Paper Tiger

Sorry guys but I just don't understand what you're on about when you complain about the quality of the graphics in the game. It's not a FPS game and there's a hell of a lot more going on under the hood that in those games too. It's a wargame first and if your kit's up to running it with all the graphics settings maxxed out, then it can look beautiful too when viewed down with your troops. Further, there are quite a few missions for CMSF that are not just sandy desert bashes. Even if they're set in Syria, which isn't all desert, scenariuo designers often set their missions in reasonably green terrain. I'd say about half of my maps look Balkan or Eastern European. BTW, that's not MY map. That's one of Pete Wenman's rural maps which I think look quite good. Some of the lighting effects are much better than I'd expect from a game like this. So please, no more calls to make the game look more like CMBO. I liked CMBO and CMBB but they look shocking nowadays when compared to CMSF.

I appear to have solved the getflash problem so I can finally post some screenshots of the new missions. The first is a panorama of Sulit airfield, viewed from the Blue set up zone. 'Sulit' is Bahasa Indonesia for 'Difficult' but it sounds slightly arabic and it's appropriate for the set of missions I have planned here. This is where you'll encounter the Syrian airborne unit I have included in the campaign. So far, playesting this one has revealed that the airborne are tough to take on in a firefight. I have a little bit of work left to do on this one tweaking the AI plan and creating a second plan. With regards to AI plans, most missions have at least two, some more but there will be some with one only. The map is around 2km wide and 800m deep. The next two pictures come from Saturday's playtest of the Jameelah Bridges mission. The AI uses a lot off smoke to cover it's advance in this one and it's a really nice effect. as you can see, it's a night action. There will be a few of these. the Lakes, Road to Amarah, Jameelah and Tumah Crossings missions are all full night missions. I want to have several AI plans for the Jameelah attack. So far, it's proving to be easily winnable but very bloody for both sides. But I've been playtesting it with the full Blue OB and of course, your core forces will be somewhat reduced by this stage of the campaign so the difficulty of this one will depend on your success in the earlier missions. A final word. So far, I've managed to keep most of the missons down to one infantry company with some support, often tanks, and you may have up to a full company of them if you don't lose any in the early missions. However, I don't plan to have any missions in this campaign that have a battalion on board. I play test and play in RT and I just can't handle missions of these proportions. After this project, I'm going to turn my hand to a much smaller but no less ambitious project and it will likely be a Marines campaign although I might change my mind and make it a Syrian Mech Airborne thing as these units are really good to play with. There are a LOT of guys doing stuff for the US players in the community so I might go with the Red on Red option for the next one.

A large part of my Sunday CMSF time was eaten up today by a visit to the cinema to see the new Bond movie but it wasn't time wasted. I love the new Bond movies!:cool: But you don't care about that, do you? I am going to hold up on posting the new version of the Perdition mini campaign at the repository until I have had a chance to playtest it with the new v1.11 patch. Unfortunately, it wasn't released in time for this weekend but I have high hopes that it will arrive sometime next week. I really want the AI to use it's artillery in the Tumah Crossings and Perdition's Flames missions. I haven't seen anyhing when I've been playtesting recently because it won't start to use it until half way through the scenario and by that time, I've usually got the mission under control and it never gets a chance to use it. That must change with v1.11. This last week, I've been working hard to get two more missions near to completion. First, the new airfield mission has been set up and playtested many times and I think I've found the sweet spot so it won't require much more work to get it finished. I'd love to show you some screenshots but Photbucket crashes my computer when I try to do anything there. Something to do with Flashget according to IE7. Anyways, it has moved into the final stages of development and so I was able to turn my attention to a second mission. It's the mission that is fought on a heavily adapted version of my old "Harm's Way' map. It was originally slated to be another Blue attack across a defended river, the 4th such mission in the campaign, but instead, I decided to make Blue the defender in this action and it all fits into the storyline of the campaign beautifully. Once again, I have some beautiful action screenshots from this mission but I can't get them blah blah blah... Finally, I feel that I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. I just need one more map to finish the series and that will bring the total number of missions in the campaign to 16. That's enough for me thank you. That means that there will be no finale in the streets of Dimas and I won't be using that Minuteman map in this campaign. Both those maps will keep for my next project which I'm already getting quite excited about. Anyway, the current status of the campaign is this mission 1 Petani finished mission 2 Hit and Run finished mission 3 Orchard Road 90% finished mission 4 Sabatani finished mission 5 SAM Hill finished mission 6 Sagger Point finished mission 7 Sulit Part 1 no map mission 8 Sulit airfield 75% finished mission 9 Where Farmer's Dare finished mission 10 Burning Bridges finished mission 11 The Lakes about 50% finished mission 12 Road to Amarah finished mission 13 The Jameelah Bridges 75% finished mission 14 The Tumah Crossing finished mission 15 Dimas Part 1 about 50% finished mission 16 Dimas Part 2 - Perdition's Flames finished The finished missions will all need one playthrough with the new patch to ensure that they're all still winnable but otherwise, most of my work will be concentrated on getting the new Sulit map created and playtesting those missions that are as yet unfinished, starting with Orchard Road and moving down the list. I'm really hoping that this will be finished before Xmas as I'm itching to dive into my next project. Actually, work has already started on that one but that's for later.

Or, you could just let us have v1.11 instead

The bunkers thing is a known issue and it has already been fixed by the upcomng v1.11 patch. You'll find them WAY up in the sky in one corner of the map. Once you find them, click on them and give them a facing command and they'll return to earth and you can move them to where you want. Of course, when you move them, they'll 'disappear' as they go back to their perches above their new location. Just select them again and give them another facing command. Rinse and repeat until you get them where you want them. Hopefully, we won't have to do this for much longer.

And it would also be nice to have the possibility to link "TOUCH" objectives to specific units Yup, another good suggestion. It's much easier for that M1A2 SEPS (or a T90 for that matter) to touch that objective than the FOS the briefing suggests it should be. There's a LOT I could do with both these victory conditions too.

An extremely desirable feature. I would love to see this come back too.

Hi Webwing we have a saying in Scotland, 'Too many cooks spoil the broth'. Perhaps this applies in this instance as well. Anyway, I have no desire to criticize other people's work or pretend that I know better just because I've done one campaign. It's simply enough to know that this particular glitch won't ever bite them on the ass again.

I know. I just opened up USMC Circle the Wagons and found that there were dozens of orders in a single plan. One group even had all sixteen orders. This couldn't have come at a better time as I'm about to start scripting an AI attack and I want it to be brutal.:cool:

Thanks for your continued feedback. I just tried again and was taken to the same place. So, I tried to download another file, a scenario and after agreeing with the EULA, I was given the usual option to save or open etc... here's what I'm seeing sans the link Index of ftp...blah blah blah then under that a folder icon with Up to a higher directory and then under that again, Name, size and last modified. and nothing at all happens I have FF3 with adobes latest flash player installed, otherwise it's a clean set up. The operating system is authentic Vista 64 bit Home, (yes I live in Indonesia but I'm a westerner and so there's no dodgy pirate stuff on my rig). I have no idea about FF3 being a beta but that might be it. Anyway, I'll keep trying and if I don't have it by Monday, I'll try downloading it at work. (Now THAT'S a dodgy rig if there ever was one. Not a piece of authentic software installed on it at all. I'll bet it all works fine though.)

The link you posted was a direct ftp link to the file, except you made a typo and it didn't parse correctly because of spaces in the file name. I had to remove it because we don't want direct links to the files posted publicly. I apologize if I posted something that I shouldn't have. I'm not an IT guy so I don't what some of these things are. With regards to a typo, I just cut and pasted that from the page I was sent to after I agreed to the EULA. This wasn't a link, it didn't do anything when I hovered the mouse over it or clicked on it and I was sent there every time I tried to download the file. In other words, it was a complete dead end so forgive me if I'm a bit confused. I have already installed Firefox 3 and I have simply NEVER had a problem like this downloading from either your website or anybody else's before this. The fact that others are having no problems with this is one of the reasons why I'm feeling a bit frustrated and left out. But I'll just have to get over it. Thanks for your attention though.

From the manual Orders - basic instruction sets for a group (up to 16 per plan) I interpreted that to mean all the groups within that plan and not 16 per group. If this really is the case, I will be a VERY happy camper as I can really use more orders. That just shows you how economical I have been with my existing AI planning. I also have never opened up anybody else's work in the scenario editor to see how THEY did it. I'll definitely have a look at someone's later tonight. With regards to when I saw this? When I was creating the AI attack for 'The Barrier' mission in Hasrabit. I saw a group of tanks just sitting doing nothing and not moving onto their next order. I counted all the individual orders and found that there were 17 so I deleted an order from another group and everything worked fine again. I then erroneously concluded that I could only have 16 orders per plan.

I think it's a crying shame that vehicle pathfinding took a hit with v1.1. I thought it was actually really good at v1.08 and I'm confident that it will get back to that standard when the v1.11 patch arrives. I guess BFC just have some bad karma with reviews. However, having spent a load of time working on campaigns across drastically different versions of the game myself (Hasrabit was developed across v1.05 to v1.08 and there were some HUGE changes made there), I'm not really sure why BFC dropped the ball on that one. It's not DIFFICULT creating a campaign, just a LOT of work. And they had whole team of guys working on creating the scenarios. But so what. What's done is done and they're working on ways to make it easier in the future. Anyways, I'm sure that CM:Normandy will blow everybody's socks off when it eventually arrives. No doubt it will have it's own problems but some folks just want to see negative all the time and others will see the good and enjoy it.

At plan #1 - When it says "set-up". When I shade in a section on the map (yellow) does this mean this unit will look to get to this point on the map (if not already there when placed)? And once at that location, if not given another order will remain at this given location/s ? IF that section is within Red's set-up zone it will START in that location. This is a very important point. If that painted section is not within a red set-up zone (created in the Map editor), the AI will ignore that shaded area and the unit will start in the location it was placed in in the scenario editor. It can NOT move from this location unless you give it a second order. There are potentially 5 AI plans for each scenario. However, you have to activate plans 2-5 so don't bother with them just now until you're more comfortable with creating one. But yes, group 4 could start in any one of 5 different locations if you create 5 different plans. Just remember that the AI only follows ONE of your plans during a scenario. It chooses it's plan when you exit the set-up phase of the scenario. Timing of the orders requires a much lengthier reply that I don't have time for just now so I suggest you try some experiments creating a second order for a unit and seeing what happens.

From my cold dead hands, until Finnish module comes out. Actually, I agree 100% with that sentiment as the Finns are Uber Cool in WW2. I'll have to buy them all and if anyone can suggest a good explanation that I can give to my wife as to why I want to buy a crappy computer when I have a brand new laptop "we" can't afford will they please post them here Sigh, there should be a separate support forum for CMSF and our wives.

So, one can basically have 8 groups, correct? correct and each of these groups can have how many plans? Is there a maxium number? I presume you mean orders and not plans right? You have a grand total of 16 orders that can be given to your 8 groups. Basically, 'creating' a group consumes 1 order, the default order that determines the set-up status of that group. If you don't change anything in the editor, that group will sit in place in it's set-up position with a 'normal' fire command for 1 minute and then it will exit that order, presumably for another 'normal' order until the scenario ends. So if you want to have AI groups that do a lot during the scenario, you either have to have less that 8 groups or some of those groups will have only 1 order. If you only have four AI groups you have 12 orders to distribute between those four groups. You can give them ALL to one group or distribute them any way you want. Be careful about giving more than 16 as the game will ignore those orders but which orders it will ignore, I can't tell you. Another question. Say, you simply put a figher group onto a map (with no real plan). What will the AI have them do? Simply stay at that location and only act when responding to incoming fire upon them? If you want a fighter group to simply protect a given individual? How do you go about this? Or do you simply have them defend a given location / house / structure? If you do NOTHING at all, the AI will deploy that unt in a corner of the board and they will sit there until the mission ends. they won't move at all, but they will defend themselves. If you manually place that unit somewhere on the board with only the default order, then it will start and end the mission there. They will defend that location. The fire command of your order will determine how your unit(s) will react to enemy units. Active means that they'll fire on sight regardless of whether it's a good shot or not Normal means that they will be a bit less trigger happy Cautious means that they'll hold their fire until they have a good shot Ambush Xm means that they'll hide and only fire when an enemy unit enter their LoS and is within their ambush range. Hide means that they'll sit there and hide until you walk into their location. With regards to moving AI groups about, I suggest that you set up a very small, simple scenario and experiment with the orders for a while to see how they work. No doubt this will seem quite confusing for a while. When you know what to ask, post back and we'll see what we can do to help you again.

