Roter Stern
-
Posts
519 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Posts posted by Roter Stern
-
-
9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Of course the news is so bad that he's going to try and obscure it as best he can, but the information will get out there. And when it does...
Notice that so far the only "official" casualty report came from the Armed Forces (albeit very optimistic) and none from Rosgvardiya, MVD, FSB, and whoever else undoubtedly got thrown in.
6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:I lost the link, but there was an article about this whole mess that explained that NATO was trying to do the transfer quietly so they could have sneaked them into Ukraine.
Genuine question here - how much use would those MiGs really be, given the current situation? Seems to me, that personnel-portable AA and AT weapons and UAVs stand to produce a much greater effect than a limited number of light fighters.
-
6 hours ago, AtlasActual said:
Hey Roter Stern,
I was also bothered by the OD vest and made this:
Good stuff, it looks great!
-
Irregulars/UNCONs and Special Forces for both sides would stand to add the most to the game.
Speaking from my experience in CMSF 1 & 2 - asymmetry in opposing forces is where the vast majority of the replay value comes from. Thoroughly enjoyed the Marines and NATO modules when they came out, sure, but in the grand scheme of things those were nothing more than set dressings and insignificantly contributed to longevity of CMSF for me.
-
33 minutes ago, dbsapp said:
This house definitely posed an airborne threat.
That's right - the second floor is off the ground ... well, was, until the building collapsed
I just love how most of the rounds go thought the building. If positioned well, in a built up setting a Shilka burst ends up hitting 2-3 buildings at once.
-
On 6/12/2021 at 9:02 PM, dbsapp said:
This topic is OFFICIAL.
Approved by the USSR Council of Ministers.
Da, tovarish!
Always keep a Shilka in your back pocket for a village assault:
-
20 hours ago, 37mm said:
looking through an old Hard drive for it (you actually)
Yeah that was a bust - no trace of anything CMSF related.
Spanish website lead sounds intriguing - sounds like a present-day version of "i got a new BBS phone number from a friend-of-a-friend"
-
20 hours ago, 37mm said:
looking through an old Hard drive for it (you actually)
Yeah that was a bust - no trace of anything CMSF related.
Spanish website lead sounds intriguing - sounds like a present-day version of "i got a new BBS phone number from a friend-of-a-friend"
-
On 5/14/2018 at 11:14 PM, 37mm said:
"Polyanskoe" is still available (I found it to be a nasty little bugger), does anybody have "Black Bear Down"?
Any luck tracking this one down?
-
Well, there's a pretty exhaustive discussion on this very topic happening here - have a read:
-
3 minutes ago, Dr.Fusselpulli said:
Looks kinda funny, if a tank rolls up a +4 slope with the "ditch" setting. But yeah, now that you mention it, I think I have read about some ditch option a while ago, but never seen or tried it.
An easy solution to that, which also looks good visually, is to paint that berm with terrain impassible to vehicles (heavy rocks, heavy forest, deep marsh*)
*well, i guess a deep marsh berm doesn't actually look good
-
10 minutes ago, Dr.Fusselpulli said:
Oh my god! That works?
I mean, I'm not going to be that jerk to throw a "RTFM" at anyone ... but that has been a feature for some time (since Engine 2 or 3?) - see CM Engine Manual v4.00 (page 91) or A Scen Design AAR PDF Book (page 32).
The manuals are really worth the read for anyone making scenarios - some kind soul put a good effort into those works.
Here's what a "Ditch locked" tank position looks like on flat ground:
-
I have to say, I do like me a "story driven" scenario - certainly makes me care about my pixeltroopen a lot more!
Are these positions supposed to be prepared tank firing positions?
Not going to lie, they don't work all that well, and I think there is a better way to make what you must've been trying to accomplish:
Here's how it looks like in the editor:
Hold CTRL when you do a direct elevation set to create those "blue" markers - those produce a "Ditch Lock", a much steeper elevation change.
Normally you'd want a 2-meter high berm for a good hull-down tank trench, but since these are on a significant elevation to the expected enemy, a gentle down-slope away from the berm will allow the tanks to inch front and back to find the perfect hull-down position.
-
And then you get these Chads:
Considering they only get 40 rounds for that SVD, that's quite the kill count.
-
41 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:
What happens when you pause the real-time game like I suggested? Does your FPS suddenly shoot up now that there's no spotting or shooting being calculated?
I don't see what you're trying to prove here. You're also making a rather huge assumption that calculations pause when the RT is paused. There's plenty of reasons why that would not be the case.
Point is, the more units are on the field, the slower RT runs - where as turn based is hardly effected.
-
2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:
This is a myth, as those calculations are not that demanding. Try playing a battle in real time. Notice the amount of frames per second you're getting. Now pause the game so that no bullets are fired and no eyes are looking around. What happens to the performance? It hardly changes.
