Blackmuzzle

@Pandur: I want to see how you're driving when you've had friends blown to bits because some car up ahead made them stop right next to an IED...

What about incoming RPGs? A single lucky hit can ruin your day if all your flattops are still in the can. That's the lesson I learned in the first tutorial mission, where I dismounted too late and lost the Stryker and an entire squad.

You asked for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36cP0mxS7Fs (Yes I know that's not an ATGM, but still...)

Indeed, arty calls are so simple in this game, it's really the one part of the UI that stands out and shines. How can you complain about that? Do you have any idea of how complicated this is in RL, or even VBS1 with arty addon or Flashpoint with the artillery mod?

I'm glad a patch isn't too far off. And I'll definitely keep CMSF on my harddrive and play it occasionally until then. It definitely has it's golden moments. Speaking of CoH, that game (although visually gorgeous) has never really struck a chord with me. Killing a tank in CMSF is much, much more satisfying than in CoH. As for the team size, uh that's a dangerous argument. Do you know how many programmers they have on the SteelBeasts team?

Steve: What I suggest is the following: You start the mission with a Stryker and some guys loaded in it. I fully understand that always adding a Jav to a Squad is not practical (nor realistic), but let's assume that you do want a Jav in this particular mission. 1) Click on the Stryker (since that's the guy having the good stuff) 2) Click on the image of the javelin launcher. A dialog pops up, asking you to which mounted squad to transfer it to. I'm not talking about teleportation, obviously. Only squads sitting in the trunk are shown in this list. 3) Profit! Er... I mean, someone's holding a jav launcher. Note that even if there's only one squad in the trunk, you should still display the destination list to make it clear that the selected gear will be transfered to that particular unit Want to transfer 2000 rounds of 5.56? No problem! Make sure the guys are sitting comfortably in the vehicle, select the vehicle, click the ammo box, a dialog pops up that allows you how many rounds to select (see part of the selection offered in my screenshot), when you click that a second little dialog opens (kinda like the windows start menu) to allow you to select which squad to give this present to. Do you see what I'm getting at? To you, it's probably intuitive that you have to select the squad where you need the goods at. I think that's the opposite of how it should be: When I want to transfer something from one unit to another, the logical way of doing that is to select the unit that HAS the item, and then somehow choose which unit should receive it. To test my theory, I called my nephew and asked him how he thinks he could outfit a squad with a javelin. He tried the same thing I did: He selected the Stryker and then wondered why the javelin icon doesn't do anything. Of course not. I'm talking about getting rid of the AQUIRE button, and instead use something like shown on the screenshot to transfer gear from the vehicle to the mounted squad. Please disregard the "1st Squad" title of the currently selected unit... I did select the Stryker but it's probably not clear from the edited screenshot. [ August 01, 2007, 02:47 AM: Message edited by: Blackmuzzle ]

@Steve: When's the patch due? And I agree on SB. Steel Beasts sucks for infantry simulation (which is not it's focal point of attention of course) but it is THE tank simulation. Just look at this gorgeous vid, if that doesn't make you want it, nothing will

He's on to something. Youtube also has the explanation for any sluggish infantry movement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfS6BOIbmfM

Following your logic, we already have several threads about how great the game is, and adding yet another is not useful. ...unless, maybe, expressing our opinions is what it's about. But then again, that would mean that DzrtFox's opinion is just as valid to be heard.

You talking to me? If so, no, I mean in any phase of combat. Of course this should only work if the squad is sitting inside the vehicle. Basically the same restrictions as with the existing Aquire-functionality still apply.

And yet Aquire is there, and we need it. Which reminds me, how do you pull back and reload your infantry's ammo without some sort of mechanism like this? I see what you're afraid of, but what we have here is far away from uniform outlines with selectable pockets

Here's my suggestion for an UI improvement that should be very easy to implement: Clicking on the area showing the vehicle inventory could bring up a two-part dialog. In the first part you select which piece of equipment to transfer. In the second part you select where to transfer it to (in this case, one of the infantry squads since we have the vehicle selected) This could also work the other way, like allowing a squad to stuff an ATGM back into the trunk of the vehicle, or transfer it to another squad. Alternatively, it should be possible to actually care for WHERE the user clicks, i.e. if you click on the icon of the javelin missile, a dialog pops up asking you how many to transfer, and what unit to give it to. Clicking on the launcher could pop up just with the destination unit selection since it's a singular thing. See the attached (and crudely edited) screenshot of what I mean. There's a lot of information being displayed down there, it might be a good idea to use that area for user input as well. By making the icons look like clickable buttons you would essentially tell the user that this is something he can interact with.

You're right! Upgrading to the latest Forceware driver not only allows me to click on the blue icons and the unit itself, I can now also make any infantry unit enter any building at a specified level. The associated dialog now pops up 100% of the time! If you have a FAQ, this should definitely go in there. Great, that solved a LOT of problems for me. Thanks!

