GreenAsJade

Are you serious!? I thought I'd read pages and pages of people saying that every bullet is tracked and if it intersects with a polygon it's blocked and if it doesn't then it isn't. You are claiming the opposite: that somehow magically a bullet might not hit my guy on a treed tile even if I can't see a tree between him and the shooter. That is completely at odds with what lots of people have been saying. GaJ

I do agree that many of the things in this thread were problematic in CMx1 also. And I agree with the people who are saying that many of these problems should not be solved by a tool. "What is the chance the truck will bog?" It's mud: you figure out it. The question that CMBN presents is different. Its not "what will happen if I drive over this tile?" The much simpler question is "what is this tile a picture of?". If we take the truck example, we have to give the guys frosted glasses first. Now they are looking at a field but they can't really make out what is in it. For all its wonderful artwork, that's still what looking at a terrain tile is like. You know that some things that are pictured are bad news, but you don't know if you are looking at one of them. And, because you won't bog every time and you might bog even if it wasn't a nasty tile, it will take you a long time to work out which is which. It is true that the artwork is good, and with a bit of determination and trust in the artist you can make many things out. That's good. It's still the case that it would be darn handy to have a simple conformation somehow of what you are looking at on the base tile I guess a mod could help: "distinctive terrain mod". GaJ

Right. People who went on to play CMSF are the manly men, and "old CMx1ers" are dopey bastards who wouln't notice triangles at the top of the screen if they had $$ painted on them. Nice one Mikey. GaJ

When I asked this question, I was thinking "geez, why not just give me another HQ instead of an FO, they seem to be the same". I guess that would be less realistic This is very different to CMx1, where HQs could only call in on-board: that made FOs much more unique and valuable. Are there "wire" FOs in CMBN? Or do they all have radios? GaJ

An updated: I followed Steve's advice and had a close look at the terrain I was wondering about, allowing myself to use the "it's going to be what it looks like" method. I'm finding it helpful: mud does look shiny-sticky enough to be able to go "OK, this looks like mud". However, I have one counterexample. There is an area of terrain that looks like mud, but from higher levels of elevation it is clearly lighter coloured. I have no idea what this is. I'm treating it like mud for now, but I may be denying myself access to an area of the map that I should be able to enter more easily... GaJ

It's another absolute revolution _and_ an entertaining game, that's for sure! GaJ

Silly question, but what _are_ demo charges really intended for in the game? Aside from blowing up bridges, which is a really "specialised" thing, is there a more general purpose "battle use" that makes good sense? GaJ

The manual says they are the only thing that can call in CAS. I'm not sure what "FO's call in arty too" means. HQs call in arty too. So it seems the answer to my question is that "if you have no CAS assets, FOs are HQs who can't command anything, but can call in arty quicker"? Maybe there are arty assets that HQs can't call but FOs can? I haven't encountered this yet... would that be a scenario designer thing? GaJ

If you have no air cover assets, is an FO just an HQ who can't command anyone?

But I'm saying it doesn't even move the camera to where I click. Try this: go to view level 9, centre the map in your screen. It seems to me that at this point the camera is right above the middle of the map, looking vertically down, right? Confirm this by rotating (right click drag). The map rotates around the centre. The camera is positioned in the middle of the map. Now ctrl-click right at the centre of that rotation - theoretically not moving the camera at all, since it's there already. Whoa! Now where am I? GaJ

Ctrl-click seems to be "move the map to a random place, usually where not much can be seen". I think I must be misunderstanding what it is supposed to do. My understanding is that it should move the "point of view" to directly over the place you click. After having some trouble with this, I selected viewpoint 9 (looking vertically down) and experimented clicking on key locations. I expected the map to be centered on my screen at those locations. But clicking in the middle of the map moves half the map off the screen! It also rotates the map in an apparently-random way. Has anyone made sense of this? GaJ

1) I made a lot of noise about how I like detailed armour hits. I'm really really appreciative of them being in the game. 2) Exit scenario victory criteria: great and simple improvement! I can actually understand and work with an exit scenario now!! GaJ

This one is clearly a work of art and a labour of love! Thanks!! GaJ

Do you mean a CMSF grid mod? This might work for CMBN? That's an interesting idea...

This is a perfectly fair answer. And this is also a perfectly helpfjul indication that you think more help would be good in due course. Note that, in starting the thread, I didn't say "BFC, do somefink now". I simply asked a question "how do you tell?". To those making a comparison with how real commanders tell what the risks of the terrain in front of them are: to me this argument is completely meaningless. Real commanders aren't looking at a rendering of texture on a screen and wondering if it is significant. Real commanders have a lifetime of experience to tell them what matters. I'm playing a game. It would be more fun if I could easily tell whether this mottled brown texture is significant or not, instead of having to pull out a manual or chart. I'm not even asking for the game to tell me what risks the terrain present. I'm only asking "is this texture significant? What does it represent?. GaJ

streety posted a new CMAK mod at the CM Mods Warehouse: Snow Panzer IVF - for CMAK and CMBB by streety "I guess the preview pic info says it all. Credit to Alexoscar, Daffy, David Inglett and MickeyD, whose bits of other t..." GaJ

No-one is saying that complex terrain is a bad thing. The only question was "now that they are complex, how do I tell what I'm looking at?" So far the answer to this seems to be "get a chart from somewhere, there are a few, and learn the differences in texture". Note that this solution is only helpful at camera elevations where these textures are viewable. At the higher elevations, where you are trying to get the lie of the land, I'm still not sure what the answer is. It may be that experience (trial and error) will quickly get people good it it. It's the 'error' part that's not so much fun... GaJ

GreenAsJade posted a new CMBN mod at the CM Mods Warehouse: Veins Tracers V2 by Veins "A mod to get rid of the "laser" effect. Tracers A - More visable red tracer Tracers B - More subtle tracer ..." GaJ

Are you saying that Inf is firing on tanks _outside_ their covered arc? If they are firing on tanks inside their covered arc, this is probably fair, if the tank is not buttoned: they are trying to make it button. If they are firing on tanks _outside_ their covered arc, that would feel like a bug or "wtf" sort of feature... GaJ

Are you guys who don't like the icons loosing sight of the fact that with the icons you can find out which of your units can see a given enemy unit? This alone is worth having them. I just wish they would float a little lower, closer to the unit! GaJ

Master of Condescension degree awarded.. GaJ

In real life you die if you get shot. CMBN is a game. Where from time to time we play at being the commander looking at a map. Maps have contour lines on them. GaJ

And, while I'm here, what about ATGs in trenches? Once again, I thought this was totally a done thing in real life? At the moment my ATG has half it's leg sticking out of the trench, is this bad?

I can totally accept not to put mortars in foxholes. MGs should go in them though: surely that's exactly where MGs belong? If we forget I mentioned these, it's the "everyone doesn't get in" problem I was really raising. There's a related one: with trenches on a slope, the "top" half of each trench segment is pretty-much nothing: there's nothing (visually) there for the troop to get behind, because the sloping ground rises through the trench. Are the guys who position themselves in this place in the trench equally exposed? GaJ

By all means put maps at CMMODS, just use "Mod Type" -> Map.