RockinHarry

Plain technically and with all that current advanced computer FX and rendering techniques, one actually can create any realism war movie with just a limited bunch of true actors. The question is who would invest in such war movies nowadays? I could imagine a realistic Kursk battle movie with masses of (computer rendered) T-34 sweeping the steppes and the like. Maybe in 10 years, PC hardware and Graphic applications are good (and cheap) enough, so you can create your own war movie at your home computer. Who knows...

For this game, I got opened a paypal account exclusivley and the only time I had to wait, was for the account to get activated (within 5-6 days). Once that was done, I purchased, downloaded and started to enjoy the game within few hours. No real need to wait for a DVD version, if you want a very good product FAST!

I can´t tell much about playing QB´s, as my focus is more on scenario making, but from that point of view I´d say QB replayability and quality depends much on the particular QB original creators. Not all maps are equal, with regard to quality and having most eventualities on individual force selections and AI plans considered. That´s the inherent limitations, when compared to fully worked out and tested scenarios & campaigns. From my play testing with self made scenarios, I can say that there´s enough variability in the AI´s behavior, as well as general game play, even when just one basic AI plan is included and executed. Same then counts for QB´s, which also have the additional option to play with different forces each time. If you find QB maps of your taste and you find them playing well, you could also ask friends/community members to alter AI plans, to suite your playing style. Sooner or later, you´ll launch up the editor and do the "fixes" on prefered QB maps yourself, as it´s rather easy. I´m also ARMA2 player (...i44) and it offers many great options when it comes to rather quick scenario making on premade maps, just as you say. Map making though is a rather time consuming and not quite so easy affair, as well as thorough scripting, with the many possibilities offered. CMBN gives an overall better and quicker access to map/scenario making tools and thus results are way quicker. You can also limit yourself quick editing of user made scenarios and make your own QBs or even scenarios out of them. Guess you found it yet, but to get a good idea about the editors capabilities, this one would be quite helpful: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=1194 The game manual can also be read online here: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&book_id=19 CMX1 series random battles partly depended on same features as offered by CMBN, although auto generated maps are not included in CMBN. Anyway, auto generated maps seldomnly yielded good looking or playable results, so there was also the option to pick from user made maps instead, just like in CMBN, where it´s the only map selection feature now. When it comes to "longevity", I´d say with oncoming modules and further developments, you should be busy...say, the next decade coming. :cool:

True, but it´s well aimed rifle and lMG fire. Even 8 story modular buildings do not appear to have blind spots. I´ve also yet to see hand grenades flying into and out of windows. Also can´t get rid of the impression, that the corner seams of adjoining walls (floor to a story below/above included) oftentimes are transparent to soldiers, so they can spot and shoot through. The more I play with CMBN buildings, the less I seem to understand their nature.:confused:

Bit off topic in this thread, so lets revive in here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=99777

Another "limitation" with houses is that there obviously are no blind spots when shooting from high buildings straight down a street. This also goes vice versa. For that to happen in real life, you need to free handly hold your weapon out of the window and shoot blindly at what´s below. No good... Yet some interesting reading about masonry and brickworks at Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brickwork

I had numerous occasions with unexpected shrapnel catching Pixeltruppen so far. A 75mm HE round from a Sherman aimed at a german Schreck team, hit the ground few meters in front of the gunner and wounded the loader straightly behind. The gunner kept unharmed. Might be, the shrapnel ricochetted from a house wall nearby, thus hitting the loader who I would actually have considered protected/covered by his gunner team mate straight in front of him. Another 75mm HE hit the ground in a street and killed the observer in a sniper team, about 10-20m away in the 2nd story of a building (no balcony). Edit: Again, the observer was standing BEHIND the sharpshooter in this occasion. Is shrapnel catching a chance % to get hit (abstracted)? That might explain some. German TMs of the period give 300m as minimum safety range for most artillery and less for mortars. If safety to own troops is less of concern (russians oftenly did not care the slightest and Brits tended to "lean on their barrages"), it also is a valid tactic in the game, to sacrifice few friendly Pixeltroopers for the benefit of having the defenders yet well suppressed upon arrival. Just like in WW2 RL.

If you have difficulties evaluating terrain underfoot, I recommend to play something with the games map editor to see what´s all in there. Generally if you "see" a grassy tile/action spot with 2 trees, then you have a place with rather firm ground, sorts of grass (normal, high, yellow, extra tall, clover, ect.) and 2 trees. This means infantry can move rather quick through with little tiring, have some means of concealment (2 trees & higher grass offers more than short), but beside that rather little actual cover vs. incoming fire (2 trees can just offer cover for 2 soldiers behind, unless soldiers line behind each other, vs eactly the point of incoming small arms fire or shrapnel). The point is, you can have ONE actual ground type per tile (with some spilling over/blending from neighboring tiles), but multiple combinations of foliage, walls, brush and trees in it. There´s off course a number no go combinations (pavement & trees, ...) as well. So practically you can have a "clover" (grass variation) ground tile, with bocage and trees added. Or high grass with brush and trees. Just look and see, use common sense.... Off course it would be quite comfortable to have all that info pop up with the LOS/target tool, but one can pretty quick get used to rely on what one sees in our 3D CMBN battlefields. Similar to a first person shooters perspective.

