Combatintman

As a result of the last test, I've had to rejig the VPs - I figured it wouldn't be right to suffer no casualties, take down 50% of the enemy and achieve all of the terrain objectives bar one and only get a Tactical Victory. After recalculating I think I've got those right now. I've added another AI plan now - my intent was to have more than two plans but I figure if I do that, I'll never finish so I'm settling on two. I've also done final tweaks to the map now - tidied up a couple of anomalies with compound walls and added some flavour objects. The remainder of the week (when I'm not at work) will now be spent testing and if I get three consistent results I'll then put the briefing together and then obviously release the thing. The following will give you a bit more of a taste of things to come. Mission length is 2 and a half hours with the possibility of extra time. Friendly forces comprise a British Light Infantry Company Group plus an ANA platoon with an attached OMLT (Operational Mentoring Liaison Team). An Engineer Troop is also part of this company group. You will have Harriers for air support and other offensive support comprises an 81mm mortar detachment and 3 x 105mm Light Guns. You will need both the British and NATO modules to play this, the latter is due to the requirement to give the ANA sufficient ammunition to get through the mission. Enemy forces, without giving too much away will have mortars and IEDs as well as dismounts which are liberally armed with RPG-7s. The basic mission premise is to patrol out of the FOB and investigate/search three suspect compounds which are those shown in the images in one of my early posts in this thread. The mission is designed as Blue versus the Red AI only. Key to success in the mission will be extremely low casualties, low ammunition consumption and minimal collateral damage. The margin of error is pretty small. While ammunition consumption is important, you will have to consider resupply because both the British and ANA burn through their basic loads pretty quickly. Added to that, the combination of a large map (2952m x 1508m) means that while you have plenty of options for your avenues of approach, you also have to make sure that you can tick off all of the compounds in the time available. Depending on time available, I may put together a PDF to accompany the mission to give some extra flavour and information to the player. It goes without saying that I'm trying to achieve a balance of providing an enjoyable but tough tactical challenge as well as providing good entertainment value. While the map is entirely fictional, it is loosely based on the Upper Sangin Valley and the mission is influenced by real operations undertaken in this area so I'm aiming at a degree of realism as well.

As promised I have been back hacking away at this - current test is going really well, with any luck I should have something releasable by the end of the month.

Bloody hell that is awesome - good find.

I doubt it - the drill these days appears to be to start a sticky AAR battle thread close to release and I haven't seen one of those yet.

Back to the original question - I had a pretty good rummage around the Repository last night and could not see any TO&Es - there are a couple of 'Dealership Missions' which basically showcase vehicles but nothing else. So here's the deal, you tell me what you're trying to achieve/replicate and I'll see if I can help you achieve that.

The answer is I don't know - what are you trying to replicate? I presume you are trying to use a US formation as an Iraqi Army unit and other Allied troops as SF mentors? As a ballpark every US Army Infantry Platoon has both Javelin and AT4s, USMC have far fewer Javelins, British Army has Javelins in Fire Support elements only. In terms of tedium, accurate mapmaking beats flicking through units every time!!!

The mission kicks off at dawn so it starts off in low light conditions but obviously gets lighter as the mission progresses. I have been away with work for the last 3 weeks so scenario development has been a bit slow of late. With any luck I'll get a couple of days off so I can crack on and make up time.

Good finds, I like the second one especially - pity he doesn't explain how he does some of his work on that blog.

All good - unfortunately you'll have to wait a little while - I'm having issues with ensuring that the mission is doable in the time available but I have a solution which will be tested as soon as I can.

From the perspective of somebody who has designed missions and someone who has been fiddling around with a platoon sized scenario for a while my experience is that the reason there aren't that many of them is that they are bloody difficult to do. I will caveat this by saying that my stuff is CMSF and I design solely for play against the AI but even so the principles are the same. The problem at this level with this type of game is that you have limited manoeuvre elements which severely limit your design options. As an example - let's take the oft quoted 3 to 1 ratio for attack versus defence. That means if you design to those odds the platoon will be faced by a section/squad. That means that the human player has to be the attacker if you are going to appeal to the average player. Taking it further then - let's say that the human player has a bad turn as they are attempting to find the enemy and loses a section/squad in that turn. Many players will bail out at that point. Game over and where was the fun in that? On the other side of the coin, let's say that the player gets lucky and shreds the enemy in the one action spot ... game over ... total victory ... again, where's the fun in that? While this game can do action at the platoon level I really don't think it is optimised for it because generally the smallest group you can split to is between 3 and 4 individuals - put them in one action spot and watch them get shredded by an SMG squad/section or half squad/section and you lose 10% of your manoeuvre/combat element in one go. FPS games do this level much, much better.

The test went ok - VPs about right but my extras didn't work - can't understand why but I can run routines to solve that. Scenario time does concern me - I may have to extend a bit but I have thoughts on that. I may not update too frequently in the foreseeable future due to connectivity and RL but I will be testing and polishing. Thanks for your interest.

All good then ... I thought I was wasting my time for a while there. Any questions then fire away obviously. Meanwhile testing continues - I have added a couple of extras to the Taliban force and am running a test against AI plan 1 to check that the balance is ok. This test will also confirm that I've got the parameters and VPs right.

Nobody interested then obviously - 71 views in 24 hours. I'll try another scenario then ...

I'd start here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27838034 Some other stuff here: http://www.understandingwar.org/taxonomy/term/188 Then go to Google Earth for detail once you've settled on an area.

I've now started a separate thread for the first of these missions including 4 screenshots: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1550456#post1550456

As alluded to on my 'Some Scenarios' thread, I've now reached the point where one of my long dormant missions is developing sufficiently for me to be confident of releasing in the near future. The mission is called Into the Green and is a fictional but representative mission set in Helmand Province. The ground is very loosely based on the area around FOB Inkerman (represented by the fictional FOB Alma in the mission) which lies between Sangin and Kajaki. The basic premise is a British light role company group patrolling into the Green Zone to investigate three suspicious compounds. Inspiration for the mission came from the following two excellent reads: Company Commander by Major Russell Lewis MC Honourable Warriors by Major Richard Streatfeild MBE Both are accounts of tours at FOB Inkerman conducted by the companies commanded by these two officers. Map size is 2952m x 1508m and the mission as it stands currently will be two and a half hours long. Some screenshots: Suspicious Compound 1 ... what lies here? Suspicious Compound 2 ... what lurks within? Suspicious Compound 3 ... anyone at home? View into the Green Zone from the SE Sangar of FOB Alma Enjoy ...

Probably not - I do get irritated in RT mode that when I 'target' rather than 'target light' outside a building I have to wait a while before somebody chucks a grenade in there.

If you want Humvees you'll have to mod US forces - the only light utility vehicle the Syrians have is the UAZ 469.

Got a fair amount done over the last few days. I have a Victory Point solution that reflects the conditions and constraints I am trying to impose on the player. I'll probably tweak the Blue Force structure slightly tomorrow, refine the first AI plan and once that works to my satisfaction, throw in some more plans. I'm aiming at a minimum of 4 AI plans. If things go well, I should have this ready for release in about a week. I'll probably start a new thread for this scenario with some screenshots in the next couple of days.

Ashenz73 - I still contend that it is not 'solid journalism' - here is an example of conflict reporting from Vice News. 'The militants have adopted a strategy that consists of beating the cr*p out of someone else's army and then taking all of their stuff'. By all means - post links of combat footage relevant to CMBS but please don't call Vice News solid journalism because it isn't.

From said story: The theoretically totally awesome news is that if you move something through the water fast enough, the bubble created by cavitation gets enormously large, and it really starts to cut down on the drag experienced by the vessel. I'll get my news elsewhere thanks.

Headline on the same site: 'All About the Pacific Ocean's Newest SUB: Supersonic Underwater Bull****' So probably not solid at all then ... just hysterical rabble rousing. I have no dog in the Russia-Ukraine fight but don't call something solid journalism when it isn't.

Nope - they are Afghan scenarios in the British Forces module, Taliban bashing.

Not in my scenarios - they're Afghan ones.

Hellas, I probably didn't make it clear, it is not a bug - AFAIK it is how the game code works - as nik said above, you have to work around it - in this case by looking at how your LOS is affected and bumping up the elevations underneath your fortifications so that when they 'settle', they give you the LOS that you desire.