Zwollo2003

I would strongly disagree. The awareness that placing a movement order on an invisible boundary between action spots might cause soldiers to behave strangely and be killed for no other reason kills immersion pretty much stone cold dead. Much more so than showing the grid to the players so that they can take it into account when plotting moves (in fact, some positively want to see gridded terrain and use mods to that effect). I agree that movement snapping to grid is a bad idea, not due to immersion issues but because it restricts gameplay options far too much. However, if the only thing which will reliably kill the pathing bugs related to plotting moves on action spots' grid is showing that grid to players, I am all for it. Zwolo

I think this is actually a separate problem. The troops stick too much to area fire orders- they continue to area fire even if they spot the enemy up close who then proceeds to shoot them to pieces with impunity. In CM1 the balance between sticking to area fire and switching over to identified targets was much better. In CMSF it should be tweaked towards the area fire being less "sticky". Zwolo

That is going to change the way MOUT is played in the game a lot. With stats like 0% chance of penetration in the 0-100m range, tactics like staying in one building shooting at people in the other will not work anymore. You will either have to gain entry or throw grenades through windows. I wonder how well this is simulated in the game, currently there is limited opportunity/incentive to test it, as everybody inside is usually dead before the attacker closes to grenade range. Additionally, the Syrians might gain an important advantage through the use of RPG. If small arms become ineffective, the only useful squad weapon is going to be the HEAT/HE - firing weapon, and the US ones are noticeably weaker (some said weaker than IRL). Which all of course means the balance in the current scenarios might be profoundly affected. Big job ahead for the betatest team! Zwolo PS. One caveat - I assume that the current (high) level of small arms lethality vs defenders in buildings comes from the ability to penetrate walls, rather than shooting through windows/doors. If most of casualties are caused by bullets entering through windows the effects of reduced penetration are not going to be that big. BTW - is the possibility of a bullet entering through an empty window but then ricocheting inside and hitting someone taken into account at all?

I don't think this is the case, though. The leader does not have to be assumed to be in a spot, he can be traced exactly as he is one of identifiable soldiers in a squad. However, the targetting line seems to come out from wherever the blue/red floating icon is located rather than the leader's location. Actually, if the rule was "targeting line starts from the leader's location" in great many cases it would have the same effect as the rule I was advocating in the other post - "targetting line starts from the location of the foremost soldier" - as the leader is very often the first soldier to move. Zwolo

OK, but when I want to give a targeting command, there is only one targeting line and it extends from one Action Spot, right? Regardless of how many Action Spots the unit occupies. And, unless I am much mistaken about the way the targetting works in CMSF (and I don't think I am, as all my observations support this ) the targetting line extends from Action Spot which the game considers the center of the unit. And it is the LOS/LOF traced from that place, which decides whether I am allowed to give the targetting order at all or whether I receive the "out of LOS" or "reverse slope" message. So even if my soldiers placed in Action Spot X theoretically could see the target and fire at it, I can't order them to because my targetting line extends from Action Spot Y which does not have the LOS/LOF/whatever to the target. This is less of a problem if the soldiers in Action Spot X have spotted the target already as they can engage it on their own, but it is a problem if I want to Area Fire (which, given the spotting works in CMSF, has to be used a lot). The "spread bug" makes that particular problem much worse (obviously, if a squad is spread over half a map its "center mass" is going to be in a completely random place) but even if the bug is eliminated, the problem does not go away and comes up each time when some of the soldiers in a squad have LOS/LOF, while the "center mass" does not. Solution? I don't know if there is one, but I think it would be much better if the targetting line was drawn not from the center of the unit, but from the foremost soldiers (farthest advanced in the direction of movement/facing). Most of the time this is the place closest to the enemy and closest to the point that the player wants the unit to be, and to fire from. Zwolo

David, I have downloaded them as soon as they went up on CMMODS and they are great mods, but this time I was looking for something like the bicolor PZ IV (late Italy) you posted a while ago. Zwolo

***Cough***... Panthers... ***cough***

It is up now. Zwollo

What uniform mod are you using for the crews? Zwolo

Works fine now. Zwolo

David, Oh yes, those are very good. But they don't include all the Panther types available in game(IIRC Gurra did three models while there are five or six in all). Zwolo

Have you considered doing Panthers at all? With Shermans, PzIII and PzIV extensively (and beautifully) modded I think Panthers are now below par. Which is odd enough, because the original BFC models of Panthers were rather good. In fact, this may be the very reason because they did not get the same attention from modders as the worse looking models did, and they are now surpassed by the more advanced mods. Cheers, Zwolo

