Roter Stern

Lets hope they do ... I lost my "good taste" badge after I added the 4.5/10 CMSF to my game collection on GameSpot But in all seriousness, the pathfinding is excellent. I was most amazed when my vehicles when given a rather obscure "move quickly to the other side of the map" command were actually able to not only reliably avoid impassible terrain, but they also managed to pick the more favorable route, including avoiding mud and picking a less dense forest patch to navigate though... kudos! [ February 08, 2008, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

Another slow Friday, another excuse to play around with CMSF, another excuse to photoshop something In light of the recent changes in v1.06 to LOS in general and Foliage effect in particular, I'm revisiting this topic at hand. The set up is exactly the same as in the very first post - long lanes of trees of varying types and densities, with a unit at one end of each - a Syrian Army 3-man FO team. This time however, I'm actually going to have a look at all 6 tree types and their 3 main densities. Not including the "grid" density, since it was more or less established that those do no actually block LOS, but rather greatly narrow down the FOV. Seeing how the new LOS system in v1.06 has been expanded to make a distinction between completely blocked, partially blocked, and clear LOS - I'm also going to keep track of that. One very important thing I'd like to remind everyone to keep in mind is that the foliage tiles in CMx2 are treated very differently from the way they were treated back in CMx1. In CMx1 foliage tiles had a very constant and uniform effect on the LOS mainly because the 3D in-game representations of the trees were purely visual and not taken into account by the game engine. Where as in CMx2 each and every tree model we see in-game actually has its own individual effect on the LOS. In short, if you were to make a dozen tree tiles in CMx1 each one of them would have the exact same effect on the LOS - that is not the case in CMx2. Because of that the numbers below should not be taken as absolute, but rather as approximate guidelines. The first value is the "Max LOS" - that is the distance at which at least one of the team members is able to see a few points along the width of the respective 56m tree lane. In game this is depicted by the target line occasionally turning gray, never blue, and mostly staying 'blocked'. The second value is the "Clear LOS" - that is the distance at which all of the team members are able to reliably see the entire width of their 56m tree lane. In game this is depicted by the target line mostly staying blue, occasionally gray, and almost never blocked. The 'photos' are for those, who much like myself, can't seem to remember what each of those tree types look like in-game The 'areal photo' is of density-2 foliage. A printer friendly version...

I'm honored Also must say I envy the those toque textures! Very nicely done! Just out of curiosity, where do you get such clean looking material textures? [ February 08, 2008, 07:36 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

I liked "The Curve" as Blue. While the map is quite large, you're only dealing with 3 platoons worth of Stryker infantry, so it's not overwhelming. Most of the battle is fire-and-manoeuvre with lots of Arty and Air support, and a very minor urban assault element. Overall a very CMx1-like scenario.

Great to hear that it’s on the to-do list! I wonder if I should hold my breath for a LUA-type AI scripting with branching conditions and endless nested If-Then statements? One suggestion I haven’t seen mentioned yet, for when triggers are implemented into AI plans, is for each AI group to have a “Break off engagement upon…” condition. Mostly useful for an offensive AI plan, since as is stands right now it’s rather hard to force an AI to preserve it’s troops – once it commits to an assault it doesn’t seem to stop if its troops are being decimated. Actual conditions could range from simple casualty/status/ammo levels to perhaps something as complex as evaluating the defending enemy’s strength and composition. It would also be nice if we could set an area to for unit to retreat into, just to help the AI figure out where the safe-zone is.

That’s exactly it – it’s not that the game AI is stupid, but rather that the scenario designers lack the tools to make it react to the player’s actions. Basically the AI “pendulum” swung from a CMx1’s highly reactive AI with almost no concept of a global plan, to the opposite end of what we see right now in CMx2 where the AI is able to execute complex plans but is unable to show any initiative and deviate from the set plan at the right time. Idealy the AI Plans should be event driven, as opposed to timing. In other words each order should have a condition-check for the AI group to either advance to the next order or remain on their current. Alternatively, and possibly easier to execute, this could be solved with a tool which will allow the scenario designer to define a number of conditions upon which the AI would switch between different plans. So instead of randomly choosing between the 4-5 plans at the start of the battle, the AI could attempt to adapt to the player’s strategy. [ February 07, 2008, 09:14 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

Hehe, all it takes is to scare us with a possible removal of some eye candy and all of a sudden a problem is no longer a problem at all I would actually say that Area Fire restrictions are not harsh enough … with some careful planning there is still very little stopping the player from spraying every possible contact with a dozen 50cal and AGLs from Strykers not even remotely aware of the contact. This actually reminds me of the infamous Sea of Halftracks “tactic” I've seen people use in CMAK for no-armor-allowed quick battles. The idea was to buy nothing but those American 3xMMG halftracks, so you'd end up with 20 or 30 of the damn things, and then have them area fire every inch of visable terrain as they advanced forward. The ammo was usually not a problem considering that the 60 to 90 .30/.50cal's spraying your troops with lead was usually enough to route even an elite squad in a matter of seconds. While I do not want to suggest that area-fire should be removed completely, perhaps it should be tied into relative spotting a bit more. Perhaps have it handled closer to the way artilary is - a unit with a possitive contact could 'requiest' a suppresie fire, at which point the command and communications chain would kick in and spread this request to other friendly units. Those who are able to reveice this request and see the target would then open up with an area-fire… and those who are out of the loop would remain clue less to the requested area-fire. [ February 07, 2008, 07:19 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

Is there a problem with campaigns in 1.06?

