GSX
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Posts posted by GSX
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The problem is that the AT team isnt visible but the building I know they are in. Your solution has merit though, but if I play it in RT I can kill the building every time.
It would be good to be able to pre-plot the target so that the minute the Tank views the building it fired.
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Small but significant problem in WEGO here.
I have some infantry on the crest of a hill and they can see a Syrian AT force in a building about 50 yards to their front.
Behind the infantry is a Tank and all he need to do is drive up the hill and blast the building in one go.
The problem is that in WEGO the tank drives up to the crest and sits there 10 yards behind the infantry until the Syrian At team kills it.
It only takes 10-12 secs for the Tank to get into position but it just sits there for another 30 until it dies.
What would be a good solution is to be able to give firing orders to the tank before it starts its move. Hunt to hill crest then fire on building. Any chance this can be included in a further patch as it makes PBEM much more tricky than RT right now.
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Surely by not buying from BF you still contribute to BF, afer all they didnt just give the game away did they? I would say, buy it cheap wherever you can then buy the Marines Module from BF if you like it. That way BF still gets its money and you get a good deal on a decent game.
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I haven't read this whole thread so sorry if this was mentioned before, but CMSF has actually been used in classroom exercises and training seminars already. I recall at least two classroom licenses that were purchased by various Army institutions, and there have been several instances of small unit commanders picking up several copies for their own training as well.
So what do they actually use it for? The basics or the whole combined Arms war fighting thing. The first it is eminently suitable for, the second, in my opinion, it isnt for a variety of reasons.
That however does not make it a bad game, on the contrary with V1.11 it is unique in the wargame genre and is fun to play, its just not a simulation of combat, approximation is much more apt.
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Is 1.11 worth getting, certainly is. Is it perfect, nope, but show me a game that is. Do a lot of you guys get over exited about perceived criticism - you certainly do.
Mickey D says it best (part from his weird reference to guys trying to ruin BF financially), its a flaming game. If you dont like it, then dont play it. However if you have a valid observation, then you shuold be able to state this too.
I would say as a single player game it quite playable but MP is still not a good experience, especially as a Syrian and so to balance things out you have to mirror the game, which spoils any surprises.
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Just curious, have you ever done this military thing for real?
Yes mate and still do.
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We have no aspirations, you have no imagination... I think that makes us even
Cheers for the little insult there. I have plenty of imagination thank you. What you seem to lack is direction. Do you want a wagame or a military simulation?
The chances of soldiers in today's military going up against Russia or China are thankfully nil. One should train against a range of possible opponents, true enough, but the emphasis should be on the most likely scenario and not the least.This is so wrong. You should not train for the last war or train to fight the B team, you train to fight the best team available so that you become better than them. However, if your going to deploy to an Op, then your pre-deployment training gets tailored to that specific Op.
OK, so Im a platoon commander and to try out my super powers of commanding a platoon I fire up CMSF as it is right now. My first instinct is to have a combined arms attack on the best forces using Russian equipment right now, which would be the Russians. I figure fighting them would be a challenge.
Nope, Im not geting this, I have to fight against the Syrians. Fine so I set up my little game, US Army Platoon attacks a Syrian dug in force in Trenches and buildings.
So what does CMSF teach me as I go through my scenario? It teaches me fire and movement. Not too bad at that. It teaches me not to expose any part of my armour until some infantry have spotted the enemy, pretty realistic there. It teaches me that the Syrians are total crap even when dug in, another decent representation.
In a nutshell, if you want to use CMSF to teach you about the real battlefield it really cant other than the basics above.
As a basic tool to give to squaddies to take home and have some basic classroom elements I already said it would do fine. As a more complicated tool that has all the bells and whistles dialled in its not going to work right now.
You dont even get basic infantry formations in CMSF right now, where the arrowhead, extended line or column etc. Infantry still use these you know, CMSF represents infantry movement very crudely (almost abstractly). 1-1 representation means that you should have some kind of formation choice.
CMSF does teach a basic rule though - plaster everything with HE and air and you will win the day.
Thats not to say I dont like it as a wargame - I do. But as a simulation its got a way to go yet.
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1. Live combined arms exercises are uncommon and expensive. Therefore, there isn't much opportunity to get in field time before being deployed.
True, but what would CM bring to this equation. One could argue that it would be OK for a tank to run straight through an infantry platoon from playing SF.