Since stuff can ricochet into a tank via open hatches when unbuttoned, does anybody experienced a mortar or artillery shell landing through open hatches yet? Maybe some of dramatic kills & explosions come from that.:eek:

Beside adding small height variations, I also found that "thickening up" forest interiors with occasional hedges, low and high bocage (gaped and irregular patterns look best), does much to add additional cover and concealment. This also can be combined with the technique of thickening up forest edges in another thread here. So far, I think you can make any kind of forests with the means available in CMBN. There´s just few visual limitations with stuff combined with trees in ONE tile, as not all objects appear to "receive" shadows from these trees. This effect is less pronounced in non clear, sunny weather, where ambient light is more evenly distributed within shadowy areas.

I repost data charts here from the other thread: Since most tests are done comparing US small arms ammo, here´s some data for the common german 7.92mm sS round (schweres Spitzgeschoss). Taken from german H.DV 316, Pionierdienst aller Waffen, table 12, 1936. Cover vs. rifle fire at ranges of 400m and below: earth, sand, clay = 100cm sandbags = 50cm grass pads = 120cm gravel = 20cm oak wood, round = 70cm pine wood = 130cm brick wall = 38cm (no protection vs. machine gun point fire) And some data from Wolfgang Fleischers "Field Fortifications of the german army, 1939-1945: This is general guidelines for safe cover vs. enemy small arms, 1944: stamped snow = 250-300cm fresh snow = 400cm ice = 80cm firm earth = 120cm loose earth = 140cm clay = 110cm sand, rubble = 100cm soft wood = 90cm hard wood = 75cm sandbags = 70cm soft rock = 60cm medium hard rock = 40cm brick wall = 65cm field stone wall = 40cm concrete = 20cm steel concrete = 20cm Some more interesting data re german 7.92mm sS bullet, taken from H.DV 73, shooting regulation for HMG, page 25/26, 1937: at 100m penetrates 65cm dry pine wood at 400m penetrates 85cm dry pine wood (!) at 800m penetrates 45cm dry pine wood at 1800m penetrates 25cm dry pine wood the fact, that the 7.92mm sS penetrates less at 100m is from the bullet deforming at impact with the higher V0, resulting in worse penetration. Brick walls of single brick strength (25cm), can only be penetrated by single bullets if they hit a joint by chance. With longer shooting and hitting at the same spot, even stronger walls do not provide safe protection.

Yup, it´s cm. Data straigthly taken from the german field regulation of 1937.

Think he rather means 50 to 100 year olds (deciduous) and more, which we still have plenty of. Cultivated evergreen forests usually will be cut after given times (20-30 years at least), then replanted, over and over again.

Some data reposted from the building protection thread: Penetration of german 7.92mm sS bullet (the standard one for rifles and MGs) vs . dry pine wood, taken from H.DV 73, shooting regulation for HMG, page 25/26, 1937: at 100m penetrates 65cm dry pine wood at 400m penetrates 85cm dry pine wood (!) at 800m penetrates 45cm dry pine wood at 1800m penetrates 25cm dry pine wood the fact, that the 7.92mm sS penetrates less at 100m (than 400m) is from the bullet deforming at impact due to the higher velocity. So depending upon type and material of a bullet, high velocity is not always of advantage, when it comes to penetration.

I too experienced adjoining walls of one closed and one open to be generally open for movements. Think that some of the messed stuff comes from "intersection" of 3D objects. Could also happen when other outside 3D objects touch or even intersect with a building, like stone walls and such. I also noticed that damaged buildings receive more and more (invisible) openings, for watching/shooting, but also for movements. So a window-, door less wall might get openend for movements, when the building received some damage before. I also suspect buildings placed off center to cause some issues, as many or most game routines compute from the middle of an action spot and in the case of off center placed buildings, the middle action spot then might fall on the edges of walls and other objects.

Just realized, that you was rather speaking of "concealment" or "Cover vs enemy spotting" ...not shooting. Never mind.

Germans also used "bouncing" shots with delayed fuzes, when the target area had hard enough ground and the guns positions and range allowed for very low angle shooting. Was particularly devastating in russia vs attacking infantry masses in rather flat and open ground. Don´t think germans had many opportunities to apply these vs western allies in 1944 though.

