Roter Stern

Having played all the recent graphics blockbusters - i.e. Crysis, Vegas2, Age of Conan, etc - I can say without a shadow of doubt that graphics do not make a great game. Not to say it wasn't clear to me up until this point, especially considering that I still play X:Com on a regular basis. Sure those 2D sprites rendered in 640x480 resolution look a quite goofy on a 22-inch monitor, but ultimately it's the gameplay features that capture your attention, not the DirectX 10 glitter. Personally, I'd much rather have the Devs spend their time introducing new features and improving upon existing ones. For example, I'd much rather have them add a mechanism to show detailed hits and damage, than a fancy animation showing a turret getting blown off a tank. Or I'd rahter have the ability to share ammo between units, as opposed to improving the models to the point where you can see each individual handgranade on the soldiers tactical vests. …etc…etc..

Very interesting videos, especially the one about the trophies - sounds like Russian military research institutes are going to have a field day with all that NATO-standard crypto comms equipment. Also let's hope those up-armored Hummers captured in Gergia didn't have some form of composite armor derived from that of the Abrams.

From what I recall of that movie is that it's quite dramatized and doesn't portray combat all that accurately. If anything, I'd search for documentary footage from Chechnya - there's plenty. A good starting point is this guy's YouTube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/solovey12

Played though it last night for a Total Victory with nearly no casualties. To say that the scenario was too easy would not be correct - most of my kills came from the 6 bombs dropped by the planes, and for all I know if I was to play through a second time all 6 of those bombs could completely miss and make the mission virtually impossible. I would say the scenario felt a bit too random for my linking - I didn't feel like all those burning tanks were a result of my superior tactic or good timing. Speaking of tactics, I felt that there werent enough options for me to position my AT assets, especially considering how many of them I had. Besides, if the scenario expectation is to blow up the bridge and deny enemy armor passage all together, why would there be any AT assets there on the first place? What I did like was the premise - quite a good idea mixing Red and Blue units, and I got a chuckle out of the Fox News Team.. hehe

Considering that CMSF is already pushing the envelope of plausible Syrian equipment, I would be really surprised to see the T-95 in any of the future modules. That said however, from what little was said about CMSF:2 I gathered that it's going to be a bit more of a 'sandbox' type game than the current CMSF. Meaning that BF.C would be more willing to introduce 'non-exported' Russian kit, if not include Russia as one of the factions all together.

Dobro pojalovat' na nash forum, Alan Your English is indeed quite good, no worries there. And thanks for the comments, first hand accounts are always so much more insightful than anything you can possibly learn from the mass media!

Lack of proper winter setting is what has always stopped me from making a Grozny map. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be entertaining either way. BTW, "Fagot" is a Russian designation for what NATO calls the AT-4 Spigot - both refer to the exactly the same launcher.

I hope you're happy PT - I started playing the stock TF Thunder Campaign again ... if Blue-vs-Red makes me delete CMSF in anger, it'll be entirely your fault for taking down the Hasrabit download

Battalion-level sniper teams have the M107 for sure ... meaning you're probably not going to see it if you're only dealing with a Company-level battles.

Night vision goggles or dust goggles? Either way I can't say I've ever seen them in-game ... where were those pictures you saw?

Very interesting! Is this campaign going to be based on actual events of battles for Grozny? And if so, which one of the three battles for Grozny and which formations have you picked for this campaign? Also, how are you going to deal with the fact that both times the Federal forces attacked in the winter? Or is the premise for the campaign purely hypothetical?

Well the whole "fire hazard from exposed ammunition in the fighting compartment" is just business as usual for the Russians, so it's really not worth mentioning That said, if your IFV gets hit with a penetrating shot into the bottom half of the hull, I'd imagine you wouldn't have a pleasant time regardless of exposed ammo. But yeah, that voice over was horrific ... the whole "speaking through the nose to mask a terrible accent" was quite annoying. As for destroying helicopters, I'd quite certain the answer is 'no' - Arkan or not. For the same reason we don't have other SAM/AAA systems available on the battlefield.

Be a loudmouth on the forum, and you're sure to get picked

Would it be possible for you to re-post this fantastic campaign back on CMMods? I realize you would like to re-release it for v1.10, however for all we know that could be another 3 weeks away and I'd love to play though the campaign in the mean time .... call me impatient

Ouch.... Now, if only we knew when Normandy was coming out

The most recent mention of it I've seen is this - posted on 08-10-2008: Whether "soon" means v1.10 (aka the Marine module) or the next major patch after is yet to be specified.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning pre-order beta starts on the 7th as well ... better stock up on instant coffee

Why? What's happening on the 4th?

Well, judging by how no official release date has yet been announced for the new module, I'd say we're at least 2 weeks away. ...but that's ok, since I still have to finish both Space Siege and Mass Effect

Sounds like it's specific to your hardware, since I started playing CMSF when it first came out on an nVidia 6600GT and now I have it running on an nVidia 8800GTS and never had any problems with either card in any version of the game.

Figured I should re-post Moon's answer to a similar question, since I was looking for it myself:

A very interesting find, thanks for posting!

In Battlefront's and eLicance's defense, I got the issue resolved in less than a day - a Saturday morning, no less! That's exactly the type of inconsistency I encountered a while back. Also note that not only does the equipment get getter and more plentiful, but also the squad size increases - for example the Huge and large Combatant formations (which I just looked up on my newly working CMSF ) gain 2x riflemen in the HQ section and 1x LMG in each Squad. As for being persistent, that's what you get for making a gaming career of playing games for free by beta-testing them

Looks like that old report wasn't clear enough - here's what I actually meant.... (Apologies for lack of visual aids, however I'm having some eLicance problems ... apparently no one foresaw that people can have their hard drives fail and lose those precious emailed keys ... why couldn't they just print the darn things on the back of the DVD case, like everyone else is beyond me arghhh :mad: ) ... the equipment differences between Combatants and Fighters are in fact correct, as Mark pointed out - Combatants get scraps and Fighters get half-decent equipment. The thing that does seem to be reversed are their respective quality settings - essentially the exact same problem as was reported above about the ATGMs. From what I remember this is how it all looked like... but since I'm currently not able to confirm actual formations in-game :mad: and I don't have the TO&E memorized all that well, I'm more or less going to make one up replicating the inconstancy that I observed: Let's say we select a normal quality Fighter formation as a baseline - when loaded in-game they end up having a squad of 6 men with 1x RPK and 1x RPG7 as their special equipment. Now if you load up that exact same formation as an excellent quality, they'll end up with something along these lines: slightly fewer men with 1x RPD (which is supposed to be worse than the RPK), no RPG7, and even possibly worse rifles (AK47s, instead of AKMs). In other words overall the 'excellent' formation ends up being a bit worse than the 'normal' one. Where as if you make that formation as poor quality they'll end up with: slightly more men than normal, with 2x RPKs, 1x RPG (perhaps even an RPG-29), and the better rifles. So the 'poor' formation is a bit better than the 'normal' and a ton better than the 'excellent' one. Again, I haven't closely examined unconventional TO&Es since that last bug-report a year ago, so the equipment examples above a completely made up. I'm merely trying to demonstrate how their equipment quality changes slightly depending on the quality setting and how the equipment quality is backwards to the quality setting.

From what i recall Steve talk about it a while ago, the original plan was to have a module out every 9 months or so. Now if you consider that the first 6 months following SF release were dedicated to intensive patching, I'd say the Marine module is being released ahead of schedule.