Paper Tiger
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Posts posted by Paper Tiger
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That's a good question but I don't think it will happen. I seem to recall reading some post by Steve a while ago saying that they use openGL because it keeps them independent from Microsoft. But who knows.
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handihoc
great stuff. well done. A win in 'The barrier' will smooth things over a bit later in the campaign. 'Buying the farm' was intended to be a tough mission and I had intended for the player to get dumped from the campaign if he lost this one. So I wanted 'The farm' to be fun too in case people had to replay it to get a win. But late on I had another idea for a branch that gives the player one more chance, albeit a small one.
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M1 Tank Platoon - sweet - one of my favourite Amiga games. No game before or since has ever given me the feel of being there like that one. I remember completing the training missions where you're safe and nobody fires back at at you and then moving to my first 'real' combat mission and I was SO tense and nervous while playing it. The gunfire I was hearing and nervously searching for turned out to be that of my own forces firing on the enemy. Yet it turned out to be really easy. Good luck making that.
BTW, I've usually found playtesting and balancing to be the longest part of developing a new mission.
But yes, it is nice when the maps are all finished. -
It's quite possible to create non-desert environment in CMSF very similar to terrain you'll find in central Europe, the Balkans or the Ukraine. It's also possible to do symmetrical battles but they are best done as Red v Red as the US RULES outside of the cities.
You've got a very LONG wait ahead of you before you will get a module that will give you this.
Since I'm a European living in Asia, I feel I can pass on your offer of a prize to either of these locations.
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I have never played the Demo scenarios so I have no idea how difficult they are to beat. It's a fair bet that if you buy the full game and play some of the missions that come with the game 'Al Amarah' being a good one, you'll probably find yourself being a wee bit more challenged.
Then, from there, you can download some of the community designed content from CMMODS. Unless you're reaaly THAT good, I'd guess you'll find yourself getting your ass handed to you by the AI when it's both defending and attacking.
As mentioned by earlier posters, the AI must be programmed by the scenario designer to do something. Otherwise, it will just park it's units in it's set up area and wait for the time to run out. Even without triggers for AI behaviour yet, some designers have found ways to make the AI VERY effective on defence and occassionally on attack too. If anything, community designed missions are notoriously difficult for the community players here. You won't find much scenario feedback where people complain that say 'your mission was too easy'.
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quote - "so we don't want to say too much yet."
That's a bit of an understatement.
For me 'something' new would have been nice. It's been nearly four weeks now and yet we still have absolutely NO idea when this is going to become available. Something like 'we hope to have it finished and available before 27th July' would be really nice. Then, at least I could stop getting disappointed everytime I visit this website looking for an update. -
Yup, Red on Red is definitely more unpredictable than Blue v Red when it comes to balancing missions. And the RPG-29 teams v the T-55s in the final mission are a very good example of this.
It's no exaggeration to say that on more than a few occassions while playtesting this mission, my RPG teams got kills on the T-55s with their very first shots, therefore, three shots, three dead tanks. Not every time I admit, but often enough for me to think that it was more than fair. That's why the AT-14 teams don't reappear in this mission and why there are no friendly tanks.
SPOILERS
Many of those one shot kills usually came from above and on the side of the tank. This was regularly doable because I positioned the wrecked cars to channel them into the narrow alleyways where my RPG teams were hiding. Also, the tanks frequently get ahead of their infantry support in this mission which leaves them horribly vulnerable. I'd have liked to have had them in their own AI group but we're limited to 8 of those with only 16 orders and other things got the priority, like the small attacks on important features like the Hospital for example.
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Interesting. I like what I'm reading here. It looks like most of you are getting a win in the final mission but you're having to work your asses off to get it. That probably means that, overall, I managed to get the balance just right.
When there are no AT-14 teams in your OB, the tanks in the Special Forces missions are very dangerous. I suspect one of the reasons why bodkin was getting lots of hits but no kills on one tank is because the RPG teams had expended all their HEAT rounds and were firing their thermobaric rounds at the tank. I often overlooked this when I was playing 'Strong Stand' and I'd get these ineffective hits. When I checked the team's ammo loads, they had no HEAT but were firing their thermos. Those thermo warheads are really heavy hitters against infantry.
quote - "Overall I loved the maps really natural looking terain and believable landscapes. The only thing I would have prefered was if the scale of the battles was smaller, I prefer more intimate engagements, maybe just a few platoons on either side."
100% agree on that score. It was never my intention to create unplayable monsters and, generally, the Special Forces missions are about what I wanted. But the first two RG missions grew and grew as I playtested them. The later missions could be huge if you managed to get wins without losing a substantial part of your cores.
With regards to the maps, yeah, a LOT of work went into each map, especially 'Hill 142' and 'Hasrabit'. And yet, my personal favourite is "The Farm' map which was actually quite simple to do.
Anyway, I'm currently in the playtesting stage of my second campaign, called 'Perdition', this time a mini one with just three missions. If you thought the Hasrabit campaign maps were natural and realistic, these are going to surprise you. Even I think they're stunning. And I've managed to keep the player's forces down to about two companies, one mech infantry and one tank in the first two missions. That means that there are potentially four companies available for the third and final mission but so far, while playtesting it, I still end up with the equivalent of two companies in the last mission. After hyping up Hasrabit by posting loads of screenshots over the last three months of development, I'm not going to do that again. When it's finished, then I'll post lots to promote it. Hopefully, it will be finished before the Marines module comes out and then I want to do something much smaller with US combined arms on maps like these new ones.
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Check your Blue/Red board edges in the Mission paramaters. Whatever it's set at, reverse it. See if that helps.
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quote - jesus, i am beginning to question my sanity.
After reading your last post, frankly, so am I.
quote - in my honest opinion those screenshots are a great example of the "sell out"... so what's wrong with the screenshots? well, what an absolutely brilliant tactical use of M1s! that range is, what, 250 meters?
No, they most certainly are not. How on earth can you claim they support your 'sell out' thesis? I just see two guys having a lot of fun playing the game in a manner you deem to be unrealistic. But just because you CAN play it this way doesn't mean that you have to.
quote -so how do you use M1s with realistic, tactically sound ranges in CMSF? you do not, it is impossible. the engine is incapable of such ranges. why? because of limitations set by eye candy.
Absolutely untrue. We can make maps up to 4km x 4km which is quite big enough thank you. Almost everybody who has played around with the scenario editor has probably made one flat desert map like this and matched up some M1s against some T-72 Turms. But it takes longer to load this baby up than it does to play it and it's not challenging.
Okay, how can we make it more challenging. I know, let's now add some undulations to give the Syrians a small chance to close the range and hurt those M1s. Oh, wait, should we really be doing that as we're then restricting the M1s from operating at tactically sound ranges? Flamingknives point about military operations in complex terrain is spot on. What is your problem?
Of course it CAN be done AND with no bells, no whistles, no eye candy. The only barrier to creating your dream mission is the amount of work that's required to create a tactically interesting map of these dimensions in the editor.
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Yeah, Red stuff is no certain thing. I guess there's a random number generated here and you're just coming up VERY unlucky. Are those hits happening on the frontal or side armour? I frequently get kills with a single side hit which isn't too difficult to pull off on this mission seeing as how the streets are so narrow. BTW, there were originally 10 T-55's in this mission. Bet you're glad I changed that.
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LOL
I know how that dog must be feeling.
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Well, that's three weeks now. Some kind of progress update would be very welcome.
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Yeah, I agree that it could be doing with being toned down a bit. 1.08 REALLY made FF a major issue when playing as Red at night. Mission 2, Strong Stand, became utterly unplayable after I installed 1.08 and I had to make the conscripts green to make it work. But even with the improvement in quality, they were still much harder to handle than the conscripts in 1. I felt that 1.07 had the better balance for FF than 1.08.
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I wish I'd had this when I made the map for Hasrabit. The town map for the finale was done from a real location and I had to measure the distance between the houses to get the appearance right. It was slow work but, when I finished, I got a real surprise when I raised the camera to the maximum viewing height and looked down. It really looked like my photo; not exactly, but close enough.
It's funny but when I was measuring the buildings, so many of them were 8, 16 or 24 metres in length with the gaps between them around 8m too. It's a good job they went with an 8x8 grid rather than a 10x10 one.
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bodkin
don't worry. There is ZERO percent chance of me taking out the airstrike as I think it's a cool feature in that mission. If it made it too easy for some folks to win, well, so what. They can just have some fun playing this mission instead. Besides, you're so close to the finale, it would be a bit hard on the player to make that mission so difficult that you had to restart the whole campaign to get a win.
I haven't made any actual changes to Saudara Part 2 except deactivating that AI plan. However, for those players who got the 'wrong' plan, the mission will definitely seem much tougher if they ever play v3. Instead, it should become more difficult by default from the changes made to the previous RG missions, of which, Hill 142 is one of.
Handihoc
The fighting for the village is indeed very tough but, with all the artillery and air support you've got at your disposal, it's usually a sure thing as long as you don't rush it. I felt that the Hill mission was too easy but decided to let it stand as the first three missions were quite tough. This particular mission was playtested many times compiled with the Counterattack mission so it was carefully balanced.
SPOILERS
Yes, the FOS is positioned in a location which is impossible to reach ACCIDENTALLY. He's also positioned so that he'll likely survive a 'blind' pre-emptive artillery strike on his position.
Except for a time when my forces got very badly beaten up in the Guards Counterattack mission, I always managed to clear out the village and kill the FO before time ran out. I also had that mission playtested independently and he thought that it was easy to get the FO too. So it sounds like your boys just took a hell of a beating in the first mission. (BTW, You DID win the Guards Counterattack mission didn't you? You get less time to complete the Hill mission if you failed.)
I had toyed with the idea of giving him multiple locations in the different AI plans but stuck with this one as you had to have control of the village and the mansion to have a safe run at his position. It's also the most logical position for him as he's overlooking the valley. Were he somewhere in the village, it would be too easy to take him out accidentally with artillery and creating uncertainty in the player's mind if he couldn't find him 'cos he had been killed while hiding.
yes, I love the transition from dark to full daylight too. It's a really beautiful map and that effect shows it off quite well.
Now, you've finished Hill 142. That means you're going to play The Barrier next. Good luck. You'll need it. I look forward to hearing how you fared there.
BTW, I'm extremely happy to hear that you're playing on regardless of a bad result. Good for you.
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gmfrank
groan... I checked it out and there was an old AI plan that I thought I'd disabled but I hadn't. Ach well, it's gone now so that's another change that can be added to the list for v3
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Cambronne
sorry mate. I didn't realise that you were being serious with your first post. I really don't think that, after reading your post, BFC were reconsidering their already detailed schedule by dropping the Brit module and going straight to WW2 and then I come along and post and they think, 'ah well, let's stick with the original plan'. We're all definitely going to get to play WW2 with the new engine either around Christmas this year or early in the New Year.
BTW, I'm not English (not that there's anything wrong with that) and there are lots of folks who would LOVE to see Russian and Chinese equipment in the game.
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It's strange, I can hardly believe it myself but I'm not that interested in WW2 anymore. :eek: Since the game engine has been improved so much in the last few months, I'm really loving the modern era stuff and going back to WW2 doesn't seem so exciting anymore. But of course, when it comes along, I'll buy it and love it and play it to death.
Your point about a playable (challenging) AI opponent is a good one and they'll absolutely HAVE to allow the Germans to use artillery in a more intelligent fashion in the game. However, the Germans didn't get any air support in Normandy so you'll probably find that particular aspect won't change much.
As for getting rid of the Brit's... PLEASE... there do happen to be some people who play this game who are not American
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Normal Dude:
Yes, it's 100% purely subjective. I really want to play as the US side but I want to play missions that are challenging without having unrealistic conditions otherwise the 'illusion' or immersion is lost for me. But I'm just one player and the vast majority of folks who come here are quite happy with the restrictions.
Anyway, since I posted that last message, I had an idea for a mini campaign to be played as the Marines with armour support that could be both realistic AND challenging using what the Syrians should realistically have.
Pandur:
Yeah, that's definitely one way to make the mission challenging for the US player but it's hard on your CPU. But your screenshots inspired me to try something very different for my next Red v Red project. All the maps are around 2km x 1km + minimum and they're playtesting with great fps too. Because the maps are so big, I have been able to give the player a LOT of artillery to play around with, and the tank duels are brilliant too. I'm even having some fun giving the red side some air support. If only BFC could sort out the AI artillery for the Marines module, I could make this really special.
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If you like the setting then of course it's playable. It's been working fine and hugely playable since January and the introduction of ELoS. Just my 2p worth.
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gmfrank
I presume you meant me?
That's good to hear. Over the weekend, I'll amend this again to remove the tanks as it sounds doable without them. I did it without tanks when I playtested it but my experience playing the campaign is obviously going to be different from you guys'.
Yes, the limited ammo was intentional. If you have a few RPG teams left with full ammo, the mission isn't that hard to beat as they're SO effective against infantry in buildings and in the open. That supply depot also provides you with a serious incentive to protect the southern part of the town.
Just out of curiosity, which was your favourite mission?
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It's already done, mate. I'm just waiting for the Marines module to arrive and see what changes are made to the game and make any adjustments necessary before finally laying this one to rest. I don't want to do a v4.
The changes that have already been made to v2 are as follows:
a) Three Republican Guards missions, (Guards Counterattack, Hill 142 and Saudara Part 2) have all been made slightly more difficult.
The map for Saudara Part 1 has been altered slightly to allow the player's reinforcements to arrive out of LoS of an enemy ATGM team.c) All the missions have had their core forces synched with the final core units file. All core units will get tired as the campaign progresses rather than some starting out tired.
d) Since Normal Dude completed the whole thing successfully, I'm not sure if this change will stand but, right now, it's possible for the player to receive some tank support in the final mission depending on how he got there.
e) I made a small change to the victory conditions in The Barrier to make it easier for players to keep the airfield open. But you'll still have to fight very hard to do this.
f) I found and corrected an error in the campaign script that didn't lead to the proper branch. However, as you really have to screw up quite badly in the campaign to find this branch, nobody has reported this problem.
g) small typos and mistakes in the briefings have been corrected.
If you haven't done so already, you can try out the new version of Hill 142 and also The Farm missions. I posted stand-alone versions of both these missions at CMMODS a couple of weeks ago. I liked the changes I made to Hill 142 so much that I introduced them to the campaign mission.
I'm already working hard on my next project and hopefully, it should be finished soon.
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I think the game definitely moves into the realms of reality when the battles are fought in an urban environment. However, out in the countryside, I really don't buy that the US would be challenged in any significant way by the Syrians because of the US's overwhelming air superiority.
At this moment, right now, I suspect that the CIA and the US military have a fairly good idea where all the most dangerous Syrian military units are based. That's during peacetime. If a conflict loomed, their level of intel would rapily escalate to the point that they knew pretty much everything that wasn't hidden in a city. Then, once the conflict started, the Syrian airforce and anti-air defences would rapidly be taken out of the picture by cruise missiles as well as the US air assets. Once those are gone, and they WOULD go, it's already game-over for the Syrian side if he chooses to leave the relative security of his urban defences.
Any mech or armoured force attempting to move in the open after the conflict starts would be spotted by satellites or those cool little unmanned flying cameras and they'd be trashed extremely quickly. So that by the time US forces crossed the border, there wouldn't be that much left for them to do except in the cities. That's pretty much how it went in Gulf wars 1 and 2 and you only have to look at US casualty figures during the military phase of both those conflicts to see how frequently the US side was seriously challenged.
Also, accepting that sometimes, sh*t happens, in a real shooting war, not COIN Ops, it's extremely likely that any US company would be able to call on some formidable support either from tanks, (M1A2 SEPS - king of the battlefield bar none), air support or artillery. Taking these options away to create an artificial challenge just isn't realistic. It's FUN, but lets not pretend that it's realistic.
So, in my opinion, battles fought outside an urban environment between US forces and Syrian mech forces are fantasy scenarios if they're 'challenging' to the US. Since the urban combat doesn't really 'light my fire', and conventional conflict in the open does, I have chosen to play Red v Red almost exclusively for the past 6 months. However, the game really is designed primarily to be played as the US side. If you choose to play red v red, some of the omissions in the game become more obvious, i.e. AI artillery and air support.
But yes, it is nice when the maps are all finished.
The map for Saudara Part 1 has been altered slightly to allow the player's reinforcements to arrive out of LoS of an enemy ATGM team.
The Hasrabit Campaign
in CMSF Scenario and Mod Design Forum
Posted
Ah, now that's a mistake. You're playing the mission with the extra artillery support for the Red side because you lost the 'Hilll' mission. As a result, he's calling in artillery on your reserves moving to reinforce you and, as a result, you get less tanks. Did you get any extra artillery support with that reinforcement slot? I deleted the tanks from the OB and that usually removes the reinforcement slot too.