Sure, let's try that.
Load up the scenario in question (The Citadel) and try running it in real-time. On my side it runs at sub-single FPS.
Now load up the same scenario in turn-based. For me each turn takes about 3 min to calculate, but once that's done I'm getting a decent 30~40 FPS.
Seems pretty clear cut to me.
-
11 hours ago, nposborn said:
My PC is able to run games like ARMA, why can't it run a much less graphically demanding game like Combat Mission?
My opinion is that comparing those two and expecting correlated results is a mistake. The scenario in question has something to the tune of 1200+ soldiers and 320+ vehicles - is that something you'd ever see in ARMA? I might be wrong, but I'd wager that's an order of magnitude more than the largest ARMA scenario.
Point is - this is not a graphics issue - 3D rendering is not the issue, I'd expect your GPU to be below 20% utilization running CM. The issue is the sheer volume of CPU-heavy calculations each and every soldier and vehicle has to execute - each pair of eyes looking around, each gun sight taking aim, each bullet being fried - every single frame.
I do have some good news for you, though - there is a fix!
I'm going to wager a guess and say you're attempting to run that scenario in Real-Time.... don't. Huge scenarios like that are not really meant to be run in RT - try turn-based.
You will notice that each 60-second "turn" takes about 5+min to calculate - that should tell you something. Once the turn is calculated, your FPS should be back up to your "normal" level, given the size of the map and number of units.
-
Perhaps another data point some might find interesting is frontal arc survival chances for the T-64/72/80s. Those three models and their variants were converging on the same numbers, so I'm calling them equal for simplicity.
This is of course not in hull-down and is not a reflection of Dragon's lethality - but rather the odds of hitting the lower front hull sweet spot at 980 meters.
This is also only counting hits which connected with the target, not shots fired - so does not account for Dragon's (lack of) reliability.
TL;DR - about a 50% chance that a single Dragon hitting a T-64 or better from the front will knock it out. It compounds from there with multiple hits - >90% of K/O if four hits are allowed to connect.
Seems the lesson for anyone playing OPFOR is to keep your T-64/72/80s hull down or roll the dice with shoot-and-scoot. With Dragon teams being plentiful and carrying 3 ATGMs each, the odds are still very much against any Soviet MBTs caught in the open.
Oh yeah, and send the T-55/62s to the scrapyard.
-
On 5/25/2021 at 1:19 PM, The_MonkeyKing said:
Before jumping to conclusions one needs data. Where the hit occurred and at what angle? Preferably lots of repetition.
Did a bit of repetition - recorded the outcome of 550+ Dragon hits on various Soviet tanks at various aspects.
I'll keep it to the point:
- If a Dragon manages to score a penetration, it is a guaranteed K/O - 292 penetrating hits recorded, all of which resulted in a (often catastrophic) K/O.
- The real weakness of the Dragon is reliability. I didn't keep track of how many nosedived and hit the dirt short of target, but it was a lot; and that's considering the Dragon teams were not being fired upon.
- T-55s and T-62s have no protection against the Dragon - first hit to connect is a guaranteed penetration at all aspects and hit locations. I stopped recording 55s/62s results after the first 48 frontal hits resulted in 100% K/O rate.
- All other Soviet MBTs seem almost impervious to the Dragon in the upper frontal arc (front turret, weapon mount, upper front hull). Of 280 hits that landed in upper front, only 2 managed to penetrate (0.07% rate).
- At the same time, all other arcs offer no protection - of the 290 hits recorded to sides (even at rather shallow 30* angles and including turret sides) and most importantly lower front hull - all scored a penetrating hit, a 100% K/O rate.
So a true case of YMMV:
- On one hand, a T-64/72/80 in a perfect hull-down position might appear "invincible". During one contrivance, I had to stop after 30 (thirty) consecutive hits failed to K/O a single T-72; however, make no mistake, there was not a single relevant subsystem left functional on that tank.
- Where as on the other hand, something as simple as a 30-degree traversal of the turret relative to the ATGM team pretty well guarantees a K/O on the first shot to reach the target.
I think no matter which side of the Dragon ATGM you find yourself in, such dramatically polarized results can most certainly lead to frustration.
p.s. In case anyone is curious what my last two hours looked like, here's a 12 min segment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2midc46M9CA
(You can also get a sense of how many missiles fail to reach target ... or even clear the launcher, as a few unlucky teams caught their own shrapnel)
-
4 hours ago, mjkerner said:
Roter Stern, what monitor do you have? I’m going to need a new one soon, but don’t want a monstrosity.
It's nothing special - it's a few years old now, and the only reason I got it was because of a steep discount and a "full featured" stand (height adjust, rotate, etc).