A Red-on-Red campaign makes me a happy panda! Even if it doesn't take place in my beloved Eastern Block If you need another pair of hands play-testing some of these I'd love to help out, so feel free to drop me a line - I'm hurting for new RvR stuff to play these days

This looks interesting! Might even make an exception and uninstall the green grass and hedges mod for this one As for the arty spotters, I've been running into the same problem playing the Chechen theatre - really wish there was a way in the editor to "allow" certain Red units to call in arty.

Yes there is in fact a “swamp” tile, however it’s completely impassable - even to infantry. And that's not what I'm trying to establish with this thread ... perhaps I should even rename it to something more appropriate? As for the wet-muddy conditions – like I and Secondbrook mentioned above – those are hardly reliable at stopping vehicles. In a quick test I’ve done I had three T-72s traverse wet mud until immobolized – one was able to cross nearly 3km, second went for well over 4km, and I got bored of watching the third one chug along after it crossed the 7km marker. Also it seems that those little UAZ jeeps are completely immune to getting stuck - all three of the ones I tested kept up with the last T-72 at the 7km marker just fine. Although I'll admit that mud and dense trees is a pretty good idea - even if it won't stop the vehicles completely it might hold them back long enough to miss the battle [ February 05, 2008, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

They should appear on all 7 default building types, and the scenario setting does not make a difference. And it does sounds like you have them installed correctly. Keep in mind that "Window Graffiti.zip" (the 7-skin pack ) only includes graffiti on the "longwindow" textures, so they will not show up on plain walls. So if the scenario does not feature any buildings with those "store front" windows, naturally you will not see the graffiti. [ February 05, 2008, 06:01 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

Ah good eye, I missed that in the patch notes. I shall load up the original test scenario and have a look at it again.

Ohh jezz... gross! rofl

No actually I do not ... if it's the beards - that was already covered - a) there's a reason for them looking so excessive and some actually do wear huge beards. If you can manage to skin those fighter models into something better, I'd like to see it. [ February 04, 2008, 08:52 PM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

hardly a patch-day without a patch, now is it?

Well again, my biggest gripe is not with the vegetation, but rather with the hill gradients. Currently the game only makes a distinction between two types of terrain elevations - one that allows all traffic though, and another really steep one which blocks all traffic. What I'd like to see is exactly as it was done in CMAK (possibly even CMBB/CMBO, cant remember now) - a third type of gradient: one that blocks vehicles access, yet allows infantry to move though. Personally I see that as an invaluable tool for a scenario designer, especially in CMSF where we predominately deal with mech forces. Also we're missing CMAK's rough tile - again, when used properly it was an invaluable tool that allowed the scenario designer to bottle-neck one side's vehicles. Secondbrooks, I tried using mud as well, but it's no where as reliable at stopping vehicles as some scenarios would require. As a matter of fact I tried covering the entire map in mud and setting the weather to 'wet', yet my BMPs and BTRs were still ok for the most part even when driven 'quick'. [ February 03, 2008, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

...well, i have it disabled, so unless you're referring to the lack of AA causing it, i doubt it's it. [ February 03, 2008, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

Great insight, yet again Duke, thanks! As a side note, if someone out there is interested in this kind of detailed description of the Chechen theater, check out one of Duke's earlier posts on terrain and architecture. For the most part I was well aware of these points, however I had to take some liberties in order to make it work due to the in-game model limitations. The beard is made so wide and Santa-Clausish in order to texture the enormous black sack model that the default monks-in-gasmasks wear. If you look at these guys from a side profile, the extent of the problem is quite clear: Even textured as a beard it looks rather odd – imagine if it were textured with as plain skin – the guy would look like he has gills That's the same reason the rest of the guys are wearing face-masks, which aren't very common among Chechens either from what I understand. That said, note this photo of Basayev … quite the Santa he is: Also note the black head band – while it might indeed be rare to see them wear these, it provided me with a rather convenient texturing short-cut to blend the face and the cap textures Some of the other inaccuracies were caused by the rather low resolution textures the game uses for Uncons. A woods-camo green t-shirt would simply blend in completely with the coat texture, and a black knit cap would look like a black blob at that resolution. The “entire front torso of AK-mags” is not possible because those are governed by an in-game model, not just a texture. And as it stands right now I don’t believe we’re able to edit models, are we? But thanks again for the detailed post, always appreciated! [ February 03, 2008, 07:54 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

Heh-heh-heh!! </font>

Any idea what causes these kinds of jagged shadows on units, and any way to fix them? Most apparent on the ATGM's sightbox and the stand, but also present on the RPG gunner as well. Here's another one, on the inside of the right leg: These don't appear right away, but seem to always appear over time. I have an nVidia 6600-256, running v162.18. CMSF set to "Better" 3D Quality and no AA.

I'd like to revive this topic I started quite some time ago with the hopes that the Greater Powers will comment on the issue this time around.

Good eye! This reminds me of all the insane 'backronyms' people come up with ... APPETITE - Air Pallet Partial Extraction Tube Integrated Test Equipment But on topic, aside from a bump - just a quick note that the LOS values from the previous few tests seem unchanged in 1.05.

Having remembered that we can add brand new texture sets, I figured some skin verity was needed for the Fighter bunch. The pack has been expanded to 5 skins, and now features such notable characters as: the Beardo Weirdos - watch out, they're packing! and the Tuque Gang Download the 5-skin pack [ February 02, 2008, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

Zoom is The King - that's how you can make semi-realistic looking screenshots, such as my own new favorite from an earlier post: