CharlieMike24

Interesting article today in WSJ about EC's:
"We constantly hear that electric cars are the future—cleaner, cheaper and better. But if they’re so good, why does California need to ban gasoline-powered cars? Why does the world spend $30 billion a year subsidizing electric ones?
In reality, electric cars are only sometimes and somewhat better than the alternatives, they’re often much costlier, and they aren’t necessarily all that much cleaner. Over its lifetime, an electric car does emit less CO2 than a gasoline car, but the difference can range considerably depending on how the electricity is generated. Making batteries for electric cars also requires a massive amount of energy, mostly from burning coal in China. Add it all up and the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car emits a little less than half as much CO2 as a gasoline-powered one.
The climate effect of our electric-car efforts in the 2020s will be trivial. If every country achieved its stated ambitious electric-vehicle targets by 2030, the world would save 231 million tons of CO2 emissions. Plugging these savings into the standard United Nations Climate Panel model, that comes to a reduction of 0.0002 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century.
Electric cars’ impact on air pollution isn’t as straightforward as you might think. The vehicles themselves pollute only slightly less than a gasoline car because their massive batteries and consequent weight leads to more particulate pollution from greater wear on brakes, tires and roads. On top of that, the additional electricity they require can throw up large amounts of air pollution depending on how it’s generated. One recent study found that electric cars put out more of the most dangerous particulate air pollution than gasoline-powered cars in 70% of U.S. states. An American Economic Association study found that rather than lowering air pollution, on average each additional electric car in the U.S. causes additional air-pollution damage worth $1,100 over its lifetime.
The minerals required for those batteries also present an ethical problem, as many are mined in areas with dismal human-rights records. Most cobalt, for instance, is dug out in Congo, where child labor is not uncommon, specifically in mining. There are security risks too, given that mineral processing is concentrated in China.
Increased demand for already-prized minerals is likely to drive up the price of electric cars significantly. The International Energy Agency projects that if electric cars became as prevalent as they would have to be for the world to reach net zero by 2050, the annual total demand for lithium for auto mobile batteries alone that year would be almost 28 times as much as current annual global lithium production . The material prices for batteries this year are more than three times what they were in 2021, and electricity isn’t getting cheaper either.
Even if rising costs weren’t an issue, electric cars wouldn’t be much of a bargain. Proponents argue that though they’re more expensive to purchase, electric cars are cheaper to drive. But a new report from a U.S. Energy Department laboratory found that even in 2025 the agency’s default electric car’s total lifetime cost will be 9% higher than a gasoline car’s, and the study relied on the very generous assumption that electric cars are driven as much as regular ones. In reality, electric cars are driven less than half as much, which means they’re much costlier per mile.
In part this is because electric cars are often a luxury item. Two-thirds of the households in the U.S. that own one have incomes exceeding $100,000 a year. For 9 in 10 of electric-vehicle-owning households, it’s only a second car. They also have a gasoline-powered car—usually a bigger one, such as an SUV, pickup truck or minivan—that they use for long trips, given its longer range. And it takes additional costs to make electric cars convenient—such as installing a charger in your garage. Those who can’t afford it, or who don’t have a garage, will have to spend a lot more time at commercial chargers than it takes to fill up a car with gasoline. This is all why electric cars still require such massive subsidies to sell. Norway is the only country where most new cars are electric, and that took wiping the sales and registration tax on these vehicles—worth $25,160 a car—on top of other tax breaks such as reduced tolls. Even so, only 12.6% of all Norwegian cars on the road are electric. The country has the wealth to pay for them partly because of its oil revenue, and the trade is dubious: To cut one ton of CO2 emissions through the subsidization of electric cars, Norway has to sell 100 barrels of oil, which emit 40 tons of CO2.
Needless to say, other countries’ car stocks aren’t likely to be anywhere close to 100% electric anytime soon. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that barring new legislation only about 17% of all new U.S. cars will be electric by 2050, which translates to 13% of the total American car stock. As consumers continue to vote with their wallets against electric cars, it is hard to imagine places like California continuing to demand that they can purchase only electric ones.
Electric vehicles will take over the market only if innovation makes them actually better and cheaper than gasoline-powered cars. Politicians are spending hundreds of billions of dollars and keeping consumers from the cars they want for virtually no climate benefit."
Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.”

