Combatintman

You could PM him.

You don't need anything really fancy to do briefing graphics. All I do is take screen grabs using FRAPS and paste them into a Powerpoint as others have done. Once in there, add your symbology, arrows etc and I then just copy and paste the lot into good old Paint where I size them to the appropriate size. Once done, I save them as BMPs and paste them into the scenario folder that I have created for the mission and import them from there. Examples of the results of this method can be seen here: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/115533-new-mission-into-the-green/page-2 No special skills are required at all - seriously - if you can do a screen grab, make basic Powerpoint slides and resize/crop images in Paint you can do this.

That looks like a really nice map - looking forward to whatever you come up with.

I agree with the OP - it is far too difficult to pick through the whole thing. I have tried and tried to find something that would work as a scenario or a mini campaign and it is just too much like hard work. While I don't claim that my Eastern Front shelf is the most comprehensive I have the Erickson volume, the Glantz stuff plus the General Staff studies, Newton's book about AG North and Haupt's about AG Centre a couple of Ospreys, plus Nafziger's and Charles C Sharp's order of battle works and a few more besides. I have rummaged extensively across the various mapping sites and picked away at both German and Russian language sites using the books above as pointers and found myself having to use translation sites and then work out a German spelling of a place and then work out what the Russian equivalent might be and then confirm that the either of those names are relevant on the modern atlas. On top of that - if I am lucky enough to solve that problem - I then have to pick through different map marking symbology to work out what is what and then after all of that decide whether I can make a scenario from it. Even if I get that lucky and come up with something that is historical/semi historical - I then have to smash away in the editor to try and make it work. So why would I bother .... Compare with other periods/fronts - the job is far easier.

MOS062BP: Thanks for posting these - although I'm not sure I fit the description of 'veteran designer'. It is quite interesting even though I know the map and scenario so well to try and work out where some of these were taken. I really hope that you enjoy the scenario - although you may not enjoy total success first time out. I must admit that I had heaps of fun designing it and of all my scenarios I think it is the first one that I have managed to get right in terms of balance and VPs. Anyway - the best outcome for everyone is that this has motivated me to crack on with the 'M' Wadis scenario.

Just done some more work on this - the mission pretty much plays out how I want it to and I've now done the first serious cut on the Victory Points which is usually where I struggle most. With any luck this should be ready to release in the fairly near future now.

Downloaded it and have just played this and left a comment - good work on this - I'm glad you persevered with it and hopefully you're pleased that you have got a scenario under your belt. FWIW I got a draw due to not pushing hard enough to secure the LZ - all of that said I think you have got the time allocation and force balance absolutely bang on and of course I'm pleased that you rejigged it from the original based on testing. Well done mate.

Here's your link for you: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=3458 All you need to do is copy and paste the text that shows up in your browser's search bar when you're on the page with the scenario.

The game isn't set in Turkey and Christmas was last month.

There is no subtraction (or AFAIK negative numbers) - if you set say a building as a Blue 'preserve' objective for 150 VPs and the building is destroyed Blue does not get the 150 VPs and if you set another building as a Blue 'destroy' objective for 150 VPs and it is not destroyed Blue does not get the 150 VPs. In this instance if Red has already gained 300 VPs, the result is a draw. The decisions you are asking questions about are yours alone - but to give you a pointer let's say you have a mission where Blue has to run a supply column to a besieged FOB an you are designing a Blue vs Red AI mission. Key factors are going to be: Ammo consumption (in the real world more consumption means more supply runs = more effort sustaining the force, inefficient use of resources and greater risk to personnel and equipment conducting the supply trips). Preservation of the supply trucks - no trucks = no ammo = mission failure. Blue personnel casualties = never popular with the folks back home. FOB remains in Blue hands = no good resupplying somewhere with nobody to resupply. On top of that we want to give an approximation of the ISAF ROE so let's add in the fact that we want to minimise collateral damage. All you do now is work out how important in the overall scheme of things these things are and work out what are acceptable/fair results. Once you've done that you weight the points accordingly using the VP formula. Again JonS explains this a lot better in his Sheriff of Oosterbeek thread.

That's the way to approach it - certainly if you are designing as a Red vs AI or Blue vs AI mission. I haven't really tested the individual settings much to see exactly how they behave but if I don't want a defender to move then 'fanatic' usually ensures that nobody is going anywhere. However if you want to simulate hit and run tactics you are actually going to have to make that part of the AI plan - motivation and quality settings are not going to do that alone.

Sometimes it takes time - I've been in this situation a few times when uploading to the Repository and it has sometimes taken three attempts and three days before my stuff has been uploaded - it is frustrating but it should work and certainly worth raising a ticket.

Combatreform - haven't been there for ages ... it is even better comedy value than I remembered - thanks for reintroducing me to it.

Ratings are always subjective and discussing them can be a bit of a willy waving exercise. To enter that discussion here could end up in an unnecessary willy waving exercise such as is routinely seen on YouTube, although at least we will be spared the usual 'What's the soundtrack?' question that appears within the first dozen posts there. As a scenario designer you are better off focusing on what you want to achieve with your ratings and how it translates into how the scenario plays out. If you want your Taliban to be more experienced than the force against them - make them more experienced.

Zvereoboy1 - great to hear that you've taken the plunge into the scenario editor and I look forward to seeing your missions. Victory Points have for me always been really difficult to get right so I do feel your pain. It was not until the advent of the WW2 titles that I was even aware of the mathematics behind it so the first point to make is that you must understand the maths. The puzzle of opposing philosophies is not such a puzzle when you get your head around the fact that you control the philosophy and I think you may be under the impression that you have to populate all of the values in the parameters screen, or balance one out with the other, or double up. JonS's example in his linked thread explains these concepts really well and pretty much answers the question by saying that you do not have to double up or balance out if you don't want to. Given the limits on objectives it is actually counter-productive to double up by, for example, having a Red 'Destroy' objective which is also a Blue 'Preserve' objective. As an example, in my last released scenario 'Into the Green' I wanted to penalise the Blue player for inflicting unnecessary collateral damage (specifically using air/aviation/artillery/mortars to whack red forces in certain compounds). Unfortunately, the number of compounds vastly exceeded the number of terrain objectives available and I had to make 3 of those objectives 'touch' objectives to fulfil other scenario requirements which reduced the number even further. My solution was to use my remaining 5 or 6 Blue objectives as 'Preserve' and on 5 or 6 compounds that I did not want smashed. I then allocated other compounds I didn't want smashed as Red 'Destroy' objectives which are 'Known to Neither'. This achieves the same effect because the game allocates the points on the basis of the effect rather than who does the destroying. My approach to VPs (which again is pretty much how JonS explains it) and scenario design as a whole is to sit down at the start and have a clear idea of what you want your scenario to be and while it is important for all aspects of the scenario, I think it is especially important for VP allocations. If you want any help with your scenario but don't want to give out spoilers feel free to PM me and I will gladly kick ideas around with you and give the mission a test if you like. A word of warning - Red 'Occupy' objectives may not work in CMSF (this has been reported as a bug - they certainly don't work for me and the some of the Beta test team) so I would suggest that you think of workarounds for this.

A definite no from me. It is meaningless without context - off the top of my head I know that one of my Afghan missions was specifically dedicated to LCpl Matthew Ford RM who lost his life during the action depicted and that was explicitly stated in the mission briefing. Having his name pop up somewhere random as one of the unit commanders in game would not really cut it. Also - what about the women - one of my friends and former colleagues SSgt Sharron Elliott was killed in Iraq in Nov 06. I would be pretty urinated off to see her name come up next to a picture of a bloke in game.

Not that it makes a huge difference to the mechanics of the thing but it is worth noting that the first unit selected on either side will determine what your scenario end screen says. For instance if I want to use Syrian Army as ANA forces partnered with USMC as the Blue Force then if the first unit selected in the force pick screen is a Syrian Army unit your end game screen will say 'Syrian Army Victory/Defeat'.

Have you solved your issues or do you need some help?

If I may say so I am extremely impressed with the speed that you are working at - I have 3 CMSF campaigns which are still WIP.

I'm not a mod kind of guy - all of the work was in 'vanilla' - to add value would be to hunt down any Brit Para mods possibly and anything that turns the enemy into true blue talibs but other than that I offer no solutions.

Pretty sure it is in CMSF - I have frequently been able to call in point target indirect fire missions onto areas that the 'Target' command tells me I can't see.

1. Yes. 2. Are you sure about the 'major role' part of that statement, please quote your source. 3. Terrain tiles in CM titles are about 8m x 8m from memory - One of the reasons Special Forces are special is because they work the margins. 8m is not a margin and that is what it has to do with the difference between CM and FPS games.

You're playing the wrong game ... this is FPS territory.

So far it is a no then. This link may help clearing up the argument http://www.royal.gov.uk/hmthequeen/contactthequeen/overview.aspx Let me know how you go Regards Combatintman