bodkin

I don't know, that sounds like a little bit of a 'gamey' type solution, in terms of that it probably wasn't in the scenario designers intentions of how you should play it but if Paper Tiger dosen't mind then who am I to judge. BTW I got a Major Victory on my second attempt, but it was a last minute desperate rush to defend the Farmhouse and the Workshops.

*More Spoilers* Paper Tiger, I haven't given up and so far I'm finding the Breakout to be relatively easy. My ATGMs on top of the hill have devastated the red armour and my green troops are waiting in the mansion for any reds who make it through. Putting one of my t-55s in a hull down position at the end of the road helps as well for catching passing traffic. I'm sure there's some diabolical twist waiting for me but.

Don't know about the tank but it appears to belong to 'Crack' unit.

The rpg 18 is a disposable rocket launcher often just called a 'Fly Rocket' by russian troops. http://www.bellum.nu/armoury/RPG18.html

** SPOILER WARNING ** Paper Tiger, I used company A mortars on the Farmhouse and the Tool Shed - actually killed one of the APC's there with a direct hit. The Pumphouse is very tough but on my second attempt I kept C company in reserve to come over the top of the hill through the woods and they slaughtered the defenders, still with about 20-30% losses though. However I'd only left a skeleton force at the Farmhouse and the Work Shops and had to rush most of C company across the map to defend the Work Shops. I was able to sneak my FO's and a couple of depleted squads back into the Farmhouse under heavy fire to deny the Reds the objective. I really hate the grenade launchers in this mission I was cheering when they screamed in agony under my own infantry thrown grenades. Final note about this mission, I don't mind playing a tough mission like the crossroads scenario where I felt a draw was just result. It makes a change to know that you aren't just going to cruise to the enevitable victory by doing the basics, however with BTF for some reason I felt even with good tactical decisions there wasn't enough room for error on the players part that they could recover from. Still, I admire your work and look foward to any other campaigns you produce. Cheers.

** SPOILER WARNING ** I finally finished BTF and I can't remember playing a harder mission. Don't take this the wrong way, but I just found it frustrating to play and the counter attack in the last 20 minutes was overwhelming. I guess I prefer smaller tactical encounters rather than massed waves of troops sort of stuff.

**Spoiler Warning** Part of my frustration with BTF came from the fact I lost just about all of A Company trying to assault the farmhouse. However this was more a game engine fault as I sent about four squads at once into 'assault' the central one story building. Every man got killed as they ran into the room. This was mainly because they kept trying to get to the central spot of the room where the waypoint ended before trying to fire back. In hindsight 'hunt' command may work better. I don't know if the red side really needed an ATGM team as well as all the RPG's and grenade launchers, that was just cruel. I'm going to start this mission again and try to learn from my mistakes.

Paper Tiger, I won all the previous missions with mostly high level victories. I don't know if I've got version 2 or not, I downloaded it but then you mentioned that version 1 was still being downloaded. I haven't seen a red tank in Buying the Farm so I presume I've got the latest version. I find the tanks in Buying the Farm of little use, as soon as they make themselves seen a hail of very accurate RPG's come flying at them from across the map. You basically have to keep them hidden until the red ambush infantry are cleared out so then there's no real use for the tanks. Anyway thanks for all the great work you've done on this, it is appreciated.

I'm mostly enjoying the campaign, but I'm finding 'buying the farm' very frustrating in WEGO. My troops don't want to stay in the safety of the road ditches and keep wanting to creep out into the fields around them to get shot to pieces. The enemy is also well armed and well positioned for ambush adding to the difficulty. My troops often get ambushed early in a turn then I have to watch in horror as they do the crawl of death. Anyway, I think a bit more mortar support would be very welcome.

If I choose one of the three barrel options I get a red one, a red and white one or a blue one but I've seen them laying on their side in some maps I'm not sure how you get them to fall over.

BTW how do put barrels on their side?

If you've seen the damage modern small arms do to the human body I'd advise against any in game representation. I'd post the link to those sites that show casualties from current wars but it's not in the best taste to see that sort of stuff. The game is about how you can manage a tactical military situation, not seeing empty head cavities.

Good stuff M1A1TC, Except I renamed 'skin 1' face to 'skin 5' because I thought skin 1 was the black guy's face and I wanted to keep the troops racial mixture intact. I also just adjusted the complection of some of the faces to look more natural. I've also combined your mod with a couple of the vests and molle skins from the US-ragtag mod to give some variety although I had to rename 'ussoldier molle' to 'ussoldier molle 1' although again is was precautionary probably still would have worked with other 'molle' skins. I also pasted your new camelbacks onto the tan and green camelbacks from the other mod. So thanks, I'm now more immersed so to speak.

At some point the designers will need to draw a line in the calender and make the game historically accurate up to that date, otherwise everytime something gets upgraded or new vehicles become operational players are going to make demands like, "BFC please update in-game models to show RL vehicles. Isnt this game supposed to be realistic? Thanks"

Thanks birdstrike that would be great if you could put up the textures with the camelback.

FNG... put him on point duty tonight.

ahhh ascending into nirvana! That's it im converting to buddism, f**k this akm why can't we all just get along.

Personaly I find the abstration in CMSF much less of a stretch than CMx1 games. If a squad in CMSF has a member who goes ahead of the intended waypoint and gets his brain blown out by an AKM then I can accept that because no commander ever has full control of his forces. As the superior commander in CMSF I give orders but suspend my belief of reality after that, I accept some members of squads I'm in charge of don't always do the right thing. That is more realistic than any CMx1 game. However the question was about immersion and without doubt CMSF has a greater 'in game' feeling to it than any of the previous titles. A three man squad representing twelve does not add to my immersion level.

average is right the game considers the m107 .50 cal sniper to be of lesser quality to the m110, page 115 of the manual.

Birdstrike, I'm a bit confused about how CMSF uses these textures. I played around with your mod and only used the ussoldier-molle bmp's with the camelback and still I got the ghost camelback effect. I used m1a1's mod with a couple of your ussoldier-molle bmp's added. I only tested it with a scout platoon so maybe heavier infantry turn out different. Have you noticed this?

If you mean the top down attack flight line. Yes it's supposed to fly high then come straight down on top of the target.

This is probably not the fix you wanted but you could paint the next order - where the stance changes - over the previous order painted zone, So they wont move anywhere but just stop hiding I think.

Dima I'll send you a few test scenarios tomorrow. Just to add something here, putting the unit right up next to the wall will make some of the squad kneel and therefore be able to ambush, however they are then easily spotted by approaching enemy forces often before they get a shot off.

Ok I've played around with this a bit more, it seems the squads proximity to the wall is very important. If the squad is placed very close to the wall they will go into a kneeling stance and will ambush with rpg's. This is ok if your manually placing AI units in the editor. But if your giving the AI different setup options so that the RPG squad has several zones to choose to set up in it's a little more tricky. You need to paint a square on the wall itself so the unit will place itself right up against it. The problem then is which side of the wall does the AI set up on? I have done some tests and have found the AI always seems to set up on the side of the wall that I wanted it to, meaning they use the wall as a defensive barrier against oncoming enemy. This either occurs because of the direction I had them facing in the general setup, e.g. I have them facing North where the enemy is coming from so when painting the setup zone on top of a wall the editor is clever enough to realise the wall would be better infront of the squad. Or that they choose which side of the wall to hide on based on the direction of the enemy setup zone? However there's one last twist, the wall needs to be diagonal for this to work if the wall is the straight vertical or horizontal (editor graphic) type the unit will often setup on the wrong side. But the problem of AI not firing rpgs over horizontal or vertical walls does not seem to be a problem only angled walls. Anyway I seem to have solved a minor design puzzle (in my own mind anyway) for now and I can continue building my scenario. I need a holiday. [ March 13, 2008, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: bodkin ]

oops wrong thread