stikkypixie

They promised to release them at some point.

Yes, I have noticed this as well. I wish this could be changed.

Unfortunately no.

You can't put a price on the firework show that comes with it .

I do have reason for hope though, the introduction of new contact icons is a step in the right direction I think.

That's what the Hunt order does now, no?

Are you sure about that? The whole idea of the model based ballistics is that stuff is taken care of naturally.

Suppression as well. Especially noticeable in the CMSF titles with everyone toting automatic weapons and such.

The Cromwell is roughly equivalent to a Sherman. The Churchill is more like the Russian KV1 tanks. Slow, well armoured (although not enough to withstand the German AT fire).

That's the thing though isn't it. The added variety in the terrain does not make it harder to play the game. Just as in CMx1 you plot your movement order to it and the guys will do their thing. There is no need to memorize anything. What you seem to be after is to be able to know that if I'm on tile "XYZ" my cover will be a definite 13% and this will affect my assault, this way or some other way. It's a different style of play than mine for example, where I only roughly gauge the characteristics of the terrain, not precisely but enough to know whether I want to risk putting guys there or not. If things go well, they can stay, otherwise I just tell them to pack up and run away. A lot of the scenarios ARE very hard to win, but I've noticed that when I lose it was due to my lack of planning and patience rather that something the game isn't telling me. If I lost a scenario it isn't because I picked a tile with only 15% cover instead of the one with 17% (or whatever). It's usually because of something larger than that. I don't know about your background, I have no military background whatsoever (and I like to keep it that way), so to me it's no surprise I mess up so often as it takes years to learn the tactics, doctrinal concepts of an army and implement the correctly in battle. And I don't expect to be able to do as well as a real army commander would just by playing a couple of hours a week. [edited] To say that, the added "realism" of CMx2 is not its variety of terrain. You could do the same to CMx1, and it would still play the same way. But rather in the introduction of 1:1 soldiers, relative spotting and C2.

Same here

I have never seen that happen before. I only see it with infantry, because of a change in stance.

Well the key thing is patience and luck. The ATGM vehicles are not great in offense, you want them sitting in the back just far enough until the target cursor indicates hull-down or partial hull-down, and leave them there. It helps if they are in communications with other units doing spotting. The problem is, that not all scenarios that have ATGM vehicles are suitable for their optimal use. But try the Gung Ho campaign (in the repository), the second mission gives you great opportunity to practice being patient . And be sure to relocate them once the sun is up .

After much trial and error I've managed to do it. The trick is to make sure the optics are also pointing over the cover.

It is realistic in the sense that if you employ real world tactics you will get the right results, but to each his own. Personally I don't see how putting in the capabilities of a piece of equipment that has only marginal advantage at the distances (or even the max distance for that matter) of a typical scenario would make this a better sim/game. If somehow that spoils the game for you well there's not much anyone can do about that. And to the point, there is only 1 mast equipped vehicle in the game and that mast does NOT allow you to see pas obstructions not in real life and not in the game.

It won't spot better under "normal" game circumstances. However if you play night scenarios or scenarios in any other that degrade normal vision you'll see an increased capability. Check this link: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1217524&postcount=28 The other advantage is that when you call in artillery with this sucker, it will be quick and precise and you'll need less spotting rounds to drop lots of tnt .

Check this: http://www.battlefront.com/helpdesk/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=181

The vehicle IS equipped with other special optics that is correctly modelled, so its inclusion is justified in my opinion. From what information I can find about the mast, is that its advantages usually fall out of the scope of the game. It is still just a radar you know .

I am playing "The Main Event" right now, and my Shermans finally spotted <?> after sitting for 8 minutes in overwatch, while my infantry is getting cut to pieces by enemy MG fire. The distance is only 600m mind you, so they are in the thick of things. Edited to say: I wonder why experiences differ so much among players?

I assume that the Shermans fired on their own?

Ah, the sight of an AAV full of marines getting hit. It still hurts, and a lesson I never really learned

Are you HUNTING your rilfe squad towards the sniper? There weren't false contacts in CMx1 either, you had false sounds contacts and those a in CMx2 as well. A <?> means that it "knows" a unit is there, but it cannot spot it yet. You can get <?> by being in C2 with other units which then pass the information on to you, without you even having LOS to the target. So spotting times, is when you can actually identify the unit. The times I've given, are times from the first shot. I'm using CMBN (cause I don't have the fancy new toy yet).

What is a ball breaking about a large variance? There are so many factors involved even in such a simple setup, that you cannot control all of them. That is why I'm planning to run some more to get a better feel, time permitting of course. By the way, if you see a series like 1616161616 (and if there are no other constraints) and you think 3.5 will never occur, you might be in for a surprise . The average gives you an indication for what to expect if no other information is available, and even if only 1's and 6's are allowed, this still gives you useful information in the sense that it's 50/50 chance.

And then the shot magically tunnelled through the obstacle hitting the tank in cover. No big deal at all.

Ok, had some time to run some tests. Here is the setup: - Conditions are default. - Axis: ONLY 1 regular (across the board) sniper team on a rocky + brush tile - Allied: ONLY 1 regular (across the board) rifle squad HUNTING across 680m of grass towards the sniper team - If the rifle squad hit the ground, I left them there. - No cover arcs for either squads. - I noted the time of the first shot, the time of spotting a <?> and the time for spotting the sniper - 10 tests until I got bored * On average it took 00:01:12 (HH:MM:SS) to get a <?> and 00:01:48 to get a full identification * There some deviation on the spotting times: 00:01:45 for <?> contacts and 00:02:01 for full contact * The minimum to spot was 12 seconds and the maximum time was over 6 minutes Although the sample size is quite small, I don't see evidence of spotting being too quickly. The brush and the rocky terrain hardly give any concealment, yet it took on average 1 minute and 48 seconds to spot a sniper. At about 20 seconds per shot, this means that the sniper team could unload 5 rounds before being spotted by a 11 man squad. I'll try with a higher concealment tile later .