InvaderCanuck
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Posts posted by InvaderCanuck
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I agree with this statement, but not the implications of it.Originally posted by Battlefront.com:So it isn't so much that CMx1 is superior as a simulation, it is just superior at hiding stuff. CMx2 shows more and does more, therefore it is increasing the chances of seeing things that aren't necessarily realistic.
Hiding things from me in CMAK or CMBB was fine because that was the game. That is what you expected. CMSF may be 100x more complex, and it may do things 100x better, but because it is more transparent, when you do see these things they are INFINITELY more frustrating.
When a squad in CMBB was broken or routed or even eliminated from a rubbled house, you were not worried about if the tracers were hitting accurately. You weren't worried about it because the game was played on a much grander scale of abstraction.
In SF when an MG team fires through a row of buildings and kills a squad of infantry, well this is an entirely different ball park. When the game is played at a 1:1 level and then LoS is not functioning in a similar fashion that is a situation that is far more difficult to reconcile.
It is difficult to reconcile this because your mind is being told 1:1, no abstraction. Then you watch tracers fly through a block or two of buildings and wipe out a squad.
I wouldn't say that LoS is a fundamental problem, but it could be. I don't know if the problems we are seeing now are possible to fix, and forgive me for being a realist, but you would say that it is fixable ;p
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I disagree with you. I learn something new all the time when playing games including wargames. I still have "AH HA!" moments. I admit that pure strategy games are probably better. Any game that forces to you plan, balance and execute can be as challenging as you are willing to make it. Only shooters are mindless. </font>Originally posted by StellarRat:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Steiner14:
StellarRat,
that's true, but computer games do not what you expect. The brain is like a muscle and the only way to keep it intact, is to put it to it's limits. That means reading and/or learning new things, that force the brain to remember. Playing chess is a completely other league and indeed is a good brain training. But CMSF isn't.
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Hey, I'll say someone completely absurd and then wait for everyone to slap me on the back for saying something completely not intelligent!Originally posted by MikeyD:Hey, I hate NASCAR - I think its a boring sport. Maybe I'll go find a NASCAR chat group and NEVER STOP POSTING MY OPINIONS ON IT!
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When, and only when LOS is not abstracted I might think about purchasing another Battlefront title.
I don't understand the decision to represent the game at the 1:1 level and then decide to abstract LOS. Bullets flying through the ground, through walls and through multiple buildings is unacceptable.
So, I will check the game out several patches down the road, and see if these LOS issues have been resolved.
My hunch, however, is that this is a design decision made by the programmer as some sort of MacGuyver fix. The entire LoS system in this game is a total fiasco so that is why my money is on the latter rather than the former, and no I am not talking about a proper LoS tool.
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There is no reason for a LOS tool.
LOS is abstracted in this game. In spite of the 1:1 representation of soldiers.
This leads to infuriating situations where an MG fires from 200 yards away, through the middle of a 4 story building and kills an entire squad.
It is quite possibly the oddest way to design a game I have ever seen.
The game seems to be checking LoS based on this abstraction. It then determines if an object is in the path. If the abstraction says there is LoS, then you shoot through the ground, walls, buildings, trenches, the list goes on. If it decides LoS is obstructed, then objects become solid.
The LoS issues in this game are a major step backwards from CMX1 and I hope that they can fix this in future patches. The LOS in this game even with the 1:1 representation is less flexible, less precise and down right clunky. Clunky is rather generous. Unplayable would be more accurate.
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I won't play over half the provided scenarios because WEGO is not functional in the way it should and they are not enjoyable in RT due to the scale of the battle.
Really looking forward to a thriving scenario building community ;p
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I did the mission with minimal casualties (at least what I consider minimal). I believe it was 6 KIA x2ish WIA. Half of those from one squad that was reduced to 1 man. No Javelins used.
What I did was advance my Strykers abreast to within approximately 50 meters of the wall. I then popped smoke on the Styker which housed my platoon HQ. They dismounted and the bad guys opened up. Immediately they were remounted and we stood back and hammered on the units that had uncovered their position.
Once the return fire ceased I dismounted the entire platoon and moved them up to the trench in front of the wall.
I continued to wack-a-mole any Syrian defenders that shot back with the GL's.
When the second platoon arrived I had them move quickly into the trench in front of the wall as well.
I felt that at this point the majority of their forward defenders were broken or dead, so I ordered one squad on an assault through a breach towards the buildings near the gate. They came under fire from an RPG team and I took heavy casualties on that squad. I repositioned a Stryker and had a second squad blast a hole for it to hammer the suspected culprits.
On the right I looped a squad down the length of the wall towards the two buildings towards the back right of the map. Those two small one story buildings had both had their forward facing walls blown out by the GL's and the men firing from those positions were silenced.
I then ordered the remaining infantry through 2 gaps to assault or quickly move into the first floor of the hospital as well as the hospitals right most wing.
I took a couple more hits entering the hospital but the shooters were quickly silenced and I pressed two squads towards the roof while the HQ's consolidated the middle floors.
Two strykers then exploited the security my lone squad on the right and towards the enemies rear was providing. They drove around behind the hospital and shut down any tom foolery the AI might have been plotting in the rear left.
The remainder of my casualties came when I assaulted the left most wing of the hospital. One squad took serious damage as it ran out into the street before re-entering the complex.
Shortly after this I won a total victory.
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I played this scenario today as well.
I think we had slightly differing approaches ;p
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Oh, I thought I'd also mention how I approached this scenario.
SPOILER!!!
Well, I took stock of my assets and looked at what I was going to assault.
I felt it was fairly obvious that someone or something would be in the minaret. This however was not so important, at least not initially.
I noticed that I had 2 120 MM mortars and that coincidently there were two small clusters of buildings on each flank of the primary objective.
Noting that these buildings were of little significance, I ordered my Mortars to level them.
I then had all of my infantry move up to the river bed and line up along the edge (slight LoS abstraction allowing) and issued cover arc orders over the central buildings.
I felt confident that any resistance in or around those outlying buildings would be quashed so I ignored them.
Once I felt that I had adequate covering fire, I ordered one squad on my left forward to approach the closest buildings in the central cluster.
After moving perhaps 30 yards they came under heavy fire from the central building and some of the surrounding buildings. This squad was ultimately reduced to 1 single man. I then poured lots of suppressive fire into the buildings, directing direct fire onto targets as they made themselves visible. While I did this I moved two squads up on the right.
I took light casualties as I moved on the right side of the central clump of buildings, until an MG team and an irregular squad opened up from the far right in a two story building. At the same time my sweeping action on the left came under fire from the lone survivor of an RPG team who was stationed in one of the leveled buildings on my left flank.
I was able to pin the MG team and the irregulars on my right with a focused fire with my BTR's. I then resumed the push in from the right into the central buildings. The minaret finally belched to life but was quickly silenced. Taking the administrative building and its surrounding area was achieved easily. The only point of resistance was now that MG team with its supporting irregular infantry in the two story on the right.
Pouring fire in from many directions they finally threw in the towel.
All in all easily the most enjoyable scenario I have played it.
The key I think for me was leveling those flanking buildings. After the battle was over and I reviewed the map it became apparent that had they been left alone I would have taken much more than 4 KIA and 19 wounded ;p
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The Louch, I see you are dallying over your current scenario.
I would like to inform you that your fawning fans would urgently like you to get back into the scenario editor and provide us, your fan base, with no less than 2 red on red scenarios per day.
Thank you very much!
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Here is why QB's are broken.
I just tried to play a tiny QB, Syrian SF vs Syrian Light Infantry on the village setting.
My force consisted of 4 Kornet launchers and a platoon HQ.
Right.
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Is it possible for this to be hosted else where?
I don't really want to sign up on some website to DL it.
