Kieme(ITA)

This is very childish and uncalled for, I will report this for removal.

This is very childish and uncalled for, I will report this for removal.

This is very childish and uncalled for, I will report this for removal.

Woop woop. Just wanted to be the first to "chirp" this. Call it a "tactical insertion"

]
 
Well.  Analog CMBS so far is pretty good.  Turns process slow, and the graphics are crap though.  Terrain is suspiciously flat.
 
(Sorry.  I'm cleaning up my hobby area.  Bad lighting/crap phone/odd sense of humor etc)

Examples of orders given:
 


 
In this last case the left door was used:

 
In conclusion this situation doesn't show a bug but a complex condition due to the position of the building within the grid, which leads the ordered waypoints to be either skewed North or South of the right door. If the skewness is extreme enough it will make the left door chosen due to a shorter path, thus the AI will use the left door instead of the right one.
Solution: map designers might avoid placing building in between squares.
 
By the way these kind of replies happen when a new CM game is about to be released but it's not out yet.

Examples of orders given:
 


 
In this last case the left door was used:

 
In conclusion this situation doesn't show a bug but a complex condition due to the position of the building within the grid, which leads the ordered waypoints to be either skewed North or South of the right door. If the skewness is extreme enough it will make the left door chosen due to a shorter path, thus the AI will use the left door instead of the right one.
Solution: map designers might avoid placing building in between squares.
 
By the way these kind of replies happen when a new CM game is about to be released but it's not out yet.

Examples of orders given:
 


 
In this last case the left door was used:

 
In conclusion this situation doesn't show a bug but a complex condition due to the position of the building within the grid, which leads the ordered waypoints to be either skewed North or South of the right door. If the skewness is extreme enough it will make the left door chosen due to a shorter path, thus the AI will use the left door instead of the right one.
Solution: map designers might avoid placing building in between squares.
 
By the way these kind of replies happen when a new CM game is about to be released but it's not out yet.

Honestly I think that model would work terribly for this product.  BF would go under trying to implement stuff that is just not feasible resource wise.  Why can't we just be happy that we have something, stop freaking out if it takes a few weeks longer to develop and stop trying to change a working business model.
 
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm older and supposedly wiser now vs. the pre-CMBO days (yes, I have been here this long), but I am still fighting the urge to complain only semi-successfully in terms of how this product development cycle drags on and expectations continue to be somewhat not managed well.
 
I'm sure a lot of folks here on these boards work in software engineering or project management -- what is frustrating to some of us is that while some of the most exciting players in the game industry have switched to a scrum system (e.g. Early Access games on Steam) where they develop features as users request them, Battlefront still seems stuck in an older development model, waterfall.  This is ironic considering how Battlefront was among the leaders in revolutionizing the marketplace with CMBO disintermediating the brick and mortar stores that kept the games we wanted from us.
 
Scrum is pretty great in a lot of applications, and I like it in game development, because it lets folks get buy-in early and vote, as the customers actually excited about and buying the game, in terms of features they want, how things are working, etc.
 
Battlefront still seems to be stuck in the waterfall model, where they build the game they think we want, spend a lot of time doing it, and then launch it and patch as needed.  Admittedly in most cases this seems to have worked well (the CMSF issues being one where it didn't go as well initially), but I can't help but feel like at this point, given how niche this gaming product is and how enthused we all are about testing/playing it, that maybe it is time to switch to scrum development (early access) and let us help them build the best game.  There's a certain amount of hubris in thinking your team alone knows what is good for us, as paying customers.  Yes, it is they who are building it, and true enough, no serious competition has emerged, but it won't always be like this.  My bet is that if a company finally does beat Battlefront in terms of servicing this particular, specific niche, it is going to be a company that gives what they won't -- early access and buy-in.

Couple of more views to kill the wait:
 
Some more props added to the horizons, as suggested before I looked at the TV and radio antennas, and came up with something not too big, made it red and White to add some colors.

Then, a concrete water tower and a shiny steel grain silos complex, some other of those modern features I was looking for.

...meawhile, modding to kill time:
 
I hoped these high voltage towers were added as new big  flavour objects (maybe they will one day), anyway, trying to make the usual old horizons "feel" a bit more modern:

(terrain and foliage fully modded as well)

they are no big deal, I just downloaded a picture and cut out the Towers, then tweaked them to fit the horizon. Not very detailed anyway, just to fit the original horizon picture.

...meawhile, modding to kill time:
 
I hoped these high voltage towers were added as new big  flavour objects (maybe they will one day), anyway, trying to make the usual old horizons "feel" a bit more modern:

(terrain and foliage fully modded as well)

...meawhile, modding to kill time:
 
I hoped these high voltage towers were added as new big  flavour objects (maybe they will one day), anyway, trying to make the usual old horizons "feel" a bit more modern:

(terrain and foliage fully modded as well)

You don't need a real 360° panorama, but surely you'll need a very long picture or a collection of pictures. Just think about this: each original game section for the horizon is 2048 pixel long, you'll need 8192 pixels to cover the entire in game horizon.
 
Now, first of all your reference picture must be at least 8192 pixels long, because merging different pictures is practically impossible (not just for the different sides, but also different colors, etc.).
 
Consider that if you want a better result than the original horizon you most probably want to double the original resolution, otherwise your modded horizon won't be much better than the original one, like a 4096 pixel long file per horizon section, that's 16384 pixels to cover the entire horizon.
 
So, to make a decent horizon mod you nee a picture:
- long at least 16384 pixels
- taken at the right time of the day
- depicting a landscape that fits the game's
- without oddities such as a human face picking from a corner or any kind of foreground obstacle
 
You don't need a 360° view because you can Always stretch the original picture so that it covers the game's fictional horizon, problem is you can stretch a bit not too much, too much stretching and you'll see it by eyes there's something wrong. 
Another problem: preceived distance, you'll need a picture that does not seem too close otherwise either the horizon will be a joke or the battlefield will look like legoland.
 
Now, don't forget about the business, that 16k pixel horizon needs to be cut in detail, because if you skip a 4x4 pixel shape somewhere I guarantee you'll notice that in game, as a UFO in the sky or a hole in the ground.
Suppose you use a 20 pixels large brush to do that, go figure th amount of patience needed to pass that brush all over 16k pixels (16k/20= 800)...
Then you need to make sure the sides are merged perfectly, so you'll need the cloning tool and a lot of cut and paste to align the pictures perfectly.
Then you need to take out all the small oddities that are in the picture, again using the cloning tool at a micro level.
Then you need to adjust color brightness, contrast, saturation. Considering that these operations might ask for more corrections.
All the above while loading the game over and over again to check what it looks like.
 
After all of this, you'll need to make haze and thick haze variants, most probably by adding a mask, making sure it fits the game colors and the sky colors.

That was polish ghillie suit))

The trees in the modded screenshot are a fresh mod I am working on for CMBS. I mainly changed some color values and, generally, desaturated the colors (I have a personal taste preference over desaturated colors). Moreover, the distant trees (which by the way use a similar system of the ground Tiles to represent very distant tress) have been changed in order to limit the bloody transition effect.
 
I did a much less advanced and complete mod for the trees in CMRT some months ago, you should find it under the name of "desaturated trees" or something like that in CMMODS site, should take care of the saturation problem at least.

Greetings. I have just registered here on the forums, but have been playing CMSF for several years and am awaiting CMBS very eagerly. I have several questions / suggestions pertaining to some tactical capabilities that can be potentially game-changing on the modern battlefield and the possibility of their implementation in CMBS and its (hopefully) future modules or unofficial modifications. I apologise if this have already been discussed (in that case, can you please direct me to the relevant topics / posts, if possible), but I was not able to find anything relevant through the search (only "Nakidka" has been mentioned a couple of times in passing, it seems, and without official BF comments on it). Also, pardon me if my English is not perfectly clear, since I am a non-native speaker. So, without further ado, how about putting in the game:
 
1.) Vehicles equipped with infrared-blocking and radar-absorbing camouflage covers.
 
The obvious example is the Russian "Nakidka" kit (my apologies for the Wiki link - could not find anything more useful in the English language). Since thermal imaging plays an enourmous role in how most modern combat vehicles and some weapon systems (especially the deadly "Javelin") acquire and engage targets, reducing the vehicle's IR signature should be one of the top priorities for any nation faced with a modern technological opponent (such camouflage should probably become as common as optical camouflage eventually). The radar signature reduction would probably be more significant on the operational level (I do not know if and how the functioning of BRM-1/3 recon vehicles radars is simulated in CMBS), reducing the visibility of the formations to the enemy radioelectronic reconnaissance, but would still perhaps help against certain radar imaging / targeting systems, such as the AH-64's "Longbow".
 
I am not sure if there are currently stocks of the "Nakidka" or similar kits for the regular line service vehicles of the Russian units (this was probably a rather low priority since Russian Ground Forces were not likely to face a major high-tech opponent in the past two decades; however at least the new M2 modification of the 2S19 "Msta-S" SPH seems to come factory-equipped with such countermeasures). However, it should be relatively easy to rush produce them during the mobilization efforts when faced with the real possibility of conflict with NATO (certainly easier than producing new APS units or ERA modules; for example this article (in Russian) claims that the price of one such kit for Armenia was just $2675 in 2005). US/NATO seems to have done some research (.pdf link) too, though I am curious as to how far it has progressed (obviously, encountering major high-tech opponents has not recently been a priority for NATO either).
 
Implementing it: Since I do not know how the CMBS engine deals with IR/radar spectrum (if simulating them at all), I can not offer concrete advice on how to simulate it in the game. If the IR/radar signature is an independent value of the unit, then the camouflage kit should, obviously, directly reduce it in the given proportions. If there is just a single "observation" parameter (combining optical, IR and anything else), then perhaps the camouflage can reduce it by a proportion relative to FLIR/radar system "boosts" factored into the values. For weapons with IR/radar guidance, the camouflage can perhaps increase times needed for acquiring the target and/or increasing the probability of losing target lock in-flight (not sure how air support is implemented - if even ATGM launches are handled as very precise area strikes then perhaps their CEP can be increased when targeting the camouflage-equipped vehicles). Not sure if it is better to handle the process from the targeting ("how much it is seeing") or the targeted ("how much it is seen") vehicle's side, and how to do it without affecting either the observation capabilities of regular optical systems, or the visibility parameters of vehicles without camouflage (it would be really great to have independent IR and radar signature variables if there are not ones now ).
 
As for the vehicle models, while it would be really great to have ones with visible camouflage covers, from gameplay perspective just standard models with changed values and short description modifier (like "T-72B3 'Nakidka'" or "T-72B3 (IR camo)") would suffice.
 
2.) Dedicated smokescreen laying systems for area concealment.
 
As opposed to the already implemented individual smoke screens or artillery smoke rounds with temporary localised effect, how about being able to cover entire areas of the battlefield in the long-term across-the-spectrum (visible/IR/radar) shroud? As an example, here is a recent exercise (in Russian) of the Russian CBRN protection unit - an entire railroad station was concealed for 3 hours with a 2 km long and 200 m high optical/IR/radar impervious smokescreen. The exact designation of the equipment used is not given, but it was probably something like the TMS-65 turbojet spraying vehicle (here is a rather illustrative video of its operation). And Russian chemical units practice such actions rather routinely, training to conceal entire military bases and airfields. Combined with a heavy ECM jamming of GPS signal transmission frequences to block or disrupt satellite positioning, such smokescreens would render just about any piece of precision-guided weaponry ineffective in the protected area (the only thing I can think of that would remain unaffected is inertial guidance, but this method is not very precise to begin with), and any kind of target acquisition beyond the simple notion that "the enemy is somewhere in there" would be completely impossible (the same would also be true for the defenders though - "somebody might be coming at us from somewhere").
 