It's a Dell U2913WM, if you're still curious - I'm super happy with it.
My feeling is that unless you're a competitive gamer, you can do well with just about any monitor out there.
-
10 hours ago, Erwin said:
Impressive... and must be a new evolution as am pretty sure we couldn't do that in earlier games.
Not really a factor of being "earlier". The way different aspect ratios are rendered is a cognizant choice the developer has to make - it's not a factor of generation, hardware, or technology.
Some choose to crop the field-of-view to produce wider aspect ratios - usually done in competitive games to prevent giving an advantage; others (most?) choose to expand the field-of-view and render extra information in the wider aspect ratios.
Can't speak for CMx1 generation of games, but all CMx2 games render ultra-wide aspect with an expanded FOV.
-
32 minutes ago, Erwin said:
Looks great. However, I wonder if this is achieved by cutting off the top and bottom of the usual 4:3 (or whatever it is normally) ratio?
Nope, it adds to the sides - so a wider POV.
1920 x 1080 ("regular" 1080p):
2560 x 1080 ("ultrawide" 1080p):
-
On 5/10/2021 at 12:57 PM, db_zero said:
I'm getting a Samsung - G97T Series LC49G97TSSNXDC 49" Class 1000R Curved Gaming Monitor - Black and will be running programs in 4K will this and other Combat Mission titles function properly and look good?
Can confirm that CM works well in Ultra-wide. Can't comment on 4K, but others seems to not have issues.
Here's what 1080p Ultrawide looks like:
-
On 5/14/2021 at 10:43 AM, The_Capt said:
Well based on the time period we are more likely talking the Pattern 64 webbing.
Of course, I meant it very much tongue in cheek - I was implying that those olive green Load Bearing Vests belong in 2008 Syria just as much as they do in 1979~82 Germany.
On 5/14/2021 at 10:43 AM, The_Capt said:We went around the tree a lot on this as we were in the full arid sets by 09 but as can be seen Canadian uniform procurement is a splendid affair. In the end, as I recall, the decision was made to go to the green/arid mix (not sure why it is straight olive and not CADPAT) because it was probably more accurate of where we were wrt FG in 06-07 and it also made the Canadians more distinctive
Yep, seems like a logical decision - and I don't take an issue with green (CADPAT) vests over arid uniforms - there is plenty of photographic evidence of that:
The problem is with the Load Bearing Vests - those were phased out about 2 years before the Arid CADPAT was introduced.
Hence my thesis is - if CMSF choses to feature Arid CADPAT uniforms it can not by any logical stretch also feature LBVs, instead TacVests (either in Arid or TW CADPAT) are to be depicted.
Additionally, those LBVs were discontinued with such extreme haste around 2003~2004 that even if Canada found itself (as in the CMSF timeline) engaged in two large conflicts in 2008 and was in need of issuing older equipment to cover supply shortages, the LBVs would still not re-surface. After the TacVests were introduced the LBVs didn't go to Cadets, they didn't go to recruit schools, I don't think they even went to military surplus stores in any real numbers - my guess is that they were (quite literally) shredded and disposed of as scrap textile.
-
1 hour ago, Combatintman said:
the experience setting is a gameplay design mechanism rather than a reflection of Afghanistan experience
Indeed, in the context of scenarios tailored for a single-player perspective (i.e. the campaigns) it makes perfect sense to use gameplay parameters to drive the gameplay for the player, rather than be representative of real-world realities. Scenarios meant to be played from either side or multiplayer is a different story, in my opinion.
24 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:I wonder if the game was made to represent soviets accurately why would the games main campaign creator see it necessary to bump up the experience level of the soviets to unrealistic levels?
It's part of the simulation abstraction.
For example, in the first mission of the US campaign ("Racing The Moon") the US player is not at all meant to fight and eradicate the OPFOR, since the scenario depicts US forces pulling back from a rapidly advancing vast Soviet force. In theory there is an entire Soviet division pushing into the area, however it is unreasonable from a scenario design perspective to keep adding ever increasing amounts of OPFOR reinforcements (and creating complex coordinated AI plans) on the off-chance the US player manages to hold off the first wave.
Instead, an abstraction has to be made - in this case setting OPFOR units to "Crack" experience - in order to represent an overwhelming force. The alternative (flooding the game map with Soviet battalions and expecting the AI to make use of them) would end up being far more "unrealistic".
"Worn and Dusty" Canadian Armed Forces Weapons by Atlas
in CM Shock Force 2 Maps and Mods
Posted · Edited by Roter Stern
Good direction! My only comment is that it's maybe a little bit too much green, especially on the C7s - the green features are fairly dark to start with and only get more brown and tan in the desert.
Case in point - that's clearly an A2, but you can hardly tell those grips and the sight are green: