Drusus

That would be great. Maybe also if there is only a _single_ waypoint it could be made to try to follow the path exactly? That way it would be possible to micromanage the unit through those small passages almost blocked, using a slow movement commands (seems to be a problem at the present) and on the other hand moving through terrain with no obstacles could be done with just using a single waypoint. How hard would it be to first check if the given route is possible, assuming full stops, and then just fit the cornering to the route? Say, we have in dense terrain a 100m straight line movement, then another 100m in a direction 90 degrees to the left from the first one. Now, the path finder first checks if the individual 100m movements are legal. If so, then try to fit a movement order something like this to the command: follow 90m of the first movement command exactly. Decide a cornering strategy so that we end up on the second line at the 10m point facing in the correct direction (*). Then just follow to the end of the command. This way there is only the 10m + 10m part that the path finder needs to deal with, the rest goes along the path the player gave. * We know there is a solution, just try to find a better one than full stop and turn in place. If there is enough space, the cornering should be trivial to do. If there isn't enough space then this could be hard to check, don't know...

I bought the game some time ago, but haven't actually had any time to play it so far. But the holidays coming should give me some time to play, so count me in, but remember that I am a _total_ newbie when it comes to the final version...

I don't know much about path finding algorithms. Still I claim there _must_ be a way to check if the movement command given by the user is a valid one in the sense that it is possible to follow the path _exactly_. If it isn't then fire up the path finding algorithm. If it isn't possible to check this for some reason, then let there be a button "micromanage this movement command" and if the user then does something stupid, it is his problem. Yeah, I know this isn't going to happen. But the system can be so unbelievably brain dead sometimes (v1.04 at least was) that even this would be good. Now, once more: Having a T-72 or M1A1 turn to show it's flank when you give it an order to advance straight on towards the enemy is unbelievably frustrating. The main reasons for the frustration are: 1. This would never happen in the real life. That is, the vehicle crew will not pick a longer route, nor will they pick a route exposing their flank. 2. There is _nothing_ the player can do to play better. That is, the _game_ ends up ruining the plan. The plan fails not because of clever enemy, bad luck (as in lucky shot) or because the plan was bad. It fails because of a bug in the game. I would like to mention that the path finding is generally good. But there are those rare occasions it ****s up simple movement commands, and when it does, it does so in a manner that usually results in "alt-q".

I admit that there shouldn't be perfect cover for everybody everywhere. As I see it a soldier who isn't in cover will get shot eventually if the shooter isn't under enemy fire. This is modeled nicely in the game. Also, the first thing a trained soldier will do when receiving fire is either shoot back or then seek cover. This isn't correctly modeled in the game. As it is now, soldiers under fire will either be covering in a bad spot or then seeking cover crawling in the open. What I mean by covering in a bad spot is that the status of the soldier is changed to covering, but the soldier is actually in a place where there isn't enough cover to get behind of. Firing back as a reaction is rare, as it takes too much time for the target to see the firer. I still think that the proposal that there should be a new state of seeking cover (or to change the covering state to be that, too) is a good one. The best way of course is that each soldier would individually seek the cover, that is their representation in the 3D view would actually move behind cover. However I think this is impossible due to the fact that the game can't actually (at least ATM) show the places of good cover visually nor is the infantry model and TaCAI advanced enough. So, to me it would seem the best option is to let the soldier seek cover in an abstracted way. No need for really complicated TaCAI decisions, no need for the scenario designer to put in countless places of some cover. Maybe there isn't enough cover for the soldiers in that 8x8 action spot. But that is a restriction made by the game, not by reality! Actually I think this is one more point for the proposal. This is because the _game_ limits the soldiers to be in one 8x8 spot. Realistically the ones who wouldn't find good cover in that spot would just go behind that rock in the next spot. The game doesn't allow the player, nor the TaCAI to do this. Making it so that it allows this seems really hard to implement. Simple solution: let the soldiers find the cover even in the next spot in an abstracted way! By the way, I don't think that the game allows even 3 man teams to find really good cover even in the best spots of the map. Good cover yes, but still they are very much vulnerable to massed small arms fire. I hope that 1.05 doesn't fix this, as then I would need to find something else to bitch about To be a bit more serious, I do think that the game is a good one, and I whine because I want it to be even better. And I really do think this proposal would add to the realism and playability of the game.