While this would probably be more common practice at an operational level (protecting sensitive installations in the rear from airstrikes), it is not impossible to imagine it being used in a tactical frontline defensive action (if you have to defend a fixed position against a technologically superior enemy, it is much better if he were not able to use his sophisticated engagement capabilities effectively). Aside from being outright useful, I think it adds the possibility of some very interesting tactical situations (think of having to assault or defend a completely shrouded city, with your and enemy soldiers fighting through an apocalyptic gloom while wearing gas masks, further reducing visibility to almost point-blank engagement ranges, as if city fighting was not already hard and brutal enough as it is ), and therefore would be a welcome addition to the game.
 
Implementing it: Since basic smokescreen mechanics have been present in the game for a long time, it seems that implementing a bigger version of it should not be that hard (yes, very presumptious of me, I know ). There may perhaps be some processing power concerns, but even CMSF already has a capability to produce quite large smokescreen fields (like when a couple of "Stryker" platoons get spooked by a mean-looking T-72 ) without a noticeable effect on performance. In any case, it is probably possible to reduce the smoke field's detalization for the sake of gameplay.
 
3.) Realistic decoy vehicle dummies.
 
Here are some photos of the Russian 45-th independent engineering-concealment regiment training to set up various inflatable high-fidelity (well, relatively speaking ) decoy vehicle dummies. They not only look realistic enough, but also have appropriate moving parts (like turrets) and equipment that reproduces thermal and radioelectronic signatures of the real vehicles. All to confuse the enemy, of course, and to make him waste time and effort destroying these false targets, sparing your real forces some trouble. Since the dummies are easy to transport and deploy (the tank decoy weighs less than 100 kg and takes about 10 minutes to set up) they might prove to be an advantageous asset in a defensive operation. Perhaps the player can be allowed to place them in the deployment stage within the designated zones, where they would stay for the duration of the battle.
 
Implementing it: The real trouble would perhaps be in allowing the player to identify the vehicles as dummies while denying his enemy the same untill his forces make a positive identification (for which they presumably would have to get rather close to them - within less than a kilometer, probably (obviously bound to differentiate depending on the observing unit's capabilities)). The actual models can probably be borrowed from the vehicles that are being simulated (and this course will probably have to be followed if there is no way to present different models of the same unit to the player (dummy) and his opponent (real vehicle model untill identified as dummy)), while adding '(dummy)' classification to their description (though, if the enemy player would be able to see it too, that would obviously defeat the whole purpose ). The on-hit animations and after-effects would probably have to be changed too (it would certainly be nice to have a deflating and a burning/melting animation (or being torn to shreds in case of large explosions), but from gameplay viewpoint simple disappearing into a pile of rubber debris would suffice, perhaps).
 
So, dear Battlefront, can you please-please-please-pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top try and implement at least some of these capabilities in one of the further patches or modules? Or, if not, maybe some modification makers are feeling up for the task?
 
In any case, thank You for Your attention.
 
P.S.: As long as we are on topic of softkill countermeasures, I also had a question about the "Shtora" optical-electronic suppression system in the CMBS. Have its emitters been implemented as an upgraded system, now covering the relevant tracking signal spectrum of the TOW-2, or would they only be effective against Ukrainian "Konkurses" and other older SACLOS ATGMs?

The problem is he doesn't want to look. Hell or highwater there's no point to investigate Steam because the unexplored potential is too daunting.

von Luck

Even though modern combat does punish staticness to a great extent it doesn't mean that you are always moving.
 
Your armored vehicles will not be moving constantly and it would be better off for them to be dug in than not. The way some of you are talking it sounds like these vehicles should always be moving.
 
An example of a perfectly good use of dug in tank positions:
 
You have a platoon of Mech. inf. in a deeply wooded area. You have some scouts at the edge of the woods providing observation and empty prepared positions along the edge of the woods. When the scouts spot enemy troops advancing your IFVs and infantry squads move from the safety of the deep woods to these prepared positions. They would now have 2-5 minutes of fighting time with an almost certain guarantee of not being engaged by indirect fire. You could even have secondary positions that you move to after a few minutes.
 
