womble
-
Posts
8,872 -
Joined
-
Days Won
12
Posts posted by womble
-
-
There's another thread about this, more specifically concerning very small battles. BFC said they're tweaking the parameters for 1.01.
-
Apparently, the 'Face' command can be used to get troops to occupy fortifications in a beneficial way. I'm guessing that if you put the squad on a fortified action point, then face them towards the long side of the trench, they'll point out that way, same as they do if they're in a room with multiple possible outlook directions.
Mortars in foxholes probably shouldn't be getting much protection, since the little scrapes aren't meant for mortars to be fired outof... that'd be a 'mortar pit' and significantly deeper.
-
Looks that way. It's a shame the mouse and arrow keys appear to be hard-coded and not editable at all. Oh well. Sale lost.
- Download the demo
- play with the hotkeys file (check the manual for "Customising hotkeys" for howto)
- ...
- Buy the game.
- Download the demo
-
A dish of milk and bread will usually lure them out. Hamsters are another story altogether.
They like cat or dog food better, as their natural diet is wurms an' beekles.
But there's a song about how hard hedgehogs are to mess up:
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Hedgehog_Song.htm
-
If I have a tank, how do I tell it to blow up the fence and then go through it?
I realize I can target it but won't that just mean it will shoot for 60 secs?
Haven't tried it with fences, but it works for the kind of wall a tank can drive over: if you area target near the linear obstacle, the AI assumes you want to breach it and will stop firing once a hole is created. I'd imagine 1 75mm HE on-target would do for a fence quite nicely.
-
The pricing in CM is based on scientific qualities, but there is room for fudging if something appears to be too cheap. However, the pricing is sensitive to various QB options and therefore some of the common issues should be overcome by more context sensitive values.
That's interesting to know.
Is there any room in the model for increasing the cost of an item incrementally as more of those items are bought? So the second additional item over and above TOE costs more than the first?
-
There's a huge difference between code 'bugs' and parameter tweaks, and it seems to me that the complaints on here are almost entirely about the latter. That and some hardware/driver issues...
-
Place cursor in lower right area of screen(any corner/place will do, my choice).
It's important that it's not on top of a unit. I find higher up in my screen is usually less cluttered with icons and pixeltruppen...
-
If that happens I'd be very surprised. This is like saying someone is always going to buy a Tiger because you played a game where they were really deadly. There's not a thing in CM that should be universally awesome.
However, it's entirely possible that some things are (potentially drastically) underpriced for their peak, or even general level of effectiveness. If it becomes relatively common for people to start tagging an extra platoon of mortars to every company, there's an argument that something needs to be done.
You're missing the point... Combat Mission tries to be as realistic as possible. If there is something wrong with our realism modeling, then we fix it. If there is nothing wrong with the realism, we don't touch it.You put a lot of effort into TO&E realism too, and if players find that a given variation is consistently a better bang for the QB rarity buck than 'history' says entire armies with their dedicated Operational Research teams did, then perhaps something is needing an adjust in the QB pick menu. Similarly, if part of your fun is winning, and mortars are better per point than, say IGs, you'll miss some of the variety of the game.
-
When I played the first gen games, I made most of my moves using the hotkeys that I had memorized over the years. I didn't see those same hotkeys with this game.
Have a read in the PDF manual about customising hotkeys. There's an 'alternate' hotkeys file that I think tries to replicate the hotkeys from CMx1 as best it can, but any differences can soon be relearned.
-
while we are waiting, I thought I would start an informal poll about what aspect of CMBN interests you the most: infantry combat or tank combat?
Combined arms all the way. Thoroughly modern, me. It's what makes WW2 'special' for me, at the level of a tactical problem: the first war that combines armour, air, artillery, mobility and infantry on both sides.
-
With all the posts and replies to the question, I'm more confused than ever. Could some one "take it from the top" and post the correct exact sequence to cease covering fire by a fire group and time it with an immediate assault by an assault group?
What I'm using at the moment
Covering element
- hit pause until it's about when you think your assault group will be within a couple of action spaces
- make them move, as quickly as possible, for as short a distance as possible (Quick, one action space is enough for infantry; vehicles sometimes keep firing while moving, so you want to use Fast and make the move as short as possible)
- At the waypoint for this snap move issue a different fire command (IME, shutting them down completely with a minimal range Cover Arc is often necessary, else the AI may attempt to 'help', with 'hilarious' consequences
) - You can issue more waypoints if you want afterwards
Assaulting element
Much easier. You just have to judge their movement so the covering element is coordinated with them. Their own small arms and grenades won't hurt or suppress them.
Things I think affect your timings, spacings and general planning
- friendly small arms smaller than 12.5mm will not cause casualties
- friendly small arms fire will cause suppression. If there is 'bullet spatter' near (in their action spot, or adjacent for a lesser effect) a unit, they will suffer suppression, even if it's fluttering leaves or hedgerow trimming by a supporting unit.
- friendly HE is murderous. Until I started exercising strict control over my Shermans in Busting the Bocage, I was losing more men to friendly fire than to the enemy, by a factor of 3. 75mm Sherman HE has a killing burst radius on advancing troops of at least 20m.
I've not finished with BtB yet, but I'm doing a lot of retrys to find out what works and what doesn't. Made the German FDL with 2 casualties, once I got a handle on my own HE use, and that's with incompetent smokidj and badly located spotters so arty hasn't been the influence it should've been... Really, don't fire 'over' hedges with Shermans unless you're directly up against the feature. The bow machine gun isn't going 'over', it's scaring the patooties off (pinning, rattling) your dogfaces that are hunkered down trying to suppress the shrecks in the next hedge row so the ronsons can come up and add their weight of fire to get enough suppression to advance. And those .50cals mean you're better to have the tanks buttoned up...
- hit pause until it's about when you think your assault group will be within a couple of action spaces
-
I'm pretty sure Steve mentioned global morale as being in, when talking about the Road to Berlin scenario. I remember noticing it because 'til then, I'd thought Global Morale was out. Might've missed something in the context though.
-
@Jons, Look up and study complimentary colors (colors opposite each other on the color wheel and their use. They create max contrast compared to other color combos, and when mixed neutralize each other creating more natural gray tones. I have been a painter for over 20yrs., and have a BFA in fine art. I know my business, and studied at the right place. All that aside though the thread is about improving the GUI with the FLOOR/PASSENGER status and color ammo situation indicators from Cmx1.
www.vincentmonaco.com to see some of my paintings. Notice how i use complimentary colors to get the most pop.
Yellow on black is high contrast and vice versa are about the highest contrast colour contrast. Red on black is lower contrast. Red on white is higher contrast than red on black. Black on white is higher contrast than red on white.
Luminous colours (like the ones on your CRT/LCD) absolutely do not follow the same rules as passive, reflective colours do. Your fine art degree and expertise in painting, while admirable, aren't particularly relevant to display on computer screens. See the squawks on a forum with a dark background (navy or black, usually) when someone starts posting in green, red or magenta.
-
With a neat use of the pause command it ought to be possible to recreate the two inch tap as well.
I don't think it'll allow quite that, with the pause command. AIUI, the '2" tap' is a way of incrementally changing the aimpoint of the MG to 'walk' the beaten zone/lead stream from side to side. Given that interpretation, I think you'd need to shift the whole MG to another action point and set a new Area Target from that waypoint, which isn't quite the effect (I think) you had in mind...
Of course, you could be meaning a different sort of tap to what I'm considering...
-
Each to his own. The reason I find it better then using the relative keys:
I'm right handed. I kick left, as certain opponents can attest. I use my mouse, obviously, on the right side of my computer. On the right side of my laptop is my keypad numbers. I love playing CMBN with both hands (**cough**, this just doesn't sound right ....). Therefor, I don't want to release my mouse hand to press a relative key, and then move it back to the rodent again. Why? My left hands does buggerall.
So I 'wired' my brain to learn to use my left hand, which is hovering close to the SPACEBAR anyway. Plus I hate to click/press an extra click/button and change the relative command groups to go into that specific group of commands, as I cannot be bothered to memorize yet another set of shortcut keyboard keys.
Plus using Spacebar will minimize for sure the mistake of pressing the bail key while inside the wrong command group. Easy to occur once you start fiddling with different unit commands inside various command groups.
Thus, reasons to my madness.
Whereas (I offer, gentle reader, in case others have similar game histories and preferences and my find my experiences informative
) I've largely been playing MMOs for the past few years, with many more keybinds than CM will even allow and can touch type, so my left hand is very busy indeed *cough*. Mousey view management and selection, and keyboard direct commands (none of this relative nonsense!) mean I can operate with fewer clicks/presses (select a waypoint, change the previous leg's movement style, hide 'em and start a covered arc is 4 operations rather than 7 (cos of the interlaced spacebar hits) and I don't keep covering up my view with a menu I have to click out of if I change my mind.That's the method in my madness
I do agree that, inadequate as it is to my preferred style of HMI, the spacebar menu is better than relative keybinds, which plain suck, for any number of valid ergonomical reasons.
-
It's a bit more obvious once you've set it once, since a new 'targetting line' will appear, and that one's origin is the waypoint you're working from. I have to admit to being somewhat puzzled as to why the 'scanning line' can't be made to originate from the position of the waypoint rather than the unit's current position. The origin for the calculations obviously has to have moved...
-
Last night while playing Closing the Pocket I witnessed one of my AT teams exit a house where they had no eyes on a target, cross a road and set up a firing position next to a stone wall by a church. From their new vantage point, they proceeded to launch zooka rounds at a target ~ 100 yards away until they finally took it out after about 3 rounds. All this was done without me issuing any orders at all. Pretty impressive I would say.
That will have been assisted, I'd guess, by the fact that the AT team couldn't perform its function inside a building, eyes-on or not
No zook/faust/schrek action from inside in this game. Too loud. Disturbs the neighbours. And the firer's protoplasm. -
If you want your tank to blow a hole in the bocage then you have to think ahead...
You certainly will, since it can take minutes for a single Sherman to blow a gap in a bocage hedge. I've had (for reasons other than blowing holes in the terrain) a Sherman firing continuously for 5 minutes at the same spot to no appareant effect (on the terrain).
-
Better solution then mentioned by womble above: Use/press the spacebar to issue commands to your units. Personally, I find this the best method to give orders in CMBN.
Better for you, perhaps. I personally hate the f'in' spacebar (yes, yes, I know there's no 'f' in spacebar
) menu and think the direct keys are far, far better. -
Let me see if I get this right: There is NO way I can change an accidental "bail out" order - EVEN IF I RELOAD THE GAME?
If that is the case, I´ll call it a serious flaw.
'Pends where you reload it to... I've started saving a 'replay' for each minute, as well as intermediate 'giving orders' saves (in case; my play is pretty bitty ATM) and a 'about to press go' save. If you hit 'bail' and go back to a save before you did, they should still be in their vehicle.
-
My desire for seeing the target lines of incoming fire is primarily to determine where the shot came from, not necessarily what type of unit shot it. I was playing yesterday and had a tank rolling down a road. All of a sudden the text came up saying turret hit or whatever. I scanned the map and watched several replays but never could tell where the shot came from. Was it something right next to me or far off? In which direction? And where did I need to move to for cover? I understand FOW and not always knowing what is shooting. But I would at least like to know from what direction it came.
But either way I'm happy with the game.
That is an intended feature of the game. I don't imagine it's going to change. FoW is one of the things that's been worked on very hard in the CMx2 line, and even on the easiest setting, if you can't see the tracers you will have no idea from where the incoming is coming in. I would believe that you, the player, see more tracer when the units on the ground start to get their own idea of rough direction, and that it scales as 'spottedness' does, until you get to an '?' icon then the unit type.
The easiest setting already has 'borg' spotting a la CMx1.
-
A spotter is anyone with a support button. Can be a vehicle, an FO or an HQ.
The support button is the little icon of an arty piece (and, not in the demo AFAIK, an aircraft) in the middle top of the unit info pane. The thing you click to activate indirect fire requests.
-
My recollection from when this was brought up before is that someone from BFC said that fortifications are meant to combine with Bocage. It might be an 'issue' if they aren't behaving as expected...
)
Floating icons vs colored bases
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
How does a base change work when the element is scattered across 2500square metre?