Hi everyone. Nikita here.
I'm still in Crimea. I have to be careful with every word, especially after being detained on 24th by police and FSB, so I will be brief. I am literally shaking as I type due to adrenaline, but we all need to be strong these days.
1) Ukraine will be free. The bastards will fail. I can clearly see it.
2) We witness an insane amount of heroism. Which is truly inspiring.
3) Thanks to Steve and other people from here who were kind to me in the past and took time and patience to communicate with me. It made a lot of difference in the end and made me a person who I am today.

The use of cluster munitions against such undeniably civilian targets like an apartment complex is one of the most disgusting things I've seen in recent memory. This goes beyond a casual disregard for collateral damaged as sometimes the US is accused of. At least the US has a process which tries to minimize the death of innocents. This is just inflicting pain and suffering for the sadist's sake. If Vladdy Daddy isn't ventilated before hand he ought to stand to account for what hes done. We hung Germans for much this. 

The irony is that you are making a large issue about someone who might lose his job because he doesn't speak out about the war (and it's not that he is dirt poor and needs those couple of EUR to feed his children). 
But on the other side of the coin are heavy Smerch MLRS cluster munitions targeting densely populated civilian area's, which you don't seem to have an issue with.
I think what we're seeing in Europe is that all those who were looking at both sides of the coin, have now seen that one side favors aggressive war under false pretenses with megalomaniac claims about 'one people, one empire' while the other is defending their country against the aggression.

 Ukraine is a country with a lot of corruption among other issues, but that doesn't make them deserving of being invaded and occupied; they haven't invaded any parts of Russia so the talk about self defense / security is just simply BS.
Your moral compass seems to have been lost long ago. If you feel for the orchestra director, send him some money. Ours will go to the Ukrainians defending their country against his dictator friend.

In solidarity,
My CM inspired Ukrainian flag.

Private Wilson makes first contact moving out the Hurtgen Forest. Try to make a comic book with this battle. 

It is released.  
 
 

New mod available.
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/cmbn-other/jujus-ui-mod-v6-unification-mod/
JuJu has announced that he was stepping back from modding in the CM community after many years stretching back to the CM1 days. Ithikial has been handed torch to Ithikial to keep the mod going. This release unifies the separate game families together to make the process going forward a touch easier. The unification project doesn't mean the mods for each title will now look identical, the exact opposite, however the common elements like weapon slots and silhouettes will now carry across the game families. It also adds support for the "Rome to Victory" and "Fire and Rubble" modules. All WW2 games are included in the one download at the link below.
Please read the included Read Me in the download. For any bug reports, errors and suggestions for improvement please post them to this thread (no PM's please!): https://community.battlefront.com/topic/139356-future-of-jujus-ui-mod-project-unification/   Screenshots and file names are a big help to help quickly identify the problems.
Thanks for downloading and enjoy!
Ithikial

Two more show-and-tells from today's work:

 

The first is a blend of stock modular and independent textures. The second, an import from Berlin with the German-style wall beams removed.

I montaged my New Reichs Chancellory building over a 1938 colour photograph to see how accurate it was, seems to work? 
 

I've been busy working on a Berlin Central Map with authentic buildings. Can you recognise any?????

Evening all,
@Juju has announced that he was stepping back from modding and after working as a tester for a few of his releases and then helping out directly with R2V he's graciously offered to handover the care of his long running UI mod to me. As he said, "Please look after my kids". JuJu has provided me with all the original .psd files now so it's easier to update and add things in with the new content matching pretty close to the existing mod. This is still well and truly his mod. Now I'm no artist but have been labouring away behind the scenes for a few hours every week and learning quite a bit as I go along. Please be a bit more patient.
There's been no CMRT F&R update from me but this is because I'm trying to hit these three goals before sending to Bootie for upload to CMMODS. Number 3 is the big one but a huge time saver going forward.
1) CMRT F&R Update - Done - just tweaking  (I may release this separately so you can overlay it on top of your existing UI mod). Also fixes the mod to reflect the changes that were brought in with the background panels in the update.
2) CMFI R2V Update - Fixing up some of my mess with shadows and colour correction in the last release.
3) Mod Unification Project - JuJu had different background textures for each family which made the workload quite high with not a lot being easily transferable between the families.. well without standing out like a saw thumb. I'm switching this around so for example the same M1 Garand Weapon Slot texture will now fit in in CMFI, CMBN and CMFB. Over time there's also been updated different icons for the same weapon, vehicle and special equipment icons between the families so I'm unifying the look there as well. CMFB icons get the preference given the slightly better detail. This also makes life a lot easier if and when future modules are released.
I should says this doesn't mean the all the mods will now look identical, the exact opposite, however the comment elements like weapon slots will carry across the game families. Think of it as the kids are still unique but I'm sending them to school and making them wear something resembling a uniform.
A few things that I'm not continuing or putting on the table now so there is no shocks later on. Most of this is largely due to time and I have no idea how to set up an script for the Paint.net to do some of this repetitive work automatically. Batch processing doesn't appear to be a thing. (I'm not paying subscription money to Adobe).
- Reducing the options for the "Yellow Weapon Slot" textures to just the red cross option. The many options JuJu provided over the years here is an absolute time sync to create each one by one for every weapon BF has modeled in WW2 era CM2. It's actually an enormous list now! I won't rule it out down the track to bringing some of them back or doing something new here. Vinnart has already had an interesting idea, but I want to get something out sooner rather than later.
- Portraits - Will fill in the gaps if I can get crafty enough and it meets my own (probably too) high bar. These are tough to get looking right. Backgrounds will be tweaked to sort of match the uniform of each branch to separate them out a touch. (See preview pics).
- Never going into Cold War or the Modern titles. JuJu didn't and neither will I.
 
Preview pics (I know about the black line running through the centre panel).

"Rakkasans" of 1/9 Infantry take down a suspect in the outskirts of al Qatana.
Note my latest take on the small open-fronted shops. Texturing that little merchandise display case next to the fruit stall alone was a 2 hour trial and error struggle. The signboards give a lot of life to the streetscapes.

Freddie Mercury and the band defend the Habanniyah district against infidel crusader!
 

Slitherine/Matrix usually provide Steam keys for previous purchases when launched on that platform. So I hope this is not an exception.

The bug has been patched and fix. The patches are being tested now to ensure nothing else is broken. 
As one of the original people who pointed out the 4.0 HE bug (anyone remember the video?) I know that it can be frustrating waiting for a patch. But, I also know that the bug is 100% fixed, having played the patch that addresses the issues. The bug is squashed, and the patch is coming. 

That looks like the reaction to HE bug in 3.0 but 4.0 fixed that, however that introduced the hedgerow bug...

Hello,
I've gone looking for a thread posted maybe a year ago where I was originally made aware of the "evade towards enemy" behaviour (though probably an actual bug) that typically involves infantry behind hedgerows breaking that cover when under fire and running towards the enemy through gaps in the hedgerow (invariably to their deaths) that I can confirm I has been able to reliably replicate when I downloaded and played the saved game that was provided by a user investigating the issue at the time. From what I understand, this issue may only be specific to CMBN and seems to only have appeared after one of the recent patch/engine upgrades. I would have checked the status of the issue and would have posted on that thread there but I have not been able to find the thread curiously enough, hence this new thread.
So I have just started a mirrored CMBN H2H QB on a map that I know several other players have battled over, and I just had a most extraordinary occurence of this "evade towards enemy" behaviour (or whatever you want to call it).  I had three infantry teams lined up along a stretch of hedgerow in a defensive deployment, evenly separated by about 15m.  Behind them is a flat wooded orchard. In front of them is a road, beyond which the terrain gently rises, criss-crossed with some buildings and hedgerows.
On the second turn of making contact with the enemy directly in front of them, returning fire and taking some level of suppression, each team, at some point in the turn, decided to essentially break cover and run sideways along the hedgerow to the nearest infantry-sized gap in the hedgerows and run through the gap in to the open directly towards the enemy where they just get shot up.  When the teams actually break from taking casualties, the surviving pixeltruppen (eg. those that remained in place cowering behind the hedgerow) rout away from the hedgerow/enemy through the orchard behind them.
Units lined up behind hedgerows engaging enemy start of turn:

"Rattled" pixeltruppen running suicide through hedgerow gap to meet their maker:

For the full video experience, you can watch it unfold here:
First and second teams suicide
Third team suicide
I did wonder if I had inadvertently given move orders to my units during the previous orders phase (can happen if you just want to select one unit to issue a move order to but inadvertently double click it whereby also selecting all its subordinates and/or formation level units as well).  However, I can rule that possibility out: other units in the formation were unaffected.
Still not satisfied, I checked the QB map in the Scenario Editor.  All "Friendly Direction" parameters were correct for the battle.  I then created a scenario file using the same map and parameters and purchased the same units on both sides.  I then placed the exact same German teams from the same platoon from the same company etc that I had purchased in the QB in the same spots and attacked them with the same infantry (US paras).  Incredibly (or maybe not so incredibly), the same thing happened!  Suicide through the hedgerow gap.
Even better: I have created a scenario file (TEST GAP.btt) using the same QB map with all units in place.  All you need to do is load the scenario file, play it as a turn-based Hotseat (or SP Germans) and just press Go for both sides, no need to give any orders.  The units will start shooting and exchanging fire immediately.  You should see this behaviour with your own eyes occur within the first minute of battle:
TEST GAP.btt
So what is Battlefront's official stance on what appears to be on this undesirable TacAI induced behaviour?
"What issue?" (no response/acknowledgement) "Nothing to see here, working as designed"(if so please explain) "Yeah, can't fix it, too bad, sucks for you though" "Wow, looking in to it, hopefully find a fix, keep you posted" FWIW, I have forfeited that H2H QB I am playing.  I can't afford to have that kind of thing happen and take those kinds of cheap loses and just continue playing regardless, let alone think it won't happen again.  I think for now I am regretfully going to just avoid playing any CMBN (or at least anything with that hedgerow terrain) until this issue is resolved.

After another year+ long work-related embargo, quarantine has allowed me to do a little CM design work once again, on my second Le Carillon CMBN scenario, using version 3.0.
FWIW, I have observed the following AI pathing oddity, and am tacking it to this thread, as it isn't worth a separate one.  It didn't otherwise show up in search.
1.  After repeated tests, it appears that once AI controlled units enter a building, they invariably take up a unit Facing that is OPPOSITE the building side they entered. In Scenario Test mode, you can see the AI assign that facing (blue line) at the end of the move.  That is true even if the unit is facing *away* from the enemy. This is regardless of what the Friendly Direction setting may be, or the unit's game start facing (I tested). 
2. They won't subsequently change their facing, even if an enemy unit shoots them up ("Psst, we're over here you idjets!").  In the case of a Spotter team, that's more than a little inconvenient....
3. The workaround seems to be to give them an order to a spot behind the building (i.e. opposite the side you want them to face), and then a follow on order to enter. Just make sure those doors aren't obstructed.
4. I stress tested this using different building types, set destination squares only on the desired side of the building, flagged the enemy as Target Units, slapped a TRP on top of them, confirmed LOS was clear, gave the AI side Full Intel, etc. No love, nothing got the AI's attention.  Same thing happened with a non-Spotter team, although larger squads will post some squaddies facing other directions.
BFC, please fix or sumfinksumfinksumfinksumfink...

So here is an example of the problem I was talking about on the Stavelot map. 
The problem affects these two white buildings highlighted here, just off the town square:

 
Here is a close-up. As you can see I have men stacked up right in front of the doors. Neither the front nor the rear doors are functional for these buildings, and it seems the only way in is to go through the inside of the adjacent buildings. Also, this is not the only building type affected by this bug. Some of the really narrow buildings on this exact same block are also affected by this, but for now I'll just point out these.

 
Here are the movement orders I have given. I had two separate teams try to enter the buildings side by side at the same time to illustrate the problem.


 
When I hit the big red button, both teams ignored the doors and then started running off to the right:

 
They circled around the corner, made a U-turn, and then entered the adjacent building at the end of the block.

 
Naturally, this meant that they ran right into the bullets of the Americans across the street.

 
So as you can see, it can be a bit of a game-breaking bug when it ends up like that, especially when playing a long campaign where every casualty you take matters. Luckily I save the game at the beginning of every turn anyway just in case something like this happens. I have multiple other examples and screenshots of this happening to other buildings on this same map as well.