I just wanted to add that I have the same positive experience about the game's stability: Not a single crash. Also, kudos to your programmers for figuring out how to alt-tab without having to reload the entire map. A lot of other games do that and it annoys me immensely.

Rule 1 in UI design: Never surprise the user. Surprise is unexpected. Unexpected things are not intuitive. Rule 2: The first thing the user tries to do is always correct. Regardless of what you say about your product, when a user finds something not working as he expected, you are wrong. Rule 3: Never, ever, use blinking red. Except for absolutely important things like "Engine 2 Fire" So yes, if you have to look into the manual to find something like taking a Javelin from a vehicle, something's wrong. The Javelin is right there as an icon. The first thing I did was click on it. Then I tried dragging it onto a soldier. It took me quite long to finally find the little text on page 65 in the manual, which was not where I'd expect such an information. And pressing Aquire? Who would expect that to open up a dialog? Why can't that dialog open up when you click on the icons in the center-left of the status bar?

I'm sorry to open yet another thread (though it's my second...) ...but I have a very strange problem. I can not select individual units with a single left-click. What I can do is use Shift-click and draw a rectangle, or click on the little green triangles on the very top of the screen. I can't click on the blue unit icons (which would be awesome), I can't click on the actual unit, and I also cannot TARGET enemy units. Whenever I use the TARGET command, I can only click on the terrain (which causes the red line to end either left or right of the desired target. Is that something only I experience?

One thing I noticed is that when you have waypoints set close to each other, and the unit's movement is set to anything but slow, the unit's turn radius will be too wide for it to reach the waypoint, causing it to "overshoot", stop, then turn towards the waypoint. While I can compensate for that by using a slow advance, it would be far more intuitive for the unit to simply not drive too fast to finish the turn to hit the waypoint. Similarly, when driving straight a unit should not overshoot the waypoint and then back off. It should start braking early and then just stop on the right spot. A similar thing goes for the infantry. Clearing the order queue should NOT make them stand up and reverse a few meters. Especially when under fire, they should stay prone. Every single one of my soldiers who stood up without explicit orders, and subsequently got shot, deserved what he got.

They weren't. They published it as a review, which is ultimately the opinion of the reviewer. As such, they are as much entitled to their opinion as the users on this forum. On that note, kudos to Battlefront for allowing (constructive) criticism on their forum. I'm sure we all remember certain companies who simply lock threads with uncomfortable opinions - or just disable entire forums when public opinion turns sour on them.

Rats. So much for "cease fire everyone, except for the guy with the Javelin"

Indeed, I love the RT mode. And I share the sentiment that the UI is suboptimal. Take a look at SupremeCommander - not only can you stack any order you like (and have that displayed in an intuitive fashion), you can also see the ETA of a unit on a particular waypoint, allowing you to plan ahead and to make the movements of different groups of units converge on a specific point at a specific time. A feature like that would be of immeasurable value here in CMSF. A countdown timer hovering over the last waypoint, that would go a long way in finally being able to orchestrate troop movement. Of course, this would only work if the units were to actually walk along the waypoints, instead of veering off elsewhere

@Birdstrike: Do you happen to know how to select an individual crew member? Somehow I fail to find that in the manual and clicking on the crewmember's weapon icon has yielded no result for me...

I just checked again (CMSF running in the background, heh...), no luck. I even tried clicking the same spot again when I did get the dialog, but the dialog did not appear again - even when I cleared the command queue. Hence my thinking that it's a bug. What mission did you try this on, and can you send me a screenshot where you're clicking? Does the type of order influence this maybe?

If you ask me as an OpenGL developer, I'd say the omni-light is cranked up way too high. But yes, I do see terrain elevation having an impact on the terrain lighting - even if the effect is too small to really help in discerning the elevation changes. [ July 31, 2007, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: Blackmuzzle ]

That's what I'd expect, but I have to cancel and re-issue the order many times for the dialog to come up. I even tried looking for a certain spot to click on to get the dialog, no joy. I'd say in one out of 10 clicks I get the dialog.

Let me ask you a very specific question: How do you get your infantry to enter a building? Or more to the point, how do you get to select which level or story for the troops to go to? I seem to be able to get this to work sometimes, but not all the time and not in a consistent manner. Often, clicking on a multi-floor building will not bring up the expected dialog. I then have to try several times until it finally works. Also, when clicking somewhere with the no-go icon active, could we please NOT lose our current selection of units? That would make me ever so happy. Furthermore, how do you avoid troops going into buildings when the waypoints are all outside? This is frustrating because troops entering buildings are going relatively slow. This can throw off the entire planning because they don't arrive at the designated point in time. See this picture for what I mean: