slug88

Well, the only way to really know is to try it yourself. And the thing is, it's free, so why the hell not. If after a while you decide that Vista is better for you than W7, then you can always buy Vista.

Get a 64 bit operating system. Either that or shave off 2 gb of your ram, since you won't be using it anyway. Actually, I would very very strongly recommend getting the *free* Windows 7 64 beta. I've been running it myself since release, and not only do I find it to be superior to Vista in every way, but three weeks ago I went ahead and got rid of my XP partition because I hadn't used it even once. Plus, it's FREE. Then when the W7 release appears in a few months, you can spend your money on that, rather than spending it now on an OS that's already obsolete.

Odd, I'm using W7 x64, and have obtained drivers for my 8800 GTS via Windows Update. CMSF works perfectly fine, no issues, flickering or otherwise. Edit: Specifically, the drivers I'm using are labeld 'Prerelease WDDM 1.1', dated 11/20/2008, and obtained, once again, via Windows Update.

I haven't found this to be the case. Any infantry can board any friendly vehicle as passengers, so long as there is room. In a mission I played just now I ended up using Strykers to ferry some Marines around. It is true, however, that with the exception of HMMWV's and UAZ's, only the crew that started with the vehicle is capable of operating it.

I agree with most of your points, Thomm. The moment a fully loaded AAV platoon spawned directly in front of a company of T-90's, it became my least favorite scenario of the campaign.

Though I enjoyed the Army campaign, the Marine campaign is much, much better. Which makes sense, considering the designers had an extra year's worth experience when they crafted it.

I think the differences can be best summed with the following quote from Generation Kill (indeed a better book than TV show): "If you want supplies, join the Army. Marines make do." In other words, for every situation in an Army mission in which your butt is saved by that Javelin or that Abrams or even that Bradley, as a Marine your only choice is to get creative. Furthermore, even if you disregard the doctrinal disparities, I think Marines provides a sufficiently different playing experience on the virtue of it's excellent campaign alone, which is much better crafted than the Army campaign.

I don't think Battlefront has much more of an idea about when the patch will be out than you do. It's completely in Paradox's hands now; why don't you go ask on their forums?

If you want to adjust the destination tiles at the waypoint, just give a face command at that waypoint.

I disagree with this. Just now I played a scenario where a US scout squad was spotted by a T-72M1V from about 50m as they were running up flights of stairs. The squad had yet to fire any weapons at all, and there had been no blue fire originating from the building for a good 5 minutes or so. Despite this, the T-72 spotted the squad and annihilated it.

You need to get a success on the decisions mission to avoid objective Pooh. The only way to get a success is to take the route on the left. I did this a couple of days ago and it worked perfectly.

Yep, these are called Target Reference Points, or TRP's, and they're on the list .

Hmm, I got blown up by IED's the first two times I went for the tower. From then on I just airstriked each time I played the scenario .

Airstrikes and artillery missions will do the job. Your MGS's can help out as well, though it's a waste of ammo.

Nothing quite like watching a sniper round lazily arc through the sky and punch through a soldier, mid-stride, at 600m.

Damn right. If you're still playing CMSF, then obviously you must enjoy it. Well, if you like CMSF, you'll love Marines.

Or better yet, just buy the Marines module. It's cheaper, you get additional content, and you no longer have to rely on Paradox patches.

I'm 22, and Close Combat was my favorite computer game until CM came along

Steve, it seems you're just as excited as we are about this upcoming release. To everyone involved, thanks for all your hard work, and for the countless hours you've stolen from our lives

Outstanding news!!! Thank you once again for proving why BTS is the best at what they do.

To be fair, that screenshot is from a years old build of the game (you can tell right away because they're still calling it Lock On: Black Shark). Also, it's true that the terrain is generally quite flat, however it is an order of magnitude more complex than what you see in Lock On. The terrain mesh has twice the resolution, but more importantly trees and buildings are no longer transparent at medium to far distances. Furthermore, the LOD, haze effects, and shadow effects have all been adjusted radically from the days of Lock On. All in all, spotting anything at more than about 10 km is typically impossible. I'll grant that very long range spotting at under 10 km can still be done, but only for targets in wide, open, featureless plains, which are not as common as you would expect from playing Lock On. You can take my word for it, or you can try it yourself. I've been flying 25's and 25T's in Lock On for many years, and after a month with Black Shark, I will tell you that it is a vastly different experience in regards to target finding. The majority of the time, the only way to locate the enemy is with the use of pre-defined TRP's, or by searching for dust kicked up by fire or maneuver. Also, regardless of all this, to claim that Lock On is a more realistic simulation is missing a significant part of the picture. Remember that this is a combat *flight* simulation, and the flight simulation aspect of Black Shark is so very far above that of Lock On, that it's difficult to find even a single point of comparison. Trust me, if you try Black Shark, you will have many hours of learning to do before you can even think about locating the enemy. To me, going back to the 25T in Lock On after a few days of Black Shark felt like returning to Command and Conquer after a couple of operations in Combat Mission.

Note that the aforementioned red air support mod is not compatible with the current version of the game. At some point I plan on updating it for v1.10, but I've simply had far too little free time lately. Otherwise, as Cpl Steiner said, there are already quite a few mods out there that will convert the Syrians into Russians/Soviets.

Could you provide a screenshot of this happening? It might be difficult to pin this down otherwise. Also, you are running the latest version, 1.10, right?

1. 2. 3.

I'm not sure, but are we seeing KwazyDog's revised textures in those shots? The colors seem more vivid than in previous shots. Is it just my imagination?