Bahger

Waiting for CMBS after watching ChrisND's vids has re-awakened my taste for grognarding to such an extent that I am considering re-purchasing Steel Beasts in the interim, but at $115, it's a very expensive stopgap measure. My finger is hovering over the "Buy" button as I write this. Help!

Yes there are significant hazards attached to being an inveterate early adopter of games for the PC. I like modern kit so I dove into CMSF from day one and, as you say, it was a massive farrago. Steve and I had what might be called "robust" exchanges on the forum about the truly appalling vehicle pathfinding; we always kept it civil so there were no bans but he did not enjoy my use of the words "Keystone Kops" to characterize vehicle behavior in the early versions. They patched up the game after about six months but by then I was exhausted at having paid to be a beta tester and lost my enthusiasm for the game. I had no intention of coming back until I saw ChrisND's playthroughs of CMBS. I saw vehicles being maneuvered on- and off-road with necessary precision, a much improved UI, better integration of off-map assets, more effective infantry and much-enhanced AI, which was by far the most urgent general requirement for the game to live up to its potential. CMBS appears to be a fully mature product with a shiny new engine to boot, so I am delighted to be diving in again and expect not to be antagonizing Steve. I do not think I will reinstall SF, though, as I can tiptoe Strykers around the battlefield to my heart's content in BS.

Sorry, but the grovelling is creepy.

I feel I need to let you know that you are a little creepy, heyhellowwhatsnew, but perhaps it's just a language/culture issue.

I agree entirely. In my long experience of gaming on the PC I have found that the best games (including both the Combat Mission Series and Door Kickers) are those that do one thing very well. When games attempt to be all things to all gamers, that's when they fail. The CM devs are obviously very vigilant about this, thankfully, as evidenced by ChrisND's posts about the game's (self-imposed) limitations of abstracted air support and the dangers of getting too far into off-map assets. This also explains the developers' reluctance to offer Spec Ops gameplay within the CM world, as has been explained convincingly in other threads. Game engines built for one purpose, which in the case of CM is to simulate a company-, or possibly battalion-scaled battlefield, are rarely capable of being adapted for another purpose, whatever the demand, perceived synchronicities or commercial benefits. Wise developers understand these limitations and make a virtue of them. In CM, if I can get infantry to assault and enter a building using supporting fires and effective maneuver, I do not want to have to micromanage room breaches.

Not for me, Takoda, sorry. I am a huge fan of Door Kickers (and an original crowd-funder to boot) but it's a game scaled at team (not even squad) level where CM is scaled at company level. I would not want to deal with the minutiae of individual soldiers entering rooms in CM any more than I would want to play large urban battles in DK. I do not think CQB falls within the scope of CM's concept nor is its engine designed to simulate conflict on such a granular level.

The potatoes spin around? Well, they will certainly need to fix that before they release the game.

I think Dan is asking if modders could reskin this object. In his defense, I do not believe he is asking the devs to do any reskinning on his behalf before releasing the game.

I like consommé. Best consommé (and best vodka gimlets) to be had in Los Angeles is at Musso and Frank's in Hollywood. You're welcome.

Not next week now. February. Of course I will be very happy to be proven wrong.

Thanks, MikeyD. No release candidate notification yet, so, allowing for a week of final testing of that version, it looks like slipping into February.

Arma 3. I didn't think it had r/l vehicles like Stagler mentions, I thought it was all near-future stuff but it's been a while since I last played it. I've been watching Chris's videos and playing Battle Academy, which is CM- lite and not a bad game at all, especially if you are looking for a decent title in this genre to play on a tablet.

Well, Hog or no Hog, I don't mind, especially as CAS is necessarily abstracted in this game but, having done hundreds of hours in the DCS A-10C I have to comment that, if Apaches have effective stand-off capability in the CMBS battlefield (as I have observed in ChrisND's playthroughs, albeit in missions with light Russian AD) then surely the A-10C's Maverick systems and optics will give it as much capability as a CAS platform as the Apache?

Are you still planning to stream a training campaign playthrough, Chris? I for one am not to proud to pick up some pointers on the basics!

Yes, especially as it was built for precisely this form of conflict.

Funny, that is exactly how I have spent my precious leisure time these last two evenings (watching ChrisND's videos). I, too am more excited about this game than I expected to be. I prefer modern-era tactical combat but I am a chronic early-adopter, which was NOT the best way to appreciate Shock Force, which took longer to sort itself out than I had time. BS looks like it is built on what is now a very evolved engine and I am really impressed by the apparent quality of the tac-AI. Above all, it is clear from ChrisND's videos that the game really rewards real-life maneuver tactics; it seems to me to be much more of a sim and less of a game than any other iteration of the series that I have played. Have you seen ChrisND's playthrough of the Green Line scenario?

