37mm

I'd imagine you'd want "White White phosphorous" for snowy CMFB battles but, overall, I suspect most WW2 players will be pretty safe playing with the darker & smokier options.

Funnily enough, I found out about night tags only a few hours before you posted this. I'll do some tests but I think we can fairly safely assume that the final version of the mix will not have this "two z's" thing.

Yeah all CM games share the effects files... it'll even work in version 3 games or below (there just won't be as much variety in terms of tracers/muzzle flashes etc).

My Special Effects compilation is now ready for beta testing. Download link is here... https://www.dropbox.com/s/0k0l1qdhqlcle7f/ME Experience.7z?dl=0 This Special Effects package is based, almost entirely, off of previous work from Vein, Herrtom, Barbarico, Drakenlorde, Aris, Scipio, "Pro-effects"(?) & Battlefront. I have, for the most part, just reordered, renumbered, resized, renamed & rethought the work of those fellas. The special effects modding options for Combat Mission are rather limited. We can change the textures but not the animation sequences or timing. Nor can we create alternate sets of effects for different events (say a fiery explosion when a Tank explodes or a smokey explosion when a grenade goes off). I do suspect BFC plan to move in this direction (why else would they name their current explosion set "explosion a"). Either way, for now, I don't think there is a 'one size fits all' solution to improving the SFX in CM... although Veins effects come pretty close. Therefore, I created these optional 'effects sets' which players can choose from based upon the CM game they are playing, the time of day, the environment, type of scenario, equipment present & personal taste etc. TIME OF DAY SETS (place two zz's before either DAY or NIGHT) DAY effects, these are the standard effects I've chosen. Drakenlordes flames are, in my opinion, the best looking flames available. Improved Muzzle blast, I had hoped to create a blisteringly fast muzzle blast however that doesn't seem possible because of how the animation is actually sequenced. Still this should look a little quicker. Realistic muzzle flash, When combined with Barbarico's gray smoke these look far more realistic & subdued compared with stock or all other effects packages. Smoke, after Barbaricos gray smoke, I've chosen Veins black smoke. Vein style tracers, I've created colour coded versions to match the stock effects colours introduced in engine 4. These are smaller & less 'lazer beam-ish' than stock effects however I wanted to keep (indeed expand) the visibility of ricochets as otherwise firefights can look very stale. NIGHT effects I had hoped to create a much larger range of night effects but may pick that up in future. Either way, I did create a few night effects & these will mostly just make muzzle flashes & the initial flash of your explosions brighter & 'sparklier'. EXPLOSION SETS (place one z before either of the four options) Herrtoms smokey explosions... based on his earlier works, I find these work great for smaller explosions. Probably would be fine for most WW2 action. Veins subdued explosions.... quick & effective, these work for nearly every situation. Although they're perhaps too quick for breaching charges. Scipio's subdued explosions... small & firey, these too work for nearly every situation. Veins explosions... perfect for when that Abrams platoon meets a T-62 Company. VEHICLE DUST (place one z before either NEEDED or NOT NEEDED) The 'smoke dust' effect is used both during combat & for vehicle travel in dry & very dry conditions. Obviously this is important for CMSF2 but, if there are no vehicles or conditions allow it, you may prefer a darker dust effect more appropriate for most combat actions. Although I've absolutely loved using them, one of the side effects of using Veins (or Aris's) smoke is a faint, but annoying, 'ghost square' halo around battlefield smoke (presumably because they've used the whole of the bitmap with no transparency). So I created new smoke bitmaps myself using some free images off the internet merged with the old, but reliable, "pro-effects" smoke... this seems to have eliminated the 'ghost square' issue. WHITE PHOSPHOROUS SETS (place one z before either WHITE, BALANCED or DARK) Initially I assumed that the white smoke effects were only used for smoke screens & such like. They are not. Indeed there is an argument to be made that they are the most common CM smoke effects of all & appear to be used for all manner of explosions, building & vehicles impacts. This being so, I've created a selection of 'white smoke' effects... "White White smoke" is great for representing WP smoke screens. "Balanced White smoke" is noticeably darker yet can somewhat represent both WP smoke screens & combat smoke. "Dark White smoke" is much darker still & excellent for smokey combat scenes... but very poorly represents WP smoke screens. As per usual download the mod & place in your mod/z folder. Play around with the different options to your hearts content & give us some feedback.

I can see how creating a dynamic lighting model just for night-time flares could be a time sink however perhaps BFC could figure out some kind of "fudge" using the already present UAV mechanics? The only things flares would really help you see at night is vehicles & moving infantry so using some simple rules like that would bypass the need for dynamic, light-based spotting*. Personally, I think the easiest thing that BFC could do to improve the game is to start moving their special effects into a more realistic direction. The engine four update added all manner of new tracers & I'm not the only one suspicious that they call their explosion "explosion a"... so presumably BFC are planning to move in this direction at some point. *The actual glow of the "flare" would just be a visual effect.

You obviously never played any Harpoon back in the day (or that modern update, CMANO), read Red Storm Rising or heard of the brutal Cod Wars? The GIUK gap & Iceland were, in some ways, more strategically important than the Fulda gap during the Cold War.

