salwon

WEGO is in CMSF. How do so many people miss this?

Ask a veteran of Omaha how effective using tanks as cover is.

There are LOS effects (+1, +2 etc) on unit stance, but once a bullet is fired it either hits or doesn't. So, correct: no "hit modifiers" in any sense. It's harder to hit someone in a trench because it's harder to fire into the lower elevation, not because of a +3 to their cover rating.

Exactly - obviously damage to different parts is modeled, but is AIMING at specific parts modeled?

Not sure if this has been posted already, but here's a fascinating series of AARs of a marine platoon in Afghanistan. Really interesting to see the Taliban's tactics, especially how they focus on vehicles, and how tenuous the CC link is. On the Marine side, CAS CAS CAS! seems to be the rule of the day. Relating to CMSF, I liked learning about the time difference between reality and the simulation - the first ambush described would've been over with near 100% casualties in the game after about 5 minutes. And again, it really demonstrates the need to work closely with the air assets. From the red side, good fire discipline is shown to be crucial - set cover arcs carefully! Micro-managing RPGs is also a good lesson here. Does the game recognize different aim points on vehicles, or do the pixeltruppen not control rocket fire to that level? Anyway you look at it, this is a must-read for anyone on this board! EDIT: Beaten! http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1122190

At some point in CMx2's life, there will be Co-op. At the exact same moment, there will never again be any reason to play anything else.

First rule of streetfighting: stay out of the streets.

I think they're just for our benefit, but in 1.11 they men will fire at contacts after they go ?, so there's at least some recognition of a lost contact on the AI level. The ? definitely fade over time, and I've seen them come up from dust and direction of fire. But some kind of vehicle/inf marker would be welcome, as well as sound/sight. Maybe color coded sound vs sight? For me, the fading system works well, but I agree some more variety would be welcome.

The helo idea is a good one, but they won't find anyone holed up in the village, just vehicles. One squad out is a good way to go - keep your lavs at ~500m, advance one squad 100m on hunt, then bound the next one up 100m past, lather, rinse, repeat. You might want to use smaller movements as you get closer - say, once your advance squad is 250 away, only advance in 50m chunks. This way one squad isn't left completely hanging where a few bursts will take them out. Keep a lateral distance between squads, about 25m or so. You can cover more area, and one RPG won't ruin both squad's day. If you're feeling particularly aggressive you can move up the LAVs, but I don't like to do this until I'm completely sure there aren't and surprises waiting for them. They can area fire at 0.5km out just fine. You should be able to identify a platoon+ this way, but unless you have something heavy don't stay engaged for long. Once you know what you're up against pop smoke, bring up the LAVs, and get the scouts out of there. If the enemy has anything more than a single squad covering the approaches, you need more than scouts/transports to take them out. Last thing: be prepared to write at least one letter home after the mission! EDIT: rereading the OP, I'm not sure if you have scouts or two full squads. Two marine squads could probably handle up to a platoon, depending on their level and the level of the enemy. But really in a situation like this, you need some dedicated covering fire that's not in a moving coffin. A platoon's MG squad would be optimal. Unless the mission is to just identify the buildings that the arty will destroy, but that's much easier

Well, considering how well infantry is modeled already I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a slight improvement I love the way 1.10 shows you exactly what action spot you're going to, which makes it easy to see where the teams will end up, but I agree that when controlling a platoon a little more fidelity would be nice. More buildings types/sizes/whatever is almost guaranteed for Normandy. Now that I think about it, I wonder if they'll add in fort-type structures at any point. I know they're working on changing pillbox behavior, I wonder how hard it will be to code in a Metz like structure!

I think it's just the Co-op multi. Once CM gets that in there will be no reason to use CC...for anything, really

8x8m. We're not going to get any finer resolution than that, and in any case most machines wouldn't be able to run it anyway. Note that the 64m^2 resolution is ONLY for command purposes - hit calculations/projectile paths are calculated at a much finer scale length, down to the polygon. So you may only be able to target the 8x8 square, but unlike in CMx1 your shots can miss by a few centimeters. The only small improvements (ie, not water or coop) that I would like to see is popover tooltips. The toolbar shows a ton of information, more than we need, but it's not too helpful when you have to keep jumping to the manual to find out what something is. I think 1.10 introduced a popup over a weapon icon, which is a good start, but ammo (esp. arty and air) needs something similar.

The red/brown distinction is a 1.10 construct, I believe. Previously there was no way to tell dead from wounded other than buddy aid time (MUCH less for KIA). There's a great Icon mod over at CMMODS that changes the bases to either A) Green/Yellow Arrows (shows facing of soldiers still in the fight) A red cross, for WIA, or C) A Brown skull and crossbones for, well, you know... Makes it much easier to tell where to spend the buddy aid time!

Not sure if this has been answered anywhere: will the smaller mortars be on board?

Use quick to get the right movement speed when "assaulting" teams.

The Javelin will kill it. Doesn't even really matter what "it" is, toss a javelin at it and it will cease existing. But yeah, I know what you mean.

I can't imagine how multi-RT works without pausing. The chaos you described is completely manageable when you have time to stop and catch your breath. You'll never go back to WeGo again*! *Unless you do

I think the idea is to have everything up to the winter battles be modeled - that is, if the US were involved, and there was no snow, you can do it. I've been taking this to mean that you can fight on June 6th, just not see your troops landing (and really, all the interesting stuff happened off the beaches anyway). Airborne "drops" are possible to simulate in CMSF with reinforcements, no reason to think that'll change. Aircraft modelling seems highly unlikely, but AA is much more on the "scale" of a WWII battle than in SF, so I imagine there will be some work done there. I don't recall anything official though. I think Steve has said it'll work as it does now (meaning, no ) A shame too, protecting POWs is a good job for tankless crews! Since full water modelling is a selling point, bridges seem likely. You could always just buy CMx1 again...

Isn't "Target light" effectively the same as "Use Main Gun?" I've always used it as such without trouble...

Can we be certain that the FJ will be in the first release? Certainly they had more of an impact in US areas than SS units.

Sorry if this has been answered before, I couldn't find it in the archives. When placing foliage, there are four icons that show up - one, two, and three trees, and one tree in a grid. The first three are easy to figure out, but what does that last one do? More generally, is there a list of what all the icons do somewhere? For example, what's the difference between "Grass" and "GrassT" (at least I think it's GrassT, but you know what I mean )? Thanks!

Yes. And not just because of the looks issue. In fact, I don't care about how it looks at all. This much, apparently. Although honestly I fail to see how knowing a trench is there is compromising any tactics. "I see a trench" is not the same thing as "I see the enemy." With foxholes I can see it being a bigger issue though - is the scenario designer going to be responsible for placing foxholes in every possible defensive location? But again, a strictly cosmetic solution is not the answer. For one thing, these trench units would need to be coded/tested/bug-fixed/Tac-AI fixed/etc etc etc, all of which takes away from more important work. For one thing, that's less time they're spending on true FOW terrain, which is On The List. No one wants Charles spending time on something that could lead to more problems and will only be replaced eventually anyway.

Never noticed the ground-floor-facing-under-a-balcony thing (boy that rolls off the tongue!), but it sounds like a bug. I usually just go as high as possible, which mostly means guys on the balcony. Anecdotally, it seems like they're MORE exposed out there, at least to HE fire. The balcony will definitely cut down on LOS/LOF close to the building though.

Steve, I think you might be tired - I said going back to cm1 trenches ISN'T a good idea That seems to be what Redwolf wants, but...yeah. Terrible, terrible idea. Glad to hear it come from you :-) It seems like we've reached an impass on this discussion - going through windows ain't going to happen, but a properly designed map can reproduce the effects. FOW terrain will happen, but is a big issue. Am I correct in assuming that we probably won't see hidden trenches/foxholes in Normandy?

Going back to the CMx1 Trenches-are-units method isn't a good idea IMO. You seem to have the visual vs protective effects backwards; here's what Steve said: It's the visual aspect that's an abstraction, not the cover effects. As far as engine calculations go they're WAD. The trench needs to be part of the terrain so that the units inside get the correct depth, and therefore cover. And since there is no FOW on any terrain, there's no FOW on trenches. It's just up to the scenario designer to put trenches everywhere so that you don't get the CMx1 "there's the trench, area fire!" effect.