Another example, that the game has a likely preference for contour based cover, vs. object based cover is a dirt road through a forest edge. The split squad in the pic is given a distant "seek cover" vs action spot FACE command. Soldiers almost always align at the road ditches or in shellholes, when present, but less often or not at all behind trees. Off course depends what exact action spot you click after FACE, but if the FACE command is applied correctly ("seek cover vs." and not "look at"), things start to make sense. Also the stance of each soldier after FACE indicates whether they will shoot accurately from prone position (at selected action spot after FACE), or rather inaccurately from kneeling or standing position. It´s quite interesting to experiment with FACE in the editor or in a games setup phase. :eek: Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Would like to know about specifics of abstracted micro terrain too, but at least one can "work" with the +-1 m height variations and receives foreseeable results. I could think of plowed fields offering more "abstracted" micro cover, than grass, but what would a forest offer, beside trees (mentioned in my initial post)? I see oftentimes large, old trees having lots of thick roots near the ground, having pulled some the surrounding earth upwards over time. So the tree base would offer a lying soldier more (broader) cover than when just standing behind the trunk. Other "abstracted" micro cover within a forest could be numbers of branches lying on the ground, even single fallen trees. Single small arms shots also might be slightly deflected from brushes, branches, or even grass, so that they prevent an otherwise safe hit. This also goes otherway around, a safe miss would be deflected to a random hit. So really would like to know, if things like that are considered for modelling micro terrain abstraction.

Lets see. I go into the next forest around here (500m or so). I see: trees, brush, fern, some grass, paths, holloways and...now comes the interesting and oftenly neglected thing: Forest do seldomly grow on plain ground. I also see ditches, small depressions, pits, overgrown earth mounds/heaps of various sizes and an occational WW2 bomb crater. So there´s a lot of small gound contours within a forest and this applies to most I did see when going outdoors. Map makers can approximate these various ground contours by raising/lowering the forest ground by +-1m at irregularly spaced intervals on otherwise more or less plain ground. This creates the only two versions of forest cover in the game, trees and ground contours (FHs & trenches excluded). Everything else just helps with concealment. If using the FACE command on an infantry unit in such type of forest (trees & irregular +-1m height alterations), then dependent on action spot chosen for the FACE command, individual soldiers will seek "cover" exactly vs. THAT chosen action spot and the game routine will not just chose the trees, it will also take the small 1m dips and rises well into account. Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us I´d always wished for CMX1 to have terrain contours better used for cover purposes and also to have them smaller. Now in CMBN we have full 3D LOS and LOF tracking with "contours" and while 8m compared to CMX1 20m is still large, the small, smoothed out 1m height variations provide even good cover in otherwise just grassy terrain. Even a single action spot +-1m can provide better "cover" for several soldiers, than a single tree. So it´s mainly up to map makers, also thinking of small contours and not just amount of trees, objects and ground tile types, when it comes to true cover. It´s more work and it has been said that "locking" single tiles has negative effects on frame rates, but at last it pays off. Overall a map provides more cover spots (at least for infantry) and it also looks more natural with purposely scattered +-1m height alterations. This also counts for shellholes and it´s a viable tactic to create cover, by shelling an otherwise coverless map area with some medium to heavy artillery, when available.

Seconded. Hail the master of dirt and weathering.

I tend too...if it works in CMBN, which currently is a gamble. But it´s worth a try. Drop me a PM, when ready.

Ain´t the ground mesh resolution now tighter in CMBN? Think there´s a bunch new code for altering the ground mesh (bunkers, foxholes, trenches, buildings, craters do alter the GM after setup game phase), that can be reused to create on the fly FH´s and trenches. Guess there´s a harcoded minimum width for any sort of trench for probable reasons of individual soldier path finding, positioning and such. Creating true 3D slit trenches that are not mass graves, will most likely result in pathfinding and related issues, when this part is not improved as well.

Looks like what I had in mind, but already worked out! If maps are not too big (OOM...victim), let me know if you need a tester when ready!

Another sort of "trigger" could also be to have any AI counterattack placed second in a campaign game creation. Dependent upon victory or loss level in first battle, it could "branch" to a particular AI counter attack style in second battle. If victory/Loss settings are set correctly (take a particular objective location in first battle, have touch objectives and the like...= triggers), it might work, with some more efforts and calculation of branching dependencies though. So instead of having a 2 hour battle, including attack + counter attack, make it 2 battles lasting 1 hour (or anything) in a branching campaign. Edit: Since battle damage on a map does not carry over (on same original map, reused for battle #2), one could probably work around with lots of testing the initial battle and thus determine those map parts, that got blasted/damaged most. This damage then can be added/approximated on the original map, then saved with a new name and used for battle #2. Sounds like a whole lot of work overall. So please BFC, add "triggers"!