3. Range of traditional training options are limited and highly scripted. Want to see what it's like to fight in thick fog and pouring rain in a thick forest with a mechanized force? Well, if the day for an exercise arrives and it's bright and sunny, with the fall foliage already dropped on the ground, then guess what the experience is? What about a situation where the Commander is tasked with taking an objective short staffed due to a last minute change of the Order of Battle? Or how about defending an objective with depleted and tired forces against a huge mechanized enemy force? So on and so forth.Very true, but on the day a commander has to do it for real will CM have taught him how to fight the Chinese? SF is all about Syrians after all. Also what will SF tell him about defending or attacking, the buildings in SF are not representative of real life, there are no civilians to worry about etc etc etc.
4. Virtual training is CHEAP. End of story on that one
Very true, but why would you spend all day in a classroom with SF when you can be out on the ground with your platoon, doing the moves in Real Terrain. If your not firing your weapons then actual training is cheaper than virtual for small infantry units. After all your still paying and feeding the men.
6. Working together is always a good thing to keep fresh. By having CoPlay a Company Commander and his Platoon Commanders can keep plugging away until working together to solve tactical problems is second nature to them. Playing against the senior NCOs would probably be a good idea. And the virtual aspect would allow something like a Rifle Company in one part of the country to play against their brothers in arms in a Rifle Company half way around the world.Ideal world here, SF has no method of play like this. So SF could not be used to train like this now. Its the now were talking about and not then.
Very true, but wouldnt it be better to fight against the A team? Syria is not Russia or China.7. Playing as the OPFOR helps understand where the strengths and weaknesses of both sides may lie. How many junior officers get to command "real" T-90s and employ AT-14s in mock combat in the field? It's the sort of thing all commanders should experience, don't you think?I think SF has a long long way to go before it becomes mature enough to be a realistic training tool. It doesnt have so far to go to be a good wargame as its there already.
Its nice to have aspirations but from a real world military point of view I cant see us using something like CM for anything other than very very elementary stuff.
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The trouble is that CMSF doesnt or wouldnt really add anything to infantry training.
Who would it be aimed at? Certainly not a Company Commander, that leaves Platoon and Squad leaders (members?). What can SF teach a Platoon leader thats better than actually running around on the ground with his men?
I suppose it could be used as a very basic tool for practising assault techniques etc, laying down a gun group and suppressing for an assault team. But even there it fails becuase of some aspects. One being that you cannot assault a building except by a door. CM-1 actually represented building fights better where you could just assume that your men went through windows etc.
I honestly cant see what real benefit SF would bring to the US or UK military untis that would carry out the actions as depicted in SF unless it was turned into a super simulator. Then unfortunately it would probably cease to be a game for everyone else.
Just my humble opinion though.
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And that's why the ingame statistic screens should come back!!!!
Agree again. The stats screen was an excellent addition, I still remember a Hero Pak who took out 15 Soviet tanks, made the scenario that much more exciting and fun even though I lost. Its little things like this that make games truly great and immersive.
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Combat Mission simulates wargaming, not war.
Couldnt agree more. Wargaming is an art of itself.
CM in all its formats is a damned good game, its not war, wont teach you about war and wont help you fight a war.
Its about mostly grown men playing with pixel kit against each other to have fun and it will be a very long time before it gets anything more. And personally if it did it would be far less enjoyable.
Just take CMSF for example. Although a good game its not a simulation of reality by any means.
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Totally agree, thats why I made the distinction between a wargame and real life.Not that my experience on the two-way range is all that extensive, but I'm pretty sure company and battalion commanders don't get a unlimited one minute review of their battles. It'd be realistic to have nothing shown that the commander didn't see for himself, with a radio log off to the side of significant events.No wargame is ever going to be real life. And RT is great for small platoon sized battles with a few vehicles. In fact for that scale it works great.
It fails miserably for larger battles where there is a lot going on as what you end up doing is either 1 of 2 things.
1. Micro manage to the hilt by hitting the Esc Key every 30 seconds and roaming over the map.
2. Letting the AI do things for you at one point when your doing something else at another. The AI isnt good enough to be left in control for any length of time in SF. This method usually leads to success at the point of control and very mixed results elsewhere.
In Real Life a commander can rely on the platoon leaders etc to deal with a situation in hand. This is where CM differs from RL, real life 'I' is far better than game 'AI'.
This is where from a pure wargaming point of view WEGO will almost always be a better option for the serious wargamer.
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Honestly, I'm still stuck on someone using "more realistic" to support an argument for WeGo. Seriously?
From a pure wargaming point of view (and by that I mean controlling every man on the field) then of course WEGO is going to be better for multi player. If your into single player games then RT will more than likely be the way to go for smaller games, but for a large game then it will still have to be WEGO.
The ability to review your last minute for as long as you like will make a more realistic wargame in my opinion. Now a realistic wargame may not be a simulation of a real life event, Im not even attempting to say WEGO is more real. But it is more wargamey....
I suppose some guys may just not get it!
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One last bone before v1.11 is uploaded for you guys... v1.11 brings back the much "discussed" Blue Bar for WeGo players. Yes folks, you read that correctly
Since this is no doubt a big (and good) shock to you all, I think it's a good idea to let you all know how it came to be. Years of doing this with you guys has proven to be beneficial to both customers and to us. The more you understand how it is CM is made the better quality of the discussion here. Well, excepting the crazies that invent their own story and then keep confusing it with the truth year after year. For example, some 13 years later I still occasionally see a known nutter insist that CMBO was originally based on ASL/SL (it never was). Well, mental defects are a life-long problem, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised that education doesn't help
OK, so here's the scoop...
As some of you might be aware of, soon after v1.10 was released a handful of people began to report massive performance drops when playing large battles. This issue was quickly confirmed to be real, not driver related, and not within the player's ability to influence. It was dubbed the Slideshow Problem because when triggered the FPS went down to literally a fraction of a frame per second. Definitely not a reasonable framerate hit!! Thanks to the help of some internal testers and external guys having the problem, Charles found the causes.
Without going into low level detail, the root cause of the problem was a combo of things... medium to low end systems combined with large scenarios and WeGo play. When playing under these circumstances a time came when a lot of units from both sides were in combat and maneuvering for advantage. The normal WeGoer reaction to this is to issue/reissue lots of Target and Movement commands to optimize the situation for the best results in the next 60 seconds. The problem CM experienced was that in the first mili-second of the following turn it was being asked to do a ton of work simultaneously. People with higher end computers may have noticed a slowdown here or there, but not a complete overwhelming crush of number crunching. RealTime players, on the other hand, tend to micromanage units less and to give instructions over a longer period of time. Hence, demands on the computer aren't as concentrated nor as heavy. They probably never saw this sort of problem, ever.
Looking at it now we think the Slideshow Problem came about mostly because of improvements in v1.10's basic functions. Marginal systems using earlier versions of CM:SF went from milder symptoms (i.e. poor framerates, "scarecrows", etc.) to problems which made the game completely unplayable. As unintentional as this was, there was no rolling back the improvements that v1.10 brought to the table. Therefore, we faced a choice... raise the minimum specs for future customers and tell current ones that they can't play big scenarios OR find a way to relieve the bottleneck for systems that can't handle CM as it is now. It wasn't much of a choice in our minds!
The best fix was to recode WeGo so that it pre-computes all the action before showing it, just like CMx1 did. I say "best" for three reasons:
1. A significant number of customers have asked for this feature, primarily so they can skip ahead during turns where there isn't much action going on.
2. Recoding the routines that were choking up computing resources would take a LOT longer and might not make a dent in the problem. And worse, what would happen when we put in more improvements down the road? Get us right back to the Slideshow Problem, most likely.
3. The return of the Blue Bar wouldn't negatively affect any existing or future customer in any significant way.
So the choice of reintroducing the Blue Bar was a win-win for everybody. So why didn't we do it earlier, if it is such a great thing? Simple answer is... we didn't think it was necessary or, for a while at least, possible. A card carrying member of the Blue Bar Brigade might question our definition of "necessary"
, but that's the difference between customers and developers... developers have to be pragmatic.As some might remember, and a search of this Forum will reveal (I know because I double checked before writing this
), I argued against many of the reasons why people thought the Blue Bar was "necessary". Too many people let emotion cloud their arguments and initially we got a lot of abuse and too little rational dsicussion. Many of the arguments blamed perceived, and real, shortcomings of various features on the lack of the Blue Bar. The arguments, therefore, were that the Blue Bar would magically fix various things listed. Even further, some felt that the ONLY way this or that issue would be fixed was to have a Blue Bar. Since many of the assertions were nonsense, and proven so since, we feel quite strongly that not reintroducing the Blue Bar back then was the right thing to do.Having said that, there was one consistent point made about the Blue Bar that I agreed with. Although I personally didn't think it was a big deal, I did see the desirability of skipping through a "boring" 60 second replay. But there were a couple hundred other rational and desirable suggestions that we felt were more important, so we focused on those first.
On top of comparative prioritization of customer requests, there were a ton of things that needed to be tweaked/fixed before precomputing turns would have been technically viable as a stable feature. The irony is that if we had tried to implement the Blue Bar a year or so ago it would likely have caused more problems than it solved. Now it was implemented without too much difficulty, therefore it didn't have a significant negative impact on the development schedule.
In fact, because of the maturity and stability of the code in general terms, Charles found that he could de-couple the display of the graphics with the math behind them without too many technical problems cropping up. What this means is that turn computation can go faster than realtime on systems that can handle the load being asked of it. In practical terms this means that most people, most of the time, in most scenarios can generally have a turn's resolution crunch in less than 60 seconds. Therefore, if a turn's replay is skipped completely the player may spend significantly less than 60 seconds to get to the next turn. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true... when a turn's replay is not skipped the player will spend more than 60 seconds (max is 120 seconds) before getting to the next turn. In v1.10 and earlier the time was always 60 seconds no matter what. The good news is that if the testers' experiences are representational of the average customers', things should even out so that a WeGo game in v1.11 takes about the same time to play as v1.11 BUT with the advantage of being able to skip through "boring" replays. If true, it's probable that a game won't take any less time to play than before, though it might feel like it because of skipping over "boring" parts of the battle.
In the end this is a win-win for everybody. The Slideshow Problem is gone, middle to lower end players have a better game experience (even in RealTime to a lesser extent), WeGoers have the ability to skip "boring" replays, total gametime is probably about the same, and we've got one less concern as we move along with Normandy development. All good
Steve
Wow!
More than 18 months later, we get CM again. Well done, what took you so long to realise that the customer is right and RT aint for serious wargaming!
By the time Normandy comes along we should have CM back on track then to what it should have been all along. A step forward from CM-1 but with all the improvements a new engine would bring together with the tried and tested things that made CM-1 so good.
This is excellent news, well done for doing what other companies often dont do - listening.
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Its a return to CM I tells ya. The return of the Blue Bar is the most significant feature of listening to your customers BF, hats off to you there.
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Holy Guano Batman - I just saw the biggest turnaround in BF history, the return of the never to be returned BLUE BAR for WEGO.
Does this mean the certain demise of SF as an RT wannabe and a return to the traditional WEGO tactical wargaming. You know it made sense all along then!
Seriously though, I do like the RT for smaller games in single player mode but the Blue Bar for WEGO is the only way to play. Well done for returning to a tried and tested formula.
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Cheers mate, looks like some good stuff there, and the obvious question is - the Marine Campaign is fixed?
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In the game of <company of hero>,all soldier have a strong body.So ugly and unreal.
soldier's 3d model should be like <tow>,
Actually if TOW has something going for it (and it generally does not) it the models, the Armour Models are excellent and CMWW2 would do well to have their ww2 armour looking as decent as TOW does.
http://www.battlefront.com/products/tow/screenshots/index.html
Actually there is something else, the buttons that change Tank platoon formations would be good too, clicking on the leader and then clicking line abreast, wedge etc would be a fine addition.
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I don't get mission 4. The briefing said I can choose an entry point and blast it, but none of my guys are carrying C4. And I don't think the SWAW can blow walls...
SMAW Rockets can blow walls, also Infantry can also blow walls if you target them. 13 men throwing grenades blow walls in SF. Not really real life but hey, it works in the game....
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Just played through the whole thing tonite.
Very refreshing to play with one unit for 5 missions and have to think about keeping the boys all alive for the next one.
No air/arty/armour is great and I managed to play straight through. Got a minor defeat on the last mission but I was in the zone so won the campaign. I can honestly say I havent smoked so much since I gave up 10 years ago!
One thing I will say, dont lose the SMAW team, I dont think I could have done it without them, especially on the bridge mission, they were essential to getting across the bridge and up to the exit zone.
A really enjoyable infantry OP, thanks very much for doing it and I will look out for more of your work later. The maps were good too, especially the one where I had to kill the Insurgent Boss, this took a bit of thought as to whether to press on or hit CF, I pressed on. Left me a wee bit short of men for the next one and thats probably why I failed.
Good stuff though.
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"Well guys, it's tricky but we've decided to put feature X in."
10 "Yay! Great idea BFC."
20 "What are you freeking kidding me? That sucks!"
30 "What are you freeking kidding me? That's awesome!"
40 "I thought you said we'd never get X! Are you just yanking us around?"
50 "This shows how out of touch you are with your customer base."
60 "Well if you've got X you need to to have Y. Otherwise what's the point?"
70 GOTO 10 for 50 pages.
"Hey you know what guys - sorry, X didn't really work in the context of the game so we've yanked it."
80 "Yay! Great idea BFC."
90 "What are you freeking kidding me? That sucks!"
100 "What are you freeking kidding me? That's awesome!"
110 "I thought you said we were getting X! Are you just yanking us around?"
120 "This shows how out of touch you are with your customer base."
130 "Well if you haven't got X you need to to have Y. Otherwise what's the point?"
140 GOTO 80 for 5000 pages.
In essence then by not telling us whats in the patch all that happens is that the above gets delayed until the patch arrives. So whats the difference, now or later doesnt matter really.
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I wish there as a way to know what forces you need to be careful with as you'll need them later.
I find this the biggest drag to the Campaign games. You can sort of work out the forces that are central to the campaign by seeing what you get in the next scenario.
Its both tedious and pretty boring to have to play through the same scenario several times in order to get a result that enables you to fight the next battle.
Rarely do you lose a battle as US in SF but often do you have to tediously replay ones to try and work out which are needed for the next encounter.
If I could change something about the Campaign it would be this aspect. What would be better is to be presented with the mission screen and then go onto a purchase screen where you can choose your forces from a given list of whats available.
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Would you rather have it now or would you rather have it right?
Id like to start the Marines campaign again. Cant do that without 1.11. Id like to take on some new opponents in PBEM as well and I cant do that until 1.11, so yeso Id like it now please. Lets face it, its NEVER going to be right. And I dont mean that in a bad way, I mean it in a matter of fact PC gaming software way as there will always be something wrong with it.
Cheers
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In this scenario the TOW is the only anti armour you get. Tried it again last night with similar results so its got to be a bug.
The crews are all Vet but it seems the combination of being higher up and partially hull down means that the TOWs crash into the ground before they get to the target tank most of the time. Very frustrating.
Using SF as a training tool.
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
Recent discussions in the Blue bar thread got me thinking about what could be done to improve SF as a training tool for the military. I have already stated that it can be used as a very basic tool right now, fire and movement, fixing and flanking etc.
To make it a more effective tool however I suggest the following.
1. Improve the infantry movement orders.
a. Include squad formations such as extended line, column, arrowhead etc. Right now you get a loose gaggle or at best a couple of lines.
b. Represent Squad pairs fire and movement in assault. Not particularly essential, but representative. One guy fires the other moves and vice versa.
2. Improve infantry ability to fight in urban areas.
a. This would include building entry. As it stands right now infantry can only enter by a door, Id like to see them go in via a window as well. Perhaps even use a ladder to get to an upper floor and then fight top down.
b. SF infantry cant climb a 12 foot wall, in reality this is very possible. Let them bunt each other over that wall.
c. We have 1-1 representation but we could have 1-1 orders where you could detail a squad member or two to go back and get more ammo from that vehicle 20 yards to the rear rather than have the whole squad do it.
d. The ability for close quarters hand to hand fighting, I think its abstracted right now but with 1-1 it should be live action.
e. Vehicle exit could be tweaked to run or assault directly. Right now the guys exit, lie down for a few secs and then move off. The ability to run straight for a designated area would be a good addition.
f. Casualties. I like the way the medical aid works right now but it would be good to have the option of assigning 1 or 2 guys to take your casualties back a bit. This would show the dilemma between leaving casualties lying there and reducing your combat power or diminishing your squad temporarily to benefit your injured. The Infantry model is mostly keep going in real life and let the medic do the casualty. So a nice addition may be a medic or two. This is a minor one as I think its represented OK right now.
3. Tracked vehicles.
a. As it stands right now a Tank or APC cannot cross a 3 foot wall. This means that you unrealistically either have to blast the wall or get caught up in unrealistic choke points.
4. Air Support.
a. I like the Air support in the main, however the weapon moddeling doesnt reflect RL. For starters an aircraft will usually be carrying various air to ground weapons, LGB, Rockets, Brimstone, etc, etc. This should be reflected instead of Heavy, medium and light weapons. If an ac is carrying 2 LGB and the JTAC can see the target, then the LGB should not miss (a pilot shouldnt drop if there is target ambiguity) 95% of the time. A pilot should say something like 'I have 2 Paveway 3, a 20mm gun and can stay with you for 40 minutes'.
b. Air support can also be told that anything beyond point A is deemed hostile and be left to get on with it. JTAC to ac, 'we are south of the river, any enemy you see North attack'.
Just some thoughts on how to make SF a more effective training tool, and possibly a more realistic wargame.