I for one would be interested to see the pictures and details, so please go ahead and post them if you can. I cannot help you with posting, though, as I never tried it myself. Zwolo

Not there yet, I presume? Zwolo

Vossie, please do continue. I for one find your mod a big improvement and would greatly appreciate fall and winter versions. Zwolo

Could someone tell me whether the camo uniform mod has been released, or is it still in the works? Zwolo

Andrew, Will your mod show a four-pocket camouflage uniform only, or will it include a splinter camo smock option as well? Zwolo

John_d, yes, the Polish word for a field or area is "pole." The Polish word for the Polish people is "Polacy". There might be a historical connection between the two, as the current words for Poland and Poles in the Polish language are derived from the historic name of the dominant Slavic tribe which settled in the area ("Polanie"). I guess it originally might have meant "field dwellers" (as opposed to "wood dwellers" or "river dwellers", or something). Zwolo

Philippe, you got it exactly right. "Pole minowe" is "minefield" or "mined field", whereas "Miny" means "Mines". You might want to add an exclamation mark to the "Miny" mark, it was often written that way. "Danger!Mines!" should be translated as "Uwaga miny!" Zwolo

I am not saying that JasonC placed the HMG facing wrong way, or that TacAI did that, or that the HMG turned itself because of some problem with alignment of the friendly map edge - I don't know and it does not matter anyway. Having said that, please read SteveP's posts carefully (esp. the one about the HMG firing on the Russians from the set-up onwards). From that I understand that the HMG was facing the wrong way already on turn 1, as opposed to TacAI realigning it by turn 3 or 4. Zwolo

The Panther after renumbering seems all right and the skins wrap around fine. I think the different cupola vision blocks (narrow slits in D early, wide in D late) are just a feature of the skins, not the model, so if you load a mod with narrow slits instead of wide slits, the tank will look perfectly OK, just with the narrow vision slits. The other difference I spotted is the communication hatch on the left hand side of turret - present in D early, but not in D late. That's also a feature of the skins, not the 3D model and the Panther will look all right. Summing up, you should not have a problem with weird looking tanks, but possibly with some anachronic details (and I am not even sure whether they are ahistorical- my knowledge of the Panther is not sufficient to confirm whether there is a clear-cut division and all early-production tanks really had narrow vision slits and communication hatch, whereas all D models produced later had wide slits and no hatch). Zwolo

Steve, no, you are not the only one. My experiences with scen.110 support your conclusion. I noticed that if I wanted to advance from behind houses & the open field to the flag (as JasonC described) the success depended on whether I started to "area fire" into the trench before shot at by the defenders or not. If I shot first, I won - the HMG would panic from my area fire without firing back, and I could advance. If the HMG fired first, it won - I could neither outshoot it (each turn I would have a squad panicked or sent sneaking sideways, anyway not firing, and I would be loosing shooters quicker than recovering suppression or supressing the defenders) nor advance into cover and take up the fight from there. This fits well with the wrong facing theory - I think the HMG ought to fire before I closed to 200m unless it was looking the other way. I also think it should not be panicked by a couple of squads' area firing into the trench, unless it was shot in the back. And I am inclined to think it distorts the picture somewhat. You do learn very valuable lessons by playing the scenario about spacing, coordination, proper use of commands, etc. However, I am afraid it suggests the wrong solution (rifle squads' area fire onto the trench) and paints an overly optimistic picture about the chances of infantry platoon advancing over open ground to take an enemy held trench. JasonC said it was a routine task in real life - and I agree, it probably was. But I don't think you can do it in CMBB as a routine and easy task, not in this kind of cover. I suspect the reason is TacAI's abject fear of being shot at in open ground and desire to seek any cover, at the expense of shooting back. Also, I don't think that in more usual circumstances, with the entrenched defenders facing the right way, you will gain much through having your squads area fire onto the trench. Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound overly critical - the idea is great, I love the scenarios and I am learning invaluable lessons from them. Just that because of this facing issue I suspect not all lessons learned in 110 may be applicable to the more usual situations in the game. Zwolo

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Exactly like this. Brilliant mod, it's goining to be a classic. Many thanks indeed. Zwolo

I would prefer a splinter camo tunic to a 4 pocket uniform, actually. While splinter tunics were rare, they still were an issue item whereas 4 pocket jackets and trousers were field expedient modifications. Having all soldiers outfitted that way feels slightly too ahistorical for my taste. Having said that, a 4 pocket splinter camo would make a great officer or NCO mod, representing a privately bought uniform tailored from a scrounged Zeltbahn or something. Sweet! Zwolo

Yes, it does. Thanks a lot, I will try renumbering then and see whether that works. Cheers, Zwolo