cool breeze

I thought I would never say anything in any of theses CM on steam threads, since steve has been so clear on it and all, but what do you know. I think it would be great to have CMSF added to steam. I think since it was already sold though retail with Paradox or whoever it wouldn't really change the CM series's battlefront.com exclusivity. It is a pretty old game now and people prefer newer games, so if it ever did go to steam it should do it as some kind of new annivesary or game of the year or whatever version that comes with HD texture mods, along with a toggle for the HD mods so the game can keep its original low minimum requirements.

I was also messing around with that map placing units and moving the LOS tool. I think I have been over-emphasising the funkyness of the LOS tool. People who have been saying it can conditionally be relied upon to give accurate info are correct. I have given it less credence than it is due because of my long term habbit of conflating reverse-slope no target point, with no LOS. On the other hand those conditionals attached to using the LOS tool mean I will continue to mostly just eyeball it and use the target too mostly for targetting. I wouldnt use one HMG for both sides of the house hoping for it to switch, Id put one one hmg for one and a hmg or lmg for the other.

Where did I say that and what am I selling?

Another helpful thing you can do is move around the camera at the lowest level in the potential target area and see what windows you can see from where.

I'm not sure what I said that made you think I dont understand realistic mg fire schemes. You might know from my other posts that I'm not a WW2 expert, but I have been playing CM since CMBB and CMx2 since CMSF, and I have plenty of experience setting up successful defenses with interlocking keyholed lanes of fire. In my experience the games spotting/LOS/LOF is more WYSIWYG than using the targeting tool indicates. Meaning if you have come up with a defence scheme that looks good as far as WYSIWYG, but doesn't seems good via the targetting line, it MIGHT still be good. But the game system isn't perfect so it hard to know. I gave what advice I could to try to make it work more often for you. Sometimes all you can do is put the guys in the second row of houses instead of the first to get cover from the front from the first row. Sometimes you just lie them down in the open right behind the house. One thing that makes figuring out WYSIWYG tricky is that you cant move the camera low enough. its easy to think you can see over some stuff because the camera is some 6+ feet in the air, but your guys are lying down or kneeling which doesn't let them see over it. Sometimes grass or bushes on a crest that is past the draw distance for the grass or bush is in the way of LOS without you realizing it. getting the camera low and zooming in while looking around helps see some important foliage detail. Oh and seeing around/over roofs is a little tricky, it helps to kind of imagine that all the roofs are kind of bigger than shown.

It hadden't occured to me that that might have been cheating. For some reason I assumed you were playing against the AI. I suggest you do some city defences against the AI realtime or turn based with lots of skipping turns, trying to set up similar kinds of situations in similar terrain just to get a better sense of how LOS tool deductions translate into actual LOS LOF once guys are running around. In general it helps to not place the HMGs in the buildings with complicated LOS where they might have to switch positions within the building, because they take so long to set up. If possible use LMGs for those roles and put the HMGs out of buildings, or in buildings where you know they won't have to switch around. If you do have to put the HMG in building with questionable LOS, just try to get in by the right window and dont worry to much about the exact position. Imagine the spotter is spotting through the window while the gunner shoots throught the loophole the squade just spent the last 3 seeming like 15 minutes making. Don't plan on the HMG being able to successfully redeploy from one of those windows to another once the bullets start flying. Maybe just ask your opponent if he minds you playing an infantry only AI battle on the same map you are going to play. He understands your still learning the system, and I know Id be fine with that whether my opponent was new or an expert. P.S. Oh and LOL at conform C3k good one. totally missed it the first time tho too sly

while we are on the subject of building LOS and LOF, just a friendly reminder that it would be great to be able to target windows/walls when we dont have LOS to the center of the building. I know the Ptroppen do fine at engaging targets the see in the windows but I wish I could area target the windows. JasonC, did you run though the scenario to test out how your defence did once the enemies showed up? I find that a lot of the time when Im trying to figure out LOS/LOF with the tool in cities I get frustrated, because it doesn't always work quite right. However if I just move the guys around based on what looks alright without the LOS tool, while I miss some good opportunities for area fire, the guys do a pretty good job at spotting threats and moving around in reaction, even if the LOS line wasn't working as expected.

I want a CM or Battlefront T-Shirt! How much are they?

That stuff is all pretty mysterious to me but since I turned on the command lines I've been learning all kinds of things about how c&c works in the game.

To take a good idea way to far the ai commander could be an on-map pixelofficer in the force we don't control, and if he was messing up bad enough we could do a friendly fire mortar strike on him to get his guys under our chain of command.

That sounds awesome, could be great to have to save the troops of some overly agressive and braindead AI commander. Might give an amazing sense of urgency to press hard through heavy losses to provide overwatch for the foolhardy assault you ai partner is leading. It could help make the timings more predictable for the scenario designer if the player has too keep up with the part of his force he doesn't control.

I've heard you can mail about anything just by sticking enough postage stamps on it. maybe we can just start mailing BF a bunch of random nice things and if they like any of them enough they can send us back a copy of a game

This talk of the install process and buying process being too complicated gave me an idea. It would be cool if CM somehow got a splash page thing like DCS has where it automatically handles updating and gives you a constant reminder of all the cool goodies you haven't bought yet ( not that I skip anything on CM;) ). Not like the unified super game mega family that a lot of people were asking for in the beginning but just a single exe that let you pick which family you wanted to play and gave you an impulse-buy way to buy more. This would also be the perfect place to put an integrated opponent finder. When people see the people playing or wanting to play the family/module they don't have, they can impulse buy it to start playing.

Hear, hear! This idea I agree with one hundred percent. I had mixed feeing about the last idea, made sense, but too many cons it seemed, and Im not totally convinced spacing exactly is that much of an issue. Like they really did stay pretty bunched up from what I have seen in the photos. And I didn't like the idea of seeing harmless bullets fly around from the initial idea. it would be cool if the pixel troupen could be a little more agile to avoid fire, if they would do some emergency crouch running and/ or quick dropping to the ground and getting back up to avoid bursts of fire, they could maintain their generally reasonable to me seeming spacing while taking few and more realistic casualties from it. Sorta similar to your idea to reduce the damage of burst fire, but from the target side. With some nice new animations it could look really nice and provide a new kind of non-moral based suppression. Evasive micro-maneuvers supression, which slows em down and makes them more tired. Would it be too gamey to sometimes have the second and 3rd guy shot by a single burst simply dodge it by hitting the earth? Reminds me of reading All Quiet On The Western Front, where they talk about dodging/hearing mortar rounds. Would be awesome if high enough experience troops would sometimes hear the incoming mortar round and hit the earth when they are running. Maybe even get right back up after it lands. But this new idea is super solid seeming to me. Completely agree that marching/standing rifle fire seems about right but it would be hella cool and realistic for the aim to go up more from being supported.

NOT a hologram! can we please have those resources spent on the real holograms instead?! hehe. See, I dont have an oculus rift or intend on getting one.

after all this time playing I still mess the phases and red button pressing up sometimes, so Amen to some kind of "foolish button pressing prevention system" maybe the swith/ button can change color like its a transparent but with two different colored bulbs inside, red and yellow for movie mode and command mode or it could be two buttons, one to end each, and they light up when they work. They could be right next to each other and half width each, so it takes the same place as the current one.

BOOM! nailed it!

hehe, reminds me of the worst thumping I've gotten from a quickbattle AI. Masses of conscript low motivation foot sloggers. spent some time setting everyone up, had 3 heavy duty lines of mutally suporting defence had so many guys I felt confident my firepower would win. The panzergranaders show up and start shooting and everything just completely fell apart. Mutiple platoons/whole companies were throwing up white flags like syncronized swimmers. My hundreds of men barely even fought.

MikeyD, was that the second to last mission of the italian campaign where the two battleship prep barrages land right on the other side of the birdges? Just out of curiosity. Reminds me I need to finish that fun campaign.

As a fan of JasonC's lectures, if I ony had more WW2 knowledge I'd use that que to say something wrong

You're just to reasonable and moderated to attract that kind of attention to him. Just increase your headsize a few steps and decide you know everything about some stuff and start setting people straight about the "facts"

I think I know what mission your playing... is this the one where you clear 2 towns and exit half your force? Are you talking about one of the first buildings you attack in that mission? Either way I found that with the bits it was especially important to get a lot of angles to the fire. They seem to rely on, um, unimpressive small arms firepower to get thier jobs done. I think the plan was to win with their rifle marksmanship. So to get the critical firepower output I needed from them to break positions in a timely enough fashion to not run out of ammo, I worked extra hard with them to get those big angles of fire. even highly motivated toops dont like bullets bouncing off the ceilling from all or half the directions at once. You just need them to flee. I used my bren carriers to suppress at long range while a moved my infantry up and around to shoot from all over. You might be on a harder level than Im thinking of tho and you been flying through these campaigns you might be better than me already.

AH! the Peng thread! that explains everything.... lol Edit to add. maybe the Peng thread doesnt count as the real forum and anything on it isnt really public and now that he's had more than enough time to heal fom his love wounds and repent making a big internet stink about it he could be unbanned... I always thought he helped the discussions around here and it seems good to reduce the number of people who love the game but are so pissed they find every opportunity to talk smack about it. Most banned people I think should stay banned but his thing always seems just like a once off freak out from a basically really good forum contributor (not that it isnt a little nuts about the dummy but it takes all kinds, I'm not one to judge) not my forum or even place to be talking about it but I'd welcome him back.

Oh, um ,hmm, brainfart. Somehow E8 and blazing 88s just got completely confused. at first I had no idea why you didnt know why I was thanking you. Now I see I meant to thank Blazing 88s. Thank for filling me in on the story guys! I think it was better to say it than just having everybody not in the know speculating. I think I had asked once before long ago before the wounds had healed and noone would say a word on it lol. Its kind of funny tho how there is this group of people who've been banned from here but end up in all other places cm ever gets mentioned to put in a bad word lol

The one mission per spotter change was pretty huge, I felt a little bad about it sometimes 'cause it was a little sily but I couldn't help myself from just calling everything at the same time from the same guy in the best spot. But it seemed obvious that in real life the single 3 man team would not be able to spot for all 6+ of those firing all over the place at the same time. I've barely played any CMRT h2h so far havent been playing much at all but I bet the whole h2h community artillery metagame got more realistic with the new feature.