panzermartin

Great, I'll be around, send me a pm!

Online seems to work better now with the pauses. Ayone else to give it a try? Also, where has the chat gone? It was a sticky in the old forum.

As others noted 20x20m was only the graphical tile in CM. You could target any inch inside this tile and LOS tool was precise regarding hill crests. You could master the technique of hull down only by judging with your eye. I too like where the game is going right now and its cool that every tree for instance is accounted for LOS/LOF calculations. I just wonder if it is possible to further downsize action spots in the upcoming WW2 game for exampe. CMSF from 1.00 to 1.10 had a huge performace boost and I have started to feel optimistic about the flexibility of the new engine.

BFC have said that hardware limitations are to blame for the action spot compromise in CMSF engine. It took a decent number of patches to polish the problematic LOS/LOF and we are now in an acceptable state of gameplay. Still some shortcomings remain, like the gridded area fire and positioning of infantry which in some ways is a step back from the CMx1 where you could target every inch of a building and ground and precisely take advantage of every terrain feature, ridge, hill crest etc. Is there a plan for further fine tuning of the action spots dimensions leading to a truly 100% 1:1 simulation when hardware allows for it?

Anyone available for a small scenario? I'm curious to see the improvements in online play.

Anyone for a TCP/IP battle? Btw, where has the CMSF chat gone? I used to find people there once in a while.

I was wondering if Gamespot is going to give it an official review since we are talking about a vastly improved game.

Except for fire missions is there any other radio chatter from troops..."armor sighted', "taking fire" etc?

WW2 needs atmosphere. Mord's flavor objects list was a nice one with hay stacks, carts etc etc. Proper buildings will be important too. Certainly they cant be as generic as in CMSF.

Premature release of CM WW2 would mean CMSF gradually dying out like CMBO with CMBB. It will be a new game with lots of cool new features not included in the current title. Who would want to go back to dusty, waterless, assymetrical Syria? I'm ok with waiting for the british module even the german one perhaps, if this means they'll get WW2 close to perfection.

Oh yes WW2..its going to be awesome. Given that after a year the game has improved 100% gameplay and performance wise, I expect Normandy to be something really special. If they deliver what they currently promise, like improved QB system, random map generator (with pre-made tiles) and pausable RT or WEGO for TCP/IP, then we are in for a classic game. I doubt CMx1 would be more challenging if it had the CMSF units anyway. Modern firepower is the biggest minus imo. With Normandy, lenghty, gripping tank duels will be back, infantry will be just infantry, not supermen with scoped rifles and javelins, and the general pace of the game will be just right for an RT stratergy. More interesting terrain suitable for infatry action and picturesque french villages. Also, modding glory with ambush camos, tricolor, bicolor etc ect will be back. With Abrams you can only mod the name on the gun (Can we have multiple skins for Normandy vehicles pleeeeeease!)

Its a cool feature. After 1.10, I'm beginning to feel optimistic about CMx2 future and I hope we will see some extra damage effects on vehicles and buildings too. The engine seems capable of doing this already and I hope BFC, now that gameplay glitches are almost sorted out, will take the time to improve things here as well.

I see. Hope internet testing goes well.

Thanks..Did you notice an improvement in host/client syncing too? Most of my TCP/IP games featured non responding units and horrendous lag. Also, to BFC..Please consider adding a time out/pause option, at least for the Normandy game, as an alternative to the old WEGO TCP/IP. It would still be Real-Time but pauses would allow for more complex planning and larger maps would be playable. Also, going to the WC would be possible again

Has anyone tried a TCP/IP session and noticed the improved speed and reliability, as the readme indicates?

The place is too military orientated to allow for colors and individualism. Plus I think BFC wants us camouflaged in Khaki/Buff to keep us unoticed from the sights of those greedy RTS/FPS gamehouses.

Metallica reach a new level of boredom EDIT: just noticed my 666th post is about them

Heheh..I know, sometimes customers can be a bit schizoprenic. I am personally for more realism in the core simulation mechanics and visual aspects and more freedom and flexibility on UI and setting up a battle. I understand that modern warfare is heavily dependent on C&C, formations etc and you wanted to simulate this in the game. Perhaps if the current system didnt have the known problems and it was working as intended, few would miss the CMx1 manual style. The Normandy one you are working on sounds like a good mid solution and suitable for the time period too.

I remember those complaining about taking away the fun factor of CMBO with the more complex (but superior) CMBB. The reply was that BFC didnt intend for CMBO to be "fun" and it was rather a side effect, so they didnt actually take anything away from the game. The "fun" cherry picking is gone now and I'm starting to suspect that there is a secret plan for leading customers to depression J/k but really I wish CMSF didnt take itself so seriously sometimes. IMHO QBs should be the fun part of the game, since for all the rest we have an excellent editor, scenarios and campaigns. I'm glad that at least CM Normandy will bring back some of the lost joy

Spotting right in front of your units could be better. There is so much randomness its insane. In CMx1 more or less I knew what was going to work, who is going to see who etc etc. CMSF is quite unpredictable, in LOS/LOF/Cover/ Unit response that you can never be certain about your moves. Patches have improved things a lot but sometimes its just dice rolling and pray.

BFC is lucky to have such a die hard community

I really want to shoot the guys who "criticized CMx1 QB system" At least it was working back then sniff.. I have to agree with the symetrical auto purchase of units. Just add a "Mirror Forces" Box. At least for BluevsBlue and RedVRed. No more Recce Jeeps vs Javelins and Strykers or Elite ATGMS vs hordes of infantry. Predictable but playable and fair. I can hardly think of any other "small" improvement to fix the weird QB selections. Players could come up with fair balancing if a cherry pick system was allowed, like the old rules of CM, but CMSF has a fixation on controlling everything and sticking to "realistic" OOBs and Command trees even when we talk about a bunch of toyota hiluxs. For Normandy, please consider reintroducing variable rarity. It made purchasing and constructing a fighting force a game on its own.

It would be nice if water could be used as an overlay feature, instead of a "tile" so as to apply it over marsh tiles, rocky terrain, and recreate, muddy roads, lakes, rivers, canals, ports, flooded parts of a town with submerged constructions/objects etc. That would mean that depth would vary with ground elevation so it might be a bit difficult to program all the gameplay side effects.

Wow! Modules on fire Its nice to see things are rolling fast. That means WW2 is not that far away too, maybe a year? All this dry terrain makes you thirsty for a glass of water straight from a Normandy well

Hmm, well Nazis turned one of the most cultural, scientificaly, and industrialy developed world nations into a dark age murdering force, that exercised a witch hunting of "Untermenschen", Jews, Gypsies, handicapped and mentally ill right in the middle of the 20th century. I didnt see that happening in Hungary or Chechoslovakia during the Soviet occupation though. Unfortunately everything the Nazis did was in such an impressively calculated and sickly imaginative way that they stand miles away from any competitor. Nazis killed their own people en mass too, and the fact alone that they ignited WW2 is enough to hand them the first prize in body counts category as well.