Gurra

Great work. Thank you very much for your effort!

Unfortunately no, as it was a H2H game.

Sherlock 'Combat Mission' Holmes

Aah, have had that experience with a StuG firing at 50 meters range. It fired. Fired again. And again. Three times in a row. All times hitting the Sherman. Only HE. Plenty of AP. Disaster followed.

Yeah, as the title implies. Will Battlefront go with just a graphical representation and abstracted effects, or will they actually model snow as a physical "object"? The latter would mean vehicles and infantry graphically goes through the snow and in best case leaving traces behind. But since marks from vehicles are not implemented at the current state of the engine, it might be considered of low priority, and thus the first option will be chosen. At the same time, I really think CMBN (or indeed Battle of the Bulge) deserves a more detailed and atmospheric representation of snow. Theories anyone?

Yeah, I´m not 100 percent sure, but it could perhaps have something to do with LOS issues, as is continually being discussed in various forms. For example, have a look at this thread, I think Erwin is the one who brings up what might have something to do with this, though your experience sure looks like something else as well: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=102333

That´s interesting. I can try some, but if you haven´t really had any success, don´t get your hopes high on me.

Yep, you are right. The bmp is uninteresting for this. I tried the other two tga´s. One seems to be representing lightning patterns on the surface, the other one, well, is that the shader? Or vice versa? However, it does not work to just make it 'greener'. Based on the results I had, I was thinking maybe getting a yellow tone would get me where I want. But it seemed impossible. Blue or magenta is all succed with. I also tried lower contrasts to get less harsh reflections, but to no avail.

Let´s not be hasty....been doing trial and error in photoshop for a couple of hours to no avail. The best I achieved was a sligthly darker monochrome-ish appearance. Failed to get any greenish hues in there. And on a second thought, I rather put the time into playing than pursue this. So Aris, if you fancy rising to the challenge, please do so. Otherwise I´d say your mod is fine as it is. CM modding used to be so much simpler - General Auchinleck.

Absolutely. I can see the limitation of LOS being dependant on a spot of ground from a programming view, but I guess it does limit ability to fire in a more realistic way. I have been wishing that my units would be able to do more of a sort of anticipative firing, meaning that if even if they don´t see the actual spot because of bushes or a tree blocking LOS, they could area fire through it (blindly) because they anticipate the enemy is there. That should be only right behind stuff that´s penetrable. That would also solve the situation where a tank might get info from another unit on an enemy tank´s whereabouts, so they could put some rounds into the general area. I have no idea though, whether this was done in reality. I remember a scene from BoB, where the Airborne tells a british tanker to shoot into a cover where there is a german tank hiding. The tanker responds something like "I can´t bloody shoot what I can´t see, can I?" But if someone directed his shooting, sure he could do that?

Hehe. Ok. I get it. Let´s see Sure, I can upload a successful version, provided Aris don´t mind. It´s his fine work, so I would only do that with his blessings. Considering his answer though, you guys may have to ask him politely for any tweaking.

I think the water is an improvement! Great job. Was it difficult? I am thinking of tweaking my copy of your water slightly - a little bit darker and slightly more greenish. More like I imagine/expect flooded fields or rivers to look like, rather than big lakes or the sea. But, it is good also as it is. Thanks!

You are right, but then again, it is also a question of preferences - as a player in control, as was brought up earlier in the thread. But, heck, I am not claiming that LOS in CMBN is frequently off or anything like that, just that it might be coded to be too restricted at certain times. Or not. It´s difficult to tell. It could also be as simple as - LOS in CMBN does not behave like I am used to (CMx1 anyone ) - it doesn´t fully meet my expectations (which probably has less to do with absolute reality when it comes to it, than the system used to calculate it) Still, the example I brought up was conspicous to me.

Yeah, well the LOS line changes color just where it looks like it ends, but I think a tiny tiny bit of the pinkish line is visible, pointing at/on the road BEYOND the wheat field. However, it does stretch all the way - fact. Take my word for it. I was right in the heat of the battle and just grabbed those screenies thinking I had to bring this issue up on the forums. They could definitely have been better, I agree. Which reminds of my wishing they implement a proper LOS tool, unafflicted by such things. That is true and something I had forgotten about. Still, it suffers from the same problem as above discussed. Oh, definitely. I was vague there. I referred to the discrepancy(?) again and the general problem of correctly judging terrain and probable LOS. When I have seen this, I have always thought it was just a mere graphical coincidence that the LOS line was drawn from, let´s say third gunlayer, or a third team member manning an AT gun. If that is actually happening, I agree it´s irrelevant. Moreover and as part of this topic, I often get baffled by non reciprocal LOS... ...I have had several occasions similar to what Holien mentions here. I never get any wiser as to what is the matter in those situations. Unless someone is hiding cleverly in foliage or something, shouldn´t LOS always be reciprocal? Well, it does lead to defeat, I have found out, and units doing stupid things. So yes, I prefer more control. It´s my opinion that when I have time to micro manage and channel the events, this game usually is deeply rewarding and superior to anything I know out there, but left to their own devices, units sometimes makes me wanna assign them to the first penalty battalion off to Russia.

After thinking about what actually is the core issue here, I suppose it is that LOS seems unpredictable. Now, one can discuss whether that´s bad or good from different angles, but if it in fact is unpredictable and not so by intention, I´d say it´s bad from a user perspective, because it conveys the feeling of being treated unfair by the game. I would be interesting to hear whether Battlefront themselves thinks the implementation of LOS is reliable, or if they perhaps are planning to go over it for the future.

Martin, I know it is difficult to tell from the screenshot, but if you click the pic to upsize it, you can see that the LOS tool is actually pointing to the area I am referring to. I would never doubt the possible inability to see something amongst the wheat. Pak40, thanks for that little investigation. Interesting. Yeah, I am sure it´s a narrow pass. The weight of my point was actually not just to point out this specific example, but rather use it as a typical example of something that I am frustrated with regularly, and that being the 3D environment either fools me , or the LOS tool/Targetting is 'tweaked' towards the 'lower edge', so that proper LOS is slightly more difficult to achieve, for realistic/contextual/simulator reasons.

Here´s an example of an issue I would like to bring it up, since it occures quite often. My tank sat on a spot with elevation 25 (even possibly 26) (checked it in the editor). The road I wanted to guard had elevation 18. The wheat field in between, at it´s highest point, had elevation 22 and from there on slowly levelled off to 20. Now, I don´t know what these levels of elevations represents (1 meter = 1 point of elevation?) but let´s say the wheat grows to a meter in length, and as a gunner in a tank, you sit approx 1 - 2 meter above ground. So these circumstances negate each other. From pic 1 I think most people would judge that they would be able to see beyond the wheat field. The point of interest is the distant spot in front of the Puma. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/16/tankposition.jpg/ In pic 2 however, the LOS tool shows it a no go. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/lostool.jpg/ I accept the fact that a rise can create a blind zone behind it, but judging from the first pic, this very rise should not be able to interfere with my LOS, as it seems. You can even see the lowest part of the trees in the area of interest, and that from a lower perspective than the tank´s. This, is something I very often experience, presenting me with nasty surprises in the heat of the battle. Ok, you could say "that unit couldn´t properly judge it until they arrived at the spot, since not having the player´s Argus eye, so it is only realistic". But I think here is where the game aspect actually comes in. It´s like sabotage to me. I scout the terrain, check out good positions, and then a position that seemed to be perfect, judging from the 3d environment, actually is not good. Let me just say that this is supposed to be constructive criticism, but as a player, what am I supposed to judge terrain by? Should I totally dismiss the 3D environment and put my trust only in the algoritms of LOS? But then, CMx1 would suffice with it´s "a tree you see in-game is actually just a presentation of abstracted terrain". Does anyone have the same experience as I do? Or do you think I overreact ? (yep, I lost the battle) As a last note, what is it with wheat fields in CMBN overall? Why do they obscure LOS to such a degree, even when absolutely flat? I have virtually grown up at the side of dozens of wheat fields, so I know fairly well how they interact with your vision - everything from the waist and up is visible when standing, and pretty far to. A dark spot, like a vehicle rising above the height of the actual wheat, would show quite well. Yet, in the game, they obscure LOS incredibly.

Go mate. Sound great!

I´d welcome more roof options, though. So I double your request.

Roof grog.

What exactly would these limitations be?

Yes. Though you will not hear me saying hos much better cm x1 was, wego tcp is the ultimate point of whether cm x 2 will have my final and adoring attention. As it stands now, cmx1 is the be the very tempting choice for H2H.

I guess campaigns is the way to reward realistic behavior in the long run, i.e if a defense resulted in defeat but paid off in enemy casulties. But, sadly, no campaigns or operations in H2H

Sure, I am not going to argue against that, but I wonder how the system worked in CMx1, where in fact some kind of force relativeness was used, thoughg not saying that whatever was used in CMx1 was great or better.

Well, regarding the scenario me and my friend played, it´s objectives were designed very much like Yankeedog describes - which is good - but as it turned out, 3 out of 4 of these small objectives in the village was not known to me. That mislead my defense somewhat, and together with the above discussed issue, it resulted in a minor defeat for me even though I had inflicted some horrible losses on my opponent and still had fresh troops in waiting behind the objectives. It just felt a bit unfair that he thwarted my victory because of having 4 shellshocked blokes at the right place, given my overall successful defenses. With that said, I am well aware that the meat of this particular example is entirely due to design decisions and has nothing to do with how objectives are resolved in the game engine. Well, is it really that fuzzy when you think about it? The example you mention is perhaps a relevant one, because in that case it might be a bit uncertain who exerts the most influence depending on the terrain. But on the other hand, a full platoon should be able to flank and neutralize a single MG, don´t you think? IMHO, it´s a balancing act between numbers and quality of troop and firepower. But then again, I suppose terrain could be key, thinking about Monte Cassino, or indeed Hill 112 outside Caen, where the Allies had to get troops onto the objective to negate the germans from it, regardless of bombardment.