Sabot3

Thanks Moon. That appears to have fixed the problem.

Hi Folks. I have the vanilla version of CMSF loaded which I purchased directly from Battlefront via download; no Marines and no mods. I had patched to V1.10 and was running the game with no difficulty. I downloaded the Battlefront V1.11 patch last night, which seemed to go without a hitch. When I went to run the game I received a message box with the following info: CM Shock Force.exe - Application Error. The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). Check on Okay to terminate the application. I ran the patch again with the same results. I rebooted the computer and received the same results. I have an AMD 64 3500+ with a Nvidia 6800 GS video card and Windows XP. Any help that you could offer to resolve this problem would be appreciated. Happy New Year in advance. Sabot3

Time between outgoing rounds depends on other factors as well: 1) Assessing fall of shot through muzzle blast, obscuration from dust, smoke etc. Dealing with platform rock ... Then depending on the gunnery technique being used, either the gunner or commander must give a correction, apply it to the sight and re-lay the sight on the target which may or may not be moving. Does the commander have to move from one sight to another or put his head out of the turret before ordering the gunner to fire? Is the crew commander playing the role of commander and gunner as well which is even worse! These factors impose a time delay and slow down the practical rate of fire. 2) Access to the ammo. Is the ammo stored in an easy to access location and is it stored base first in order for the loader to be able to grab it easily. Does the round have to be manouvered around in the turret at all in order to fit it into the breach. How heavy is the ammo? Does the turret have a "Ready Rack" where a number of rounds can be stored for very easy access? It's quite possible for the loader to have that round in the breach and ready to go for quite a few seconds before the crew commander and gunner are ready to re-engage. While tanks may be theoretically capable of pumping out 12 rounds a minute, WWII tank crews would have been dealing with a host of issues that would made a maximum of half that rate of fire ambitious if it were to be in any way accurate. While I agree with the comment about ATG crews having more room to work in and how that would contribute to a higher rate of fire they are also working with some more severe disadvantages that would slow down their rate of fire. As their muzzles are normally closer to the ground when they fire, they tend to create more obscuration from dust, dirt, snow etc. This means that the crew often takes longer to determine fall of shot and to determine a correction. Unless ATGs are very well dug in with spades extended, platform rock tends to be greater than on a tank where the gun is mounted on many tons of steel. This results in the ATG sight picture often moving off the target and the gunner having to re-lay the appropriate portion of the graticle pattern back on the target. It shouldn't take long but all of these actions take some time and the effect is cumulative. If you want to have realistic ROF's for the game, go to an appropriate WWII simulation and see how long it takes you to deal with these affects and fire the next round accurately. Then imagine that you are tired, dirty, and scared. Do you still think that a ROF of 12 - 15 rounds per minute on a WWII tank or ATG is realistic? If I was King for a Day I would give Elite crews a max ROF of 8 RPM and Green crews 4 RPM. The other quality levels would be spread out in between. When fighting in desert or very dusty conditions I would cut this in half in order to simulate the effects of obscuration from dust and sand thrown up by the muzzle blast. Sabot3

Unfortunately 1.21 has brought a degradation in overall performance in the game for me. Even after having dialed back some of my settings, the lag is often so bad that driving in anything but open terrain is a death sentence. It seems like the Windows users have suffered the most from this most recent patch. Hopefully this can be rectified soon.

Intersection Points I would like to be able to place Target Reference and Grid Intersection Points on the map in order to make it easier to make reference to specific areas when communicating with the other members of the team. Specifically I would like the ability to place a variable size cross symbol on the map and the ability to label it with a number/letter combination. Minefield Marking It would be advantageous from time to time to be able to indicate minefields. A transparent box with some small circles in it that could be sized as necessary with a click and drag action would do the trick. I'm sure the same book from which you extracted the other military symbols would provide you with a number of useful examples.

From Sabot3. I like the Hermes' stealth capability as it forces me to maintain situational awareness on the battlefield or risk getting a load of 20mm in the rear or flanks. I notice that I'm becoming far, far too reliant on the little red icons to tell me where the enemy is at any given moment. If I was going to make a recommendation it would be that an option be available whereby the enemy icons only appear when 1) the enemy unit is under observation by yourself, one of your team or a sensor 2) battle damage (direct or indirect fire) has damaged it's capability to resist detection. I have seen too many excellent hull down positions of both my own and my opponents blown as a result of a little red icon telling them or myself exactly where to look. There should be a reward for picking a good hull down position with good background cover etc, especially for the Apollo 120's and the ATGM carriers. With the current system you are spotted as soon as any part of the vehicle becomes visible or at thats how it appears to me. Another element that could be added to assist in making this aspect more realistic is to add more significant muzzle flash to the current muzzle obscuration effects. While a unit may be harder to detect without icons while stationary in a good hull down position, the moment it (particularly a tank )opens fire, the muzzle blast should be very, very visible. ATGM's would be less so. Sabot3

From Sabot3. Great games and great AARs! If I had flipped over on that ridgeline one more time while chasing ThePhantom or Schmelz I would have flung my monitor out the window :eek: I also ended up spending a lot of my time up there waltzing with Stonewall who continually appeared to pick the same drop areas as myself! From my perspective the games brought out one major point and that is that one of the attacking players must be assigned responsibility for securing the Drop Zone or Assembly Area. Stonewall and others were continually dropping in and hitting us from the rear which can quickly devestate an attack or force the attackers to lose momentum as they must turn around and sort out the trouble behind them. I think that one player could handle the jobs of rear security (maintain jammers and AA turrets on and around the DZ), Mercury artillery support when required and possibly, depending on the pace, some additional mortar fire. It was the most fun that I've had in Drop Team to date. Sabot3

From Sabot3. I'm in. Just give me a time and some targets.