Yeah I may have been a bit heavy handed and for that I am sorry.  No need to apologize for me being left out, that would be my problem not yours.  I was trying to get the back and forth to ratchet down a bit.  I would apologize for calling you a nerd... but that would be disingenuous.  As a nerd I recognize my fellow nerds.
And just because I love this cartoon
 

you guys can keep ranting on this if you so choose but you know what BF stance is on ToE.  It is what it is. It isn't any different than when you played in CMSF1 - was British QB unable to be played in CMSF1?  Personally yeah I'd like em in too, but again it is what it is.  Maybe BF will re add them, but I would not expect it soon simply because they need to move on other games now.
If they had never made the mistake of having them in British ToE in the first place...…   

I've gotten some tickets on the Help Desk where people are getting what they describe as either a back screen or just the Battlefront tanks firing with the black background. This happens when an element (or more) of the Upgrade is not activated. To cure it (or avoid it) follow these activation instructions:
 
Installation and activation instructions for the Combat Mission: Shock Force 1 Upgrade:   1) Download the game, extract the download and run the game installer.   2) Use the desktop shortcut labeled Activate New Products and enter the key that came with your CMSF Upgrade purchase.   3) Use the Activate New Products shortcut and enter your original Combat Mission Shock Force 1 base game key   4) If have purchased any of the module Upgrades use the Activate New Products shortcut and enter your original Combat Mission Shock Force module key. Repeat will all module keys.    You can actually activate these bits in any order that you want as long as each piece is activated. It's just the OCD in me that lists them in the order above.   Here's what it looks like:    

Hi NeoOhm,
Yes, Being provided with a new CMSF 1 key solved my problem.
I’d check with the help desk. But I suspect that if you have bought the $35 Big bundle pack, you will need CMSF1 NATO and Brits keys for things to work properly. They may be able to help 🤓. Good luck. 

Probably in the same vein, but direct from the knowledge base. This is really a great underutilized resource. I think Erwin's post is actually a direct copy from this. Easier to remember to go back to the knowledge base than find a post however. I just reinstalled CMSF on a new machine this summer and this worked exactly as described.

http://battlefront.mojohelpdesk.com/help/article/127930
I need to reinstall CMSF and one (or more) modules. How do I do that?

If you have a CMSF module, then you do not need your base game license key (ever again). That's because when you activate a module with a module license key, the base game is activated automatically as well. There is no need to license the base game separately if you intend to install a module with it.

For Windows Vista and Windows 7 users we recommend running the installers by right-clicking and selecting "Run as administrator" from the popup menu.

The default directory for Battlefront versions is usually '\Program Files\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force' for 32-bit versions of Windows and '\Program Files (x86)\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force' for 64-bit versions of Windows. Please double-check where you install the game and ensure that modules and patches install to the appropriate directory. A new folder/directory in the game's actual directory would be an incorrect location to install a patch to. Most patches will replace the main game executable and you should get confirmation that the patch installed properly by looking for this version number at the bottom, middle of the main menu screen.

Here is the correct way to reinstall CMSF and its modules (as of patch v. 1.32):

Install CMSF, do NOT license it if it is a Battlefront version.
Install the v. 1.10 patch for your distribution (Battlefront or Paradox). This step is sometimes not needed if you have the Marines module, but bundles that include the Marines module may not have all of the necessary files that are part of the v. 1.10 patch.
If you have the Marines module, install it now.
If you have the Marines module, launch CMSF and use the Marines license key to activate (this activates both CMSF and the Marines module).
If you have the British Forces module, install it now.
If you have the British Forces module, launch CMSF and use the British Forces license key to activate it now.
Install the v. 1.21 patch. Make sure to make the correct selections for the modules you have. Making an incorrect selection will result in modules disappearing or license key requests for modules you do not have. If you run into this problem reinstall the v. 1.21 patch again and make the correct selections. You must install the v. 1.21 patch BEFORE installing the NATO module.
If you have the NATO module, install it now.
If you have the NATO module, launch CMSF and use the NATO license key to activate it now.
Install the v. 1.31 patch. Make sure to make the correct selections for the modules you have. Making an incorrect selection will result in modules disappearing or license key requests for modules you do not have. If you run into this problem reinstall the v. 1.31 patch again and make the correct selections.
Install the v. 1.32 patch. Make sure to make the correct selections for the modules you have. Making an incorrect selection will result in modules disappearing or license key requests for modules you do not have. If you run into this problem reinstall the v. 1.32 patch again and make the correct selections.