I also wouldn't use either Gulf War as a reason to condemn static defenses. Iraq was a perfect storm of conditions for a modern army to trounce a 3rd world one.
 
Mildly highjacking the thread. Will we see improved infantry fighting positions in the base game or any of the modules?
 
Reinforced houses, overhead cover, thermal cover, and more complex defenses in general would be nice to see. While Modern definitely doesn't favor sitting a squad in a trench all day. I don't think static fortifications are useless. Its just that the simple trench from Red Thunder looks more and more like a death trap.

Steve has earlier in this very thread pretty much admitted that he does not know the terms or requirements for a current-day Steam partnership, and that their reluctance to partner with Steam is based primarily on their past experiences with Gamersgate and Paradox, dating back to 2007 and earlier. So I would say my assumption is pretty much correct.
My agenda is merely twofold: primarily I would like to see this company prosper, since that means more and better games for me to enjoy. Secondly I'm bored and like a good discussion now and then, and some of the people here actually offer that.

Another thread about steam, I really start to dislike this campaign, people with no real interest in participating on CM discussions come on these boards, make quick accounts or use old accounts only just to push an already over-discussed subject, which received in the past all the attention from developers it deserved.
 
Besides, I don't really see the necessity of publishing a direct link to buy another (steam) game on this board, since we discuss of CMBS here.
 
I am glad that the more of these threads pop up the less Steve will be interested in steam. So, to all those who are opening this discussion over and over and over again from time to time: good job!

I disagree. I've seen several other developers and publishers make the same claims BF does about Steam. I've seen their forums flooded with countless topics where their customers ask and pressure about Steam, and I've seen countless people like you dismiss those efforts. And in almost every single case I've seen those companies give in to the pressure, join the future and profit immensely from it. I think the only case I've seen where it didn't happen, the company no longer exists.
 
Again, the choice is Battlefront's. But the people who keep asking for Steam are those who have BF's best interests in mind. And in the end, in my experience Battlefront will have to either bend... or break. Right now, very few gamers have even heard of these games. Obscurity and anonimity are never good for someone trying to sell a product, even though finding a niche might keep them alive for a while.
 
 
 
Yes, it says that people realize what a massive amount of money can be made from Steam (by all parties involved) and want their share of the spoils. And the lack of success of these alternative services says even more.

I am sorry Kettler, but I can not take your words seriously.
 
It's not the first time you reference to special connections of yours, sensitive information and such. At the same time you say you are not to disclosure what these sources are, adding sensitivity and secrecy as justifications.
 
This is a public internet board dedicated to a videogame and while I recognize that some people here are, or were, involved in the armed forces, I really don't buy other people talking about special sources, secrets etc. thus posing themselves over the Others of us normal people who have no special connections to military or governative agencies and are just here because we like the subject or the videogame.
 
I find this attitude a bit insulting. I am all happy to discuss with anyone about what we like, tanks, armed forces, events and such, but when I read someone telling me he is "sitting on a trove of intel of varying sensitivity which may or may not be allowed to use" I feel like I am being joked around. It's like a kid saying "I know the president of USA thinks this but I cannot prove it, so you should take it as granted, because I have connections". Really cuts any wish to discuss further for me. I respect any personal opinion, even very deep or strong analysis done by some people here, but they never refer to secrets, special information to prove their ideas that only they have access to. If someone thinks differently than me or has a different opinion, be it, different points of view, but I cannot respect someone who say or infer that his opinion has more strenght because he has access to information I (and all the Others here) don't have access to.
Phrases like: "Whole categories of important-shocking-mind-bending matters of which you likely know nothing". I really have no connections with US government, army, or agencies, I am here willing to discuss about anything for what I know, but if you come up with phrases like that I just consider you a fraud. Really, I can't belive someone with such connections would write things on a video game discussion board (with all respect to BFC of course). And the fact that you expect me to belive this kind of things and treat you as someone who is doing a big favour to us by giving bits of special information from the inside, is insulting.