I thus know, those building configurations could become quite tricky for movemenent and also deployment purposes. For movement it then depends if the waypoint then lies on the wall edge of a building, just filling half of an AS. This could occasionally lead to get ptruppen moved, where you don´t want them to and the "trick" is then to check in top-down view (F5-F6), if it´s better to set the WP either one more in, or out. There´s similar things to consider when using the facing command on units moving and deploying within those buildings. Think it´s also of concern if connected buildings have proper inner wall settings, with windows/doors either completely removed or properly matched. Other influencing factors is friendly and enemy map edge setting, which determines the covered and uncovered side of walls/hedges, as might be use of the various movement commands, with some having more bias on movement speed, instead of taking a covered route. So IMHO there´s various influencing factors to be taken into consideration and when in doubt, zoom in in F6 view, check building configuration (overlap AS, other intersecting terrain elements) and send a detached 2-3 men scout unit first, to check the AI´s movement manners. Something else I have problems with more often than not, is the high ptruppen density at times within a single AS. A full squads men appear to oftentimes step on each boots, while moving in and through constricted terrain, leading to micro pathing issues and serious delays, while the tac AI tries to figure where to move all that men withing that 8x8 meters. I tend to split squads so to assure that no more than 4-5 men move through a single AS at a time, particularly when in contact and LOF with the enemy. I think the AI works best with no more than 3-5 men in an AS at a time in most circumstances. Use of facing command is oftentimes quite difficult for infantry units and hard to predict. I´ve yet to figure out how it "exactly" works. You can apply facing in 3D. It works on single AS, on a particular story of a building, a single tree, directly on friendly and enemy units, as well as floating icons and the off map area surrounding the actual map. Each facing action could result in different and hardly predictable positioning of ptruppen in an AS and behind walls. Oftentimes it´s better to not use facing at all and let the AI do on its own mind. Again, facing results appear to be better and more predictable, the less men are within an AS. In my own mission designs, I cut strenght of german HMG units by half to get rid of the extra men, that unnecessarily cramp the AS and just increase vulnerability of the whole unit and provide micro positioning problems. It still escapes me, why US HMG units can split and the germans can not.

I understand this particular QB setup is meant to portray oncoming CMRT game play, but for plain tactical considerations, the VL setup is quite artificial and limiting to both players. Amount of forces, as well as map features considered, this most likely would´ve been a german rear guard action, vs. russian spearhead, with germans attempting to use the small river and large adjoining woods as forward line of resistance and main AT obstacle. With VL scattered at rather unimportant places AND known, as well as beeing the same for both players, this setup gives little choices for true tactical thinking and acting actually. Elvis is artificially enforced to neglect any point of main effort by his own choice, as is Bil who has to take the same meaningless VL, just in order to "win". If this would be a true mission, instead of QB setup, the russian player would be rather assigned a rather simple "exit VL" objective near northern map edge and the german simply to delay and destroy enemy units, while making a fighting withdrawal. The map is perfect for that purpose, since it offers covered retreat almost everywhere. Instead the germans are tied to scattered VL in nowhere and thus doomed to be destroyed for nothing at last. So personally I´d wished for a more imaginative and creative setup, even if that´s not the actual purpose of this AAR.

From my current requirements, I need a seperate rubble terrain tile. For now I use a modded version of rocky red and sculpt it with ditch contour (up!), or tile lock. Another wish would be 3D walls for use in rubbled (completely flattened) buildings, portraying interior walls and such. For now, I use normal wall segments, but that doesn´t look thaaaat good. Since these are more or less flavor, these then could be added to flavor objects, instead of true walls. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1420137&postcount=5 Forgot to mention, the textures used for all indi buildings blown out walls are fairly ugly, particularly the one for flattened state (building-damage-stub.bmp). This obviously has some problems with lighting/shadowing and looks overly bright from angles where it shouldn´t, even in dark environments with rather low background light. Maybe it´s due to the 3D building geometry lacking a back wall with seperate texture for the blown out part. More 3D geometry is needed as well as individual variations for the many different indi buildings. For now there´s just few generic damage textures used and shared with all indi buildings. Looks like a major problem for BFC to add or fix these, since in CMRT these still look the same. It´s a pity for the otherwise well crafted and textured indi buildings.

From my understanding of INTEL, it gives away location of random selection of enemy units at mission start, equal to value given in INTEL strength. Only playing at Iron Level, I also suspect associated FOW rules are in effect, so I just see generic markers for enemy units though at exact locations, no matter if initially in LOS of any friendly units on map in setup phase. Since selection of enemy units is random, it could provide intel on some of those that you actually would not allow to be know to the other player, for it maybe gives away location of units, that are key to how the mission is supposed to work, are at vital ambush points and all that. Reinforcements are excempted from INTEL, thus giving some limited workaround, if just a set selection of enemy units should be used for INTEL. Have these onmap initially, set INTEL to 100% and let all other units come in as reinforcements (yet these are "assumed" to be onmap right from the start). Earliest arrival times is at 5:00 minutes game time, so this should be worked with and considered for mission flow during these first 5 game minutes. Obviously this is more suited for play vs the AI, as is not using the INTEL feature at all and instead provide info on enemy units by normal means, either through briefing text, marker on Tac map, or landmark text. Another consideration is if the enemy that is given INTEL to you, is allowed to move within setup zones (if existing). Still the INTEL feature gives exact location of random elements equal to INTEL strength, while providing intel by means of briefing text, landmarks, ect. might become at least "inacurate" or total fake.

That translated book of author Fritz Kuehlwein (a tactics teacher at infantry training schools in the 1930ies) is not an official training manual (the HDV´s), but rather a summary of various and overworked for use by training personnell, who had to obtain these privately or through semi official channels. That translation obviously is from the 1940/41 issue, where some major changes derived from the experiences with the former (pre war) half squad system, that was abandoned right after the Polish campaign of 1939. The more rigid and established half squad (support and maneuver HS) system was found to be too unwieldly and too much dependent on well trained soldiers. Simplicity was improved thereafter as was responsibility of the squad leader to handle all of his squad as he sees fit under given circumstances. A greater focus then was also given on the squads whole firepower and flexibility of application. In the attack (example) the SL could decide to fight a particular enemy target (a machine gun maybe) either by employing all of the squads firepower, just the rifles, the LMG alone (under his direction), or just a single marksmen, in order to enable a maximum of the squads men to close with the enemy for the break in. Ammo tactics also plays its role. Same counts for easier maneuvering/controling of the whole squad during movements. AFAIK nothing substantially changed after 1940 (actually october/november 1939) settlement of regulations for inherent squad tactics anymore and figured sound enough for remainder of the war thereafter.

Owing CMBN + CW, updated to 2.12 Foot path map editor tiles should be different from dirt road ones (or has that one yet changed in MG?). For personal use, I already made a quick and dirty mod on that. Informative tool tips for various map elements/objects in 2D map editor. In example, hovering (or hover with a particular key press) the mouse tip above object selection tiles, letting pop up some small info text and maybe a small graphic showing the look a like as in actual 3D mode. Would come handy for Independent buildings in particular, as No. of stories and variations only become known after actual placement and/or looking them up in 3D view. Same for flavor objects and maybe some other. Too much trial and error for my taste and making map creation more slowly than necessary. Again I helped myself by making screenies of every map object in the game, including texture variations if available. Helps planning ahead, before actual placing any stuff on the map just by trial and error. On larger maps with accordingly longer loading times, this saves a whole lot of map creation time. With regard to fords and bridges, I´d rather go the opposite way, having sort of terrain FOW, making terrain features state known only, when in direct LOS of a unit. Maybe not that appropiate for the given tactical scale in CMX2, where it is assumed, that (terrain) reccon was already be made before start of the battle. From my readings, state of bridges and location of fords had to be discovered by ground units approaching them directly, more so when air reccon could not be relied on in bad weather. Beside "marking" fords by use of particular adjacent ground tiles, simple map labels could be used as well.

Already loved your urban stuff in CMBB! Will try that out!

Wonder if maybe "experience" (in mission editor/units) could be tied as well to fortifications, so that i.e a "green" foxhole, would be rated a rather easy to spot one and with each higher EXP, more difficult (better camoed) one. Purchase costs could be varied according to EXP as well then. "Appearance" could also get some use, by offering texture variants, so one could get rid of that WW1 appearance, supplementing with more RL life looking ones (no sandbags & planking).

Very nice MG effectiveness now! 8) If Pixeltroopers would dive down for reloading magazines, then it would be almost perfect. Keeping up standing or kneeling to reload, still causes very unnecessary losses, Some small bug encountered: Noticed the tripod HMG42 feeding mechanism cover, occasionally would keep standing straight up, but the gunner could still shoot in this state. Probably an interrupted, or broken animation cycle during reloading something. Never seen that before.

Would be a nice to have too, I agree. For now just map makers and modders can create some more urban devastation by use of textures and terrain deforming pre game:

I want flamers and I want fires burning where appropiate, but not necessarily on the Pixeltroopers. I would be fine with preserving casualty modeling as is, or as it was in CMX1.

I think the stock graphics are generally well made and balanced. There could be some details improved here and there, but fortunately BFC leaves the fun to the modding folks so we can be kept Fuserized for the future.

"Fall back" position is likely a better known term. Edit: Actually it´s not quite like "falling back", rather change to an "alternate" position, in case the original position becomes untenable.

+1 Something I´d recommend as well. These are far less suspicious than sandbags (which look quite crappy on ETO WW2 battlefields anyway), or fiddling with other CMBB fortifications. One can even "bury" an 88 appropiately, just like seen on many pics from the eastern front, or italy. It´s also a good idea to prepare "switch" positions.

Forty Six 3/4