Ryujin

I second that, I'd rather break all the scenarios and get new features.

Here's a cool one, gunner pointing out a position to his team (really the M2 reload animation).

To add to the above, sometimes you can do some minor recon, either setting up a few dismounts to observe an area or sneak up closer to spot specific enemies. The goal of recon in the scope of CMSF is to ID exact enemy positions so you can bring your superior BLUFOR fire to bear. For the most part this doesn't require the dedicated recon units, they're more for "bigger picture recon". The only advantage they have is that many of the recon teams have a radioman in every team and in the case of the US army, M240 MGs which are rather nice when your in an overwatch position, they can act like an MG/FO hybrid. Probably the best recon unit is a team of dismounts with a javelin CLU (thermal optics). Put those guys in a good overwatch position and they can usually spot without being spotted while also being able to pic off tanks. The recon vehicles really aren't too useful, other than as some fire support. At least the US Army/USMC recon vehicles are decent in combat (M3A3, LAV-25, Stryker RV, HMMWVs). The jackels are a bit too vulnerable for most combat. They can be great if you can establish fire superiority on some infantry and use them en masse to suppress, they do have a lot of firepower even at very long ranges.

While Afghan compounds don't seem to have many "exterior" windows, but the roof does seem to sometimes have a low wall. lots 'o compound pics http://www.michaelyon-online.com/compounds.htm

Yeah, that's been bugging me for some time, but it's usually been so subtle I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things. They most likely got the sound off a recording with more than just the Bradley and didn't notice that guy.

Very nice, the dust and lighting makes it look great.

There seem to be a number of bugs with airstrike hits on vehicles. I think the high motivations should be used rather sparingly, reminds me of monty python when an RPG team holed up in a house keeps on fighting despite massive concentrated firepower. Losing a leg "'tis but a flesh wound!" (yellow status ) to these guys. On the other hand, insurgents in Iraq shooting up pure adrenaline have been know to be pretty hard to kill. As in they'd take multiple 7.62 to the chest, loose limbs, or be flattened by buildings and still be kicking despite mortal wounds (no shock or physiological factors meant they'd often keep fighting until they physically couldn't). http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/13/world/fg-iraqdrugs13 crazy stuff. Anyway it just seems ridiculous when most of the enemy troops are ok and unfazed by a direct 500lb hit on their structure.

within the scope of CMSF, I think the Army starts getting M829A3 at a lower quality setting than the Marines do. So if you gave both sides "good" equipment, the Army may have some M829A3 rounds. As mentioned it's very hard to tell as the ammo is labeled without that much detail, but I'm sure different types are modeled.

I think the army may often have better KE ammo, which will make a huge difference in a fight between two equal tanks.

Well I didn't make any Brit mods with Tshirts/rolled sleeves, but I think I know the one your talking about (very well done, I used basically the same method for my USMC mod). M2A3 Does anyone have good Syrian army reference photos? There doesn't seem to be much out there...

Another close call, the round cliped the first guy's jacket and went through the second soldier's hydration pouch. Both were fine! Until a grenade landed on them anyway...

The forum considers my image thumbs two pictures... took me a while to figure out why it wasn't letting me post them all on one...

There's a good chance I'll eventually move onto other modules ( and I'm still experimenting with more ways to mod CMx2 ). Do you guys want rolled up sleeves and such (like in my USMC mod)? I just don't seem to see any pictures with these guys with T-shirts or short sleeves, so I'm wondering if you want them in or if it would just look odd? Here's some more progress on the infantry, 2ID. (That screenshot came out pretty well)

Yeah, the trend of writing stuff on the tanks has been dropping off I think. However, since you can't randomize them, personalizing them just looks weird in CMSF. I've also heard OPSEC meant painting over some of the more obvious recognizable features of the paint jobs (personalization, unit designations, etc). As a trivia fact, AFAIK, the paint job I did says "3rd tank (3 barrel stripes), first platoon (1 under the chevron), alpha company (upward chevron)".

I just discovered you can't randomize vehicles!!! Oh well, I just made one skin with a more generic look. Also took the dirt down a few notches from "mudbath" to "weathered", suits the overall syrian environment better. This the style I'll do the other vehicles in too, kinda subtle changes. Put next to a "stock" vehicle it has a bit darker, grimey-er look with caked on dried dirt. Still gonna make the dirt a tad more visible, but I think it's near done.

Thanks. Here's an weathered and dirty M1 skin with mud, dirt, dust, stains, and footprints (I have nice photoshop brushes to do this ). Maybe a bit too muddy, but I wanted to err on the side of more "character". However, I might take some grime off the back, I think it's a bit much. Generally you don't have too many tanks, so it doesn't take too many versions to make most of your tanks look unique. I'll try to keep the marking pretty generic though (name on the barrel on about half to 2/3, numbers, ID chevron). Not much unit specific stuff. On a side note, spending so much time with the M1 models/skins, Battlefront put a ton of excellent detail into the vehicles, there isn't much room for improvement. All I really need to do is add some wear and randomization.

Given the scope of the game I think what they have is pretty good Medical vehicles and evacuation would be way above the scope, dragging buddies might be a bit "under" the scope (too much micromanagement of units, especially if you play real time). Maybe if the focus was shifted to more platoon level tactics, but as it stands as a more of a company level game, it might be a bit much. Though I do see how 1:1 lends it's self to more detail, but the medical system as is works, there are probably more important features for the 1:1 troopers that would make a bigger impact and would make a dragging feature more useful. Like better use of spacing and cover by the troops (like corners of buildings and such), Better CQB behavior, etc. @Dietrich: seeing as there is no walls or interior, most likely trying to drag them out would result in that guy being hit too. It's like trying to drag them out of an empty warehouse. So given the abstraction of CQB and the fact you have till the end of the battle to get them out, I think it works for the most part.

I've noticed the same, it's been a long time since I've actually had one detonate. Usually the triggerman gets killed, runs away, or it just doesn't go boom. They're really not much of a threat.... I've parked on several before without it ever going off. I think they at least need unarmed triggermen so that there's a slight chance it'll go off, especially vs the AI.

The COY HQ only seems to use the radio to contact BN HQ, however, other units are in contact with the CO HQ via BFTs. So obviously they have one, but only use it to communicate with lower units, which is why you never see it. You'd think they'd use it with the BN HQ too. The PLT HQ bit is odd though, the PL doesn't carry the radio, so as long as the radioman is fine you should have still had comms. I don't know if they'd recover the BFT or such, but you should have still had the radio (unless it was one of those bradley platoons or something, in which case the one man PLT HQ never had a "big" radio to start with AFAIK. Pretty much everyone should have had smaller radios of some kind though.

What I think I'll do is make 4 versions, one Armor (1AD), one infantry/stryker (3rd, 2nd, or 25th), one airborne (82nd), and one cav (7th probably). That should be enough "official" versions. I'll put out .PSDs of the uniform so people can put on whatever patches they want. I'll try to package these so it's easy enough to switch them around. Does the 3rd ID operate any strykers? One more pic (this get's a bit addictive). I need to get some work done now

I don't *think* it's a bug (it would be a bit of an odd bug, removing and restoring contact). On the other hand it's not very consistent, I only saw it a couple times. One thing to note is that you only see the icons for the comms gear in use to communicate with the next echelon up. If they're 5ft away from the next guy up, you probably won't see the radio icon. They don't lose gear unless someone is hit, but I don't know if it can fail or such (if the radio has a failure chance or such, I hear the satellite comms like blue force tracker are much more reliable). In Johnny's example the COY HQ seems to have both the radio and a hand held blue force tracker (I say that since their landrover keeps comms with the COY HQ via the big BFT mounted in the vehicle). They don't always seem to use the radio, mostly just the BFT, but they do when they're out sight on iron. What's interesting is the land rover loses radio comms with the COY HQ when they run somewhere (not if they walk). I don't know how often the game checks to see if they have comms with the BN HQ, but if it checked rarely and they happened to check while they were moving they would lose comms? The system already seems a bit deeper than expected, no using the big radio while running is an interesting detail. What difficulty are you playing on Johnny?

I'm running quad @ 2.83ghz and a dual core 4870x2, it's kinda sad to see CMSF slow a bit a on big battle when your only using 25% of your processing power. At least the graphics card seems to use both cores. The issue is at what point do they make a dual core required? While you can use multiple cores to speed things up, at the moment CMx2 would still be constrained by having to be playable on just one core. At some point they could go to requiring a dual core and ramp up the engine a bit (probably not till CMx3 from the looks of it). A survey would be interesting though...

Might have something to do with the comms gear? Your dismounted COY HQ might have a chance of forgetting to bring fresh batteries or something? The fact the BN HQ is offmap might be compounding the comms issue? It'd be interesting to see if there's anything going on under the hood like that... Also I doubt it'd have a major effect on your troops, as the entire COY still has comms, I'd bet there's a negligible moral hit or something.

A bit more progress, any one want any particular unit patches? Also what unit is supposedly in the shock force campaign? (oh and yes I know it turned everything backwards, I keep forgetting someone at BF UV mapped it weird ) Nothin' like some detail overkill to justify that nice PC... the pouches are not high res yet, so it'll give you an idea of the relative clarity.

I'm applying what I learned experimenting with model swapping in the USMC mod with a little trick of doubling the texture sizes (still keepng the UV mapping intact) for a "High Definition" US Army infantry pack. Certainly not for the faint of PC, as bigger textures and more models will most likely have a performance impact for lower end PCs. I haven't noticed any issues so far on my high end system, I think most high and upper mid range systems should handle it fine. The mod will cover the infantry uniforms, all new ACU pattern and textures, randomization/personilzation of units, etc. May also extend to the US army vehicles and small arms. Just started right now and the first trick is nailing the ACU pattern and color, after 10 attempts I have something that matches the couple ACU items I have under neutral lighting. Here's a couple early WIPs, showing the IOTV and the pattern, comments/criticism?