The real problem seems to be that when the ridge line is sharp, then a 1m difference in position will change a soldier in a good position to a dead soldier. This problem is made worse because soldiers can't be given exact locations to deploy, and actually the squad will position centered to the 8x8 action spot and this might be just on the wrong side of the berm. A neat way to solve this problem would be to have a "hull down" command for infantry. Give a forming point near the ridge line intended ("take position here") and a target point ("you must be able to lay down fire to this point"). Then the soldiers would automatically take good positions along the ridge line. I think this would be a valid command for a "real life" commander to use. However this could result in gamey usage, as the information available to the player can be used to take unrealistically good positions. As an example in CMx1 it was possible to position your tanks so that they can see pretty much only the single enemy tank from their hull down positions. This is of course unrealistic, as the tanks getting in the hull down position shouldn't have any clue where the enemy tank is, so ending up just in the perfect position should be unlikely. Also, implementing "hull down" for soldiers is probably PITA. And I am not sure the terrain is actually fine enough to enable this kind of a position for a soldier. So another proposal: Maybe it could be made so that soldiers near a ridge line should get a good bonus to the cover the terrain gives. Calculating when a soldier is near a ridge line is probably another PITA. And when a soldier is covering near a ridge line, I think after 5 seconds or so of covering the soldier should have gotten into a place of really good cover, that is behind the ridge line. Actually, I think in general when a soldier has been covering for a while he should be considered to have good cover. The amount of time needed should be variable, pretty much instant perfect cover when in a trench, fast and good when in wooden terrain or rocky terrain and slow and bad cover when on a road. Of course experience should have a big factor on both the time needed and the amount of "extra cover" gained. Actually I think the absent of good cover is what is behind the complaints of too much accuracy. Foe example even I could hit a non-moving target the size of a football from 150m given 30 seconds of time and a few bullets to use. Now this means that a soldier just "covering" in the open should be easy enough to hit, hence the accuracy isn't wrong. But I think that at least a well trained soldier (US soldiers, that is) would not be exposed for too long. He would find a place giving good cover. Actually I would also claim that an experienced soldier would do very much to not get into a position where he can't find good cover fast enough. This means that when he is moving he constantly moves so that good cover is near enough. I am having a hard time imagining how to implement this in the game so that the TacAI would actually calculate the positions with good cover and move into there, especially given that the squad will want to be in the same 8x8 action spot. To solve this I think an abstraction should be used. The soldier should be covering for a while, and then end up in a position where he has very good cover. There could be some graphical feedback that the soldier has found good cover, but the soldier shouldn't necessarily move during this covering. I know the cover in this game is already abstracted so this wouldn't be something breaking the WYSIWYG of the game. Also computationally this should be easy, and I imagine this would be rather straightforward to implement. Of course not knowing the code means I can't really know how hard implementing this would be, nor do I know how much time it would actually take to implement... Once more: I really do hate that so many times I see a veteran US squad covering for long periods of time, and the whole time the soldiers are getting killed one at a time. Now, I am pretty much sure that in real life, the soldiers wouldn't just wait in a position where they can be hit. On the other hand the terrain in the game isn't perfect enough to actually show the places of perfect cover, nor is the TaCAI / infantry representation advanced enough to actually find these spots and maneuver into them. I don't expect the engine to be able to represent all this in WYSIWYG way. Neither does BFC AFAIK. So, just allow the soldiers to find the spots of great / perfect cover when they are covering. And I do think that the current way of covering soldiers just waiting to be shot is broken. I would really like to get some feedback from those who know more about all this, that is those who know how this works in real life... DISCLAIMER: It is 5 AM here...

Well, it doesn't really matter if there are man sized obstacles or not. A small dent is all that is needed. And I am pretty much convinced there are such places even in the relatively flat terrain that is modeled in the game (Syria). Maybe the places aren't that common in that environment but they do still exists. The point is there should be some "perfect" cover, not what the cover is.

IMHO the biggest problem with the terrain protection is that there isn't perfect cover. What I mean is that most terrain will have spots that are _impossible_ to shoot at. Now I think that troops under fire will find these spots quickly, and after that it is impossible to hit them, no matter how much lead you throw at them. I have a feeling that this type of cover doesn't exist in CMSF. In the game, the troops might be in really good cover behind a big rock, for example, but still if you keep shooting at them, you will hit them eventually. And the biggest problem is trenches. A trench should easily give a soldier perfect cover against small arms fire. This is not the case at the moment. Of course, if the soldier tries to shoot back, then the cover shouldn't be perfect no more. The problem is made much worse by the amount of lead in the air in modern warfare. The result is that even small chances of hitting will result quickly in a dead target. Now, this results in successful tactics being too much about two things: first, you need to have a lot of firepower, and second you need to be the one that shoots first. I do know that these are important things, and in the case of heavy (high explosives) weapons, you don't need much more. For example a normal firefight goes too often like this: 1. find out where the enemy is, 2. Bring in enough _small arms firepower_, 3. Just chew out the enemy with small arms. What I would like to see is that you need to change the step 3 to steps 3a and 3b as follows: 3a. suppress the enemy with small arms fire and, 3b. maneuver for the kill. As it is now, the only things limiting just shooting the enemy is the amount of ammo and LOS being cut of after the enemy has been covering a while. Of course against badly trained troops or troops willing to be martyrs you could just wait for the enemy to do something stupid. Most likely this would be trying to run away or trying to shoot back. I do think that shooting back is a bad idea if there is 10 highly trained troops shooting back at you... Maybe I don't know enough about modern tactics, but that doesn't change the fact that there should be at least some spots on the map that allow a squad to be in perfect cover against small arms fire if they just keep their head down. The options the enemy should have against a "perfect position" are either to bring in heavy weapons or maneuver for the kill. The current option of just shooting until the enemy is eliminated should not be a viable one.

I think it is really important that the missions in the campaign of the Marines module aren't like the ones in the current campaign. I mean, it is interesting to use a platoon or maybe a bit more to clean some houses. But I think you need to be a masochist to enjoy doing that with a company+ sized force. I have played a lot, but never got through campaign mission 2. There is just too much everything. But playing scenarios like House Cleaning I do enjoy a lot, so it is not about the modern / asymmetrical setting in general.

I think the release date is based on just one criteria: when it is done...

20 killed was just an approximation. The words were "maybe up to 20 were killed today". Usually the KIA approximations are way bigger than the reality, and it is reasonable to believe that that is the case here, too. The 2h time limit isn't that bad of a problem when simulating this type of action. Cover is. And of course the LOS/LOF issues. I just tried and I could kill a whole squad of enemy infantry _covering_ in a trench with just one MG section in couple of minutes. The position should have given perfect cover for the defenders, so that no matter how long I fire they wouldn't die! In CMSF casualties are really common for this reason. Also, withdrawing from a bad position is really, really hard. Anyhow I hope BFC is working on these problems. Actually I am quite sure that the resent silence is because they are thinking of / implementing something that they don't want to announce before they know it is going to work. Enough off topic for one post, so I just want to add that the videos were really interesting. Thanks for the links!

The bug is simple. A vehicle behind the wreck of another vehicle is very much invulnerable. I was able to use this in Allah's fist, so that at least 2 M1A1 used all their ammo (or at least stopped shooting) against one T62. Just drive one of the T62 so that the side of the tank is facing the enemy. Wait for it to be killed. Drive another tank so that the wreck is just in front of it. Wait for the enemy to use all its ammo hitting the wreck. Works also against those evil RPGs. I have seen this actually quite often. It is commonly triggered when there is a lot of vehicles in a small area. And yes, I am sure this is not as it should be. If the tank behind the wreck is able to fire, then surely there must be a way for the target to fire back.

Would it be possible to get an explanation to the following question? Why there isn't a immediate recheck to the other direction when the uncons get LOS to the US squad? The thing I have difficulty to understand is that because of the positive check from uncons to US squad, we already know there must be a LOS to the other direction! Why isn't this information used? Probably there is a good reason why this information can't be used. I am only trying to understand what reason that is, so we all get to know the LOS system a little better...

#2 sounds really promising. That should at least keep the rest of the squad from marching to death. And the lead man pretty much goes by the rule "hit the dirt and return fire". I didn't think that I was ever going to say this, but I am actually looking forward to Monday.

As I see it, the number one problem by far is what happens when a squad comes under fire. If this could be fixed (and I hope it can and will be fixed) then this game would be good enough for me. The problem is simply this: when the squad comes under fire, the soldiers don't react to the threat as individuals, but as a squad. And that squad is going to try to regroup into the closest action spot. Or just go on mindlessly, which is a TacAI issue. The problem is a common one, because of the urban nature of the fighting. What should happen is that the soldiers first react individually, basically choosing between three options: hit the dirt and return fire, seek better cover and return fire or panic and do not do anything useful. After this, the squad might _then_ regroup to the nearest action spot, without it causing too much unrealistic results. So, my suggestion is this: The soldiers _do react individually_ to incoming fire. And why do I believe this can be done: If the soldier is under direct fire, then there _must_ be a LOF from the firer to the target, and because of that there must be a LOF from the target to the firer. That means that if the soldier hits the dirt and individually returns fire to that soldier firing at him, then there is no need for costly per soldier LOS checks. After the soldier has fired from place for a little time, then the right thing would be to think what the squad should do: That is, regroup to some action spot nearby, not necessarily the one which is towards the threat... This is probably impossible to implement as is. But the point of this message is that the redeploying to the closest action spot behavior _must_ be changed. If it can't be changed, then the 1:1 representation is flawed. If you see your soldiers constantly doing something so clearly unrealistic, it can't be accepted as something that we must sacrifice for 1:1.

I have had this problem too. My examples: I drive a Stryker next to a house (about 30m from it) and disembark a squad. There is an enemy squad on the top of that building and they begin to fire at my squad. What happens? When the squad gets out of the Stryker, they first bunch up behind the vehicle. Luckily the Stryker was in between the squads. After that the squad regroups, and while doing that they don't fire. So, it took something like 10 seconds to respond to enemy fire from 30m away! In reality (at least this is what I learned in FDF) they should _instantly_ fire back. Then if no commands are given, just stay there and fight it out, maybe looking for better cover. The absolutely stupidest thing they could do is to first try to set up some formation! For the same reason hunt is not usable. When a squad comes under enemy fire what is the first thing they do? Try to get into cover? No. Try to instantly fire back? No. They set up a formation, and a couple of guys usually gets killed in that process. Also, I think that the other soldiers wont fire before the formation is set up. I mean the ones who are already in their place in the formation. Might be that I just remember incorrectly, as I haven't played the game in a week or so. The fix I would suggest is that the basic behavior should be fire back immediately from where you are. Then seek cover. Or maybe depending on the situation first seek cover, then fire back. But do not set up a bunched up formation in the middle of an open street! I am sure this one will be looked at, because there has been so many complaints about this. I would think this is 1.05 material. At least I hope so...

That picture shows the worst side of the current path finding algorithm. Vehicles block visually open routes. This can be maddening, and it is definitely a bug. An easy workaround for this is to drive the Stryker 10m forward, this way it will also offer cover for your moving troops.

Just an idea for multiplayer: Why not implement some sort of a chess clock into the game. There is a separate pause timer for both players. If player A sets the game to pause, then his pause timer would be reduced by the amount the game was paused. Commands can be issued during these pauses. If you run out of this time, the only way is to request a pause from your opponent and even if he grants you a pause you couldn't issue any orders during that pause. BTW there is a bug currently in the game. During pauses only choosing a command from the panels is forbidden, not issuing commands.

Nice counterclaim Bigduke. Because Russia did lose to a small country once, the size doesn't matter. Or what are you trying to say? Anyhow, claiming that the US doesn't use bully boys of their own isn't correct as far as I can tell. Of course there is no official material about this, but what do you think people like James Steele (Google it...) are (were?) doing there?

I have seen this too. To me it was that the squad was locked in "regrouping" mode. I mean the automatic movement command which you can't cancel and which will be issued when you cancel all other commands. But usually troops move a few meters and then that movement command will disappear. But sometimes when the squad has taken too much casualties nobody moves, and if you try to issue some other orders they won't be fulfilled because the regrouping is the first way point. So, that squad won't be able to move for the rest of the scenario. I think it is a bug.

If you want to get rid of US infantry, use ATGMs against them. My experience is that it is a maximum of two shots and a squad is gone. Usually one shot does the trick.

ATGM's overall seem to be really, really powerful. Maybe they are in real life also, I don't know. But seeing that they can usually kill whole squads with one shot, it just seems strange. Maybe the problem is that the squads are packed too tightly? In ATGM ambush the US infantry has no chance against ATGMs. The RPGs seem to be very, very effective also. When reading some real life AARs, there has been massive amounts of RPGs fired against infantry, but with almost zero effect. In CMSF this doesn't seem to be the case. Or then maybe this is what Hezbollah used against Israel, and it is just really hard to fight against ATGMs.

The 105mm will fire fast enough if you cancel the fire order after every shot and then reissue it. Easy (but frustrating) to do in real time mode. But I really wonder about the realism of the airfield mission. First, the amount of infantry you have compared to the amount of enemy infantry seems to be something that should be avoided in real conflict. Also, taking 1 square kilometer of urban territory in 80 minutes with one company of Strykers and no artillery support. Seems suicidal to me. But it is possible to win this mission, even without the usage of Javelins. It just requires a lot of area fire, plenty of patience and some casualties. You have to take one or two buildings at a time using area fire to all potential enemy locations. And playing the scenario a few times helps to identify those possible enemy locations

I think there is a bug in the TAC AI behavior. For example, when you order your MGS to fire at a section of wall, it will fire one round and then continue to use it's MG. When firing the MG the gunner can't reload. So, you have to cancel the fire order to get the gunner to reload, and then after that you can fire another shell at the wall. I am not sure and I am at work currently so can't check, but the BMPs might have the same issue. Sometimes firing the MG might be the wanted behavior, sometimes not. IMHO there needs to be additional user input about what weapons to use.

There are some things you have to learn about the game to get the wanted behavior. First, when ordering units through gaps, if there is another unit close to the gap the path finding algorithm will see it as closed even though it seems to be open. Another thing is that you have to move your troops in a way that it is clear to the AI which is the best way to move. When unloading a Stryker to a building you need to be in a position where the only way to the building is the protected way. If there is a possible bad route and good route, you are not guaranteed to get the "obvious" good route. For me the most annoying bug is infantry ordered to hunt. When they make contact, they cancel the hunt order and then the TAC AI sets a new command to regroup the unit. This is not the behavior expected. I would like them to hit the dirt and fight from the position they are in. In the worst cases the troops will run for 20 meters under fire to regroup. And you can't cancel that. Well, usually not that much, because they get killed before that.

Not too stupid question as I just got mine. It is the retail version from Paradox. But where is that patch?