Does local terrain influence hit probability on assault helos by allowing for NOE/terrain masking or is that beyond the remit?

Thanks! Russian artillery was pretty light, too, in addition to no Air and light AD but I must say, I would not necessarily have found the mission easy, being much less competent and experienced than you are. I would have approached it in much the same way, perhaps trying to hustle my infantry to the government complex earlier, but I would not have been as patient with my tanks or so fastidious about identifying all lines of sight before moving units. The enemy AI is so much better than when I last played CM (SF) that you are absolutely right when you say that the side which spots first while staying in cover gets a decisive advantage. I was very impressed by how long the Russian AI vehicles waited before breaking cover; there were no Hail Mary tank charges and if you had not kept your own armour playing peek-a-boo so effectively, you might have lost an M1 or two and that could have swung the battle the other way. I really like this terrain and all the opportunities it, and the LOS tool, provide for defilade and cover. I am quite convinced that you guys have modeled precisely how these battles would play out (short, brutal) where I never felt that way about SF, certainly not for the first six months post-release, because the AI and vehicle pathing was not equal to the OPTEMPO. Now I firmly believe it is, having seen your playthrough.

Chris, first I want to thank you for going to the trouble of doing this. I have been glued to the YouTube recording of your live stream for the last three hours. Definitely time well spent: I have not played CM since SF and am extremely impressed by the huge enhancements evident from your playthrough, especially in AI. Being a little rusty, I would like to ask some questions inspired by this playthrough. Feel free either to address them, leave it to others or only address the ones that interest you the most. - Your Apaches appeared to operate with some impunity. One SAM made it into the air but otherwise I did not observe much in the way of Russian AD deploying against the attack helo. Is this because light AD was specifically briefed or because the Apache's stand-off AI capability outmatches company-level Russian mobile air defences? - I notice that you set movement paths for vehicles individually. I recall that you can group and sub-group vehicles in CM and set one path for such groups. Do you find individual pathing to be better, even for, say, the FO/JTAC vehicles that you deployed together in the last phase of the battle? Having asked this, it occurs to me that it would not have been tactically appropriate to move vehicles in formation so maybe the question answers itself. - I had not seen the technique before that you used to get units to move without engaging. Instead of a "Hold Fire" command you drew a very small engagement radius envelope. How do you do this vs drawing a cone? - I am delighted by the laser detection AI behavior. However, the M1s did not pop smoke every time, even when stationary. Why was this? - When some of your infantry got chewed up in the open while assaulting the government complex on the left, you used a command I am unfamiliar with to medevac (abstractly) the wounded men and recover a Javelin. This process took several turns, during which the squad remained in the open (but not under fire). Is this a new mechanic since SF? - The Russian force appeared to have no attack helicopter support. If it had, how would you have prepared for it (I saw no Blue AAA or MANPADs but may well be mistaken) and does the game model air-to-air confrontations between opposing attack helicopters? - Finally, can I expect this scenario to play out the same way for me in terms of the Russian maneuver plan or does each campaign mission come with variable enemy AI deployment schemes? Again, many thanks for the superbly educational playthrough and commentary.

I am greatly impressed by the prescience with which the devs chose the Ukraine theater; a friend of mine commented that if they announce that that next game is set in Southern California, that will be my cue to get out, fast! Although I do not play the WW2 iterations of CM (not since the original game anyway) my preference for a future theater, FWIW, and acknowledging that it is highly unlikely, would be a historical one: the Yom Kippur War of 1973, because it involved a close-run fight between large, co-ordinated ground forces on the attack and outnumbered, unprepared but technologically and militarily superior defenders with very powerful but not decisive air support. Just my 2c.

Very interesting, thank you. I wonder what scale of deployment is realistic for electronic warfare assets to be available for either side. Interesting question for mission designers, I would think.

I'm just wondering what limitations there might be on UAV deployment, specifically if they can be counter-detected, negated electronically, or shot down. Thanks!

Is Tassimo the name of your butler? Seriously, I remain unconvinced that SSDs improve game performances over high-speed HDDs. I try to be disciplined and use my 120GB SSD booi drive only for Windows, system utilities, basic low-footprint programs and non-gaming apps. I use my large HDD for all games and like the fact that Windows stores output data in C:\Documents as these data files are not too large.

Got it. I've obviously played too much Wargame ALB in the interval.

But regardless of tactical considerations, does the game have a mechanic for inserting and/or extracting infantry by air?