sburke

Cut it out, there is no time for well reasoned logic when the Giant Radioactive Ego that ate Phoenix (GREtaP) is in the room. I for one am glad he had the bravery to speak up. All I have seen on this forum is thread after thread complaining where are all the StuGs?, that is what the community lives for. They are tired of Panthers, they cry out for turretless armor to take on T34 85s and JS IIs. BF! they cry, why why why do you make us fight battles with Panthers and King Tigers when all we really wanted was some StuGs and maybe once in a while a Pz IV. Heck we don't even want armor, where is the scenario where we sit under a punishing 3 hour artillery barrage? It is time the designers were called on their German uber armor fetish. Me I gave up on them long ago and I only play scenarios designed by the GREtaP. Thank goodness the repository is just overflowing with them. George I hated Studienka and I swear I will stop playing it just after I finish one more try. Damn Panthers.

Hmm well I have used it to a degree, mainly to make a particular AI plan possible, but not likely simply because it might be too much. In Out on a Limb as an example the coordination between the two German counterattacking units is normally kind of haphazard. They are meant to be from two different organizational structures and uncoordinated. However just for some variation I had one plan where they strike in unison at the vulnerable player force. It is not a plan that really matches my overall intent but does spike up the difficulty level. As to how useful it is, I honestly can't say. I have no idea how other players approach the game and replay. I figured that it couldn't hurt to have, if they don't use it no big deal.

kostka7, did that get it for you?

Wow that was no where near as bad as I feared.

wrong folder. You need to go to the mydocs/Battlefront/Combat Mission/Red Thunder directory. In there you will have user data and game files folders. Mods are in the mods folder under user data. Scenarios and the like go into the appropriate folder under game files.

Don't count on it. To be honest I am feeling pretty sh**ty about ranting at z1812 and feel obligated to explain my reaction a bit. I certainly don't speak for any other beta testers so please don't infer anything about anyone else's perspective based on my outburst. The beta testers are not an amorphous mob. We can have just as strongly divergent opinions as you see on the forum and as some of you have noted there are beta testers who regularly participate in the forum, and some you almost never hear from. Not to excuse it, but part of my reaction is based on a feeling that the beta testers sort of get caught in the middle, they are almost perceived as BF on the forum when in fact that relationship is a little more complex. The only thing I think you can say uniformly about them is they love the game and they have a very high degree of respect for what Steve and Charles have created. I have stated this prior to becoming a beta tester during the Hamel Vallee AAR So why would I become a beta tester? I have in fact been told at least once by one I respect (actually I respect them all...) that maybe I should tone it down a bit. As I explained to him at the time, this to me IS the golden age of gaming. I have been at this for a few decades now. It is only since the release of CMBN however that I can say I have any gaming partners. I posted once prior to CMBN. I had never had a pbem game prior. That in itself makes CM an emotional issue for me. It represents something I value highly. I have some really great gaming partners, a product that whatever it's shortcomings is still head and shoulders above anything else out there and a community that continually surprises me with the depth of knowledge in wildly divergent areas. I am not a grog. What fascinates me about combat is the human equation. How do we react to the turmoil of combat, how much can any one individual impact events and how does that human element affect the battle. I am much more into watching the TAC AI play out than I am worrying about whether the slope of my armor and it's RHA factor is accurately modelled. That there are so many folks out there to argue that minutiae is however part of what makes the game great. I have no idea why BF asked me to beta test. They never explained and I never asked. While one part of me wondered if it was a smart idea considering how much s**t I think the testers get, the other half never questioned being able to contribute no matter how small a degree to the success of Combat Mission and Battlefront. Does that make me a fanboi? Maybe, depending I guess on how you define that. I love the game despite the issues it struggles with trying to cram as much as it can into the processing power available, driver issues between companies etc etc Does that make me non-critical? I doubt BF would have asked me to beta test if they felt I didn't have some ability to look for issues in the game, isn't that the whole point of beta testing? Do I think BF is a company who could give a s**t about the user community and ignores user input? No and that is so laughable it is beyond ridiculous. BF is what maybe 8-12 people? Do people get just how small that is? The net result is they are disproportionally represented by their beta testers. Folks who aren't actually BF, but are very much a part of their community. We can't and don't speak for them, but at the same time are perceived as their representatives for the simple reason that we are a communications conduit in some respects. Anyway z1812, sorry again. The thread just hit a nerve.

GAJ I'll PM you

Fair enough. Sorry for ranting

Portending something coming to a repository near you?

queue Monty Python video Spam! Spam! Spam!......

Yeah well in this case my opinion does matter a little as I am one of the people that would actually pass this on to BF. Not that it makes me at all anything important, just simply that I know what I need to be able to address it and am trying to pass that information back. I think there are a number of people on this forum who can attest to my willingness to try and put things forward to BF. Hell I submitted one on Womble's behalf today, because.... yes he handed off a game save. Christ, this wasn't enough? "Posting videos of frustrating issues that are driving you nuts while probably making you feel better and showing others what you saw that bugged you are absolutely useless to the beta folks who would like to help you. We understand the frustration." Sorry I didn't coddle you more. Would you like your binky? As to it being more than what most people provide, so what? All that means is most of the griping accomplishes nothing unless a beta tester also feels they might see something and takes on testing themselves. In case you don't get it, there is nothing special about being a beta tester other than being able to submit a ticket. Any person who owns the game has just as much ability to test and document as we do..and no we are not paid to do this so stop expecting some special treatment. You are not my customer and I am not your mother. You want me to do something for free at your behest, then give me something to work with. If not, sod off. What are you Lt Bull's self designated defender? He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who needs me to soft pedal the response or p***y foot around explaining that the videos themselves aren't going to contribute to solving anything. If he feels butt hurt then I am sorry about that it wasn't the intent, however HE can tell me that you don't need to. Okay yeah this was a rant and unhelpful, but geez man you want something to be done by someone who gets nothing for doing it then you give me s**t cause I didn't say it nice enough?

You do realize that when you load the game it includes both manuals in pdf form right? Check the folder where the game executable is. How's that for immediate gratification?

Okay we all done snapping at each other in a totally useless display of unhelpful behavior? Excellent. Back to the OP. Here's the deal. Posting videos of frustrating issues that are driving you nuts while probably making you feel better and showing others what you saw that bugged you are absolutely useless to the beta folks who would like to help you. We understand the frustration. What we needed and what you most definitely had the opportunity to provide was the turn saves. If you had the ability to make video ALL you had to do was hit save. Then we would have something to review, see if the behavior has some possible good reason and if it doesn't we can provide BF and say - hey guys want to take a look at this? As of right now, all we have is a rant. While it may make the OP feel a little better, it doesn't get us even an inch closer to having something for BF to work with so please folks, if you have an example and want to see if it something can be done - a save is a must, not just an additional bonus.

That is going to vary by designer and probably by scenario. I am relatively inexperienced so take what I say with a grain of salt. In the couple I did I tried to give a fair amount of variety. I actually created all 5 AI plans for both sides and I would typically make a couple that were similar and 2 that were more extreme. I also tried to leave a lot of variability in the timing of moves so not only would the 5 plans be different but even playing the same plan twice would not necessarily play out the same way. Now that we have triggers this will get even more complex. I think what you will find as the AI continues to develop is playability is going to keep increasing in terms of getting different outcomes. The nice thing about triggers is the variability I referred to earlier didn't mean the AI would do things well, just differently. With triggers I think you will see more plans that are different and also good.

Everything you need to know compliments of Sergei http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97288

you can set a plan as not used. So go into the editor, if there are 5 plans, set 4 as not used. After playing switch which is the available one. It really is pretty easy. The lesson, don't be afraid of the editor. Heck even I learned how to use it.

You can actually do that but you have to open it in the editor

Absolutely wrong - it is fanbois now go write that on the board 1000 times, sheesh illiterate urchin. Yes folks are a bit sensitive at times. I don't necessarily chalk it up to feeling the game can not be a subject of criticism, but more that the criticism is often unfounded or simply doesn't take into account the limitations the developers face and the trade offs we have to make. Taking myself as an example. Yes I agree it can be very frustrating when the idiosyncracies of spotting bite you in the ass. But really how much time have we spent on this forum talking ad nauseum of the nature of how spotting works and the unavoidable shortcomings? I sympathize with Lt Bull, but I play the game knowing there is only so much BF can do and that sometimes, just like in RL, **** happens. It is a game. It works with certain limitations. Yes sometimes those limitations can be frustrating, but when I run into things that frustrate me I don't typically open my front door and start shouting at the neighborhood that my new (cheap) router bit just bent and chewed up a piece of wood and the backguard of the router table at which point I found out the right guard of my new router table is no longer made. WTF it is brand new?! Okay this was really an excuse to vent about my router bit. Sorry for the diversion. Carry on.

heck I have played against the Japanese on Makin Island, fought in Tunisia and Crete. A little imagination (and a few friends who are really into modding) goes a long way.

Arnold only cries when you find out he has a love child..oh wait.

Time to ask for a rr track mod to make it look like a tram line?

You mean like this? That is sized to the Barrikady. Unfortunately you still can't do justice to it in CM, the interior is a few dozen independent buildings. So keep at it wespe001. It is new and damned cool. It will be well appreciated and long after you have been locked away in the insane asylum where this map will have driven you, we will still be waging battle on it.

try changing the region to Eastern Europe. I did that and got a different map after seeing the same one 4x with open, medium, meeting engagement left to Russia. However I got the Eastern Europe map twice. I left it at medium size not random. I'll give that shot and see if there is more variation. I'll check the other open meeting engagement maps to see if there is something that limits when they will show. Changing size to random gave me other maps, but I think the selection is still small. When you are in the set up screen what parameters do you select, what do leave as defaulted and what do the default to?

I don't think your guys cry out as they die enough.

ooooooohhh aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh