Childress

dp [ March 05, 2008, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: Childress ]

Agree, except that the animations are far more refined now. Unfortunately for BFC most of the other enhancements are running under the hood. We notice the omissions and the pervading feeling of sterility made more oppressive by the monotonous environment. As of right now, CMSF reminds me of a Bauhaus interior.

These were present, in all their glory, in CMBB. They will never be seen again. Sorry, mate.

The manual claims that Fast maximizes speed. But as Quick gets you there at the same time in better condition there doesn't appear a rational motivation to use it. Unless, they coded in an 'X' factor, lol.

As far as I can determine the only difference between the Fast and Quick movement commands is that units using Fast tire vastly sooner. Out of curiosity, I set two platoons on a race across a wide map. The Fast dudes went rapidly from Tiring to Tired, finally defaulting to the yellow Quick line. The Quick unit never tired at all. They arrived at the finish line at the same time. Is there an Exhausted state? Mystery....

McCain's son whereabouts in Iraq and combat role or non-role will not be revealed to the press. Sensibly enough, I think.

Er, John McCain's son is a lance corporal serving in Iraq. http://www.iowacaucus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071111/NEWS/711110003/1011/IOWACAUCUS

The only pressing reason, IMO, to include civilian vehicles in a scenario, other than chrome, is that they provide usable cover. In fact, do they?

It's puzzling that Battlefront didn't include diaphanous trees in SF. They've been around since the Microsoft Empire games and would hugely facilitate maneuvering. Of course, rendering them properly may present more programming challenges than we realize.

Slightly O/T: I was playing the devilish user made scenario The Curve when the combination of smoke and dust in the middle of the map essentially took me out of the battle as a commander for several turns. What was curious were the plumes of dust raised by the Strykers advancing over DAMP ground. IIRC, BFC disabled this effect in wet conditions when it was introduced in CMAK. Could be mistaken, tho....

The dust and smoke effects are convincingly rendered but can be rather disorienting in the midst of battle. Is there a hotkey to turn them off?

We know that, Steve. Their absence in CMSF is simply more noticeable (for me) because much of the action seems more urban in nature than before. And we're accustomed to the usual video feeds from TV and Youtube. Just want the game to be perfect.

Perhaps the realistically spare, monotonous terrain accentuates the 'unfinished' feeling. Of course, including all the AWOL stuff will pose an added graphics load. And Battlefront is, basically, a 2 man development team. They've come a long way since 1.0. Still.... Good points on aircraft affects, YankeeDog.

Well, IIRC, CMBB and CMAK had seek Hull Down commands. Additionally, the terrain in CMSF lends itself less easily to visible HD positions. Of course, this may be in the nature of desert which can be very subtle in elevation variations. But ur right on the targeting info- it's in the game. Maybe I'm spoiled by the detailing in the successive versions of CM1, nevertheless, I still maintain that the game needs more 'stuff'- for chrome and for realism. The streets are empty of of abandoned vehicles. And plane shadows and sound effects would add some atmosphere. Also, when was there ever a conflict between and a 1st world power and a Middle Eastern country that didn't feature a lot of surrendering? [ February 25, 2008, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: Childress ]

Or on map mortar teams? Or visibly routing troops? Surrenders? Hull down feedback? Casualty tallies? I realize that borg spotting is history and that there are a lot of cool new algorithms humming under the hood but CMSF still seems so, uh, unfurnished. Maybe the missing stuff will show up eventually.

Hehe. You mean like in this flick? http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088286/

Yeah, I'd go for that. The truly creepy part of my test was that the men were picked off one by one yet kept crawling forward gurgling "Brains, BRAINS!".

Problem is, units in CMSF don't seem to arrive at that "broken" status, a condition my squads should certainly have entered 15 seconds into the turn. There may be a programming challenge here; how do you scatter a 1:1 represented squad and still preserve its structural unity as a playing piece in the game?

Not sure I agree. If it were a question of sweeping machine gun fire, maybe. They just kept snaking forward in a line, consuming about 45 seconds of time. (Sorry, forgot how to post a screenshot- been a while)

I did a hotseat test (1.07, file available) to verify if units had absolutely no sense of self-preservation or this was a figment of my imagination. I concealed a Syrian BMP-2 angled behind a building as two US squads, 13 men, approached on the highway. The vehicle opened fire at ~40 meters, killing a grunt. The US troops kept crawling forward methodically until the last man was a glowing red dot on the road. The whole thing seemed zombie-like. The TacAI needs to acquire Bug Out skills, imo.

Can you blame them?

A good scenario to test suppression- or the lack thereof- might be the very fist one on the list: Abu Susah. Dismount the platoons and send them off down the road towards the village crossroads. They appear pretty oblivious to Syrian fire, despite the odd casualty, until the last couple of hundred meters.

The game still needs prisoners. And not just for chrome. Processing POWs exerts a real drag on American operations. It's unrealistic for them to be free of this encumbrance.

While a great deal of work was done on the interior door and movement orders, I don't believe the roof top jump was addressed with this patch...I'm making a note of this for my 107 wish list. It may be more difficult to do without creating a situation where troops can be ordered (inadvertently) to jump off roofs. </font>