cabal23

"Let's turn this conflict on its head a little bit. Instead of trying to figure out, why it is the Israelis or the Palestinians keep doing something to keep the peace progress from moving forward, maybe the question to ask is, who is it that benefits if this conflict keeps going on? The answer is, I think, a whole lot of people, on both sides."' Just playing devil advocate but couldn't you say the same about the US involvement in the middle east? How many billions have we spent to support the Iraq/Afghan war? Those billions of dollars must be going somewhere. Lets face it, war is profitable and an inevitable evil that will never go away. Someone said it best when they said this has been going on since the 7th century in different forms. I think there is a much bigger picture here than just the IDF/Palestine people. History shows us that much at least. But I am no fool not to see that history is written by the victors. This is a very deep topic that goes many levels deep. Great debate!

I had a similar situation (not a netbook but one of those new smaller Gateway sx2800's. Quad core 2.33 with 4gb of ram) It refused to run CMSF. According to Gateway there was no fix. Then I discovered the GeForce 9500 GT. A stripped down smaller version that actually fits in the new smaller computers. It isn't as fast as CMSF used to be on my bigger older computer, but it still runs fine. I just turned down the graphics settings a notch and it runs great. The reason I bring this up about netbooks is be aware it won't be the processor speed that affects CMSF but the graphic capability. I assumed a quad core 2.33 with 4 gb of ram would run it fine. I was wrong because the onboard graphics card was limited even though it touted 3d gaming capability. Don't be fooled, CMSF is a hog and needs a decent graphics card to run it smoothly.

Read "The War After Armageddon" by Ralph Peters, it details a war after the bombs have gone off and a new branch of the military is formed called the MOBIC (The Military Order of the Brother in Christ). It shows them in a less than stellar light working side by side with teh other branches (thought I was reading Christian propaganda for a few chapters but soon found out not so). It details the battles that take place to recapture the Christian Holy sites near Jerusalem. Fascinating read with a surprising ending. It also introduces the idea of the US's high tech advantage being marginalized by EMP technology(EMP mines would be deadly in to the US with our high tech tanks), drones, and vampire ATGM's supplied by the Chinese. It really got me thinking how so much more can be done with this game. The IDF idea is also one I agree would flesh out the game. I don't buy all that talk that it is too "sensitive" of a subject to portray. I love how we can demonize the Syrians as being stupid enough to set of nukes on US soil, but we can't make a comment about the IDF without everyone going crazy. Last time I checked CMSF was fictional war scenario. So the IDF's entry into the fray would also be fictional. Get over yourselves and realize this is a game outside of reality. Possible? Yes. Likely? No. CMSF is just a piece of speculative fiction like the book I mentioned or Team Yankee. Keeping this in mind would avoid all these silly arguments about things better left to politicians.

Very nice. I have had a few nice close quarter moments like that as well. The beauty of CMSF is moments like that. That is why I play WEGO/Turn based because I love watching that stuff over and over.

Yes we even have A-holes in our community too, despite the multitude of intelligent comments you will find here. Don't let one guy make you think your opinion doesn't count. Your comments are appreciated, because they are your opinions. I agree with your points, but I also know the constraints they work under having been with this game from day one. The funny thing is there are still people playing the older Combat Mission games because they are of such amazing tactical quality. Normandy will turn WWII gaming on its head. It won't look like Company of Heroes, but it will be a hell of a lot more accurate. Maybe one day we will see graphics like those, but for now I am content with the quality of the code now. I play everyday and have for years now. I stopped playing when it came out because it was garbage in my eyes, but it has achieved near perfection status after a few patches. There is some serious magic to this game to keep me playing for as long as I have. No game has ever held my attention this long. Glad to have you in the community. Like the Transformers (Yes I was nine once), there is more than meets the eye to this game.

The bottom line is Google Earth. I would start by going there first and zooming in as close as possible and finding where you want your battle to take place. Then hit your Print Screen button on your keyboard and you can paste it it into what photo editing software you use (you may have to just save it in Google Earth and import it into whatever photo editing program you use). I personally jump over to Photoshop and create a new project, hit paste and I have my map ready to be saved as a bmp file and dropped into my tactical, strategic, or operation map You now have a satellite map of where you will be building your scenario. Now you can alt-tab back in forth while you editing your map in the editor and create a very faithful recreation of the the original. Just use it as your frame work and you will find that you create a very realistic designed map that will make sense. If I had to make a mental list of the things I over when I am finished with a scenario, I would say: 1) Elevation and Terrain: These will be the main factors affecting travel, LOS, and ultimately the effectiveness of damage in some cases. Terrain Just makes the make the map come alive. Truly do look at Google maps and just copy what you see. It will help you arrange your map logically. Subtle elevation changes can make a big difference and create cover for troops. 2)Flavor Objects: I can't say enough about using a lot of flavor objects. Towns have trash and junk in the Middle East all over the place. Show that with random junk. I recommends using the "Flavor Objects at a Glance", that is in the Repository. It show you all the variants of all the objects. Variation is the key to keeping things from looking too sterile. I still have no idea why they included air conditioners and atm's. Just pointless. I have never seen a scenario that use one(I am not saying there isn't, before anyone retorts). What a waste of objects in my opinion. Everything else is very useful. Many of them can be used very creatively to create the illusion of something else. Shelters can be used to make markets ans so on. Check out the "High Tension" British Scenario on the Repository, They make a whole market with various junk and items under the shelters. 3)Buildings: Make each building unique. Add balconies and vary design with roof and windows. Create battle damage and "garages". (Completey remove a wall in a small one story building.) 4)Vehicles:This may me just me but the Syrian Uncon trucks and cabs(why are all the Uncon HQ's cab drivers? Inquiring minds want to know.) make for great road block and general scenes of destruction and mayhem. Take a vehicle and set its status to burning and you have a smoking, burning mess that looks really cool at night when it illuminates buildings. I still wish I could trade in my atms's and air conditioners for a "civilian" vehicle that comes in multiple colors to help populate the map. Heck they don't even have to work. Just let them provide cover. I am sure there are others too. Don't forget environmental factor like wind and temperature too. The best teacher is just digging into that editor and sticking with one map until you are happy. I have scenarios unfinished since when the game came out because I just keep coming back and make changes. It can be addicting. Enjoy!

Bump that...been there in a similar situation.

Yep and that was probably one or two guys. Imagine 12 with really nice guns and a great aim.

So then I guess you can see the absurdity of two platoons sitting in the second and third story of a building looking north with a two lane road rolling south right into the building. The two platoons are in overwatch and a lone truck rolls down the street with bad guys on board. The driver, driving straight at the building , gets lit up by two full platoons of men with bullets and grenades from launchers. Lets say on one man per window, it was still six windows on the third floor, six on the second(12 men at the least) all firing at a truck coming at them head on. First off that driver has a personal deflection shield or something. All of those shots are to its front which leaves the engine and the windshield with soft flesh material behind the steering wheel. Let's not forget those quality rubber tires made in Syria. Not only did he survive this assault for one full PBEM turn he reversed and drove out of sight. Share all the anecdotal thoughts you want. People in cars getting shot at by crack British troops don't last a full minute with that much ammo raining down on them. Oh did I mention they were rated crack with excellent weapons? Not sure how much that has to do with the equation but that is one Bruce Willis Jihadi to survive all that.

I am currently play testing a scenario with a bunch of trucks and I think it is crazy how much damage a truck takes. I had two platoons shredding an approaching truck. Hits registered everywhere as indicated by the animations and sounds. He rolled in reverse after he started getting pinged as TWO platoons of Brits all fired at him. He reversed out of sight after a full minute of fire. WHAT! This wasn't isolated, I have seen it a lot since I started play testingthis particular scenario. Trucks seem way over armored. A few bullets in an engine blocks can end a vehicle in real life. Why do they seem to take so much damage here?

We have no idea how many Afghans kill themselves each year due to PTSD. We have no idea how many go home and beat their wives and children. We have no idea how many descend into opium use. Western society is a little soft, and the Afghans have lived a more rugged experience, but it is my assumption that the new breed of Afghan fighter wasn't there when The Hind-E's were circling tearing up everything with rockets and guns. The Russians are another generations war. Trauma is trauma, you don't just walk away from it. No one is immune. Even the hardest veteran who has seen many wars will tell you PTSD does affect them. Even total BA's like Richard Marchinko, most likely have a prescription to help him sleep at night. Unfortunately the human condition is what it is. No one is immune from the horrors of war no matter what your environment is. Just because they have been waging tribal wars on ear other since the dawn of time doesn't make them immune. If anything their world view can be a bit depressing. (get up at the A$% crack of dawn, feed the goats, walk the goats, stop by weapons cache, grab a few AK's, head back to village, outrun Apache) And yes Afghan soldiers experience depression too. It wasn't invented by the Americans.