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I am terribly disappointed overall. I've been anticipating this title for years.
There may be a light at the end of the tunnel. The game has the potential to be great, but I for one don't know if what doesn't work is actually fixable.
I've played the game *lots* since the 27th. I've tried to love it, I've tried very hard.
Things like sketchy LoS. Terrible AI pathing decisions, when you have held its hand and given it a very precise set of way points to follow.
Non-existent AI. The AI doesn't do anything. You attack and destroy it in place. It's attacks are boneheaded and brainless. It trickles units in slowly to get cut up.
QB's. The AI doesn't work in these at all, AI plans must not be loading because there is even less AI behavior in these than in scenarios. Force selection. Now, I don't particularly care that I can't select what I am playing with directly. However, when I select Medium Mechanized Infantry, I'd like to see what that encompasses. I spent 45 minutes loading quick battles with various Syrian troop load outs trying to find something that was playable.
Last and perhaps the most important.
The game as advertised as Wego and realtime. Yet only realtime is available online.
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</font>Originally posted by finkster:>>what would a win look like for you!?
Victory would look like Germany and Japan in 1945. Both were highly movitated, determined antagonists with a thousand year history of militarism. Japan, in particular, raised military suicide to a national duty. When we were done with them, we defeated them so decisively that these countries were not the same, nor would they ever be the same.
We did something unique in military history - we changed their minds, and altered their societies and mentalities from militaristic to pacifistic. You won't find many volunteers in either Germany or Japan for the next war.
>>take the draw
A draw, on the other hand, looks exactly what it is - namely, defeat. A draw was precisely what Japan was hoping for after the Battle of the Phillipine Sea, which destroyed every hope of victory. Japan fought on for a year and a half sustaining enormous military and civilian casualties, and inflicting serious casualties on the United States, especially at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It was Japan's vain hope that by continuing the fight even after victory was no longer possible that the prospect of even more American casualties would persuade the United States to accept a "draw".
The decision to nuke Japan completely changed the calculus of the war. Japan hoped for a favorable casualty ratio to deter us from our stated goal of unconditional surrender, and what it got for its trouble was a lesson in mathematics, viz, the denominator of the casualty ratio [like any fraction] cannot be zero. We were both capable and willing to wipe out the Japanese genome, suffering zero casualties along the way. So much for their math.
If a tiny band of terrorists can extract a draw from the United States [or any other super power] in a military engagment by protracting that enagement and inflicting reletively trivial casualties it will only encourage others to follow suit. The military policy of the United States should be deterrence, i.e. any potential enemy should so fear the consequences of going to war with us that they decide not to.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />si vis pacem para bellum [if you want peace, prepare for war]
Vegetius (late Roman empire)
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I've played 3 or 4 QB's now and the AI has done nothing in all of them. They rarely if ever even return fire when I finally cross the map and reach them.
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What i've noticed that the pathing AI seems to take liberty with what it does AT each waypoint.
For example, I have ordered a squad to quickly move through a series of alleys and back streets to a building via many waypoints. Occasionally they will reach a waypoint and divert completely off the path to assemble in the middle of a more open area before setting off again.
I too have noticed that individual soldiers will often ignore a waypoint placed directly in front of a door, to circle the house and enter the building from the other door. Usually it seems like it is about half the squad.
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I've got an outstanding sense of humor. Unfortunately, it's not up to you, stoat, or anyone else to decide when or where when I use it. </font>Originally posted by B00M$LANG:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Melnibone:
I have a spare sense of humour boxed up in my garage if you need it.
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I only do this after heavy suppressive fire, or a large arty barrage. I also make sure that if I have not previously saturated the area with hot lead, I have lots of fire support on hand to pin anything that might stick its head up.Originally posted by Cameroon:See, if I try that Invader, I get my Stryker whacked by an RPG. Never seems to fail. Maybe it's a difference of QB vs Campaign?
I dunno, but if I don't lay down loads of suppressing fire with the .50 cals before moving in, I get pummeled.
The Mk19 is brilliant for this.
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I'd kill for lots of scenarios played on "medium" sized maps with smaller force makeup.
I'm talking a platoon or two.
These kind of scenarios imho would be optimal for RT multiplay.
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I posted something similar about this scenario.
The scenario creator replied and informed me that there was an incorrect command in the AI plan.
Essentially both sides are ordered to assault which results in them moving EXTREMELY slowly, moreover if you put any shots down range on them from the center they will hunker down and move even more slowly.
To correct this go into the scenario editor, load the AI plans and change order 2 from assault to advance for Blue and Red. I believe those are the instructions.
When I did this I had a much more aggressive AI and while I won a total victory as Syrians it could have swung either way.
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You absolutely can execute a facing at the end of a string of waypoints.
Each waypoint is individually selectable.
You can issue all sorts of commands, facing is one of them.
Simply left click on the waypoint. Then click the face hotkey. Draw the line in the direction you wish to face, viola.
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Generally I've only been deploying infantry directly on objectives.
This is following a very thorough sanitization of the area.
Essentially I creep up wait for bad guys to shoot and then I pound them until stuff stops moving.
If I absolutely have to take something and I know time is going to be short, I will saturate the area with arty, and rush strykers using the MK19 or MGS as my primary over watch. I'll pop smoke on location and dismount the infantry. I then pull my strykers back to a more reasonable position and suppress any hot spots that may have popped up.
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I believe I heard that you are allowed to install the game on two separate computers and have two active instances of the license at any given time?
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Please explain to me how you could possibly manage a scenario like the second mission in the campaign.Originally posted by Elvis:If you agree with him that the game is impossible to play using RT (either TCP or solo) then you are both wrong and are giving the wrong impression to others. You may not like it and it may not be for you but it is FAR from imposssible. Myself and others have been doing it for months. Using the T and Y keys to move between order menus and choosing ordsers and the mouse for camera control and unit selection the game becomes almost second nature once you've done it for a little bit. It still might be your bag and I'm not trying to convince you that it will be but please stop making false assertions about the playability of the game. There is a very big difference between "I have been trying this for a couple of days and don't feel comfortable with it and don't think I ever will" or "I hate RT somuch I'm not even going to try TCP RT" and "it is close to impossible to play this". Know what I meen?
I'd watch you, wait for you to start actively issuing orders in one location, and then bushwack you at another spot.
When you have multiple forces spread out over several objectives that are not close to each other you cannot tell me with a straight face that you are capable of simultaneously managing them all adequately.
If anyone believes that it is possible, I've got formerly the longest floating bridge in the world i'd like to sell you.
New Review from Australian PCPP!
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
For me as released the game is an abortion of epic proportions. The reputation BF has garnered for the CMx1 games is partially responsible for the scope of my disappointment.
What I see are a score of fundamental problems with the engine, yes I said fundamental, that I will consider fundamental until someone can prove otherwise.
The line of sight issues seem fundamental to their pre calculated tiles. The path finding issues, if big studios with infinitely larger resource pools can't make quality path finding for simplistic RTS's, I don't see how BF is going to pull it off with one guy being the brains behind everything and the game itself being something "slightly" more than a basic RTS. The standard stance that "We are something more than a basic RTS" is not an excuse. That does seem to be a pre-canned response to criticism by the way. That because our game is so complex these things are to be expected.
I think part of the issue is that Charles is the only guy coding the game and providing solutions to problems. Two heads are always better than one and I am sure there have been instances in the development where having more programmers to tackle a problem would have provided more points of view and ultimately more and in some cases a better approach to solve that problem.
You have to understand my disappointment with SF is as great as it is, due to my love of the CMx1 games and my lofty expectations for CMx2.
At the end of the day my question is this. You haven't invented a hover board, so why the hell did you try to reinvent the wheel. Everyone would have been very happy for the same functionality with modern graphics.