From Sabot3 "HERE" Just need a time and some targets

I played WWII Online for almost 4 years and we could always tell when we had a BF1942 and HALO visitor on our hands. They automatically started whining about how slow the tanks were, that they blew up too easily, that the infantry moved too slowly and couldn't jump onto roof tops and there were no scopes for rifles etc, etc. Fortunately there was a "Block" command for the chat box and you knew that they would go away soon; only after having depleted our supply of equipment. Those of us who enjoyed the game, did so for the very aspects that they disliked. As indicated by many of the folks above, Drop Team isn't perfect but I ceased looking for perfection a long time ago. I have fun when I'm playing it and although it hasn't attracted a huge number of players yet, I've found the average level of maturity and hospitality of the folks who do play to be a cut far above the smack talking wankers who I encounter in other games. That on it's own is worth a lot. This reviewer didn't find what he was looking for. Too bad; hopefully the game will continue to develop and grow and we will see more players and improved reviews. Sabot3

I think that the graphics have great potential if the players who are in game at the time wish to use them. It still comes down to that desire to be organized rather than to simply roll around and shoot. The various line symbols indicating a variety of tactical movement may be a bit much. Even in actual military staff work they tend to be surplus. Give me the ability to throw some goose eggs, some curved or straight lines and crosses for target reference points on the map and I've got all the tools that I need. As for voice comms, if used properly they can make all the difference in the world in my opinion. They put a person with a personality at the other end of the line. My only problem with voice comms (TeamSpeak and Ventrillo) as I have experienced them being used in other online games such as WWII Online and Eve is that it takes a bit of personal discipline to use them effectively. If everyone on your team tries to speak at once or you have someone or some people who have the constant desire to talk, then you may as well be typing.

The planning tools mentioned above by Poesel71 would certainly help a team get their act together more quickly, provided that they wished to do so. It would also help make in-game communication more precise. The ability to form mixed and same type equipment platoons. I've been trying to get Hermes to escort tanks and other vehicles and without this option it can be a chore. I like Dark's idea about phasing in the reinforcements. It would also help prevent the bots from squandering all the resources in one mad rush. I've thought over a lot of these issues and compared them with my experience in other online games. I believe that one of our major problems at the moment that is leading to a lot of player frustration is the low numbers on-line. You need a certain number of players to make an attack or defence work effectively. You need someone handling direct fire, indirect fire, air defence, security of the Drop Zone, bot wrangling, cut-off of enemy reinforcements, etc. When just two players who don't normally play on the same team are trying to do this all together with 4 minutes prep time it can lead to a lot of frustration. The defence has equal challenges. Improving bot wrangling will only go so far to make up for the lack of players online at any one time. I think a lot of these problems will remain until we start to see at least 4 people per team playing together as a team on a regular basis. In addition there is still too much reliance on typing even though we have a voice capability in game. I hate "death by typing" and it happens far too often. Effective voice comms help to improve teamwork and fun immensely. More players and formed teams will hopefully encourage greater use of voice comms. I keep reminding myself that this game is still very young and this type of balancing is to be expected and I'm very happy to see the efforts made by the design team to do use player input to do so.

My in-game name is Sabot3. I just finished playing "Bloody Iwo" along side bboyle. I think that if I stick cotton balls in my ears it may stop them from both ringing and bleeding as a result of the constant concussion of mortar explosions around my vehicle :eek: Hopefully the sudden jerking motions of my computer screen is only an aftermath of what my sight picture looked like as I was pounded by indirect fire! After finally moving out of my hull down position and onto the objective to try to regain points, I felt like I was driving onto a weird combination of lunar landscape and the Somme. There were craters there that you could stack a platoon of Thor's in and still have room for a Galaxy. Are we using kinetic strikes from orbit? I'm all for giving the bots a bit more accuracy with those mortars but I think that you might have over done it!! Great work so far guys although server connectivity after this last patch seems a bit upgefarked, if you don't mind me using technical terms. Keep those improvements coming! Sabot3

My in-game name is Sabot3. I'm normally on between 7-10 PM EST.

Team play certainly makes all the difference in the world, especially when you are on TS or Ventrillo or such. Lone wolfing tends to lead to a lot of bad tactics and after trying to juggle all the tasks yourself and often failing, I find that I tend to get into the mode of just shooting things so that I can at least get some enjoyment from the scenario. I worked with one fellow on one scenario where we worked as a Paladin / infantry team and it was great to see how well it worked. Improvements to bot wrangling would be a great help but in the end team play will make or break the game.