You think? What a novel idea. While we are at it. Code it so teams with AT assets don't go firing everything they have a two guys on a balcony, so when the BMP come rolling in, you have nothing to take them, out with. I also hate seeing two javelins streak across the sky at one target playing Brits. What a waste. I would be nice to just choose one Javelin guy instead of both firing away. The answer to you sniper question is set your teams fire arc to be really really short, so basically they won't fire at anything, until you clear that arc and target your foes regularly.

What do we have to do to get this in the game? I would pay handsomely for this feature. http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=206758&page=1

We haven't even started discussing why it seems that the British use their vehicles to allow their troops to get air with zero ballistic protection. Driving a Jackal in this game is ridiculous. As they drive along they bleed Ii seen strykers full of troops get hit by an RPG and no one jumps out. Total loss. Would that really happen? I can see if someone fired an rpg into the back while the door was open, but from the side at 300 meters?

Yeah I brought this up ages ago. We have an air conditioner flavor object but no civilian vehicle. The fact that they hog memory is a moot point. One civilian vehicle would not have changed the scope of the game that much and would have enriched the game a lot.

Here we go again. Version 1.22 coming to a pc near you.

Friendly Fires. Blue on Blue. Lots of cover and hill grades.

I know it's been discussed, but will we ever see troops staying inside the building when on a balcony level? Why would a sniper go out on a balcony to set up shop? They would be firing ( as would any other sane person) from inside the building where the most cover is available.

Save file ready and waiting.

Ok I have attached the photo. Thanks for the fraps idea. So the plot thickens... So the engineers are tossing around ideas why it didn't work and they assume something must be in the way. So they pull out some chairs, crisps, and a pint and begin to mull it over. One particularly astute young soldier looks down the way and see another wall not 15 feet away. He remarks that maybe that wall will work. So the engineers finish their crisps and pints and head over. All the while several groups of soldiers watch from a distance behind the safety of a wall as the engineers try and solve the problem snickering. The engineers set their charges, blow the wall and YAHOO, run inside. So the platoon HQ orders smoke and for his hard chargers to run across the road avoiding inaccurate fire under the cover of smoke. They make it across, set up at the newly created hole in the wall and prepare for entry. Excited to get into the "sh*t", the first group decides that the hole, despit how inviting and safe it looks, isn't the right option. SO even though they can high five the guys in the building, they decide to run around the building, effectively getting three men killed. The next group I try the same thing with and they decide to run around the other side of the building, killing two men in the supposedly inaccurate fire. Command said F it and decided to pack up and leave. Perhaps next time if they just level everything with howitzer fire they should be able to enter that compound from the direction the author intended.

Any reason why after expending 6 demo charges in multiple places my guys continue to want to run around the building instead of using the obvious hole they have created in the UK Out of the Wilderness scenario? I keep trying to print screen to create a pic for you to see, but all it does is give me a black screen when I paste it into paint. So use you imagination. It is the police station and the wall facing the blue insertion direction. So coming down off the ridge you encounter the police station. Corner building with a wall around it. So you have to breach the wall and the first floor of the building. I have blown away both in multiple places and can see right into the building. I can see dead bodies as well. Yet my troops continue to want to run all the way around the wall into enemy fire to get in. Any ideas? Never had this issue before. Also it won't let me blow up any more wall section in that area even though I have charges. The line turns red and it looks like they are going top prepare to blow it then it turns yellow and they start running around the building. What gives?

Are 1.20 saves no longer good in PBEM games if we upgrade? It seems like every time we get games going they come out with a patch destroying months of play time. Ugh! I know I could not install the patch or create multiple folders with multiple versions, but it would just be nice to not have to.

I am going to claim ignorance on this one, but why can't we come up with a troop transport that is heavily armored and prepared to take the damage from and IED and keep on rolling? This can't be that hard and must be a case of armor and a movement system that is not inhibited by explosion damage as much as current models. Come on, we can send people to the moon but can't come up with an anti-ied vehicle? I am aware of British anti-ied systems,but where is the US on this?

...or any recent American president for that matter. Sorry I had to throw that in. Certainly I am not anti-us, but suspect of the players.

Either your British or a fan of Douglas Adams. Either way your small furry creature comment was well appreciated.