After 9 hours of 3-4kb/sec yesterday, I finally downloaded a corrupted file. So I deleted the file and today I'm getting this... [link] what's going on? Trust me guys, I'd have been very happy to pay you $2-3 from time to time for this service... Instead, I get this for 'free'

If you can hang on for a few more days to start, I will be posting a new version of 'Perdition' at BF's Repository at the weekend or early next week. Since I've been redesigning these missions to fit them into this much larger campaign, I have found that they are much more playable and still winnable with less forces for Blue. Basically, Blue loses two tank platoons, an engineer platoon, and that module of heavy artillery. In the latter's place, you'll ghet a single module of heavy rocket artillery which is the standard heavy artillery in 'Dimas'. I am also hoping that the v1.1 patch will be ready by the weekend and that will allow me to test them to see if the AI can use it's artillery during the missions. I tried to anticipate the way BFC was going to impliment the AI artillery before v1.1 and I didn't succeed. Hopefully, I will be able to get this all done by Sunday.

Moon, can you reset my account or something? I still can't download that file as it says that my download limit has been reached. It's already more than 24 hours ago...

Yup, I live in Indonesia. It's ALMOST there with regards to infotech but not quite there yet., I downloaded Firefox 3 this evening and tried to download again and this time, I went to the EULA which is a first. However, I'm still at my download limit for today... bummer, as my evening classes have both been cancelled and I have the time to do it now. But I'm optimistic that I'll have it tomorrow morning. I'll say 'thank you' properly when I have it downloaded.

Okay, that's 2 days I've tried to download that terrain texture mod with no success at all. I can't get Flashget to download the file Instead, I get some message about scripts not operating on this page (or whatever, I'm no computer geek,) and so I have to use IE to download the file. The best result I've had was around 30% completed and then it crashed or I get a download complete message after it's downloaded about 2-3MBs. Hmm, I have another day to ponder how to do this successfully before I can try again so can anyone advise me how to download this. Is it Flashget or what?:confused:

Hmm, a bit of overkill maybe seeing as how the US side already MASSIVELY outguns it's CMSF opponent, which is realistic. However, they DO have them. Perhaps you could simply buy Red IEDs in the scenario editor and use them like that?

Yeah, I'd start with 'Perdition' too. Another useful thing about Perdition is that if your rig can handle the missions in it, it shouldn't have any problem with the even larger maps in 'Dimas'. The 'Tumah Crossing' map is still big even by 'Dimas' standards. I've pretty much finished the new airfield map and it's a real beauty. I've also finally learned how to draw highways as well so now, I have that skill under my belt before progressing onto the more difficult built up maps that I'll need for my next project. Because I spent the entire weekend working exclusively on this map,I was able to get started playtesting the battle this morning and even with both sides starting with their full OBs onboard at the start, it's running fine. Perhaps because there are very very few changes in elevation? It's certainly not billiard-board flat but it's getting close to that which isn't unrealistic for an airfield I suppose. I will get round to posting a few screenshots later this week as I KNOW that playtesting this map will result in some significant changes being made. However, as this project grows in size, so does the length of time required to get it finished. Once I have each individual mission developed, I reckon on between 3-4 weeks of solid playtesting before I release the final version. And the story line keeps evolving as it grows too. I've managed to work in some helicopter support for the player in some of the earlier missions which will increase your tactical options. And besides, helos are my favourite form of support. I love using them.

A bit of bad news for you guys who don't have the Marines module yet: I have started building a new mission for this campaign that features a Syrian Airborne company. Since this will be a lot harder to work around, it's possible that this will only be playable by Marines owners. However, don't panic. I will try playing it with Special Forces and see if that works. But I can't see how it could be the same. The Airborne unit is really different. The map is under construction just now but I might be able to get an early screenshot for you soon.

I am hoping that BFC will include an option in the scenario editor to name our own leaders and make it stick. There were SO many real life heroes with terrific stories on both sides in that camapign that not having this would be a crying shame. It would also be really good if we could have a 'hero' unit like in ASL, that could emerge rarely in combat and is capable of single handedly changing the course of the mission. Obviously, the latter would require a lot of coding so I won't hold my breath, but the former shouldn't be all that hard to do?