The only thing I've noticed (other than the terrain compromises the old scenario makers had to make*) was the ditches converted to fences thing... and, as soon as I mentioned it, it got patched straight away. It's been a few months now & nobodies reported anything serious... with either the old CMSF1 stuff or the newer stuff. There's the usual fiddly pathfinding, QB purchase & TOE complaints... but that's it. Certainly nothing game or campaign breaking. *Asmar Crossing, for example, used a closed off highway to represent a wide river.

Now that is good news. I commend you on your foresight, tenacity, dedication & decisiveness in comprehensively archiving the repository.

You can only do what you can do (which is a great deal). However, BFC are the only ones who have the entire old repository collection & I'm not the only who has asked about them.

That some of the mods (from a tiny list off the "top of my head") will eventually be transferred is good news... but also not really the issue.

I understand the need for SS/AA... we'll get to that eventually. At the moment I'm mostly concerned about your fps, let's get that up first. Have you set your 3d Model Quality to balanced & Vsync on FAST (or even off) as per DeutschRitters advice? How is the ingame fps? Likewise, how is your FPS with ALL AA turn off? I reiterate that I had similiar FPS (worse even) issues to yourself just four months ago, yet this was me last night on a system much, much worse than your own...

You have twice the CPU power I have & when I first started with CMSF2 I was running at ~10-15fps. I now regularly play at 40-60 fps on the type of maps you describe (and that's very often at an 1800p resolution) so almost certainly, with a bit of work, we can get your fps up & improve your playing experience. First things first... have you read & tried out DeutschRitters excellent advice? Secondly, have you tried turning off ALL AA (turning off Vsync also seems to help)... both on your graphics cards settings & ingame options?

Nothing in particular.. but, with regards to CMSF, I know for a fact there were mods, scenarios & campaigns that were on the repository & hadn't been transferred to CMMODS (just off the top of my head Scipios explosions, Pro-effects smoke, Bodkins red tracers, Hardebergers improved trees, the Syrian Special forces in Urban blue camo, the OFW scenarios) which wasn't an issue... until the repository was finally closed recently. I'll probably be buying a WW2 big bundle at some point this year & it strikes me that if so much of the CMSF stuff wasn't transferred then the same might be true for that stuff too. Besides you never know when older mods/scenarios/maps/campaigns can be re-used or re-imagined (as has been recently seen with the Euroscape mods... also not on CMMODS). Heck, somebody was recently talking about re-using an old CMAK Spanish voice mod for Cpt Millers SLA mod. As I said, I assumed there was an ongoing (if delayed) transfer process but it seems that if you're having to rely on hard drives being delivered to you then that's not the case.

I just tested this out on CMA & you are indeed correct. I have no idea if the feature was put back in at some point or has always been present (here are players complaining about its absence in 2011, for instance) but it's good to know, thank you. However my overall point (which is a tactical one) remains... "hunt" is a poor command choice for close quarters urban combat. Have your men maximize their stealth (by crawling, with a target arc) or their speed (use quick, again with a target arc)... having them slowly walk around urban death traps is just asking for trouble. Don't believe me, believe the US Army...

The manual used to be right for the original CMSF as well as CMA... but seems to have changed with one of the engine updates.

You are confusing 'hunt' with the (in my opinion) superior "move to contact" order of CMx1. The Dev's advice was misguided. For most house clearing situations, "quick" is recommended by veteran players (there was a recent thread about this in the CMSF2 forums). I agree the 'hunt' command is dodgy in CQB situations & perhaps the Devs did not originally intend it to be such (in which case we can agree the behaviour is "bugged"). However it's also been like this for a long time... hence why I only use it when I'm expecting distant small arms fire (so, for me, it's a "move to contact" order NOT a "move to grenade range" order). PS Interestingly, I think the old "move to contact" order from CMx1 should more properly have been called a "Hunt" order & the newer CMx2 "Hunt" command renamed "move to contact".

I suspect Ripper has it right... I've always found the "Hunt" command to be a bit of a risk in a potential CQB situation. Try the experiment again with a short quick dash (or a crawl). Also run the experiment at night/thick fog (so that the subjects cannot spot anything & cancel the Hunt/facing commands). I reckon you'll see much improved behaviour but it'd be interesting to know.

Any update on this Steve? Shirley CMMODs should have some way to access the old files?

At least as much as your good self.

So what's happened to the actual repository files? My vague understanding was that nothing had been deleted & that there was an ongoing (although clearly delayed) process of transferral to CMMODS.

I know right! Could you imagine the pain & horror of playing the Marines campaign with a burning Zu-23 technical haphazardly left on a map somewhere? War IS hell... but simulating war shouldn't be.

I've been watching videos of Abram tanks firing so there's that to do. Not all the tracers are done (though red & green for CMSF2 are), I'm still not happy with the explosions (I can see HerrToms problems with them). I imagine i'll want to wash my hands of the project within a week or so.

Yes, they will function okay.

Erwin would like to know how you handled the game while you slept. I have to admit I'm vaguely curious myself.

Yeah this got me a few days ago... apparently it's a known & reported bug. You have to click on the "quick waypoint" & convert it back to a "blast waypoint". That fix worked for me.