rocketman

The ability to orchestrate and view a battle from half a mile above, then replay and join a single sniper team as they break cover, miraculously avoid a hail of tracer, and make it to cover. All thanks to WEGO!

I love the fact that after playing these games on a daily basis for years and years and I still get those "did I just see that?" and "did that just happen?" moments when units interact in surpising ways. That's a lot of credit to the engine and the realism it generates - that things never get stale and commonplace.

Having to make important decisions based on incomplete information.

I love the fact that after playing these games on a daily basis for years and years and I still get those "did I just see that?" and "did that just happen?" moments when units interact in surpising ways. That's a lot of credit to the engine and the realism it generates - that things never get stale and commonplace.

Would be nice if they would let us toggle all fire orders on/off like we can with movement orders. Would make it much easier to remember to stop area firing units.

Nice video - looks like it will be a great game. Would be interesting to see a "side by side"-comparison with SF1.
One thing though, can we please have some new background sounds? Chirping birds in a desert setting just doesn't feel right.

I can never understand how so many otherwise intelligent people on these boards can't seem to understand and accept in regard the BFC business model.  And, while I'm at it, how so many insist on beating a dead horse over and over when BFC/Steve consistently tell them not to expect release dates, dev logs, etc., etc.
Yes, I'm a fanboi, but not because of the above posting, which is simply pointing out my wonderment at people ignoring the facts, repeated and consistent facts.
I'm a fanboi because, in spite of flaws, bugs, long silences and the like,  I love the game and have the utmost confidence in BFC based on a superlative track record of consistently putting out a superior product, continuously fixing bugs for free, upgrading constantly, back-upgrading older products, etc.,  years.
YMMV.

But what does it sound like? Chirp, chirp ... ?

Nice video - looks like it will be a great game. Would be interesting to see a "side by side"-comparison with SF1.
One thing though, can we please have some new background sounds? Chirping birds in a desert setting just doesn't feel right.

Hi everyone,
Here is a cinematic video featuring Shock Force 2! This is meant to be a showcase, similar in concept to a gameplay trailer. Keep in mind this is footage taken from a beta build of the game, and things are subject to change and all that. Hope you all enjoy!
 
 

I can recommend the Juno Beach Trilogy by Mark Zuhelke uwhich covers D-day to Falaise. Well written with a good mix of the operational level and the individual soldier. 

Nah, he's doing the patented Senator Orrin Hatch'es "Invisible Glasses" move:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_tEH7N0nU

Nah, he's doing the patented Senator Orrin Hatch'es "Invisible Glasses" move:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_tEH7N0nU

Jelly-fish was a known menace in the frozen hills of "the Bulge".

Thanks to Bootie's help I finally managed to upload the game. Even though it is called Rimini Airfield H2H Campaign it has been uploaded to the scenarios folder.
 
 

There has been some bugs associated with sound and Nvidia cards. Try disabling sound in game (ALT-S, I believe) and see if it crashes again. Another one made small changes in the Nvidia Control Panel (can't check which now) and that helped.

I keep wondering about this so I fired up the game. If you want 8km on one side you can make it 2.3km wide. And you cannot get to 4.5km squared you can get 4km by 4.5km. I made this table setting one side to 8km (maxes out) and then getting the max width. Then I reduced the depth by 500m ish at a time and maxed out the width again. If you continue you get the opposite numbers until you get to a width of 8000m and a depth of 2320.

So the longest you can get is 8km with a width of 2.3km and the max area you can get is 18.6km^2 at 2.6km by 7km. That's 1860 hectares BTW.
OK, OK what the heck is a hectare - in acres that would be 4596 acres.

I still owe @Bootie a list of stuff that didn't make the move. Sorry I'm slow on that. In the meantime I can send you a copy. PM me your email address and I'll send it.

I put together a short film of the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat team's recent NTC rotation. It occurs to me that w CMSF 2 coming out some might find it interesting. My son provided much of the helmet cam footage.. You can see the opfor makes liberal use of smoke for mounted movements..
Los
 

Amen to that brother. I had to get through some really rough stuff to get to that place, but I'm happy I got there. And being "old guys playing in the backyard" fits my philosophy that "we don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing". Take a lesson from small kids who find fun and games in just about anything, and then preserve that state of mind as much as possible.
Gamer for life.

Amen to that brother. I had to get through some really rough stuff to get to that place, but I'm happy I got there. And being "old guys playing in the backyard" fits my philosophy that "we don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing". Take a lesson from small kids who find fun and games in just about anything, and then preserve that state of mind as much as possible.
Gamer for life.

For nigh on ten years now my biggest projects have always been my portrait mods. I have invested weeks and months on end, that have added up to hundreds and hundreds of hours of time and frustration creating them. I have made easily over ten thousand portraits, through trial and error, redesign, and updates. It's been a true struggle at times, and I am never happy with the outcome, though I'll say I am, once a project is complete. But I am always fighting the design decisions I started with way back in SF1 and it's hamstrung me artistically. After the FB portraits I decided I wanted to redo all the portraits for all the titles (the BN mod is long over do for an update) . So, after a long hiatus, I set about trying to get to someplace that would finally make me happy. I decided to start with RT to get ahead of the module release, and after a week or so of fiddling, resizing, making test bmps, and checking in game, this is what I came up with.

For about two seconds I thought they looked good. But once again I was confronted by the poor design decisions I adopted all those years ago. You see, I have been in a constant fight with what I term the "bobble head effect", which causes the portrait heads to appear bulbous and fat-headed. It occurs because I opted to show each portrait with a split face on the bmp. It has been my bane since my BN mod and it frustrates me to no end. And considering how I built each face from screenshots, pieces of faces from all sorts of pictures, and the fact I only worked on the left side of the face, well it doesn't leave me room for presenting them in any other way. And On top of all that, I have always felt there was inconsistency in the quality of the faces, and that they appeared too cartoony.  So with that said, I am putting these portrait mods to rest. I have taken them as far as they will go and they have reached a dead end. They had a good run but there really isn't anything more I can do to improve them.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Now, check out what I have been doing for the last two weeks and tell me I didn't make the right decision...



Now for some comparisons of the old style and the new.


 
Now the portraits in the context of their own mod. It'll give you an idea of the overall design.


 
And within the context of the game UI.


 
Some of the portraits are tentative/place holders until I find something that really blows me away. Or will be replaced later. The Heer Armor and Armor Infantry come to mind as far as that goes. Luckily I haven't made anything yet with them, just tests.
Now, unfortunately I will probably have to share a lot of the portraits (mostly Germans) across games, however backgrounds and the like will be changed for each setting.  And I will of course do all the battalions and regiments etc. Whether or not I will be able to keep the quality across titles remains to be seen but I will do my best. It is going to be a colossal amount of work, already has been. For the Germans alone I have created and discarded over a thousand portraits. LOL. Every time I think I have one down and start producing keepers, I stumble across a better pic, or I adjust some color to better fit the portrait into the overall look and I have to redo a ton of work. I just replaced the Heer Infantry yesterday, now I have to redo 374 that I had already made, as well as the SS Arm Infantry. I have done this a couple times already. But getting it right is what's most important. Perfection is what I am aiming for.
I don't know how long it will take. Getting the right pics is painstaking and laborious as hell. For every good one I make I throw out five. But this style will be the definitive version of my portrait mods from here on out. As I complete them I will remove the old versions from the planet. I'll start threads in the corresponding game forums as I progress.
Welp, that's about it. I was gonna keep all this to myself and wait to surprise everyone, but I have been working in a vacuum for a month and it feels good to talk a little bit about it. Especially as I have been going full bore, night and day for two weeks straight. I Hope you guys like what you see. I think it's the best work I have ever done.

Mord.
 

The book is a good read too.

Progress to date: Camou applied. Plus the tanker was given Turkish pattern fatigues and a CVC helmet. Very different indeed from the default German vehicle.
 

It has been a long time in the making, and was previously known as the project "Man of the Our", but is now "Rittersprung H2H".
Scenario description:
After being severely decimated in the battle for the Hürtgen Forest, the 28th Infantry Division was sent to the rear to rest and refit. The 112th Infantry Regiment got located in the tri-country area of Lieler-Ouren-Lützkampen, spanning Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium – a six mile stretch of land on both sides of the Our river where the Siegfried Line had its westernmost fortifications, now occupied by the Allies. The 28th ID had just about recovered 100 % strength, with replacement units getting basic combat training, when the Germans launched their massive attack in the Ardennes on december 16th 1944. The crossing of the Our at Ouren would be an important part in the German advance and it was upon the 112th IR of the 28th ID to protect it as long as possible.
It is 10:30 on Dec 17th and the 112th IR was engaged in combat with German forces on the 16th and throughout the night. The morning fog has lifted but it is still misty from the cold and the wet ground. Visibility is reasonable but it is hard to make out units in the mist. Units in Lützkampen and Harspelt were swept aside on the 16th. Sevenig town was also attacked by a green force of Volksgrenadiers but was able to hold on. The Volksgrenadiers suffered a lot of casualties and many prisoners were taken. They are now presumed to be hiding in the woods west of Sevenig.
Semi-historical scenario which is aiming to capture a “what-if” combat based on units and turn of events that happened in the opening days of the Ardennes offensive.



 
It can be downloaded here: http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/uncategorized/rittersprung-h2h/
Enjoy, and all feedback is very welcome.